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No More alas Permanently-Fixed.
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September 6, 2012 at 8:48 am #16747
ekynoxe
I read something quite alarming yesterday in the editor’s column of the September edition of the Richmond and Barnes magazine. Richard Nye (@TheRichmondMag on twitter, The Richmond Magazine / Sheen Gate on facebook) seems to think cyclists are a nuisance, and they should be dead.
Quoted straight from the editorial section of te September issue of the Richmond Magazine:
[…] as a daily driver on busy roads, I tend towards the temperate view that the only good cyclist is a dead one […]
The rest of the editorial is also worth a read. Appalling views.
The full editorial is available on page 11 of the swanky animated online edition, but if it gets magically removed for whatever reason, here’s a copy of page 11, and of the full September edition.
If you’re a business who’s advertised in this magazine, and especially if you’re a sports related one (Virgin Active, or Moore’s Cycles are in there), I urge you to consider removing your ads from a magazine who’s editor clearly thinks your clients should be dead…
Nothing more to add.
Thanks @freespeedlondon for the initial tip off.
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Let’s be very clear here: I’m
Let’s be very clear here: I’m not one to claim the man to resign, be sacked or web-lynched, and I have not. Some comments on this story have, and honestly, I disagree. But this information has to be known. To do so, and in the event that the issue gets pulled out or edited of their website, I have, like freespeed and the Richmond Cycling Campaign, saved it so it can still be accessed later on.We’re pretty much all road users at some point: cyclists, motorists, pedestrians etc… or any combination of those. I’ll happily agree that on both sides there are a minority who don’t abide by the rules, don’t know them or simply don’t care, but by no means they are majority.
The kind of comments made by Richard Nye are just not acceptable. No matter how you want to read the context of the editorial, you cannot retract the words (exactly as they have been printed) “as a daily driver on busy roads, I tend towards the temperate view that the only good cyclist is a dead one”. In or out of context, I cannot see how his response on twitter later on can have any value, claiming to be “misunderstood”. The words are there, he has written them. I’m a daily cyclist, and I try as much as I can to abide by the rules. I’m not perfect either, but I’d like to be safe. And if you don’t even bat an eyelid at this kind of comment (even when made in the editorial of a 40,000 copies publication), my guess is that your probably not in the category of road users who would like to share the road peacefully.
tony_farelly has rightly pointed out the other distressing cycling news this week, but I also need to tell him the one he didn’t mention: The death of a 79 year old in Walton on Thames, neighbouring borough to Richmond, yesterday 5th September (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-19491400). Maybe that’s something worth spend a bit of time and bile on? I doubt anyone would joke about that.
Maybe, only maybe, the column intended to be humorous, but you’ve got to weigh your words for your audience, and this one wasn’t funny at all. In the most cycle friendly borough in London, with the best place to leisure cycle and train in the capital with Richmond Park in its centre, I think it’s fair enough to publicise it. It is after all our own right of free press too.
over and out
Chuck
Denzil Dexter wrote:No-one
Denzil Dexter wrote:No-one may have asked for an online lynch mob, but seems like there are plenty of people fetching a rope and building a gibbet.Demanding his employers sack him certainly feels like an online lynch mob to me. Just seen someone on Twitter wanting to know why #sackrichardnye isn’t trending.
Personally I think we should be a little more selective in picking the targets of our collective wrath – I’d much rather see a transport minister who broke a cyclist’s neck and was convicted of careless driving in a SMIDSY incident only a year before the last election forced in to resignation than pick on some lazy journo making an off-colour comment in a mag that most of the people of Richmond don’t even read.
All this ‘burn the witch’ hysteria every time someone says something bad about cyclists makes me feel a little queasy and I’m sure only goes to reinforce the perception amongst the anti-cycling lobby (and probably lots of the general public too) that cyclists are a sanctimonious, humourless bunch lacking a sense of perspective. Which of course we’re not ;)
Denzil is right here- it’s hard to interpret the article as him suggesting cyclists are fair game.
That said, I think the reason silly little prejudices persist is that silly little things prop them up and keep them ‘real’ and therefore acceptable- bit like jokes about the Irish. So while he may not have really meant much by it, it is perhaps illustrative of wider attitudes and these things tend to be a bit self reinforcing.
So yeah, it is a shame when journos crap out stuff like this- he is playing his part in keeping it OK to view cyclists as pests. As Tony says though it’s important to keep a sense of perspective.
Martin Thomas
If you ask me the only good
If you ask me the only good cyclist* is a cyclist with a sense of proportion about anti-cycling diatribes from third-rate hacks. Rising to this kind of feeble bait is really beneath us all, isn’t it?*This is not true. There are lots of other kinds of good cyclist.
LondonCalling
I saw on Twitter that he is
I saw on Twitter that he is going to explain himself. Let’s see what happens….When I read it, my first thought was that O.J. Simpson got away with murder because an LAPD copper made a comment like that, using the “n word” instad of cyclist.
Is it syntomatic of society’s attitude to cyclists in general? If it is, maybe targetting comments like this is a way to change that. Not getting the guy sacked or anything, but letting him know that it’s not acceptable to use that kind of language. Which he already knows, judging by the magazine’s Twitter account (@TheRichmondMag).
Bez
“it is more about the
“it is more about the positive effect of the Olympics on his view of cycling”No it’s not at all, it’s about how that effect is transient and abnormal. The final point is that that effect is somehow alien and uncomfortable, whereas the petty “them and us” tin-box attitude of warfare on the road is normal and justifiable and, by emphatic implication at the very least, perfectly acceptable.
Personally I’m happy to ignore these bits of tripe, otherwise I’d worry about the contents of all the papers that I also don’t read, but I think “comedic exaggeration” is cutting it too much slack. I don’t think it’s much meant as comedy; it seems written as a nice piece of morning coffee entertainment for the sort of bungnut that secretly, or not so secretly, shares his views and likes being reassured that there are other bungnuts out there with the same views, because basically all cyclists *are* bastards aren’t they, and look, this bungnut is an editor, so he’s presumably fairly smart, so this is an opinion that *smart* bungnuts have, so it’s ok, and those cyclists – bastards! – they’re on bikes, they’re not even smart enough to get a proper job so they can afford a car, so they must be wrong, yes, the editor must be right, yes, *I* am right! Cyclists! Bastards!
So whilst I wouldn’t suggest losing any sleep over some bigoted bungnut with the privilege of some column inches to play with, if you want to defend it then I suggest searching YouTube for “stewart lee top gear”, or even the web for Steve Coogan’s piece on Top Gear’s Mexican joke, and if you still feel able to defend it then at least you’ll have been entertained. And after all, Lee and Coogan are right. I mean, I have the same view, and they’re on the telly so they’re presumably fairly smart, so theirs is an view that *smart* people have…
Tony Farrelly
I’m with Denzil… he’s an
I’m with Denzil… he’s an idiot, but if that were a crime there’s a lot of us that’d be in trouble.in the last 24 hours or so we’ve reported on a motorist who hid in bushes rather than help the woman he’d fatally injured when he knocked her off her bike. He got 8 months and will be out in four. We’ve also reported on the new minister of state for transport who was convicted of dangerous driving as recently as 2009 for an incident that left a cyclist with a broken neck – for which the politician received a £400 fine; we’ve also reported on the case of another Tory politician the former deputy leader of cambridgeshire council who was convicted of dangerous cycling after knocking a car’s wing mirror off and was fined £350.
I would suggest that if you want to do something to change the lot of cyclists in this country they are the stories to get angry and active about. I’m not saying Mr Nye shouldn’t be pulled up for what he said, but given the massive injustices in the stories I just listed wasting time and bile (unless you’ve really got plenty to spare) on a target as easy as this does seem like a bit of a cop out.
Milky88
The quote from the article in
The quote from the article in context:
‘After years of sullen rage against the cycling fraternity – as a daily driver on busy roads, I tend towards the temperate view that the only good cyclist is a dead one – I suddenly found myself feeling strange feelings of attachment towards the pedal stars of team GB’Poor and ill-judged? Definitely. A reflection of what some drivers genuinely think? Probably. Likely to ‘become influential’? Only if we, as cyclists, build it up to be something more than a bad editorial.
This road.cc article could equally well have harped on about how Team GB’s cyclists are turning even the most ardent cycle-haters into bike lovers… well, maybe that’s stretching it too far.
gazza_d
I am not sure how else you
I am not sure how else you could take “the only cyclist is a dead cyclist”. When statements like that go into press they become influencial, and someone will take them seriously.Which ever way it was meant it was a very poor and ill-judged comment from a professional editor who should know better. What if that sentence was in the editorial of The Sun or the Mirror?
I would like to see him spend a day cycling around Richmond in the company of local cyclists to see it from the other side. Damn if I lived down there I would offer myself
Denzil Dexter
No-one may have asked for an
No-one may have asked for an online lynch mob, but seems like there are plenty of people fetching a rope and building a gibbet.Demanding his employers sack him certainly feels like an online lynch mob to me. Just seen someone on Twitter wanting to know why #sackrichardnye isn’t trending.
Personally I think we should be a little more selective in picking the targets of our collective wrath – I’d much rather see a transport minister who broke a cyclist’s neck and was convicted of careless driving in a SMIDSY incident only a year before the last election forced in to resignation than pick on some lazy journo making an off-colour comment in a mag that most of the people of Richmond don’t even read.
All this ‘burn the witch’ hysteria every time someone says something bad about cyclists makes me feel a little queasy and I’m sure only goes to reinforce the perception amongst the anti-cycling lobby (and probably lots of the general public too) that cyclists are a sanctimonious, humourless bunch lacking a sense of perspective. Which of course we’re not 😉
You have totally over-reacted
You have totally over-reacted with this article. Admittedly some of his comments are poorly thought out, but he isn’t advocating going out and killing cyclists – if anything it is more about the positive effect of the Olympics on his view of cycling (as a competitive sport, anyway) and pro cyclists.james-o
editorial@sheengate.co.uk or
editorial@sheengate.co.uk or 020 8939 5601
for any comments.BigDummy: no one asked for an
BigDummy: no one asked for an online lynch mob. It’s all about awareness here, and not letting anyone bully their way on roads, under banners of jokes and other free press rights.
Even if it’s intended to be comical, I think he missed the point, specially given the borough is supposed to be one of the most cycle friendly ones.BigDummy
It’s a weak comic article.
It’s a weak comic article. Forming an online lynch mob over this would be almost unbelievably pathetic.harvey.grainger
Resignation Campaign?
Resignation Campaign? :”( #NyeOutNownotfastenough
I think he’s just a cock that
I think he’s just a cock that thinks Jeremy Clarkson’s writing style is something to be aspired to. -
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