Doubling Up On Road

[montyboy]

No irony. I'm a keen cyclist.

Everyone is entitled to use the road. I'm just back from a very windy and chilly blast myself; woolly hat down over ears and nose going very pink.

I can see how you see caricatures in my fairly generalised view of different types of 2-abreast cycling, but they are reasonable accurate and representative of the riding where I live.

The sense of entitlement I refer to is that of someone who feels entitled to delay others, when moving across and tucking in as a courtesy would be easy and quick.

I do not and (and by my actions cannot) believe that cyclists are less entitled to raoad space than motorists.

I've re-read the entry that prompted your response and see no such 'essential conviction' in it. From my biased perspective as its author it looks rather rosily pro-cyclist.

If there is an essential conviction, it is that courtesy should be shown to fellow road users. It's a family joke that I always lower a window to wave thanks when a tractor pulls in for a line of cars I'm in. Even in howling gales and sleet. I notice that almost no other drivers do this.

I'm often the cause of a small traffic tailback when I'm cycling in twisty lanes, but I can't make my bicycle any narrower. I feel perfectly entitled to be there.

The voice of reason , I'm with you.

 

[theclaud]

The voice of reason , I'm with you.

Well, you would be, wouldn't you?

Bicyclist - I don't dispute for a moment that you are a "keen cyclist", and I don't wish to put you in the same box as that muppet freecyclist, but your caricatures are wilfully missing the point. A sense of entitlement is what leads motorists to view cyclists as being in their way in the first place. I simply say to you that it is not their way, but everybody's way. It is the assumption that a motorist's desire to pass overrides any and all of the reasons (not always obvious to motorists) that cyclists might have for doubling up at a particular moment that leads to the characterisation of people as "noddy-headed dawdlers" or "lycra missiles on posh rides" - they are simply people using the road in a different way to you. I think you've also made another assumption, which is this: that people who advocate the right to claim road space unapologetically spend their entire cycling lives ostentatiously demonstrating the principle, rather than participating in the give-and-take and compromise of everyday life. The point is to know that when it matters, you can stand your ground with confidence.

 

[lukesdad]

Well, you would be, wouldn't you?

Bicyclist - I don't dispute for a moment that you are a "keen cyclist", and I don't wish to put you in the same box as that muppet freecyclist, but your caricatures are wilfully missing the point. A sense of entitlement is what leads motorists to view cyclists as being in their way in the first place. I simply say to you that it is not their way, but everybody's way. It is the assumption that a motorist's desire to pass overrides any and all of the reasons (not always obvious to motorists) that cyclists might have for doubling up at a particular moment that leads to the characterisation of people as "noddy-headed dawdlers" or "lycra missiles on posh rides" - they are simply people using the road in a different way to you. I think you've also made another assumption, which is this: that people who advocate the right to claim road space unapologetically spend their entire cycling lives ostentatiously demonstrating the principle, rather than participating in the give-and-take and compromise of everyday life. The point is to know that when it matters, you can stand your ground with confidence.

That would be an assumption from a cyclists who doesn t drive then

 

[theclaud]

That would be an assumption from a cyclists who doesn t drive then

Where did you get the idea that I don't drive? I don't drive any more than I can help it, but that isn't the same thing.

 

[lukesdad]

what else I made an assumption

 

[lukesdad]

[QUOTE 1588979"]
No I haven't. A huge assumption has been made and presented as a fact. To say that it's wrong to do this is undeniably correct.
[/quote]


Well it certainly did nt read like that. It read his assumption was wrong, not that it was wrong to make the assumption in the first place

 

[theclaud]

what else I made an assumption

De rigueur round these parts...

 

[lukesdad]

[QUOTE 1588982"]
Oh, and you'll be better to read what I and others are saying rather than taking any notice of what freecycle claims is being said, because he's also wrong with that.
[/quote]


Another assumption Mr P ?

 

[Bicycle]

- they are simply people using the road in a different way to you -

They are indeed.

Similarly, groups of youths who spread out across the pavement and make others step into the gutter are simply people using the pavement in a different way to me. That they are showing extraordinary thoughtlessness is not the point.

Motorists who take the centre lane on an almost empty Motorway, making me cross two lanes to pass them are just people using the road in a different way to me. That they ignore Motorway etiquette (not to mention the rules) is a side issue.

That the groups I criticised in my otherwise stirringly pro-cyclist post are cyclists is neither here nor there.

I have nothing at all against noddy-headed dawdlers or lycra missiles on posh rides. I shall be in the former group myself in not too many years. I was, sadly, never in the latter.

What irks me (and I apologise for what I thought were amusing but generalised characterisations) is that there are those who seem blithely unaware of the wishes of other road users.

 

[lukesdad]

They are indeed.

Similarly, groups of youths who spread out across the pavement and make others step into the gutter are simply people using the pavement in a different way to me. That they are showing extraordinary thoughtlessness is not the point.

Motorists who take the centre lane on an almost empty Motorway, making me cross two lanes to pass them are just people using the road in a different way to me. That they ignore Motorway etiquette (not to mention the rules) is a side issue.

That the groups I criticised in my otherwise stirringly pro-cyclist post are cyclists is neither here nor there.

I have nothing at all against noddy-headed dawdlers or lycra missiles on posh rides. I shall be in the former group myself in not too many years. I was, sadly, never in the latter.

What irks me (and I apologise for what I thought were amusing but generalised characterisations) is that there are those who seem blithely unaware of the wishes of other road users.

Don t start me off about the CTC otherwise it ll go to 100 pages

 

[Hip Priest]

I think if everyone had Bicycle's attitude, the roads would be a nicer place. If you treat the roads as a warzone, you'll find conflict.

 

[lukesdad]

I think if everyone had Bicycle's attitude, the roads would be a nicer place. If you treat the roads as a warzone, you'll find conflict.

Same goes for cycling forums

 

[montyboy]

Where did you get the idea that I don't drive? I don't drive any more than I can help it, but that isn't the same thing.

This is a genuine question.

Do you think that a person who drives more often will have more sympathy with other motorists as opposed to someone such as yourself who drives as little as they need to?

 

[Dan B]

They are indeed.

Similarly, groups of youths who spread out across the pavement and make others step into the gutter are simply people using the pavement in a different way to me.

Right, and all the doddle-headed people walking down Oxford Street between shops on a Saturday afternoon meandering about and getting in the way so that I have to barge through them on my run from Waterstones to Selfridges. No thought at all for other people

 

[theclaud]

I think if everyone had Bicycle's attitude, the roads would be a nicer place. If you treat the roads as a warzone, you'll find conflict.

There we go with the caricatures again. So there is Bicyclist's Attitude, and there is War Zone?

I disagree profoundly, anyway. I think that when it comes to everyone getting along nicely in the world as it is, then Mr Paul probably has as reasonable an attitude as one might hope to find on the road. And when it comes to transformation, I think that if everyone had Adrian's attitude, or Dellzeqq's, then we might go some way to breaking the stranglehold of the ideology of transportation on our environments and our imaginations.