dumbass LCC bike lane on Stratford High Street

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Dan B

Disengaged member
Anecdotal evience time again, but I've had more "get in the cycle lane" abuse from drivers when there was a cycle lane than when there wasn't. And the "force them in the cycle lane" politicians would I suspect get rather more support if the cycle lane in question was a large-scale civil engineering works instead of a crappy bit of green paint
Another thought occurs to me along these lines, which is about collisions and insurance companies. We all know they'll attempt to wriggle out of paying based on lack of helmet, no hi-vis, anything they can think of which they might be able to argue as contributory liability, and that they've attempted to do the same based on non-use of a cycle path (see e.g. the case of Daniel Cadden). How much more likely are they to try that one on again given more cycle lanes and more cycline organisations praising their merits to the skies? Surely a cyclist who prefers to use the road in such circumstances can only do so because he is insane and the author of his own misfortune?
 

knocksofbeggarmen

Active Member
Another thought occurs to me along these lines, which is about collisions and insurance companies. We all know they'll attempt to wriggle out of paying based on lack of helmet, no hi-vis, anything they can think of which they might be able to argue as contributory liability, and that they've attempted to do the same based on non-use of a cycle path (see e.g. the case of Daniel Cadden). How much more likely are they to try that one on again given more cycle lanes and more cycline organisations praising their merits to the skies? Surely a cyclist who prefers to use the road in such circumstances can only do so because he is insane and the author of his own misfortune?

They've never succeeded on the helmet front when challenged. Hi viz is more pestilential in that you can be damned both for wearing it and for not wearing it -cf hampshire police. On the other hand cases like that do make the argument for mass cycling as a legal measure- because it is plain that the jury and the police regarded cyclists as such a small minority as to be ipso facto in the wrong. We can rail against that, and good god but I do! -or we can both rail against it and do something about it. Like, by getting everyone cycling including jurors.
 

knocksofbeggarmen

Active Member
Let us all now take a moment to reflect.

What we should mainly reflect is that when a great man is mighty, and his contribution is great, then
that great man is right, especially when he's wrong.

Let us also reflect that we will take no more shoot from anonymous upstarts talking back at us-
talking back mark you in tones we had righteously used at them. No.

Nor will black be anything other than white, unless it be confessed by a mighty man.

We hold these truths to be self-evidently not the culture of a bunch of arrogant bullies.
 

knocksofbeggarmen

Active Member
You are not being bullied, you are just failing to persuade some people to fall in with your view of the world and taking it a teensy bit badly.
I would not consent to being bullied. But say, did the gentleman attempt to settle a debate and discredit a contrary voice by claiming authority, or did he not?
 

knocksofbeggarmen

Active Member
Did the gentleman simplify a discussion of policy and historical fact into the question of who had made the greater 'contribution', or did he not?
 

knocksofbeggarmen

Active Member
You used the phrase "culture of a bunch of arrogant bullies".
That's right.

I think that's what it is when, in response to any serious challenge on matters of fact or theory, the response takes the form of asserting your authority as a leader in cycling, and an attempt to stick on an anonymous contributor a long long list of names it would now be vexatious to repeat in full.
 
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