As does the filtering in traffic queues, as does the riding two abreast, as does the riding in the road when there's a cycle lane, as does the riding in the road when there's a pavement, as does the riding the wrong way down a one-way road with cycle contraflow, as does the stopping in the ASL and "holding up" traffic, as does the riding in primary, as does the not wearing helmets/hi-vis, as does the not paying road(sic) tax, as does almost any act of cycling which is unavailable by law or by physics to the motorist. Some of these you can make a good case for doing on safety grounds, others (e.g. filtering/two abreast) are mostly just done for convenience.
The difference seems to be that we (by "we" I mean the mainstream of internet cycling forum users opinions) don't care if we're causing offence when we're doing something legal: ISTM that irrespective of whether apollo179 is really only RLJing at 2am or whether he's actually scattering crowds of pedestrians and causing small children to toddle for their lives out of his path as other posters have suggested he does, the question "would you support a change in the law or the guidelines for its enforcement to allow cyclist RLJ when there is nothing coming the other way" is one that could reasonably be considered in the abstract - because "it would cause offence" is only an argument against if you believe there's a crucial maximum level of allowable offence which this change would tip us over.
Probably not on this thread though, and probably not with these participants.
