Been a tumultuous time for cycling in the news. First news broke that Wiggo had been hurt in a collision, then that team GB coach Shane Sutton is in hospital following a collision (get well soon chaps, your contributions to UK sport cycling are inspirational). And then a never-ending cascade of nasty directed towards cyclists on social media sites (as discussed here by Calrton Reid).
One of the messages that has been tweeted and re-tweeted, stated over and over again and basically repeated as a dogma is that whats missing is 'mutual respect'. That somehow cyclists and motorists should all just 'respect' each other and then we'll have some kind of road-nirvana tarmacaddam love-fest.
That message is vacuous crap.
Honestly, do you really think cyclists don't 'respect' motorists? A motorist is surrounded by sharp metal, gleaming glass, unyielding plastic and a heavy engine full of pistons churned by flammanble poison. Can anyone, hand on heart, say that the problem here is cyclists don't 'respect' that? Of course we bloody do. And if we don't choose to do so we're mercilessly bullied to the kerb to enfoce the perception we MUST respect motorists. We do not, at any time when using the road, have any real opportunity through our actions to demonstrate disrespect to motorists - except perhaps through a few choice hand gestures. And I'll wager that such gestures are 95% of the time reactive rather than proactive. Our choice of safe road position is NOT a show of disrespect, its an attempt to survive.
On the other hand, motorists can EASILY choose to show disrespect to cyclists, and the number of examples of motorists doing so on camera (how many helmet-camera riders on You Tube now?) or just on Twitter is staggering. We encounter it over, and over, and over, and over again. A staggering number of motorists will use the excuse of Brad Wiggins getting hurt to express this 'disrespect' or, more likely, utter hatred and a vile wish for us to be murdered.
So please, can you all take your 'mutual respect' and go feck yourselves? I DO respect motorists as fellow human beings, and I am forced to respect the enormous disparity in how much harm they can do to me compared with how much I can do to them. All I ask in return is for that to be returned, but I can say flat out that this does not happen.
This bland implication that there is more that cyclists must do to 'respect' motorists before we deserve not to be maimed or murdered in ever increasing numbers... Gosh, if that doesn't bring a little bit of sick up to the back of your throat, I don't know what will.
By mutual respect I think people mean "admit there are some SHOCKING motorists and some SHOCKING cyclists." I don't think a motorist pointnig out that he or she has to put up with hideous examples of anti-social cycling means they wish to murder a cyclist. Nor do I think it means a cyclist who points out there are bad motorists is behaving in a provocative way. Your ranting however is juvenile and an attempt to scream into the wind that makes you seem blind to the realities of the situation. I cycle every day and, yes, it is dangerous sometimes. But, I do think some cyclists don't respect cars or lorries, otherwise the idiots would have lights at night and not run red lights/ ride on pavements or undercut vehicles at junctions.
ReplyDeleteA cyclist breaking the rules is showing disrepect towards motorists? Rubbish - they're unilaterally deciding that following the rules set out for them are not going to make their lives better, its got nothing to do with respecting or disrespecting motorists. Juvenile ranting? Scream into the wind? Wow - I'll leave your comment rather than deleting it as an obvious troll because, to be honest, you're funny.
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