You are reading a single comment by @Workstand and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Workstand
I had seen most of the footage before; I spent a lot of time watching YouTube and reading this forum before returning to active cycling again, and I wanted to know what I was getting myself back into.
Pretty much as I expected a 'them & us' presentation. I was disappointed that so much of the footage revolved around many of the drivers complaining that the cyclists weren't riding in the kerb (presumably where cyclists belong?), without explaining why for so many reasons that is often the last place to be riding. Without that explanation, I think a trick has been missed for motorists to see it from our point of view as road users.
Associated with that is how driving and the road networks have evolved. When I started riding on the roads in the late 1970s the state of the roads - potholes, poor repairs etc were very poor and I've really seen very little improvement, if any, in 30+ years. Cars however, have become increasingly more comfortable, easier to drive and with these advances you would have hoped this would have given more time to paying attention to what is going on outside of the vehicle. If anything, it appears to have simply released the driver to do something else as well, and most cars now seem to be an extension of their homes or offices. Added to which in this cold snap, very few motorists - near my area at any rate - seem to think that defrosting the car consists only of creating a letterbox field of view through the windscreen. So now they've not only doing something else, they can't see you either!
There also seems to be an increasing minority of people in all aspects of daily life who can cause an argument in an empty room. If you happen to have infringed their perceived personal space or caused some minor slight, they seem to go straight off the deep end and turn the insignificant to a major incident.
I'm really not sure how much further this programme gets us. My concern is that some viewers weighing up if swapping commuting from public transport to cycling is a sensible choice for them, may decide to stay on the train. What it doesn't show as it is such dull viewing, is that it is perfectly possible to have hundreds of miles commuting with nothing remarkable happening at all.