Awareness Raising Spoke Cards Campaign Project?

"Be like Cameron - avoid the left."

Post to the comments section. And mention that the figures have been revised down... I would, but I can't bring myelf to post on the London Daily Mail.

I meant to say, the PDF is the one to use for print-outs.

Post to the comments section. And mention that the figures have been revised down... I would, but I can't bring myelf to post on the London Daily Mail.

lol - same here, I'm afraid/proud to say.

Post to the comments section. And mention that the figures have been revised down... I would, but I can't bring myelf to post on the London Daily Mail.

I thought about that but I cant see a comments section to comment in..and yes the thought of posting on the Daily Bigot violates me but I'm willing to take one for the team.

I haven't really kept up with this thread, but is this where we have arrived at - a black and white text heavy A5 leaflet and posting comment on newspaper's comments sections ?

:(

No Tynan, the leaflet is just something to get out at CM tonight - the spoke card designing and other activities are still in full swing. The newspaper comment was mearly to try and interest the media seeing as this woman seems to be writing with similar sentiments.

Planting seeds..

As you were.

There is a special offer on 5000 business card sized glossy print that we can take advantage of before next Tuesday. If you can finalise the design quick we can have them printed by the end of next week.

Trevor

No Tynan, the leaflet is just something to get out at CM tonight - the spoke card designing and other activities are still in full swing. The newspaper comment was mearly to try and interest the media seeing as this woman seems to be writing with similar sentiments.

Planting seeds..

As you were.

Yeeeaaahh !! :) Sorry I thought for a moment we had ended up where many 'design' by committee projects arrive.

Onwards !!! :)

Truckers forum, cyclists vs HGV topic, they don't seem as ignorant as I would have thought them to be, one of em even rides a bike with no gears!

Still I suspect those that can use a keyboard and type coherant sentences aren't your typical, hairy-nuckled, sheep-burning, axe-murdering, cyclist-squashing haulier :

http://trucknetuk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=34776&highlight=cycle

aha, this lot seem a little more on form:

http://trucknetuk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=33935&highlight=cyclist

Cheers Dunc
I have found an alternative and easier option that everyone of the forum members can sign
Official Number 10 petition started by C+

No Tynan, the leaflet is just something to get out at CM tonight - the spoke card designing and other activities are still in full swing. The newspaper comment was mearly to try and interest the media seeing as this woman seems to be writing with similar sentiments.

Planting seeds..

As you were.

Phew!

Is anyone meeting at CM somewhere in particular? And what time? I can come down, hand out the leaflets. Then I gotta go - work work work (party)

@Pipwish.

Is it bad that I've already made your 'Valley of Death' drawing into a spoke card for meself?

Would you kill me if you saw it clenched between my spokes (I guess I'm asking your permission here)?

Apart from the fact it has a spelling mistake on there, I don't mind what you have done. It is actually great that you like it so much.

Pipwish I think you should develop that design if you have the time, and maybe we could get a poll going on the final designs.
The way I see it, is we have midillness and his truck one - (although I agree we should drop the suicide thing) Tynan's development of the truck blind spots on MT, and your one as the main front runners.
I am happy to do some project management/kicking arses on this - god knows I dont really have the time for it, but I'd rather slack off work and do this :-)
Unless we have some other volunteers?

Also, is anyone up for painting the road at fatal collision sites? Or doing ghost bikes? I want to reclaim those streets...

yep.

Anyone that's on here who is going to CM who wants to meet up - let me know. You can text me, my number is on the contact page of MT.

I wasn't, but will be going now.

+1 to almost all of this thread. I'm with Bill on the spoke cards, particularly around the liability issue.

I'd love to see PipWish's one worked up. Love it.

Hi All,
I have glanced over this thread and had a good conversation about it at East End drinks, and while I totally support fgss getting off our asses and actually doing something, I'm really super disappointed by what I've managed to read here.

I think this could totally backfire without some sort of equal campaign acknowledging that the bigger the vehicle you choose to drive the more responsibility you choose to take.

While I agree that there are stupid/uninformed cyclists out there, in no way should fgss be advocating a safety campaign that is basically a "blame the victim" campaign.
This just wreaks of the same backwards thinking that "women who wear short skirts deserved to be raped" does.
Yes of course, riding on the left of a lorrie means they can't see you but that doesn't mean you deserve to be hit.

Someone, I think Tim, brought up making a double sided flyer one geared toward cyclists, one geared toward HGV drivers. I think this is a much better way to approach the subject.

-Explain to HGV drivers that many cyclists feel a need to be in cycle lanes and get trapped to the left of them while trying to obey traffic signals, etc
and explain to cyclists that HGV drivers are cunts, erm, no sorry, explain to cyclists that there is indeed real blind spots to be aware of.

-If I got one of these spoke cards above I would be really fucking pissed off. I'd tell whoever gave them to me to get on the right side of the debate and fight for cyclist's rights as oppose to only explaining that they shouldn't wear skirts or lipstick at night.

It's the same as when I got "explained" why running red lights was dangerous by an LCC guy who was supposed to be advocating more cyclists but was actually out defending pedestrians in Angel.

Or when TfL stuck an HGV in Trafalgar Square and invited cyclists to "see for themselves" how blind the drivers are.

How about a fund that will back fgss members who take HGV-drivers to court? How about a group that will write letters to every major goods carrying service, explaining that we will seek prosecution of HGV operating companies who's drivers hit cyclists?

Look, I get the idea of this, and I think it's nice, but as a cyclist, I'd be well pissed off receiving one of these flyer/spokecards. However, if I saw that HGV drivers were being given the same ones, I'd find it much more intriguing and fair. Plus, I think HGV drivers would probably feel the same way. They have to deal with crappy riders every day, I reckon they wouldn't listen to a similar card like above, but they may read one, if they saw that cyclists were also being told how to be more defensive.

Ok, apologies if someone has already said all of this.

*While I agree that there are stupid/uninformed cyclists out there, in no way should fgss be advocating a safety campaign that is basically a "blame the victim" campaign.
This just wreaks of the same backwards thinking that "women who wear short skirts deserved to be raped" does.
Yes of course, riding on the left of a lorrie means they can't see you but that doesn't mean you deserve to be hit. *

Sorry Roxy, but to me that is a crock of shit.

I see loads of cyclists that put themselves in a position of danger with HGV's due to ignorance or stupidity and my thought is 'don't you know what risk you're taking?' I don't look at how a girl dresses and think 'don't you know what risk you're taking'

to attribute a similar mindset to both circumstances is in my opinion erroneous and misleading

In the 80's and 90's much of the PSA crap about women being sexual harassed was geared towards showing uninformed women the risks they were taking by dressing provocatively. I was taught in school to watch out for men that may be "lured" by this sort of dress. There was never a sentence in any of the speeches we got like "these men that are so weak that they might be lured into rape should be shot on sight". In fact just recently there was a minicab campaign that was geared towards women showing them not to make the "wrong choice" and be assulted. Now fair enough, warning women that there are guys out there that pretend to be drivers is cool, but the phrasing was blaming the victim completely.
I think that's a pretty spot on comparison to what you guys are saying here. You are saying to teach cyclists what risks they are taking, without mentioning the other side of things. Dressing down is a great way to not get unwanted attention = avoiding the left side of a lorry is a great way to not get hit.
But there needs to be the other side of the argument presented if cyclists like myself don't just throw away the flyer swearing under their breath "fucking dicks, one more group supposedly advocating cycling while blaming cyclists, and cyclists only, for being killed by HGV's."
The heart is totally in the right place, it's just not quite right.

Just present both sides.

Separate but sort of related:
MHO is that the bigger the vehicle you choose to drive the more responsibility you choose to take on. If you don't want the responsibility get out of your car/HGV, etc.. If a cyclist and a pedestrian are involved in an accident, my belief is in inherent responsibility, that pedestrian may have made all the moves to create the accident, but I chose to ride a bike. Whereas, if a cyclist and an HGV are involved in an accident, no matter who caused the two to actually collide, the HGV driver already has chosen to take on much of the responsibility by choosing to drive that vehicle.

MHO is that the bigger the vehicle you choose to drive the more responsibility you choose to take on. If you don't want the responsibility get out of your car/HGV, etc.. If a cyclist and a pedestrian are involved in an accident, my belief is in inherent responsibility, that pedestrian may have made all the moves to create the accident, but I chose to ride a bike. Whereas, if a cyclist and an HGV are involved in an accident, no matter who caused the two to actually collide, the HGV driver already has chosen to take on much of the responsibility by choosing to drive that vehicle.

+1

+1

that's good point there, hidden in amongst the rabid, incoherent militant feminist ramblings

+1

that's good point there, there there dear, don't worry your pretty little head about such complicated matters

fixed!

Good work people, happy to help with time/cash/whatever-it-takes when a final battleplan is agreed on...