Is it time to start calling out bad cyclists?

I mean, I will enrage some drivers just by existing on a bicycle

I get your general point, but there's a key difference between you pissing off some goon just by taking primary and Snow going through a red.

As someone that cycles, then, what are my responsibilities towards you - another person that cycles

As you identified a couple of posts back, the original point is that Snow was president of the CTC. The only 'collective responsibility' is that towards any other road user - not to directly endanger them.

Personally I doubt anyone can claim the godlike perceptual skills to be absolutely sure that no-one else is going to appear out of nowhere if you go through an apparently deserted red, but that's a whole other (Bikeradar) argument.

Anyway - Snow, WAC, I hope he spends ages choosing bread, artisan cheese and pâte for a picnic and when he arrives at his chosen site finds he's forgotten to bring a knife, etc etc

Embankment, at the junction of Vauxhall Bridge Road, going West.

It's a 3 / 4 lane road. Cyclists are waiting behind the ASL, across at least half of the road.

I'm a car or two behind. It's busy. I don't need to be at the front, particularly.

The cabby to my right is going fucking nuts.

"Cunt cyclists, all across the road, road tax, immigrants, kill a prostitute blah blah..."

I shall be suing all of those cyclists that were causing the cabby to become a dangerous killing machine.

I do find when a driver cut's me up, I'm then more likely to react badly towards the next driver who makes a mistake. The first driver is not morally responsible for my subsequent anger, but there is a definite causal link.

really? perhaps you should consider taking a bus.

Probably the most anger-making form of transport you can choose, short of removing your bike seat and replacing it with an upturned wire brush

It's the other driver's responsibility?

How about all the other things that happened to you that morning that got you all tetchy. How about them?

I mean, perish the thought that anecdote is now data that can be extrapolated.

Or maybe that's precicely the logical fallacy arse water I referred to earlier.

My Dad says that data can be extrapolated from anecdotes.

For fuck's sake.

I'm totally against the idea of collective responsibility. If a lone cyclist acts like a dick, I don't think people should be saying 'making the rest of us look bad' etc etc bollocks.

However, Jon Snow is the fucking President of the fucking CTC, the fucking largest cyclist group in the UK, a group that has been campaigning heavily (well, when they have free time between bouts of infighting) for better conditions for cyclists that will encourage uptake and improve safety for us. He is acting as representative of all of that campaigning, and thus is under deserved scrutiny and thus he should be riding like a fucking SAINT.

I remember the drama with the Daily Mail sting on him. The Mail followed him round and took photos of him on one journey repeatedly riding like a bit of a dick. Many cycling groups then came out saying the Mail probably made it up and created reconstructions of how they could make it look like someone riding legally could have photos taken to make them look like they were breaking the law. Then, Jon Snow and the CTC made a statement where Jon Snow whined like a petulant fucking child about how the Mail are big meanies and there are more important things to worry about and drivers do bad stuff all the time and cyclists should be able to turn left on red and wahh wahh wahh I refuse to take responsibility for my actions and the CTC seem to need this celebrity figurehead so they won't sack me despite the fact that they should.

considering john snow represents no one other than himself and rather mysteriously the CTC, i'm curious as to your usage of the word 'us'.

Are you suggesting that the CTC's campaigns are only intended to improve safety for CTC members?

i take issue with any organisation that seeks to appoint itself as representative of an activity that i (or anyone for that matter) just so happens to partake in. Having perused their manifesto, i have concluded that the CTC doesn't represent my motivations, my attitudes towards improving cycling provision in the UK and by appointing a twat like snow as it's public face, it certainly doesn't represent my approach to road safety.

If memory serves, they threw their weight behind this horseshit, reason enough alone to safely ignore anything they have to say.

Fuck the CTC, and fuck john snow.

It got us into a discussion about it though.

This discussion made me late for work. I had to RLJ twice

I just googled 'Jon Snow CTC'. It turns out you guys aren't talking about a fictional character from a popular series of books that was subsequently adapter into a television series. Hope this helped clear up the matter for anyone else.

pfff... you know nothing.

Thanks, Obama!

Similarly we're not talking about the fairly shit Sam Smiths pub in Soho, for the avoidance of doubt

Putney, Upper Richmond Road, West bound.

Two cyclists in primary, two abreast, travelling at the same speed as motor vehicles.

Chap in a Lexus gesticulating and shouting for them to get out of the way. He has a god given right to get to the next red light a second or two earlier, after all.

1km later, I'm in primary, and he gives me a punishment pass.

Later, I burn down the houses of the two-abreast-cyclists, for endangering my life.

Respect pedestrians (crossing/pavements etc), presume EVERYONE is trying to run you over/knock you down/jump in your way. Enjoy the ride.

That's my personal outlook.

It's the other driver's responsibility?

As I said

The first driver is not morally responsible for my subsequent anger

nor is the second one. but sadly noone is perfect. The fact that its wrong to overreact doesn't mean it's not going to happen.

I look at it this way: I dont jump lights because there's a chance I'll get hit. I use lights at night because there's a chance someone will not see me, and hit me. I dont undertake because there's a chance I'll get cut up. I dont ride too close to parked cars because there's a chance I'll get doored. I dont thump cars who have cut me up because there's a chance it will make the driver angrier and more dangerous. It's not a moral question, it just about staying safe.

I'm glad the same level of wank has carried over from the old site to the new.

If you get angry at anything I post on the forum it's most likely all greenhells posts making you hate stuff, it's collectively all greenhells fault. Oh and Jon Snow, something about him too.

greenhell is Jon Snow.

Or he's his mum, possibly.

Collectively, this is the fault of immigrants.

:)

Nicely put.

i'd just like to add that i am an immigrant as well.