"Inconsiderate Motorist" = "Motorist Having It Too Easy"

The car-haters like to talk about "inconsiderate motorists" when
referring to exceeding inappropriate speed limits, parking on
unnecessary yellow lines, etc. Yet the evidence suggests that as ever,
the car-haters mean something other than what they're actually saying.
What they mean when they refer to an "inconsiderate motorist" is a
motorist who is daring to make things too easy for themselves in spite
of the myriad anti-car measures around them.

It's not really about how inconsiderate the motorist is being at all.
Car-haters will bang on about it being so, so inconsiderate to drive at
51mph in the middle of the night on an otherwise empty 50mph dual
carriageway whose limit used to be, and still should be, NSL. Yet
genuinely inconsiderate driving is never condemned by the car-haters:
drivers who hog the middle/outside lane, hold up long lines of traffic,
don't bother indicating, etc completely escape any criticism. Why?
Because they're not benefitting themselves in any way (and also they're
making normal motorists' lives a misery, which of course the car-haters
like).

So when the car-haters talk about an "inconsiderate motorist", it's
really nothing to do with how other road users are being affected: what
they mean is a motorist who is daring to improve their own lot, thereby
sticking two well-deserved fingers up at the ridiculous number of
completely unwarranted anti-car measures that are constantly thrown at
them. Can't have that: they should be obeying their masters at
Whitehall and letting them control them. The "inconsiderate" so-and-
sos.

Guy Cuthbertson wrote:
The car-haters like to talk about "inconsiderate motorists" when
referring to exceeding inappropriate speed limits, parking on
unnecessary yellow lines, etc. Yet the evidence suggests that as ever,
the car-haters mean something other than what they're actually saying.
What they mean when they refer to an "inconsiderate motorist" is a
motorist who is daring to make things too easy for themselves in spite
of the myriad anti-car measures around them.

It's not really about how inconsiderate the motorist is being at all.
Car-haters will bang on about it being so, so inconsiderate to drive at
51mph in the middle of the night on an otherwise empty 50mph dual
carriageway whose limit used to be, and still should be, NSL. Yet
genuinely inconsiderate driving is never condemned by the car-haters:
drivers who hog the middle/outside lane, hold up long lines of traffic,
don't bother indicating, etc completely escape any criticism. Why?
Because they're not benefitting themselves in any way (and also they're
making normal motorists' lives a misery, which of course the car-haters
like).

So when the car-haters talk about an "inconsiderate motorist", it's
really nothing to do with how other road users are being affected: what
they mean is a motorist who is daring to improve their own lot, thereby
sticking two well-deserved fingers up at the ridiculous number of
completely unwarranted anti-car measures that are constantly thrown at
them. Can't have that: they should be obeying their masters at
Whitehall and letting them control them. The "inconsiderate" so-and-
sos.

Go on Guy ... give cycling a try ... you know you want to! After all
you can already argue why motoring is such a misery better than any
cyclist can.

--
www.slowbicyclemovement.org - enjoy the ride

Jim A wrote:


Go on Guy ... give cycling a try ... you know you want to! After all
you can already argue why motoring is such a misery better than any
cyclist can.

I haven't looked in here much for a while.
The last thing that I expected to read was something thought provoking
in this thread, but your slowcycling www.slowbicyclemovement.org
link was interesting.
As the sort of cyclist who'll pull on a pair of bikester tights for the
4 mile commute to work on a lightweight road bike it crossed my mind
that maybe I'm missing something. It seems to me that the roads have
become so hostile to slow cyclists that only the (reasonably) fit or
enthusiastic do it anymore.
Maybe we should make the roadster the default bicycle and allow us
enthusiasts to ride our faster and more efficient mounts only after
payment of a special tax and insurance.
It's not something which would do *me* any good, but if it filled the
streets with people gliding elegantly about their business and convinced
the small minded in the community that we had a right to be on the road
then the world might be a better (and slower) place.

--
Roger Thorpe

....Wait a minute, It's stopped raining/
Guys are swimming, guys are sailing.....

On 9 Feb, 10:31, Roger Thorpe
wrote:

"filled the streets with people gliding elegantly about their business"..


is any town in Holland.... Couples languidly cycling home side-by-
side, families with children, elegant ladies with a bunch of flowers
in the basket on their way to dinner......

On 9 Feb, 12:56, al Mossah wrote:
On 9 Feb, 10:31, Roger Thorpe
wrote:

"filled the streets with people gliding elegantly about their business"...

is any town in Holland.... *Couples languidly cycling home side-by-
side, families with children, elegant ladies with a bunch of flowers
in the basket on their way to dinner......

Pity we have hills isn't it?

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:41:51 -0800 (PST)
NM wrote:

On 9 Feb, 12:56, al Mossah wrote:
On 9 Feb, 10:31, Roger Thorpe
wrote:

"filled the streets with people gliding elegantly about their
business"..

is any town in Holland.... *Couples languidly cycling home side-by-
side, families with children, elegant ladies with a bunch of flowers
in the basket on their way to dinner......

Pity we have hills isn't it?

Not a problem - we have gears.

NM wrote:
On 9 Feb, 12:56, al Mossah wrote:
On 9 Feb, 10:31, Roger Thorpe
wrote:

"filled the streets with people gliding elegantly about their business"..
is any town in Holland.... Couples languidly cycling home side-by-
side, families with children, elegant ladies with a bunch of flowers
in the basket on their way to dinner......

Pity we have hills isn't it?

On the way down them it isn't. :-)

--
www.slowbicyclemovement.org - enjoy the ride

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:26:00 +0000, Rob Morley
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:41:51 -0800 (PST)
NM wrote:

Pity we have hills isn't it?

Not a problem - we have gears.

Hills and weather.

We have had several Dutch neighbours over the last few years. Without
exception they have arrived with a families worth of bikes in the
removal van. What follows has been the same (with minor variations)
with all of our Dutch families.

Father cycles to work on the first day. Between here and the major
industrial estate all the IT companies congregate in is a hill. Not a
huge hill, but a long one. In the evening of day one father, who set
out in suit and tie comes back in shirtsleeves with suit jacket tied
onto bike with tie. On day two and three the process is repeated but
it rains on at least one of those days. On day 4 father takes the car
to work and the bike is left resting against the hedge. It is never
to be used for work again.

On the first Saturday of the first weekend the family set out for a
ride, the route by the side of the Grand Onion canal is pleasant and
of course flat, they come back content. On Sunday they decide to go
to some local woods about 2 miles the other side of the valley.
Several hours later they all arrive back with the children crying,
mother and father hot and fractious (and often wet as well). The
bikes get tossed into the hedge with much Dutch muttering and next
week they go and buy another car. I think we still have the skeleton
of at least one if not more Dutch bikes decomposing gently in the
hedges which in time ate them.

We have kept in touch with them all and when back in the Netherlands
they have gone back to bicycling again. Nothing to do with UK
traffic, painted lines on roads, cycle lanes or anything else - just
hills and weather.

In the Netherlands the highest hill, the Vaalserberg, barely reaches
1,000ft and is a tourist attraction because of its vast height.
Getting to know the landscape in the Netherlands is easy - it has
none.

Hills and weather are the reason bicycling is a pursuit most people in
the UK dislike, will always dislike, and will only ever follow until
they can afford something with an engine in it.

Peter Parry wrote:
On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 21:26:00 +0000, Rob Morley
wrote:

On Wed, 10 Feb 2010 11:41:51 -0800 (PST)
NM wrote:

Pity we have hills isn't it?
Not a problem - we have gears.

Hills and weather.

Not a problem - we have waterproofs.


We have had several Dutch neighbours over the last few years. Without
exception they have arrived with a families worth of bikes in the
removal van. What follows has been the same (with minor variations)
with all of our Dutch families.

Father cycles to work on the first day. Between here and the major
industrial estate all the IT companies congregate in is a hill. Not a
huge hill, but a long one. In the evening of day one father, who set
out in suit and tie comes back in shirtsleeves with suit jacket tied
onto bike with tie. On day two and three the process is repeated but
it rains on at least one of those days. On day 4 father takes the car
to work and the bike is left resting against the hedge. It is never
to be used for work again.

On the first Saturday of the first weekend the family set out for a
ride, the route by the side of the Grand Onion canal is pleasant and
of course flat, they come back content. On Sunday they decide to go
to some local woods about 2 miles the other side of the valley.
Several hours later they all arrive back with the children crying,
mother and father hot and fractious (and often wet as well). The
bikes get tossed into the hedge with much Dutch muttering and next
week they go and buy another car. I think we still have the skeleton
of at least one if not more Dutch bikes decomposing gently in the
hedges which in time ate them.

We have kept in touch with them all and when back in the Netherlands
they have gone back to bicycling again. Nothing to do with UK
traffic, painted lines on roads, cycle lanes or anything else - just
hills and weather.

I doubt that's true - the weather in the Netherlands is little different
from the UK while drivers' attitudes to cyclists are distinctly more
civilised.


In the Netherlands the highest hill, the Vaalserberg, barely reaches
1,000ft and is a tourist attraction because of its vast height.
Getting to know the landscape in the Netherlands is easy - it has
none.

It's therefore no surprise that people who have grown up cycling on the
flat struggle at first on hills - especially since Dutch bikes are
generally harder to cycle uphill due to the riding position.

It takes more than a few days but once the fitness is acquired, hills
are easy.


Hills and weather are the reason bicycling is a pursuit most people in
the UK dislike, will always dislike, and will only ever follow until
they can afford something with an engine in it.

Although an increasing number of people, wealthy and otherwise, are
deciding that they enjoy fresh air and exercise, don't like the idea of
becoming obese, don't wish to waste their life away sitting in traffic
jams every day while polluting the atmosphere and are getting back on
their bikes.

NM wrote:
On 9 Feb, 12:56, al Mossah wrote:
On 9 Feb, 10:31, Roger Thorpe
wrote:

"filled the streets with people gliding elegantly about their business"..
is any town in Holland.... Couples languidly cycling home side-by-
side, families with children, elegant ladies with a bunch of flowers
in the basket on their way to dinner......

Pity we have hills isn't it?

Ask any cyclist whether they would prefer a hill or a headwind.


--
Roger Thorpe

....Wait a minute, It's stopped raining/
Guys are swimming, guys are sailing.....