[OT] Road Rage

wrote:
I was aghast at the cyclists running the red lights. I know it's said
that it happens, but it was the corporate nature of them all doing it
that I found so amazing.

Corporate = Assertive, Selfish, Aggressive, Cheating, Lying etc.

You don't get on by bending over and let people f#@? you.


But then I do live in pleasant Herts, where there is nothing like the
confrontational road-use that was shown in that programme. Just makes
me continue to be bemused as to why people continue to live in such
hard to use areas...

Hard to use? Most of the time I feel safer riding in central London than
I do in the suburbs.

The obvious reason to live in London is shorter commute/better pay.

The main thrust of the programme was:

'so little road - so many users'

The old predictables resurfaced as they always do: I pay road fund
licence, petrol, tax, insurance tax etc etc - and you don't Mr/Ms
cyclist - therefore I have a bigger claim on this tarmac than you do -
which of course is utter ******** as roads are funded out of general
taxation and no one can escape that.

The conclusions I came to were it wasn't a programme about road use
but one of selfish *******s who sole preoccupation was me first and
stuff you whether they were car drivers or cyclists.

That poor man that lost his young wife on that pedestrian crossing in
London affected me very much - an innocent victim of all this madness.

archierob wrote:
The main thrust of the programme was:

'so little road - so many users'

The old predictables resurfaced as they always do: I pay road fund
licence, petrol, tax, insurance tax etc etc - and you don't Mr/Ms
cyclist - therefore I have a bigger claim on this tarmac than you do -
which of course is utter ******** as roads are funded out of general
taxation and no one can escape that.

Perhaps, for the sake of harmony, we should remove one of the main
sources of conflict and confusion, the necessity for most motor vehicles
to display a vehicle licence. Most vehicle owners/keepers have to pay
"vehicle excise duty" for the licence, which does amount to paying a
road-use tax for the vehicle. The tax collected for this licence goes
into the general pot (it is not hypothecated for road maintenance), but
it is a relatively small proportion of the total tax take, and is
dwarfed by the amount of fuel duty collected.

--
Matt B

On 8 Jan, 11:47, wrote:
I was aghast at the cyclists running the red lights. *I know it's said
that it happens, but it was the corporate nature of them all doing it
that I found so amazing.


What I don't understand is if red light jumping is as rife as
we are led to believe and it is so dangerous to both the cyclist
and other road users, why are we not seeing daily reports
of mass carnage on the streets of London?

Similarly if cyclists in general and red light jumpers in
particular pose such an enourmous risk to children, why
were their parents encouraging them to step into the road
with a placard into the path of a vehicle they believed was
not goint to stop?

Paul George wrote:
On 8 Jan, 11:47, wrote:
I was aghast at the cyclists running the red lights. I know it's said
that it happens, but it was the corporate nature of them all doing it
that I found so amazing.

What I don't understand is if red light jumping is as rife as
we are led to believe and it is so dangerous to both the cyclist
and other road users, why are we not seeing daily reports
of mass carnage on the streets of London?

It isn't dangerous per se, just illegal. Don't confuse the breaking of
technical traffic laws with what may or may not be dangerous.

--
Matt B

In article , Budstaff wrote:
"Tom Crispin" wrote in message

I had no problem with Critical Mass or the naked bike riders. It was
the red light jumpers in Central London who caused me much shame.

Perhaps this is a point where we should take a leaf out of the book of
responsible car drivers. They have no problem with recognising that car
drivers are a broad enough church for there to be bad'uns who don't deserve
any support. Because a lot us adopt the mindset of cyclists as an oppressed
minority, perhaps we condone (if not downright support) activities and
behaviours that we know are, at bottom, not acceptable.

I think the "they aren't _real_ cyclists, just people on bikes" attitude
is more common than "they are cyclists, so it's okay for them to behave
badly".

People do sometimes point out that 100kg of badly behaved cyclist and bike
at 15mph poses rather less risk to those around them than a ton of car and
badly behaved driver at 50mph, but keeping a sense of perspective isn't
the same as condoning the behaviour.

In article , Matt B
says...

Perhaps, for the sake of harmony, we should remove one of the main
sources of conflict and confusion, the necessity for most motor vehicles
to display a vehicle licence. Most vehicle owners/keepers have to pay
"vehicle excise duty" for the licence, which does amount to paying a
road-use tax for the vehicle. The tax collected for this licence goes
into the general pot (it is not hypothecated for road maintenance), but
it is a relatively small proportion of the total tax take, and is
dwarfed by the amount of fuel duty collected.


And your point is ...

Rob Morley wrote:
In article , Matt B
says...

Perhaps, for the sake of harmony, we should remove one of the main
sources of conflict and confusion, the necessity for most motor vehicles
to display a vehicle licence. Most vehicle owners/keepers have to pay
"vehicle excise duty" for the licence, which does amount to paying a
road-use tax for the vehicle. The tax collected for this licence goes
into the general pot (it is not hypothecated for road maintenance), but
it is a relatively small proportion of the total tax take, and is
dwarfed by the amount of fuel duty collected.

And your point is ...

Hint: it is between the first instance of the word "Perhaps", and the
last instance of the word "collected", in the piece you quote above.

Summary: Perhaps the abolition of the motor vehicle road tax would
improve harmony amongst road users of different modes.

--
Matt B

"Matt B" wrote in message
...
wrote:
I was aghast at the cyclists running the red lights.

If they can do it - and generally survive the experience unscathed, can we
not conclude that it is pointless and inefficient to wait at red, and that
waiting gives no obvious benefit to anybody?

There's a world of difference between not continuing to wait at a red and
barreling through a red on a light-controlled ped crossing outside a school.
Both of these were shown, both are wrong, but one is wronger than the other.
Perhaps the US practice of filtering on red for a right turn (left here)
would help, but it would mean painting out all the advanced stop lines.

"Paul George" wrote in message
...
On 8 Jan, 11:47, wrote:
I was aghast at the cyclists running the red lights. I know it's said
that it happens, but it was the corporate nature of them all doing it
that I found so amazing.


What I don't understand is if red light jumping is as rife as
we are led to believe and it is so dangerous to both the cyclist
and other road users, why are we not seeing daily reports
of mass carnage on the streets of London?

Similarly if cyclists in general and red light jumpers in
particular pose such an enourmous risk to children, why
were their parents encouraging them to step into the road
with a placard into the path of a vehicle they believed was
not goint to stop?

no such thing happened. They were dressed in hi-viz, carrying placards, and
stepped out in front of bikes which had time to stop but would not have
stopped if they had not stepped out.

There is no reason to disbelieve the account of the lad who had been hit by
a cyclist running the red, who had stepped out assuming (correctly) that the
green man indicated that the the lights were red against the traffic.