Tom Meltzer on the phenomenon of fair-weather rage | Life and style | The Guardian
This article has an astonishingly charitable attitude towards cyclists who hit pedestrians and then get angry with them, but suggests that fair weather brings out an awful lot of cyclists who don’t know how to do it properly because they would otherwise drive. As a regular myself, I have to say that a lot of real regulars use cycle routes which aren’t widely known, i.e. the back lane routes rather than main roads. However, the idiots are out in all weathers and are not seasonal cyclists.
I have to say that stupid cyclists bother me hugely as both a cyclist and a pedestrian, including those who cycle recklessly along shared, or outright pedestrian-only, streets, or along pavements without good visibility when there is a perfectly good road right next to them. A few weeks ago, I was outside the Kingston Guildhall and heard some guy shout “CYCLIST!”, twice, basically to clear “stupid pedestrians” out of his way as he turned out of the main road from Esher into the Market Place, which is a dead-end leading to a shared foot/cycle road. This moron was cycling at speed through an area where there are lots of pedestrians and thought he had the right to do it without slowing down.
I’ve also seen plenty of people cycling in Clarence Street, which is a pedestrianised street and often crowded, but some of these people don’t even ride slowly, they barrel along, and on one occasion I was coming out of a shared path and one of these morons nearly shot into my side from the pedestrianised bit. I’m not one to harp on the law to people, but if they want to ride illegally, why can’t they at least do it considerately? These idiots risk bringing consequences such as closures of shared paths — or worse, compulsory insurance and number plates — on all of us.
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I’m afraid there are more stupid people around, everywhere.
This is to do with the rapidly deteriorating quality of the national gene pool, and the fact that these single mothers will just have sex with anyone, even people who don’t have jobs, are criminals or are members of feral youth.
There is now a US sitcom about just this sort of thing, called ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE about a woman coming to the end of her childbearing years being impregnated by a jobless “babydaddy”, who keeps this fruit of their loins, “with hilarious results”.
It stars Jenna Elfman, so the clear intention is to glamourise this sort of thing so that impressionable schoolgirls will go forth and get knocked up.
Drivers I know say they feel quite murderous driving through Richmond Park, when they see inconsiderate cyclists cycling two abreast chatting oblivious to the car behind them trying to pass.
Instead of going beserk with a gun as they do in America, one day someone will just get into a car and run over all the cyclists they can find in Richmond Park.
Those of us who have been assaulted, abused and inconvenienced by inconsiderate and boorish cyclists may even receive this news with a grim satisfaction.
Well, I’m not sure all stupid cyclists and inconsiderate people are the fruit of unions of the type you mention. General behaviour has been going downhill even among the products of two-parent families.
As for the cyclists in Richmond Park, personally I wonder what they’re doing on the roads there anyway as nearly all the roads have parallel cycle tracks. When I’m in that park myself, the only road I use is the one leading to Ham Gate, and even then, only when going downhill. To be honest, I find the 20mph speed limit a bigger nuisance than the cyclists when I’m driving (which I did pretty frequently when I used to work at Park Royal). Many of those roads, all of them on the edge of the park, are important thoroughfares and the park authorities should recognise it rather than grudgingly let us crawl along them.
There are more inexperienced, part-time or untrained cyclists in good weather. Most of them may cycle where they aren’t supposed to but they usually do so as politely as possible- aware that they oughtn’t to do it and apologetic for their cowardice and giving way to pedestrians. The would-be kings of the pavement are not stupid or inexperienced but egotistical and arrogant. I suspect many of them aren’t allowed to drive motor vehicles as a result of using the same techniques in cars. I have found that a walking stick makes an excellent deterrent and a fine emergency brake. Just don’t use a good one.