i hate cyclists they dont pay road tax and think they own the road. in the country side they ride 2 abreast causing traffic jams on 60mph roads and in the cities they jump lights often hitting pedestrians or damage your motor in a rush to give some richard cranium there mail (p.s) lower fuel prices
Aw, diddums nasty cyclist make oo dwive at less than the speed limit once?
Typically one-sided motorist bigotry. How about "All you car drivers are half-blind smug inconsiderate self-busers who can't think beyond the end of their own selfish bonnet lids, and you should all be re-tested at frequent intervals?" 'cos that's how you seem when I'm out on my bike.
Actually, Jimbo, along with all the other tax payers in this country, I DO own the road.
Don't forget - being a cyclist doesn't class you as a different species. Quite a few of us are owner/drivers, bus passengers and pedestrians too. If a pedestrian offends, do you rail at everyone on foot (e.g. "I nearly ran over one of
your lot last week!") based on the fact that they're shoe-wearers?
I own and pay the VED on
TWO cars, and yet prefer to cycle to work 'cos I like getting there
ON TIME, EVERY TIME, thereby foolishly donating my tax to 'charity' and subsidising the rest of you that drive to work alone. Now tell me that bit about leeches on society again?
No, I don't jump traffic lights, nor do I ride abreast with anyone. If you don't like the speed I move at, along with anything that moves slowly, then leave home earlier.
At least I'm not as wide as a milk float (even I can overtake them!)
As for escaping tax, this only happens because there isn't any (along with the owners of very-low-emission vehicles and, ironically, smoky polluting non-catalysed 'vintage' cars - oh, of course they've got 4 wheels, silly me).
How many motorists would volunteer to keep on paying theirs out of civic duty if it was scrapped? Incidentally, VED is just a tax on having a car - it long since ceased to have any relationship to the funding of roads. Don't forget, the roads were the domain of cyclists and horses till the bloody car came along, so, no you weren't here first.
And before you ask, yes, I am insured. Membership of the CTC gives you God knows how many hundreds of thousands in 3rd party cover.
Sure there are bad cyclists - I see them every day, going through lights - I've even had a car driver
and a cyclist run into me because "they didn't think I was stopping", but I would say this. For every cycling amber/red light-jumper there are probably ten motorists doing the same - which would you rather collide with? Show me proof that the cyclist jumping a red light yesterday is alive today. Being a much-maligned London cycle courier carries some rather high mortality figures, which is why I'm not one.
To be honest, at least give cycling a go, it's part of the solution not the problem - it's made me a better driver if nothing else!
i hate cyclists purely because there a pain to overtake on a narrow road, and if your in a traffic jam you sometimes have to overtake the same cyclist 4 or 5 times when they could just ride on the path in the first place
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Believe me, Jonski, I'd love to ride on the pavement sometimes, but the £60 fine every time one of those jobs-worth PCSOs heaves into view is a trifle heavy on the old pocket. The rest of your rant is precisely why I DO use my bike for commuting - getting to the front of every queue, and thereby getting to work on time, is the main event for me. If you've had to wait several times behind the same cyclist before overtaking them, only to get to the next red light a little later, how have they delayed you? It tends to indicate that their average speed is all you're going to achieve anyway, with or without a cyclist in front of you.
Lecture over, now let's get dug into a nice juicy caravanner again..........