Silly comments *Richard Nye*

If he'd used 'black man', 'woman', 'Muslim' or another term like this he'd be sacked on the spot and would be up for inciting racial hatred or something similar. It should be no different just because he used the term 'cyclist'.

If you have a voice to the public through the media then you need to be very careful what you say and if you say the wrong thing then you should have that voice to the public removed i.e. be sacked.

 

^^^^ This.

Now that we are in an era where it is quite rightly not "politically correct" and acceptable to discriminate against different ethnicities, religion and women, cyclists have taken their place as an easy target.

 

How many drunk cyclists have killed people through dangerous riding?

BAM! I rest my case.


****ing journalists! The only good journalist is a journalist stuffed into a burlap sack and beaten with a hosepipe until his retina's detach.

 

Yes, actually, I would. It's irrelevant the group he's targeting with his 'humour'. If he was a comedian on-stage doing a routine then you could forgive it to some extent but he's not, he's a writer in the media with a voice to the public and frankly it's not on.

As for cyclists being paranoid, try telling that to the guy who was recently pushed off his bike by a passenger in a passing car only last week, the one who was pushed off last year or those targeted by motorists in other 'road rage' incidents.

 

Because cyclists are in the minority and get the most abuse out of all the above usually from all of the above perhaps? Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you and all that .
As a car driver, van driver, cyclist and female I've had the most abuse as a cyclist merely for having the audacity to cycle on the road.
Unfortunately there are a vast majority of ignorant self important motorists out there usually under the mistaken assumption that they "pay" for the roads via "road tax" and therefore the cyclist has no right to be on the road holding them up for all of 10 seconds. This is exacerbated and reinforced by silly comments for the likes of this chap.

 

Actually it's Vehicle Excise Duty or VED which is based on the emissions of the car. Hence I think it's the Polo Blue Motion that pays zero VED for example. VED is a general taxation which goes towards motorway costs but the local councils are responsible for the maintenance of the other roads under their jurisdiction which comes out of your council tax. Which always amuses me when I get acused of not paying for "road Tax" from somebody that doesn't live in the area concerned when I do.

So for those idiot motorists that want cyclists to also pay for "road tax" think of the billions of pounds worth of tax payers money that would be wasted on administering a scheme to give hundreds of thousands of cyclists a little bit of paper to say their "vehicle" emits 0 Co2 therefore they don't have to pay *anything*.

 

True, but I just like writing things in a more convoluted and verbose way and you didn't call it VED. You triggered off my rant mode by using the word "car" and "tax" together

 

For the uninformed, there's even a website that explains that Road Tax no longer exists (abolished in 1937) and cyclists can buy t-shirts to help inform ignorant motorists*

http://ipayroadtax.com/

*Note that not all motorists are ignorant, just those who are arrogant and think they have full rights to the road and cyclists don't despite the fact that many cyclists are also motorists and also pay VED.