| |
Cyclists save the planet with a snarl and a curse
• THE other Monday the early morning traffic noise was broken by the distinct stamping of Birkenstock’d feet and the slapping of The Guardian against lycra-clad thighs as at last the police decided to take action against the eco-thugs (both male and female) who make road and pavement users’ lives almost unbearable with their smug “I’m doing my bit for the planet” form of Stalinism. They career down pavements slewing past pedestrians with a snarl and curse that would grace any ‘hoodie’, ignore lights that happen to be against them and cut up buses, vans and anyone they feel is in their way.
The fact that so many were stopped proves that these people have no one’s interest but their own at heart. Whatever the fixed penalty is for contravening road safety it is well warranted, especially for those whose wives/husbands or “life partners” drive them in the 4x4 to the station, where the shiny new Brompton is loaded and then used for the 40-yard ‘commute’ into the office.
I saw a ‘fat cat’ virtual jobber get out of a taxi, unpack his fold-up bike and ride to three doors down from where he’d been dropped off.
I walk to and from work every day between Clerkenwell and Soho. Am I a commuter in the same vein as Martin Gray, who commutes from Finsbury Park (Fines for safe cyclists, July 25). Hardly a commute now, is it Martin?
Are all these people now Norman Tebbit’s children? Getting on their bikes!
All those 15 million Chinese now driving in Mercs must be cracking up at these feeble attempts to “save the world, man”.
B Knight
Eco-walker from Clerkenwell
(Address supplied)
• I WAS heartened to read that the police are at last trying to do something about illegal acts carried out by selfish cyclists daily.
It is high time cyclists understood that they are bound by the Highway Code in the way that other road users are – they are required by law to stop at traffic lights, give way at zebra crossings, not cycle up one-way streets or on the pavement.
The only wonder is that more cyclists are not injured in accidents they themselves have caused.
I have cycled all my life and am a keen cyclist. I am appalled and ashamed by the behaviour of the majority of my fellow cyclists and the disdain and arrogance which they display towards other road users.
While Martin Gray may have felt he was unlucky to have been caught, tough police action and plenty of it is surely the only way to begin to address this matter. And it is long overdue!
Fleur Merriman
(Address supplied)
|
 |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
