Thread by @cyclegaz

On yesterday’s @mrjamesob show on @lbc he asked why do so many people hate on cyclists?
With his view point being that phone in radio shows like his took many calls from taxi drivers in the past who just hated on them.
Here’s my 2p. 1/11

He made one mistake, which he corrected. Stating that cyclists should ride to the left and shouldn’t ride two abreast. Which he attributed to his cycling proficiency test. And this is a problem, there’s been no cycle training for him since he was a child. 2/11

Things have changed since then and riding styles are different. @mrjamesob isn’t alone in that viewpoint and many people will have the same learning experience. But why hate on cyclists because of it? 3/11

Two major facts in my opinion:
Cyclists are seen as freeloaders
- we don’t have to pay for insurance
- we don’t have to pay VED
- we don’t have to pay for petrol
And motorists don’t like that we can use the road and get in the way when they have paid so much!! 4/11

Then we have fact that we are on the road, we are schrondingers cyclist, we are too fast but also too slow.
We hold people up and make them wait until it is safe to overtake.
Then we are also filtering past traffic and weaving in between traffic. 5/11

And of course then some go through red lights.
All of these either slow motorists down or happen when they are stuck in traffic. One annoys them as their journey is deplayed and the other annoys them because they are stuck and they see others moving freely. 6/11

Only yesterday a guys excuse for cutting me up on a corner is that I just overtook him on the right when he was stuck in traffic, that’s allowed 🤦‍♂️
And I think in some cases it’s jealousy of being able to break the law with no worry of reprocusions. 7/11

A petrol head friend of mine always complains about cyclists, he recently got a bike and wanted to go for a ride with me but explicitly said that he won’t stop at red lights 🤦‍♂️ 8/11

The second to last called touched on it though, it’s culture and infrastructure here. In places like New Zealand it is worse than here. In places like mainland Europe cycling is more common and thus more accepted. 9/11

To improve we need to spend this money to make it safer to get more people on bikes to shift that culture. And things should change, but there is many more things we can and we should do to improve road safety for everyone. 10/11

What do you think the issue is?
I wish I was listening live so I could have rang in. 11/11