The " war on the motorist"

[mdavids]

irocfan said:

seriously?? I fail to see where my question about differences betwixt here and the mainland referenced powerfully built yada yada and the inference that car-drivers are boarder-line psychos. It's precisely your type of post (from both 'sides' of the debate) that engenders and then maintains bad feeling between various groups of road users

Yeah, because calling people "lycra clad tts/nutters" is conducive to intelligent debate. Are you not better than that?

[irocfan]

mdavids said:

irocfan said:

seriously?? I fail to see where my question about differences betwixt here and the mainland referenced powerfully built yada yada and the inference that car-drivers are boarder-line psychos. It's precisely your type of post (from both 'sides' of the debate) that engenders and then maintains bad feeling between various groups of road users

Yeah, because calling people "lycra clad tts/nutters" is conducive to intelligent debate. Are you not better than that?

notice I also put in "Neanderthals trying to emulate Stig Blomqvist" - selective quoting on PH? Surely not <grin>. TBH I see that (with the exception of forums) most normal road users seem to get along fine

[Devil2575]

Pan Pan said:

Bikes are fine for generally younger, relatively fit people who only have to cover short distances around town, without the need to carry large, or heavy items, and for those who don't need to be at another distant place at a particular time.
For just about everyone else (those who must carry / deliver large heavy objects to a distant destination. Those who must visit several distant points in the course of their every day work. Those who are disabled, or who are very elderly, but who who can get themselves around `if' they have a car, particularly one modified for them to use.) for just about everyone else bikes are not a viable transport option suited to the world we live in today (not the one people `think' we should be living in) just a mode of transport that suits a small minority of todays road users.

The majority are fit and able enough to cycle and most people don't carry lots of stuff in their car all the time.

[Devil2575]

mph1977 said:

the vocal minority of 'powerfully built company directors' on pH do not represent the views of the vast majority of people , yet like Farage they portray themselves as the voice of common man when in fact they are more deluded than the lib-lab-con elite precisely becasue they THINK they are the common man in the street / on the clapham omnibus

Indeed. It's not just to do with negative view of cyclists either. There seems to be a complete failure from some on PH yo realise that most people don't feel the same way about driving as them.

[Mave]

Pan Pan said:

Bikes are fine for generally younger, relatively fit people who only have to cover short distances around town, without the need to carry large, or heavy items, and for those who don't need to be at another distant place at a particular time.
For just about everyone else (those who must carry / deliver large heavy objects to a distant destination. Those who must visit several distant points in the course of their every day work. Those who are disabled, or who are very elderly, but who who can get themselves around `if' they have a car, particularly one modified for them to use.) for just about everyone else bikes are not a viable transport option suited to the world we live in today (not the one people `think' we should be living in) just a mode of transport that suits a small minority of todays road users.

Do you honestly think that the vast majority of road users are carrying large heavy objects to distant destinations, or disabled or elderly?

[carinaman]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-ra...

It's nice to see the IAM spokesman taking a different line from BRAKE!

[HertsBiker]

Devil2575 said:

HertsBiker said:

And unfortunately almost all the big queues I encounter now are headed by a stupid car driver who is too frightened to overtake a cyclist. Or is it that the stupid car driver has been intimidated by all the recommended clearances we are supposed to leave. Are cycles the cause, or the effect of queuing?

Really? That's quite a claim. I don't have any issues with people scared to pass me.

You wouldn't be troubled at all if no one went past you. It's all the other poor sods queueing behind the one who is too scared to overtake you. And as a cyclist, you don't cover the distance to see the problems that are behind you. I cycle, but I choose not to do it in rush hour. Reminds me, I have some replies to do in a mo to someone...

[HertsBiker]

WinstonWolf said:

HertsBiker said:

And unfortunately almost all the big queues I encounter now are headed by a stupid car driver who is too frightened to overtake a cyclist. Or is it that the stupid car driver has been intimidated by all the recommended clearances we are supposed to leave. Are cycles the cause, or the effect of queuing?

You just made that up...

PS, you're not stuck in traffic, you *are* the traffic.

How do you work that out? Check my user name. I ride proper bikes with engines. I get snarled up in heavy traffic because of cyclists holding up cars. I don't actually care if it is a driver at fault or the cyclist, both are holding me up. I also ride peasant folke push bikes because I like to keep my beer belly reasonable. However I call myself primary a motorcyclist. Problems with that?

[HertsBiker]

okgo said:

There will be a hell of a lot of people who rides bikes/horses who also have a car.

Lol at Hertsbiker, he is one of the greatest trolls on this forum, or he really DOES have an IQ of 30, I can't be sure as he has form in this area.

Why call me a troll? I am expressing an opinion that is clearly different to yours, but why be insulting?

[p1esk]

FiF said:

Setting aside the devil's advocate nature of my post on the figures in your haste to condemn other groups of road users ( drivers are murdering psychos vs cyclists are freeloading obey no laws) the point is still being missed.

If the road network and the use of it does not do any favours to any particular group, God knows cyclists get a raw deal in many ways, or the network isn't maintained or improved to solve clearly identifiable issues, it's not because road users specifically do not pay enough into the exchequer. They do, it's just that successive governments over decades and decades have chosen to spend the money on something else.

They get away with it because they are playing divide and rule with road users. Whether you are a user as a driver or passenger of any class of vehicle, a cyclist, pedestrian, horse rider or whoever, someone including yourself has paid handsomely for the transport infrastructure, especially roads, to be a bloody sight better than it is.

[HertsBiker]

Hmmmm. And again I find myself agreeing. We have paid for more, but got less.

[WinstonWolf]

HertsBiker said:

WinstonWolf said:

HertsBiker said:

And unfortunately almost all the big queues I encounter now are headed by a stupid car driver who is too frightened to overtake a cyclist. Or is it that the stupid car driver has been intimidated by all the recommended clearances we are supposed to leave. Are cycles the cause, or the effect of queuing?

You just made that up...

PS, you're not stuck in traffic, you *are* the traffic.

How do you work that out? Check my user name. I ride proper bikes with engines. I get snarled up in heavy traffic because of cyclists holding up cars. I don't actually care if it is a driver at fault or the cyclist, both are holding me up. I also ride peasant folke push bikes because I like to keep my beer belly reasonable. However I call myself primary a motorcyclist. Problems with that?

I'm a biker as well, you need to work on your filtering skills if you're getting held up as you describe.

[aw51 121565]

BGarside said:

I'm also a cyclist who owns a car. Most of the time my taxed car sits in the garage while I cycle around town on my untaxed bike, creating less wear and tear on the roads than I would if driving my car. I don't see why / how that makes me a freeloader, especially since the income taxes I pay far outweigh any VED or other vehicle-related taxes and are also spent on the road network.

...

How much CO2 does your cycling generate above and beyond the usual/normal "living" exhalations from your good self? Ditto your excess CO2 emissions when cycling versus those from your car when driving an identical journey?

Regards the latter - as an Environmental Scientist - I wouldn't worry (consider the pollution caused by the construction of your car!) ; but cycling isn't the silver bullet for CO2 emissions arising from personal transportation, I'd suggest .

Large organised events such as The London Marathon produce significant localised CO2 emissions... Yet I haven't seen anyone trying to regulate this particular source of plant feed recently!?!

Yes, I am being facetious! (and )

[otolith]

Unless you eat fossil fuels, your exhalations are carbon neutral.

The food you eat incurs a carbon footprint in its production, but that will depend on your diet - if you live on locally produced lamb and organic veg, you'll emit less to fuel you than if you run on intensively produced beef and air freighted asparagus.

Of course, if you cycle to work instead of spending an hour in the gym, the point is moot.

[TransverseTight]

The terms war on motorist in my mind, means the excess taxation lumped on to people who happen to want to use a personal vechile to get from A to B instead of using public transport which is often slower, less convenient or annoying when a pleb with Apple ear buds plonks down next to you and then has a conversation with their dad about their boyfriend who has been busted for dealing weed and that even though they hit "me" they are still a good person (on the way from Brum city centre up the hagley road).

Taxes from Motoring are over £40 billion per year whilst spending on road infrastructure is less than £10 billion.

http://www.racfoundation.org/motoring-faqs/Economi...

Seems like car drivers are subbing sometehing else, I thought it might be public transport, but... I'm a regular user of trains as I live 100m from a train station. It's often quicker than driving, I don't have to pay to park and it takes me 3 minutes to run there, when I'm late again. However the ticket prices are stupidly expensive. I'm currently doing a 120 mile round trip and it's £19 a day (edit to add : 15p a mile). or £330 for a season ticket. For £150 a month I could lease a brand new diesel fiesta, fuel it for just over £200, and I have 3 seats spare so IF I wanted to do car sharing it would work out at about £100 per month each. And I'd only have to drive 1 in 4 days and could sleep with my noise cancelling earphones in the back seat the other 3, and not have to change at Rugby. Why is travelling by train 3 times more expensive per seat than a private car with high fuel taxes? Where is the economy of scale from shifting 500 people at a time?

I'd like to see an end to fuel duty as I have 2 cars and can only be driving 1 at a time. I keep an old Xtrail for shifting stuff to the dump and going on holidays, or the odd day where it might snow as I don't get paid if I don't get to work. I'm not happy I have to shell out over £200 notes a year for 4,000 miles use whilst someone who drives the said "eco" diesel fiesta 20,000 miles gets to do it for "free". Just shift road tax into fuel duty, and then people can't avoid it. ANPR cathces the people who aren't insured now anyway seems pointless to go through the rigmarole of applying each year.

Edited by TransverseTight on Sunday 28th December 15:34

[HertsBiker]

WinstonWolf said:

I'm a biker as well, you need to work on your filtering skills if you're getting held up as you describe.

I get held up for a few seconds, it's still too much. I am quite good at filtering, only couriers go faster. Sometimes. I object to huge traffic queues held up by someone who is afraid to overtake a pedal bike. I give up protesting which is wrong, the cyclist or the rider. Both hold me up needlessly.

However this is a digression, we are ALL being ripped off. Check the bbc, more tickets issued than ever.

[Terminator X]

TransverseTight said:

... I live 100m from a train station. It's often quicker than driving, I don't have to pay to park and it takes me 3 minutes to run there ...

You are one slow runner fella!

TX.

[Blakewater]

carinaman said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-ra...

It's nice to see the IAM spokesman taking a different line from BRAKE!

Instead of making the road look like a 30mph highway the question needs to be asked, does it need to be a 30mph highway? If all these people are going faster without catastrophe the speed limit can probably be higher.

[GEARJAMMER]

Mr Gear said:

It's a fking bargain! I can drive from London to Brighton and back for about a tenner. Compare that to what the train costs and then tell me it's expensive.

No you can't!

If you can buy a car... tax it, insure it, M.O.T it, fill it with fuel and maintain it for £10 then we are all ears!

[mdavids]

HertsBiker said:

I get held up for a few seconds, it's still too much.

So you have completely unrealistic expectations of reality, no wonder you feel like there's a war against you and every traffic jam has a cyclist at the head of it. You massive fruit loop.