A Cyclist’s Response to Whingeing Car Drivers
I’ve heard them being described worse than Whingeing Car Drivers so good job to whoever wrote this. Lets face it, even cyclists who get behind the car wheel feel a little bit of that car jackass / road rage monster popping out. BUT, here’s the thing about the car privilege …
We spend vast amounts on creating the infrastructure for you to be able to drive your car around the country, including multi lane roads/motorways/eyesores, ugly safety infrastructure, petrol facilities and so much more. This involves de facto exclusion of non-drivers from large proportions of built-up areas. Due to the inability of a large minorty of drivers to obey the law, measures are put in place which cause considerable inconvenience to other citizens (e.g. barriers, speed bumps etc.). Also provided are large areas of public land for you to leave your cars (which apparently is still not enough given the amount of whining about full car parks and parking tickets).
To fuel your cars we have to enter into deals with despotic regimes, and chips the fuel around the world at considerable risk to the environment. The pollution from your cars causes thousands of deaths per year and harm to the development of children costing billions in healthcare costs and lost working hours, as well as major environmental damage in the form of wildlife-damaging water and air pollution and global warming. This is to add to the more direct form of death and serious injury which is being actually hit by a car.
One of, if not the biggest cause of death in this country is inactivity. Cars, by their hogging of public land and their danger to other citizens doing healthier activities such as walking or cycling, are a major contributor to that problem. The biggest losers in this are children, who have lost almost all of their places to play due to cars and their drivers.
So poor you, a cycling delayed you for 5 seconds or you witnessed a cyclist running a red light. Just remember there wouldn’t be a need for red lights if car drivers were capable of operating without something telling them when to go or stop. A world without cars is a world without traffic lights.
Now if only the whingers could read.
Bonus: James O’Brien on why the motorists who give cyclists a hard time have got it all wrong.
“Any argument against cycling is an argument in favour of pollution, obesity and early death”
Bonus: I am not a cyclist, I am a human being
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