Helps to foment phony cycle war
So we have now written to The Times as follows. But why is The Times ignoring the obvious instead of taking responsibility for the cycling casualties their policy encourages.
Dear Sir, Further to the item citing The AA on cycling and 'two tribes'. As a driver, I do not recognise the AA as a driver's association any more. Its interests are now too diverse. Yes they fix cars and insure them but then they fix and insure plumbing too and change central heating boilers as well..
By pretending there is a 'two tribes' mentality on the roads, not only are The AA doing a great injustice to drivers, but are actually fomenting a siege mentality among cyclists and indeed a one sided war against drivers too.
Millions of times a day drivers are safely and considerately negotiating their way past cyclists but to believe in an imaginary war, implies that drivers are deliberately going out to be rude, inconsiderate and dangerous to cyclists. The fact is that after 300 billion driver miles year, there's less death on the road from all causes than from accidents in the home and five times less than from NHS failure. So UK's drivers seem to be much better than the keen cyclists of The AA will credit.
The AA, in being so pro cyclist, and implying, with their two tribes, a level playing field are being disingenuous. They forget to mention that our society, yes even The Thunderer, would collapse without our 35 million drivers but not without cyclists. There are only two types of road user that society must have; walkers and drivers. The fact is that cycling isn't that crucial at all. Only a minority do it keenly and they are only in a tiny minority of London commuters too. This shows that The AA's 'Two tribes' claim is fallacious in every respect.
If there are massive safety issues about road cycling, then it is the duty of politicians, and your paper to preface any discussion with the question: 'Does our society need it?' 'Why must we have road cycling?'. A fair logical question isn't it?
Why do we also ignore that road cycling is placing one's unprotected body, on two slender wheels, among and competing with large essential relatively fast moving machines, operated by complete strangers of varying ability and mental capacity? That is road cycling in a nutshell. Would humans normally behave like that unless it were cycling? If the concept were only just being suggested and proposed now, we would send for the men in white coats. How can politicians and the media ignore the reality and encourage more to do it?
Thank heaven only a few of our sixty million inhabitants will ever answer the clarion and find the idea of road cycling viable, appropriate or safe and even those that do, are usually only temporary anyway. So why not support drivers more? None of us, including keen cyclists, can exist without them.
Keith Peat