Yvette,
I've seen your article regarding cyclists and the reaction it has caused through Twitter.
Given
the backlash you're receiving, I wanted to write you an email in the
hope that you might take time to digest it, rather than dismiss my
criticism as trolling.
I'd like to address two points. Firstly, the damage that articles like this do to people like me.
As
a cyclist, I can tell you that I suffer from a sense of entitlement
that some drivers have when using the roads. Whether it's the incorrect
belief that drivers pay for the roads but cyclists don't, or just
impatience at having to wait 10 seconds to overtake, the manifestation
is driving that endangers my life. Every day.
Your article stirs up those feelings of hatred and just simply help make things worse.
If
you feed these negative perceptions and these flawed beliefs about
cyclists as a group, you're helping people justify the hatred in their
own mind and fueling bad behaviour on the roads. It's not helpful when
we should be protecting vulnerable road users.
The second point is to address the inaccuracies within your article.
Maybe you've written it with an element of sarcasm, I don't know. But it doesn't come across that way.
You
claim that cyclists 'hold up traffic'. No, they are traffic. And you
know what? You'll spend far longer queuing behind cars than you will
behind cyclists. There's simply no question that the more people who
cycle, the less congested the roads are and the quicker your journey
will be. Surely I don't need to get into the detail of that - you're an
intelligent woman, I suspect.
Perhaps
you're frustrated at waiting 10 seconds to overtake a cyclist? In which
case, I'd take a look at yourself rather than the cyclist.
You
claim that cyclists cause accidents. Do they? No statistic I have ever
seen suggests that this is a big problem. Now motorists causing
accidents - that is a massive issue. I'm not really sure how you can
criticise cyclists for causing accidents, as a motorist, whilst keeping a
straight face. A little hypocritical, no?
You
claim that cyclists are rude by cycling two abreast. This is difficult,
because most people who don't cycle don't realise that actually, by
grouping together, cyclists make it easier for you to overtake. A long
line of single file cyclists is more difficult to overtake, if you are
doing it properly.
Indeed, sometimes, riding two abreast actually forces motorists to overtake properly by using the other side of the road.
Yeh
sure, some cyclists are rude. So are some drivers. A lot of drivers. I
don't see people generalising motorists by using drunk driving as a
stick to beat all motorists with, so why should you be allowed to attack
all cyclists because some are rude?
If
you want to apply collective responsibility, then let's talk about the
number of speeding motorists, the number of people killed by motorists,
the mobile phone using motorists. Are you really in any position to take
some sort of moral highground?
It's rank hypocrisy.
Road users are people. Some people are rude. Some people break the law. That's not exclusive to cyclists!
Then
finally, you ask cyclists to 'get off our roads'. Yvette, they're not
your roads. A cyclist has as much right to the road as you do. That
attitude is appalling and I hope for your sake that you are joking,
because if you are not, then it is only a matter of time before you hurt
someone.
You have received a lot of criticisim because you deserve to.
You
can flap your arms and blame the 'cycling mafia' for attacking you, if
you like. Ignorance is bliss, after all. But perhaps one day next week,
step back and have a good think about whether what you have written is
remotely respectable journalism.
Because from where I am sitting, you have chosen to take something that irritates you and written an article attacking it.
Only,
in doing so, you've neglected to consider the effect it has on people
like me who have our lives endanged every single day, simply for
choosing to cycle to work instead of driving.
Please, have some humility and accept that maybe you made a mistake here.
Or, of course, you can continue to blame everyone else and just use cyclists as a form of clickbait.
Regards
