and i thought he was our cycling champion,
the back dealing barperson eh?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/14/boris-johnson-blames-victims-cycling

It’s ok though, he’s a cuddly buffoon isn’t he.

This is the same bloke that in the run up to the election said he would not cut the front line Fire Service in London. He is now cutting the front line Fire Service in London more then anyone else before him.

I still can’t believe our london based chums voted him in, again.

I didnt vote for him!!

fwiw he had all of the london papers and all the nationals (gruaindad even turned on ken!) for him and he still only scraped in by a few percent

moved to London Ton? I don’t think boris cares much for those outside the M25 unless they are near a crossrail station.

We need to step back and see what actually led to these accidents so proper changes can be made to improve safety. What we don’t need are knee jerk reactions from politicians, even if some of the incidents may be found to be due to errors of judgement by cyclists, nor do we need internet warriors insisting that the cyclist is never wrong and it is all “the others” fault.

The truth will lie somewhere between the two extremes. Let’s hope they find it and do somthing about it when we all know what is actually is

I don’t think Boris is anybody’s champion. Except his own, of course. Even Cameron has more sense than to trust him.

i`m pretty sure in teh interview i watched he said we all need to use road responsibly and didnt specifically single out cyclists.

i like the fact there are no actually quotes from boris in teh piece…

just because its in the guardian doesnt mean its not scaremongering bollox or misrepresentation.

I voted for him.
Mostly because the alternative was the utterly hateful Ken Livingstone – who was worse in everyway.

Mostly because the alternative was the utterly hateful Ken Livingstone – who was worse in everyway

how is ken worse? – genuine question

I heard the interview on the radio , he started off saying he wasn’t out to blkame the victims and then went on to do exactly that, talking about cyclists jumping red lights and cutting accross lanes with no regard for their own or other’s safety .The guy for the cyclist’s side of the argument was a wet lettuce .

Despite Boris being a self-serving right wing twonk, what exactly can he do? They had a guy on the radio from some cycling organisation moaning that their demands had been repeatedly ignored. And what were these demands? Banning lorries from Londons streets. He didn’t elaborate on the logistics of achieving that

how is ken worse? – genuine question

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100155430/ken-livingstone-has-told-85-different-lies-during-this-campaign/

http://www.jdl-uk.org/2012/03/ken-livingstone-communist-jew-hating.html

I voted for him and would again. I didnt think Ken was a terrible mayor but he’s got a troubling tenedency for identity politics in a city where people generally rub along pretty well.

If you hate Tories you wont like Boris. Haters gonna hate, lot of that on the left.

LCC has been banging on about dutch style segregated infrastructure for years

http://lcc.org.uk/pages/why-go-dutch

stuff like this bike roundabout being constructed in holland

infact along with kens bike hire scheme he also planned these much more expensive network and a 20mph limit and a 25 quid a day tax for big engined cars and lorries

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/superhighways-in-kens-500m-cycle-revolution-6655432.html

of course Borris got elected claimed the bike scheme as his own scrapped kens plans and painted some really busy dangerous bits of road blue and called them cycle superhighways
but he did do some lovely photo ops with kelly brook on a bike

add to that borris lying to the assembly about the % of cyclists at fault in accidents
scrapping the western extension of the c-charge for his chums in chelsea
covering up smog alerts, closing pollution monitoring stations and so on

he started off saying he wasn’t out to blkame the victims and then went on to do exactly that, talking about cyclists jumping red lights and cutting accross lanes with no regard for their own or other’s safety

He didn’t say that in this case they were at fault, it was a more general comment about cyclists putting themselves at risk which is probably correct. I saw a cyclist run straight through a red light into cross traffic this morning and as he says it is difficult to design a system to cope with that. His big mistake was even to mention it at this point as it becomes to easy to mix up the messages

on my commute today i saw a girl with over the ears headphones, dark glasses, no helmet, riding a boris bike go inside a tipper lorry which was stationary at lights, indicating to turn left. I pulled to the cab side and asked the driver if he was aware there was a cyclist on his left side. He shook his head, got out of the cab and politely told the cyclist she would have died if he was not made aware of her presence. She stuck two fingers at him and jumped the red light.

the behavior of some of my fellow commuters on Kensington High Street is truly baffling.

i like the fact there are no actually quotes from boris in teh piece…

This.

No he doesn’t.

leffeboy – Member
He didn’t say that in this case they were at fault, it was a more general comment about cyclists putting themselves at risk which is probably correct.

+1

Sensational headlines dont help, although in the Guardian’s case at least the sub-title only went as far as to say, “Mayor appears to blame….”

Journalistic standards must be slipping when the same report quotes Boris clearly separating his points from the specific, tragic cases this week. Perhaps the subtitle should have included the word, “not”?

Still newspapers have to sold somehow!

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100155430/ken-livingstone-has-told-85-different-lies-during-this-campaign/

http://www.jdl-uk.org/2012/03/ken-livingstone-communist-jew-hating.html

so you base this on a smear campaign by the daily telegraph and an article by the jewish defence league? ok.

If you hate Tories you wont like Boris. Haters gonna hate, lot of that on the left.

And not on the right AT ALL.

😆

Boris is a ****. The current crop of Tories are especially massive ****.

Ken’s far from perfect but all the focus on his personality proves that his policies are pretty sensible for London, IMO.

(ex-Londoner, glad to be gone)

mashiehood – That’ll be the Beautiful Godzilla

A breed certainly not exclusive to London

The Beautiful Godzilla is a particular kind of urban female cyclist who rides as though the rest of the world were created simply to yield to her. She’s generally young, good-looking and clad in expensive clothes. She also rides an old three-speed or perhaps a 10-speed or Dutch city bike, carries her handbag on the edge of her handlebars and if she has a basket it usually contains a small dog or perhaps a baguette. She’s on her mobile phone at all times and her approach to cycling in a densely populated city is a combination of self-entitlement and Mr Magoo-type dumb luck. Like any self-entitled person, she can’t imagine a car would possibly hit her, even if she’s riding against traffic and it’s coming right at her. Actually, you sort of find yourself disappointed when it doesn’t. And just like Mr Magoo would wander into a construction site and a girder would materialise right as he was about to walk off the scaffolding, the Beautiful Godzilla blithely rides through red lights and busy intersections, emerging on the other side unscathed and just as photogenic as she was when she entered it.

Why other cyclists don’t like them: They should be dead but aren’t.

Compatibility with other cyclists: Will accept deliveries from Messengers; will develop crushes on Messengers.

Boris is a ****. The current crop of Tories are especially massive ****.

Difficult to find an argument against that statement 😉

Journalistic standards must be slipping when the same report quotes Boris clearly separating his points from the specific, tragic cases this week.

Some of his best friends are cyclists, I’m sure.

🙄

Ha we re all Nuisances

edit

Borris is clearly saying he thinks the cyclists were at fault in some of the cases

Today the Mayor said there was “no question of blame or finger-pointing” but warned cyclists and motorists: “Do think of the laws of the road. Because if you take these hasty, rash, precipitous decisions we’re seeing sometimes, then you will be endangering your life.”

On LBC radio, he added: “Some of the cases we’re seeing in the past few days, they make the heart bleed, because you could see people have taken decisions that really did put their lives in danger. When people take decisions which are very risky — jumping red lights, cycling across fast-moving traffic to get to somewhere in a way that is completely unexpected by the motorist, and without looking to see whether traffic is coming — it is very difficult for the transport engineers to second-guess that.”

A Transport for London spokeswoman, asked whether the Mayor was suggesting any of the cyclists who died had jumped red lights, said it was “too early to say”.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/boris-johnson-warns-london-cyclists-against-taking-risky-decisions-after-fifth-rider-death-in-nine-days-8938505.html

he is of course right to warn cyclists not to take risks
Im not sure his comments are helpfull especially to the families of the bereaved until the full details are known

as pointed out on another thread the Met were saying JC-de menezes jumped barriers at the tube station for days after it was known not to be true

I saw a cyclist run straight through a red light into cross traffic this morning and as he says it is difficult to design a system to cope with that. His big mistake was even to mention it at this point as it becomes to easy to mix up the message

Put up more cameras to record the accidents – if the motorist is at fault prosecute them, if the cyclist has done something like the above then court time can be saved as we can just write it off as an example of darwinian evolution…

I can see why he’s doing it, as Darren Johnson says:

“Four out of the five deaths of cyclists in the last nine days have involved either his blue paint or his red buses.”

Also agree with his further comments:

“The mayor’s comments this morning which targeted cyclists breaking the law as the primary cause of death and serious injury is an attempt to blame the victims, rather than tackling the real problem of HGVs, buses and dangerous junctions.
“It is an insult to the dead and injured that the mayor continues to blame victims in this way, rather than accepting his responsibility and getting on with fixing the things he has direct control over.”

But typical of Boris, bluster bluster photo-op bluster.

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/andrewgilligan/100155430/ken-livingstone-has-told-85-different-lies-during-this-campaign/

http://www.jdl-uk.org/2012/03/ken-livingstone-communist-jew-hating.html

so you base this on a smear campaign by the daily telegraph and an article by the jewish defence league? ok.

those were just two links that came up, but there are some other cronyism claims and other dodgy stuff which I could find on a search as there is so much other stuff.

You would be foolish to think that Ken is any better than Boris on an integrity front, imho. He sounds alright on his radio show though.

Van Halen – Member
i like the fact there are no actually quotes from boris in teh piece…

…but there is a link to the original article reporting his comments…with direct quotes…

The mayor’s comments this morning which targeted cyclists breaking the law as the primary cause of death and serious injury is an attempt to blame the victims,

That may be his interpretation, but that really isn’t what Boris said though, is it?

Although he may well have said something about eating pussy while in a crack fuelled drunken stupour…

DJ seems to be making fair bit totally separate points lavished with a false accusation.

So Boris is reported to have said

“You cannot blame the victim in these circumstances. But what you can say is that when people make decisions on the road that are very risky – jumping red lights, moving across fast-moving traffic in a way that is completely unexpected and without looking to see what traffic is doing – it’s very difficult for the traffic engineers to second-guess that.”[/quote]

Exactly, traffic engineers can’t do anything about cyclists doing stupid things. That is not the same thing as blaming the victims here. But I guess it’s is easier for DJ to put words into Boris’ mouth for effect.

That is not the same thing as blaming the victims here

The inference is pretty damn strong. And he’s got form in this area.

thm is that you thats abridged borris’ statement or your source?

As is the opening sentence in the quote, Lifer.

Or perhaps that is the saying the same as, “with respect…..” 😉 You decide. But little more than headline making for headline makings sake IMO.

Edit: Kimbers my source. In this case the Guardian. If incorrect, I stand by my earlier comments re quality of journalistic standards!!!!! 😉

+1 Leffeboy

He only commented on the fact that its a really difficult issue to resolve and that cyclist are not blame less, which is true.

The inference is pretty damn strong. And he’s got form in this area.

Sorry I didnt get that at all, I think thats how you interpreted what he said… IMO wrongly.

The inference is pretty damn strong.

but

“There’s no question of blame or finger pointing. That doesn’t work in these circumstances.

and

You cannot blame the victim in these circumstances.

The inference is pretty damn strong. And he’s got form in this area.

He’s also got form in the area of spending millions researching and trialling safer cycling facilities http://www.trl.co.uk/cyclinginnovationtrials/

And he then goes on to a)point the finger and b)blame the victims.

Some of you Tory boys are either proper suckers or think the rest of us are.

Alternatively, some posters (Tory or otherwise) are happy to read the details themselves rather than relying on BS headlines. Who’s the sucker?