recently by a car (he was on a bike). His pelvis is shattered and he’s been in a coma for some time.

He’s just had his first kid.

If you commuted into London today by car (or any major city with a train station) – I want you to do him the favour of justifying it in this post.

Could you not find a place with a ******* train station?

Sorry to hear about your mate, hope makes a full recovery.

I travelled to work via bus today, as im currently rebuilding my wheel for my bike.

I don’t have to justify my means of transport to anyone, though I understand your frustration and best wishes to your friend. However, there is no need to be a dick, accidents happen. He could have been hit by a bus, lorry, pedestrian, crashed from a pot hole.

We all take a calculated risk when travelling to work regardless of choice of transport.

While not wanting to cause offence and clearly it’s a sad time for you, there’s no need to justify it at all and this stands out as a slightly mental request. Just because your friend is injured. For all we know your friend could have jumped a red light and embedded himself in the car entirely at-fault.He could have been injured anywhere, city centre or out in the sticks. Re-direct the anger into something positive.

Good point raised though, far too many people think they’re too good for public transport and have some sort of God-given right to drive a car into crowded cities when there are options available.

(Opens beer. Goes back to watching footie)

Hope your mate makes a good recovery though. Must be a tough time for his family.

Quiet chuckle at Elfin stirring…

And, more importantly, sorry about your friend. Good luck to him and his family.

Far too many cyclist think they are superior for not using public transport/car.

yah bollocks! The op and elfin are right. In a factory you are not allowed anywhere near the rotating or moving machinery without a guard and safety kit. we need to start applying the same principles on the streets. Cars suck, they are so flipping dangerous surely in these modern times we need to grow up and stop ruining peoples lives just for the sake of the petrol driven ego.

Sorry to hear about your mate. I hope he recovers soon.

Do you know where / how the accident happened? I ask because it helps to draw attention to accident ‘black-spots’ so the council can make it safer for cyclists imperiled by ‘bad roads’.

I cycle into central london daily (for 3 years) and if you pick a good route – use a cycling superhighway for example, and obey the rules of the road .. it shouldnt have to be a risky activity.

Not using the tube keeps me fit and TBH paying London rent, I cannot justify spending an additional £130+ a month on public transport.

I cycle into central london daily (for 7 years) and if you pick a good route and obey the rules of the road .. it shouldnt have to be a risky activity.

Not using the tube keeps me fit and TBH paying London rent, I cannot justify spending an additional £130+ a month on public transport.

im currntly laid up from a 10yr old on a microscooter stepping out on me and busting my heel and ankle on the way home though

Sorry to hear about your friend..

I think the OPs request is perfectly rational.. it’s a valid question.. can you justify commuting by car when there are other more responsible alternatives..?

My family don’t do it.. because of where we live..

If our circumstances were different I imagine that we might.. and I’m pretty sure that our only excuse would be convenience..

I cycle into central london daily (for 3 years) and if you pick a good route – use a cycling superhighway for example, and obey the rules of the road .. it shouldnt have to be a risky activity.

I cycle into central london daily (for 7 years) and if you pick a good route and obey the rules of the road .. it shouldnt have to be a risky activity.

apologies to the OP but…… How effin similar are those two paragraphs? ( yes I am bored)

edit: hope your mate makes a full and speedy recovery.

I’ve just had a phone call from three of my mates who are stopped in my house in the Lakes. They were phoning from Barrow General Hospital. One of them did an involuntary dismount on an innocent enough track near Torver. He has dislocated his shoulder and broken his collar bone and is being kept in overnight. Apparently his helmet took a hefty knock and saved him from adding a head injury to his woes.
They reckon he must have hit a smallish rock that he didn’t see a glancing blow at speed, which converted his considerable foreward momentum instantly groundward.

Rocks!

Whilst it is unfortunate that this chap got injured, but people use a car because it is convenient for them and they have the freedom of choice to do so. Plus motorists pay road tax, so IMO cars have a legitimate reason to be there, and all cyclists should ride with the presumption that all motorists cannot drive.

Seems a little ridiculous to castigate motorists for commuting using their car, they pay a fair sum to do so, and I for one, could I not commute by bike, would much much rather be in my car on my own listening to 5live than on a train with a load of strangers irritating the hell out of me.

Plus motorists pay road tax, so IMO cars have a legitimate reason to be there, and all cyclists should ride with the presumption that all motorists cannot drive.

There is no such thing as road tax. It was abolished in 1937!

his helmet took a hefty knock and saved him from adding a head injury to his woes.

Move along now. nothing to see here. 😉

It’s particularly amusing when the pompous advertise their assumptions.

Cars don’t kill people, drivers do.

(except in the Stephen King book)

Is the missing word “WORKING”?

……a WORKING Train Station….with uncrowded trains that run regularly and on time all day, and through the night aswell, reflecting the open-24/7 modern city life?

yah bollocks! The op and elfin are right. In a factory you are not allowed anywhere near the rotating or moving machinery without a guard and safety kit. we need to start applying the same principles on the streets. Cars suck, they are so flipping dangerous surely in these modern times we need to grow up and stop ruining peoples lives just for the sake of the petrol driven ego.

🙄

Because all people who drive a car do so because it massages their ego and they’re obsessed with it, not because it makes more sense than the waste of time public transport is currently. Give over and get a sense of perspective.

Whilst it is unfortunate that this chap got injured, but people use a car because it is convenient for them and they have the freedom of choice to do so. Plus motorists pay road tax, so IMO cars have a legitimate reason to be there, and all cyclists should ride with the presumption that all motorists cannot drive.

Seems a little ridiculous to castigate motorists for commuting using their car, they pay a fair sum to do so, and I for one, could I not commute by bike, would much much rather be in my car on my own listening to 5live than on a train with a load of strangers irritating the hell out of me.

Loddrik the logic of this fails me, you are essentially saying that its ok to drive because its legal, therefore nothing wrong..
Do you know that slavery, rape, child labour and execution were all once legal, but they were wrong. I hope that when we finally see sense and sort out the national obession with motor cars we will be able to look back on this period and laugh at how terrible it was.

a sense of perspective.

3000 people a year die on the roads, because we all need to get to work on time, in a convenient manner. You need a sense of perspective.

It amazes me that the war on terror carries on to prevent terroism on uk soil when what 100 people have died int he uk in the last 10 years becasue of terrorism. Who gives a shit the real terror is motor transport.

Yes, and lets ban cycling too, it’s ridiculous, and it fosters sanctimony and pomposity.

Yes, and lets ban cycling too, it’s ridiculous, and it fosters sanctimony and pomposity.

It’s good that you recognise that in yourself Loddrik.

I may be many things, but I’m not either of those.

Maybe as the world heads inexorably towards it’s inevitable cycling utopia, those realists and pragmatists amongst us will have to eat our words…

I may be many things

Being really rubbish at being able to put across an intelligent, reasoned and fairly objective point of view is one of them….

Sad about your matey, but how can you take 5 tool boxes , a set of trestles,lengths of timbner, and me on a train.

They all went in my fully paid for van, insured by me,and driven safely, despite quite a few other motorists deliberately trying to cause accidents, to claim insurance payouts.

I’d love to be able to commute by car again, I hate commuting by train/tube into central London.

I’d have a better chance of getting to work on time for a start!

I’d cycle into London If it wasn’t so far and I wasn’t scared of being crushed. If I could take my bike on the train to Waterloo in rush hour I would too. I could cycle to the Wharf then.

Having a go at all car drivers is a bit daft to be honest.

Being really rubbish at being able to put across an intelligent, reasoned and fairly objective point of view is one of them….

But then it’s not a yardstick I measure myself by, so it’ll have to be in Loddrikspeak for the forseeable.

That’s why my posts are considerably shorter than yours, I just don’t care enough…

OP: I’m really sorry about your friend. And your anger is understandable. But maybe a bit misplaced expressing on a cycling forum.

Take it easy for a bit.

I’m young, so I’m not as good an example, but my father has commuted for three hours each day for nearly thirty years on hot, stinking, expensive trains – and could have afforded not to – so the argument, “why should I get the train? They’re rubbish. I like my car” holds no water.

I mean really, why stop there? “I like to use my phone in my car. Why shouldn’t I use my phone in my car? I paid for my phone. I paid for my car, so **** you.” It’s a stupid way of looking at the issue.

This is going even better than the High Rollers thread.

My god that’s it, ban cars and have world peace, get rid of the selfish zealots once and for all.

Maybe we’ll even see a return of ‘free love’..

Why stop at trains, they do kill a number of kids each year and provide a suicide route for dozens each year – make everyone walk. I have concern for others, but I have a limit. I draw my line differently to you, but I don’t demand you change your line.

That’s why my posts are considerably shorter than yours, I just don’t care enough…

Well you keep responding to my posts so you must care a tiny bit at least…

I’m really sorry to hear about your mate, I hope he’s on the mend. It can’t be easy on his young family, and by the looks of it not easy on you.

I don’t have to justify to you or anyone else how I get to work.
I drive a lot for work, and I have a responsibility to be careful and aware, as do all drivers.

I hope to god your mate hadn’t run a red light when he got hit.

This is going even better than the High Rollers thread.

Poke the ‘I love my car’ mob just a teeny bit, and stand back and watch the fireworks… 😉

Awfully defensive for people that ‘don’t have to justify their choices’, aren’t they…?

It would be an interesting experiment to ban personal car use. Then everyone who has to cart around equipment/do site visits could still use them (commercial use being the exempt from the ban) and those who didn’t need a car for work could get there by other means? Would need suitable enforcement activity, but I’d be intrigued as to the results, especially if the HSE could start to view driving as a work activity and subject to the appropriate controls e.g. training, safety controls, failsafes etc..

jhw, whilst Im really sorry to hear about your mate, you REALLY need to STFU.
I’ve been knocked off my bike at 25mph+ by a car in the past, I luckily bounced, bike didn’t but hey ho. I dont go around saying cars are evil and people who drive them are selfish.
At the end of the say accidents are just that ACCIDENTS. Dont start getting all preachy and taking the moral high ground, its just further for you fall.

A car nearly killed me whilst cycling in 2000, should I be calling for the heads of all motorists because of the idiotic actions of one fool..?

Why stop at trains

But trains help everybody. There’s a social benefit to offset the suicides etc. Drivers don’t help anyone but themselves. Who are probably nice enough down the pub…

Seriously I bet you every last person who commutes into London by car on a daily basis has, or will, hit or nearly hit a pedestrian or cyclist. Does your reason for driving justify that?

I know we live in a society and all have to rub along. At a more primal level though it’s fair to say I have views about people commuting in by car unnecessarily