Peter Hitchens writes on the Mail on Sunday site on one reason he hates cars

On Sunday morning a woman rushed out of a side road in a quiet Oxford suburb, violently knocked me off my bicycle and mangled the machine I was riding.

Quite understandable, some of you may think. It’s the only sort of treatment I would understand. But in fact the person involved had nothing against me, didn’t know me, and was quick to apologise for the hurt (even quicker and more comprehensive, once she had been given quite a large piece of my mind). She also paid for the damage to be repaired.

But, as some of you will have guessed, there was another element in all this – an element which makes an apparently shocking and inexplicable event make perfect sense.

My assailant was driving a car.

I think our roads are statistically safer largely because soft targets, particularly child cyclists, have almost entirely retreated from them. But the roads are not really safer. It’s just that people have learned to avoid them unless they themselves go out in armour, and have narrowed their lives as a result.

This is an awful situation. I agree with a Mail columnist.

yeah for most of that article I found myself agreeing.

Although he was overstating the case as an “assualt” in typical dail mail fashion.

I never seem to be able to bring myself to read a Mail Online article as i have a habit of going directly to the comments, reading a few and then leaving the site.

this one
“No one has mentioned how overcrowded this country is. The roads are unbelievably busy. Surely anyone can see immigration must cease immediatly.”

I agree with a Mail columnist.

That shook me up too. And I agreed with Michael Gove last week 😯

I never seem to be able to bring myself to read a Mail Online article as i have a habit of going directly to the comments, reading a few and then leaving the site.

Never read the bottom half of the internet!

one muppet going on about how motorists pay for the roads and therefore everyone else can just sod off.

gaarrgh.

terrahawk – Member
I never seem to be able to bring myself to read a Mail Online article as i have a habit of going directly to the comments, reading a few and then leaving the site.

Trouble is, it’s that sort of attitude that typifies the Daily Mail readers’ attitudes. You click on a link thinking “I’m going to be outraged by this, particularly the comments section. Where are the comments..”

scroll…

“Ah yes, there we are, outrageous. I’m leaving”

Should we stop actively looking for reasons to be outraged and disgusted? It’s almost become a national pastime.

oh bugger off.

Should we stop actively looking for reasons to be outraged and disgusted? It’s almost become a national pastime.

I’m outraged by your assumption that I’m deliberately looking to be outraged.

Oh… 😉

th, that wasn’t an attack, I do the same thing myself now and again.

The reason I commented was more a reflection on me than anything else. Clicking on cycling/driving stories knowing I’ll find crazy, ill-informed, polarised opinions, especially in the comments. Thinking “What am I doing here? I’m not going to learn anything!”

What’s that mental daily mail program on TV where people who don’t go out complain about stuff?

They have a big TV wall with the most complained about headlines.

“Cyclists” was on there. Not “crap cyclists” or “dangerous cyclists”, but “cyclists”.

I’m tentatively outraged by my possible failure of sense of humour too.

that TV programme was outrageous.

especially as it had that tall chap in it….what’s his name…oh yes.
Fiona Bruce.