I also don't see a problem with requiring insurance - after all you can hit someone and cause life changing injuries, so should carry insurance to cover this.
Interesting. Initially I see no problem. Many of us carry it already, I think the populist assumption is that we don't. What about children on bikes? Can they take out insurance cover? But, wait in that case shouldn't all pedestrians be 'required' to carry insurance? It only takes one pedestrian to walk in front of another road-user to cause possible life-changing injuries?
Anecdote: A runner ran slap bang into my car during my driving lessons. Dented the car. He ran off. I could have swerved and hit an oncoming car if there had been one there.
I also don't see a problem with requiring insurance - after all you can hit someone and cause life changing injuries, so should carry insurance to cover this.
I would make a number of arguments against specific cycling insurance (outside of competitive or occupational cycling) but I would consider proposing that everyone has compulsory third party insurance along the lines of that which normally appears in home insurance.
This would insure people for risks not just when cycling but when walking, running, skateboarding, or doing anything that isn't explicitly excluded, such as operating a motor vehicle or other licensed machinery.
Most people already have this insurance. It's not a big deal.
The fact that the conversation is only ever about cycling insurance is telling. It's not about tackling risk, it's about tackling cycling.
There's been some refreshingly intelligent debate on this thread.
I've lost count of the number of times I've read a half-baked piece by a journalist I've never heard of making the usual comments in the press. On one occasion I emailed the journalist in question to offer her the lend of a bike and to accompany me on my cycle commute for balance. To her credit, she replied to tell me that she'd already taken up another offer, but I never saw a follow up article.
Someone made a great point - "stop calling them cyclists, refer to them as people on bikes".
I wouldn't be surprised if as Bez has suggested, there is growing pressure from the car industry to propagandize the media and distort the picture by taking isolated incidents and conflating them with the behaviour of a perceived "tribe".
The fact that the conversation is only ever about cycling insurance is telling. It's not about tackling risk, it's about tackling cycling.
Boom.
Agree. If cyclists need insurance then so does everybody else doing whatever they are doing. Accidents can happens whilst doing most things. However do we really want to go in that direction?
Someone made a great point - "stop calling them cyclists, refer to them as people on bikes".
It's a step in the right direction but still not enough, because what you really need to focus on to achieve worthwhile change is the people in cars.
So: don't talk about cyclists, don't even talk about people on bikes, talk about cycling. Or, in certain contexts better still, walking and cycling.
Very much agree with 13thfloormonk, that we are often a own worst enemy.
What i have always tried to point out to people when i see these arguments is that 82% of cyclists are also car owners, those that are considerate cyclists and well mannered tend then to be the same when they get in a car, having ridden over 10,000 miles of cycle commuting in the last few years, i have developed a better driving style, especially around junctions, traffic islands etc.
On the flipside, i've ridden a number of sportives where i've watched some berk purposefully riding down the centre of the road, seemingly taking joy in blocking cars coming past, then only to get back to the finish, stick his bike on top of the car and scream down the road and full pelt giving fellow cyclists a few inches of space as he goes by.
I've always argued an idiot is an idiot whether they are in a car or on a bike.
However do we really want to go in that direction?
Maybe, maybe not. But the conversation should at least go in that direction. People's awareness of this sort of insurance is generally very poor, let alone their understanding of risk holistically.
Very much agree with 13thfloormonk, that we are often a own worst enemy.
*sigh*
Really? This again?
If you want to persist with this, you'll need to define "we", and tell me how I am part of it and what role I play in it.
I've always argued an idiot is an idiot whether they are in a car or on a bike.
Which is antithetical to your previous point. It's not that "we" are our own worst enemy, it's that:
- some people are dicks
- types of dick behaviour are a product of circumstance,
- some people are very selective about what dick behaviour they object to,
- normally the above choose "dick behaviour that is a product of circumstances which I don't ever personally find myself in", and
- normally the above project the same perception of dick behaviour onto. everyone in that same set of alien circumstances
The insurance point is a non-argument. Home insurance covers most bases, but you try explaining that to someone who has already made up their mind.
Again, it's conflation and tribal behaviour.
Very much agree with 13thfloormonk, that we are often a own worst enemy
no no no, I didn't say that! 8)
Perhaps what I meant was 'we could do more to help ourselves'.
I've got mates who insist on cycling two abreast on singletrack roads where a car could safely pass us if we were going single file (allowing for the lower speeds on narrow country roads etc.) and don't seem to understand why this might be construed as being deliberately dickish.
I understand why, in different circumstances, cycling two abreast is sensible, but just doing it on principle doesn't help.
Similarly the club rides I sometimes see in and around Stirling, the logic of two abreast making it easier for cars to overtake can collapse when you're in a massive group riding 3 or 4 abreast with people strung out behind and in front. I've seen clubs try to control group sizes and choice of routes to avoid this scenario, but maybe this idea needs promoted a bit more, in recognition of the current climate on the roads.
That's great, but i live in a rural village, no pavements to ride on, so for my 8 year old daughter to cycle with me to the in-laws in the next village, she should have to pass a test and a licence?
I'd rather that she wasn't on the road if not competant enough to be on it. Sort of makes sense really.
Home insurance covers most bases, but you try explaining that to someone who has already made up their mind.
Oh, of course. It doesn't take more than a cursory view of the political landscape to know that any contemporary skilled influencer knows the benefit of Brandolini's Law.
- We jump red lights
- We don't pay road tax.
- We cycle in big groups and they can't get past.
- We ride on pavements/ don't ride on cycle lanes.
Looking at those in order:
- it's good point and I'd like to see cyclists start to make it socially unacceptable for other cyclist to JRL, in the way smoking or drink driving is no frowned upon. We as a community need to to do more to tackle red light jumping.
- We don't pay road tax, is clearly nonsense and should just be ignore as it's trotted out by idiots.
- big groups there is something in this for the most populated parts of the country, but really it's not a huge issue. Maybe cyclists in Surry, Bucks etc. need to think about how big is too big a group?
- We ride on pavements/ don't ride on cycle lanes. These are two separate issues. Unfortunately cycle path provision is a bit sh*t in the UK, and needs more money and better education for road planners. I'd love a Scandi city cycling utopia, but it will take much work to get there. However, I have little sympathy for the cyclist I see regularly causing rush hour tail backs, due to cycling on a dual carriageway when there is a perfectly decent cycle path running alongside it. Treat others how you'd like to be treated yourself, if you want to be a selfish knob, then don't moan when others are likewise.
*sigh*Really? This again?
If you want to persist with this, you'll need to define "we", and tell me how I am part of it and what role I play in it.
In many ways, half of the cycling websites revel in posting these "them vs us" videos and articles, and there is a real militant section of cyclists that i come up against all the time, i hear "well we are allowed to ride two abreast" "i don't have to ride on the cycle path" etc, etc. This is fine, but there are roads where you shouldn't be riding two abreast, and there are routes where occasionally the cycle path might actually be the safest place to be, but they regurgitate this in the same way drivers go on about tax and red lights because the cycling media and other cyclists state this. You can tell those that have been in a club and learnt correct road use over those that learnt road craft simply by reading forums and websites.
What we need is try and get cyclists to be viewed as people just going about their business using a different mode of transport, not as a group to be put on a pedestal, neither side helps this at present often.
1 in 6 cars in London has no insurance, how are the Police going to police cyclists and if they have passed their cycling proficiency?
the problem is that the punishment for driving without insurance is not harsh enough - should be a massive fine or imprisonment if a fine can't be paid - you can cause a life changing injury to someone else if you have an accident and it is massively irresponsible to force that risk on other people.
I'm fine with plain clothes police cylists (and cars) randomly pulling people over to on the spot checks, fining red-light jumpers, pavement riders, etc.
I'd rather that she wasn't on the road if not competant enough to be on it.
What this statement means is: "I'd rather that she wasn't on the road if not competent enough to keep herself out of the way of anyone* driving in a manner which doesn't account for the nature of an 8 year old."
Most 8 year olds are perfectly competent at riding bicycles without causing harm to others or even to themselves. Sadly, too few adult drivers can say the same.
* "me"
I've been running my own entirely ineffective campaign to re-label myself as a human rather than a cyclist
[url= http://phased.co.uk/being-human/ ]Being Human[/url]
I know it plays to the "making us more visible" card but it genuinely has made a difference on my commute home. I don't have a big enough brain to play this out into a wider campaign but I feel the "cyclist" stigma has stuck and it needs changing to something else.
w.r.t. the cyclist thing I wholly agree.
How often did we see headlines e.g.
1/ " cyclist mows down OAP in broad daylight"
2/ "car in collision with several pedestrians on pavement"
the problem is that the punishment for driving without insurance is not harsh enough - should be a massive fine or imprisonment if a fine can't be paid - you can cause a life changing injury to someone else if you have an accident and it is massively irresponsible to force that risk on other people.
Agreed. If the financial penalty for being caught driving without insurance is less costly than the cost of the policy in the first place then it makes a mockery of the law. Which neatly brings me to the next point:
I'm fine with plain clothes police cylists (and cars) randomly pulling people over to on the spot checks, fining red-light jumpers, pavement riders, etc.
Unfortunately, the police are being hit hard with shrinking budgets and are having to prioritise. It's a very costly exercise for police to randomly pull over cars to inspect documents and it won't play well with many. Whilst number plate recognition technology could be used to identify cars on the road without insurance cover, it's another matter entirely to identify drivers. In addition, pulling over an uninsured vehicle requires resources.
We need a commitment from central government to tackle this, but the party in power seems to be being careful to avoid offending motorists per se and in the era of austerity and funding cuts, it's going to be difficult to free up resources.
But we need to tackle this problem, we as citizens should be pressing our elected representatives to do more.
I'd rather that she wasn't on the road if not competant enough to be on it.
As she is 8 i always ride behind and offset to her and she is lit up like a Christmas tree, but living in a rural area, no buses, no pavements etc, as child if you don't ride a bike then you are stuck in your village until you can drive a car?
TurnerGuy - Member
I don't see a problem with the often-called-for demand by these articles/readers that cyclists that use the road should pass a proficiency test.I also don't see a problem with requiring insurance - after all you can hit someone and cause life changing injuries, so should carry insurance to cover this.
And it would particularly be less of a problem if this was accompanied by a change to some sort of strict liability scheme such as in Holland.
I don't see a problem with the often-called-for demand by these articles/readers that pedestrians that use the road should pass a proficiency test.
I also don't see a problem with requiring insurance - after all you can step out in front of someone and cause life changing injuries, so should carry insurance to cover this.
And it would particularly be less of a problem if this was accompanied by a change to some sort of strict liability scheme such as in Holland.
1/ " cyclist mows down OAP in broad daylight"
2/ "car in collision with several pedestrians on pavement"
^ Very much always this.
imagine if the popular press similarly reported road/traffic incidents yet targeted ethnic and/or religious minorities rather than 'cyclists'
"Jew in Nissan mows down OAP in broad daylight"
2/ "car in collision with several pedestrians on pavement"
Try it out with 'homosexual/white/black/Muslim/Christian' etc etc. Sounds terrible doesn't it? (If it doesn't, then you have some issues)
For some reason 'reporting' (characterising) of cyclists/cycling in such scathing, negative, de-humanising and propaganda-rich fashion is wholly acceptable/normalised.
Unfortunately, those readers that 'have some issues' are the very customers these [s]journalists[/s] clickbaiters rely upon.
TurnerGuy - Member
That's great, but i live in a rural village, no pavements to ride on, so for my 8 year old daughter to cycle with me to the in-laws in the next village, she should have to pass a test and a licence?
I'd rather that she wasn't on the road if not competant enough to be on it. Sort of makes sense really.
Just as a general guide, do what I did just above replacing cycling with walking and see if it sounds ridiculous.
The mobile speed camera cyclist thing is really only a viable idea if the equipment is operating directly for the Police and the volunteer is simply a carrier. If the volunteer is collecting data on their own behalf for later presentation to the Police, that’s vigilante behaviour and is likely to result in the rider being targeted by drivers and possibly other riders targeted accidentally. It’s a bad idea.
I have a number of issues with mandatory high vis, but fully expect that if it happens it will incorporate an area for a registration number and then all the parts will be in place for mandatory registration and insurance scheme for cyclists. I do also agree it’s a bit silly the sheer volume of dark/black cycling gear produced though. Also, from Bez’s previous point, they’re an obvious fix for autonomous vehicles to identify and react to cyclists so may very well be rammed through for this purpose alone.
Sort of agree with riding considerately ie not causing rush hour tailbacks and it’s fed into my current tendency to drive to work (also 12hr day when at work is a factor) - I haven’t yet found a sensible route around a couple of miles of fast road that I’d rather not make myself a target on. I’ll be looking more closely at that this year as I miss commuting by bike and there are decent shower facilities at work. Tempering this though is the idea that there’s no real reason why cyclists should feel threatened off the road. Self preservation has to be applied I think as appropriate. I can see driver annoyance at meeting a club peloton, but as I’m not a roadie and have basically zero clue about this I try to avoid the point.
Us vs them videos. I absolutely despise the posting of inflammatory bad driver/bad cyclist videos. It solves nothing and fans the flames.
[i]Sort of agree with riding considerately ie not causing rush hour tailbacks[/i]
You are having a ****ing laugh.
No, hang on, I'll add to that. Save you going "Oh you [i]don't[/i] ride responsibly and want to "cause tailbacks"...
[b]All [/b]the tailbacks I see are caused by cars. (That'll do.)
If the volunteer is collecting data on their own behalf for later presentation to the Police, that’s vigilante behaviour
It's really not.
Sort of agree with riding considerately ie not causing rush hour tailbacks
You are having a **** laugh.
Indeed: "How about driving considerately, ie not causing rush hour tailbacks?" I mean, I sit in up to 7 miles of traffic jam every morning that moves at an average of a bit over 10 miles an hour, and there's not one single bicycle anywhere in it.
I'm increasingly frustrated by the headline writers and journalists too.
Last week in BBC Scotland evening news has the ridiculous introduction of 'A cyclist and car had a collision at.....the cyclist died at the scene, leaving damage to the vehicle.'
Gah!
If there is any hidden swell of public opinion, I suspect mothers and children may well be its greatest untapped source.
I'm pretty convinced that 'public opinion' is that it is 'normal' to drive everywhere. This includes the school drop? Are there any surveys on parents/childrens attitudes towards walking and cycling to school?
I'm pretty sure 'public opinion' is that it is 'normal' to drive everywhere. This includes the school drop?
I did use the words "hidden" and "pockets" for a reason 😉
Yes, most people think it's normal to drive everywhere. But the whole task is to influence public opinion, just as motordom saw that as its task a century ago. That means starting from the status quo and gradually introducing momentum; it means finding a connection with people, something that strikes a chord, and leveraging it; it means finding those with whom such a connection can be made. It is, in the first stages, about identifying those hidden pockets.
I'm as passionate about cycling as the next man but you lot are such a bunch of Bikemoaners.
The spokesman of the well informed, hard working british taxpayer, Nigel CarRage has put forward a compelling case regarding cyclists.
Over 90% of the prison population openly admit to having ridden a bicycle when they were younger.
The notion that cycling is free and fun can be laid to rest by looking at the oppressive legislature of the BCF. They dictate what you can wear , what you eat and even what medicine you can take for your asthma.
The only fair and sensible option is an outright ban on cycling.
You can moan all you like about Bikexit or you can get on with it.
I have prepared for Bikexit so that me and my friends can benefit from the golden future of cycling in Britain.
Of course I could tell you what it is but obviously it's a secret and I'm not telling any of you Bikemoaners.
Team Bike Less.
Edit...sorry I forgot the 😀 😀 😀
What do you want me to do, get into private meetings and make video recordings? If you're expecting a detailed record of who said what, and for that to regularly include phrases like "this is all part of a campaign against cycling and walking just like 100 years ago because we want to sell autonomous vehicles more easily" then you'll have to wait.The point is to start looking more critically at what is out there. Lots of people will look at the survey in the Mail and take it at face value. That's the intended result. Few of those people will realise that Fair Fuel UK is a tool of the haulage industry even though their source of funding is stated on their web page. Fewer still will realise the scale and ubiquity of economic change that will result from autonomous vehicles. Fewer still will ask themselves whether it really is more likely to be casual curiosity or sheer randomness that triggers press releases from an organisation funded by an economically ration industry that stands to derive *enormous* benefit to its bottom line from a total overhaul of the politics and economics of road usage.
Howard Cox has a job, a job paid for by hauliers, and—just as you are not paid to turn up to work and do whatever you fancy—that job is not to wake up each morning and pull random surveys out of his arse about any old thing and send them off to the papers with a message saying "I really don't know what to make of this, can you help?"
You can join the dots how you choose. You can choose to join them in terms of benign randomness that just happens to convey a consistent message, or you can join them by considering that people act in rational manners to achieve defined goals.
You can do both, treating each as possible—by all means do that, it's absolutely the right thing to do—but you have to accept that one is more likely than the other, particularly when you start looking at all of the joins as a whole.
But don't dismiss the explanation of rational decisions, or externally influenced behaviour, as implausible (or label them a "conspiracy") simply because there is no cast-iron record of collusion. That's not how things work: it's not some sort of military command structure, it's the combination of economics and influence. It moves more slowly, less explicitly and less overtly.
You're overthinking this a bit Bez.
No, there is not an explicit conspiracy against cyclists involving the media. There's barely even an implicit one - beyond editors knowing that cycling is a hot topic. As BWD says, it's just lazy, formulaic journalism. I've worked in enough under-resourced newsrooms to vouch for this.
Yes, people employed to advance the interests of motor manufacturers or haulage firms may agitate against cyclists. Friction is to be expected as cycling gains more political currency. I'm not sure it helps to get all Woodward and Bernstein about it.
Please take this as constructive criticism, and also consider whether your dense (and sometimes patronising) screeds are the best way to communicate your ideas. A little editing might be beneficial for everyone.
Points taken. (Regular caveat: the well-known quote about not having enough time to make it shorter.)
One question, though:
The other things that we see in the papers which are “hot topics”—stuff like the Mail’s articles about migrants, or the Express’s articles about the EU, or whatever else—are they also just lazy journalism?
Because it seems that papers have an agenda on pretty much everything (and of course several of them were founded for just such a purpose, or at least by people who used them to espouse their own political views). So why is it that cycling articles, which I’m sure we can agree are overwhelmingly negative, are always defended as being merely a product of laziness, when I sincerely doubt that anyone would see most other content the same way?
I mean, I’m willing to be proven wrong. Let’s get an industry-funded cycling organisation to run a bent survey as payload for an agenda-driven PR and send it to the papers, and let’s see what the papers do with it. It’s a hot topic and they’re lazy so they’ll run it at face value… How confident are you feeling? 😉
I agree with this statement about the articles, however i do think there's a motive behind why these articles are constantly trotted out by the mainstream media. 'Themes' in the media are constructed to either act as a catalyst for change or to act as a distraction.it's just lazy, formulaic journalism.
Nigel CarRage has put forward a compelling case regarding cyclists.
I almost admired his [s]ingenuity[/s] chutzpah that time he was snarled up in traffic on the Motorway. Couldn't blame cyclists that time. Increased car-sales/usage neither. Blamed 'immigrants' instead. Job done. You can blame a lot on cyclists, and some of it sticks, but you can blame everything on immigrants and all of it sticks. Funnily enough the most 'anti-cyclist' petrolhead I know once described Farage as 'the only honest politician of the lot.' Said petrolhead is coincidentally and notoriously himself dishonest. My head hurts. It's a funny old world in Britain today.
I think a lot of the positive stories that the OP originally suggested are already out there.
For people who bang on about the supposed "danger" of cyclists on pavements, the CTC published stuff years ago (subsequently updated) showing that "In total, motor vehicles (i.e. car, motorbike, bus, van, HGV etc.) were involved in 99.4% of collisions in which a pedestrian died, and 98.5% of collisions in which a pedestrian was seriously injured"
https://www.cyclinguk.org/campaigning/views-and-briefings/pedestrians
I'm sure a lot of people will have seen the graphs showing how many head injuries have nothing to do with cycling, and read the reports detailing the health and social benefits that cycling brings to society.
I'd agree with previous posters that these stories have a low profile, because they are minority interest. Most people are simply not interested in hearing anything positive about cycling, and if you have a newspaper or radio programme to promote, "the menace of cycling" is an easy button to push in order to get people venting their spleen.
So, in a purely hypothetical sense, would a charm offensive on the ground help to counteract some of the bile that the newspapers are encouraging?
I would argue that just riding your bike is a charm offensive. You are making space for other road users, you're safer for pedestrians and other road users than a driver, you're not pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, etc.
I'm not sure that media campaigns will change viewpoints. People will just see that as the nanny state wasting their tax money, or dismiss it as the work of "campaigners". On a couple of occasions, I have challenged work colleagues (perfectly nice people) who trotted out the usual "bloody cyclists" comments. When I suggested what they were saying didn't actually stack up, they did actually do a bit of double take and back tracked on their original comments. I got the strong impression they had never actually thought through what they were saying, and were just repeating the same tired old comments that so many people come out with. Unfortunately, talking to people one at a time doesn't really scale up as a good solution to this problem!
However I keep returning to the theme. I've been pleasantly surprised by how gracious motorists can be when I briefly lay off the pedals and pull over (when I can) to let them past, e.g. a convenient layby, empty junction etc. In the context of my commute the 5 extra seconds this takes me means sweet F.A. and in the context of a 100km weekend jaunt it is usually a nice excuse for a breather.
Probably limited to those of us who don't have to ride through miles of tailbacks during rush hour 😉
I mean, yes I do that and agree with you but...^^^
Some interesting stuff here. There are clearly a few folk on this thread who are singing exactly the same tune as a lot of battle hardened cycle campaigners, but don't know it.
When I wrote the article I wasn't really focused on the deeper motivations for the constant stream of anti-cycling articles. It was more a plea for cyclists to get organised and get off the back foot. It's an interesting subject though.
Regarding Bez's conspiracy theory, if you imagine it as a shadowy cabal who meet in smoky rooms to discuss how to crush cycling, it's a bit far-fetched. However if you see it in terms of common interests, there is definitely something co-ordinated at work. I remember Sustrans's policy director saying at a talk that cycling is seen as fundamentally anti-growth and economically backward. Which in some respects it is - it's harder to make money from people who cycle, and there's not much cash knocking about in the industry overall. If you take a classical definition of GDP, where more car crashes, higher insurance premiums and long-term chronic illnesses can all make your country appear to be financially better off, cycling is completely undesirable.
Add to that the fact that your average local news outlet will have scores of advertisers, ranging from car dealers to supermarkets, for whom anti-motoring content would be a major turn-off. The way that these pieces always get a reaction, while not pissing off the folk who pay the bills, means they will continue until things change radically.
I don't see a problem with the often-called-for demand by these articles/readers that cyclists that use the road should pass a proficiency test
Just like the majority of adult cyclists I already have. It was called the driving test. Are you really suggesting that it's fine for me to drive at high speed in a coup!e of tonnes of metal, but i need a different test before i can be trusted with a few kilos of unpowered bike?
The other things that we see in the papers which are “hot topics”—stuff like the Mail’s articles about migrants, or the Express’s articles about the EU, or whatever else—are they also just lazy journalism?
Lazy as in analytics driven to increase traffic instead of old skool researched journalism, as opposed to "can't be arsed to write" lazy.
Every media outlet has access to things like TGI where they can plug in things like ages/demographic (which they know from site analytics) and then get back attitudinal responses for a big sample set. Write content that aligns with those responses, amplify on social, bingo you have big traffic and big ad revenues.
So I'd say it's not a conspiracy against cyclists or immigrants or Muslims or whatever, more a policy of (quite cynically) creating content to drive revenue. After all they're businesses so have to deliver profits or die out. If they know cyclists are a hot topic that makes money, of course they'll do it!
"Conspiracy" is the wrong word, certainly if we're talking about one newspaper at a time. There's no "Daily Express conspiracy" against the EU, it's just an editorial bias. When they plaster "Get Britain Out Of Europe" over the front page, that's not a conspiracy. It's a policy of the paper's editors and/or owners.
Likewise, when the Mail slaps "Cycle Lane Lunacy: The New Blight Paralysing Britain" on its front page, that's not a conspiracy, it's an editorial decision.
The first question that needs to be considered is one of why these papers keep making these decisions; the three most plausible explanations being maintaining/increasing readership, political motives, or longer-term economic motives (including those relating to ad sales). The second and third can sometimes be intertwined.
That can be considered in isolation of any "conspiracy theory" (which is a phrase that makes people think the whole thing is a completely implausible micro-managed operation). If multiple papers choose the same editorial bias for the same reason, that is not a conspiracy, it is simply multiple people making the same rational decision.
Once we've pondered those rational decisions, yes, in order to understand why those decisions were made it's then worth considering the financial interests and business contacts of the people who make those decisions. Which politicians do they frequently speak to; what companies are they shareholders or directors of? Because everyone makes rational decisions based on their own circumstances and the way in which they are influenced by everything and everyone around them.
But the point here is that "pressing people's buttons" is not the only rational decision which multiple papers can make: the absence of conspiracy does not imply the absence of a common motive, nor does a common rational decision imply conspiracy.
So I'd say it's not a conspiracy against cyclists or immigrants or Muslims or whatever, more a policy of (quite cynically) creating content to drive revenue. After all they're businesses so have to deliver profits or die out. If they know cyclists are a hot topic that makes money, of course they'll do it!
Partly that and partly that people now are incapable of reading in-depth articles with statistics and facts and being swayed by that. Look at the slow but inevitable slide towards clickbait headlines, shouty opinion pieces and sweeping generalisations.
If it can't be said in 140 characters, if it doesn't involve a celebrity or two (you won't BELIEVE what this celeb looks like now!!) and a 12 second snippet of video most people just won't be interested, they certainly won't read it, think about it critically, engage with it and then say "well I concur, the economic argument for more cycling is certainly fascinating, I'll make every effort to ride to work now".
The media also have a habit of conflating cycling as a sport with cycling as a mode of transport and then bringing in some moron bike racer to espouse his ill-thought views on helmets which can immediately be picked up on by the Daily Wail: Lord Sir Bradley thinks all cyclists should wear helmets!!OMG!!
bringing in some moron bike racer
Chris Boardman you mean?
Further I'm sure this entire thread only caters for those "special" London people no?
I assumed it was a specific dig at Wiggins…
http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/the-rise-of-the-idiots/
If it was all about getting the biggest reaction, a piece titled "Drive a car to work? Then you're a massive, drooling idiot" would certainly get more rage-clicks than something aimed at an activity which two thirds of the UK's adult population never, ever do.
