[Closed] Melanie Philips Daily Mail article on cyclists today

Just what I was going to say.

Everyone just pretend she doesn't exist. That'll annoy her the most.

🙂

Now I'm curious. FS, one soul, slightly tarnished.

Rather than paste the link on here why not copy the article to here than their site gets one hit rather than hundreds.

[S]Better yet someone pop into a paper shop, photograph said article, and pop the image up, then they don't get any of the revenue...[/S]

you realize of course by starting this thread you've probably triggered more traffic to the DM website...

you just can't win.

EDIT: sorry, just realized it's click fodder and so probably won't be in their paper based comic...

A brief summary will do. Is it pro or anti cycling? Just another rant about the 'horrors' of seeing fat men in lycra?

A brief summary will do. Is it pro or anti cycling? Just another rant about the 'horrors' of seeing fat men in lycra?

I've not read it, but it's Melanie Phillips, so I'm assuming it's a borderline-insane, fact-light, attack on RLJers and lycralouts, written purely for the purposes of getting Twitter into a froth and so generating lots of ad revenue.

I've not read it, but it's Melanie Phillips, so I'm assuming it's a borderline-insane, fact-light, attack on RLJers and lycralouts, written purely for the purposes of getting Twitter into a froth and so generating lots of ad revenue.

Are you sure you've not read it? That was spot on 😀

Want to know why she's bitter? Go to google images. She's no looker.

lets play "Anti-cycling rant in the tabloid press" bingo!....

1 - they jump red lights
2 - they wear lycra
3 - they hold up traffic
4 - they shout at pedestrians
5 - they ride on the pavement
6 - they drop litter
7 - they ride in the countryside

am I winning?

"Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something hurtling towards me and sprang backwards just in time. A cyclist had jumped the red light and almost knocked me down as he sped across the junction."

Of course, this never happens.

Small number of a large number of cyclists are ****ing bastards shocker.

If anyone really wants to read it, there are screenshots here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/carltonreid/8239879657/

Quick time saver though, it conforms completely to the "I like cyclists but..." template:

http://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/the-terrible-journalists-guide-to-writing-an-article-about-bicycles/

Im sorry.

I had to go & read it.

Its a truly awful, lazy & deliberately inflammatory piece written by a sad old hack of a journo.

Im now going to go & give myself 50 lashes.. 🙁

😆

What a beautiful article!

[i][url= http://aseasyasridingabike.wordpress.com/2012/09/25/the-terrible-journalists-guide-to-writing-an-article-about-bicycles/ ]The terrible journalist’s guide to writing an article about bicycles[/url][/i] manifest. 🙂

Edit: Beaten to it by Mr Agreeable.

Anyone remember this news story from a few weeks back? Van driver in Cardiff deliberately aimed his vehicle at pedestrians, including mothers and children, killing one and seriously injuring ten others.

http://www.southwalesargus.co.uk/news/9999100.Cardiff_van_rampage_man_in_court/?ref=rss

In a day, this one psychopath caused as much injury and misery as all the cyclists in Britain do over the multiple years. However I don't recall any DM hacks leaping to point out the dangers of vans.

Daily Mail in irrational reactionary bullshit shocker!

I've got a van, don't blame me!!

Summary:

she was nearly knocked down by a cyclist jumping a red light.

therefore

[b][u]EVERY[/u][/b] cyclist is a menace, including riding the wrong way up one way streets, etc etc etc

yawn

Flatfish, luckily someone else was there to take the rap. 😉

I love that "journalists guide" article.

Attacking Melaine Phillips for being a narrow minded troll is just what she wants, even disargreeing with her views in a more rational way gives her the publicity she desires.

But highlighting how shoddy she is as a journalist has more clout, particularly at a time when shoody journlaism is getting a bit of a pasting at the hands of Levenson et al.

Does this make the Daily Wail a pro-van paper?

I was nearly knocked down by a woman with a pram once. They really should license pram pushers. They have no insurance and could scratch my car if I hit one.

Don't get me started on blind people with their white sticks.

Daily Mail et al = place where haters hate cyclists

STW = place that hates people who hate cyclists

And it ain't ever going to change, ever. For the evidence see the comments in best rated order.

The problem with these articles is that they reinforce the impression that the problems with cycle safety would disappear, if only cyclists cleaned up their act.

There's been one study to date which seriously attempted to examine the causes of cycle/car collisions and it found that bad behaviour wasn't anything like as much of a factor as expected.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accidents-study

Yes but that is in the Guardian, have a guess how many Dail Wail readers will read that? Even if by chance they did it won't align with their world view and so will be dismissed.

Opps

Epically lazy writing. Must have had a deadline approaching.

There's a difference between an opinion (like a link-bait piece in the DM) and an evidence-based study, like the DFT one referred to in that report.

Most people in a position to make policies give more weight to the latter. Hence why we don't have capital punishment, sealed borders, mandatory helmets or number plates for bikes.

Class prejudice using cycling as an excuse!
She forgets Brad Wiggins grew up in a local authority flat in North London...

m.phillips@**** I think a few rational and well presented emails correcting her "facts" would help...

Cyclo fascist Mamils - I like that, a fair number of them on here, I wonder if I wrote and pointed out they're all football fans as well. 😀

Apparently even the documantary which is due on TV later this week includes commercial footage of messengers manically ripping about presented as 'normal London cycling'
I don't understand why some people have such an anti-cycling agenda. Surely the whole country can't listen to the Jeremies.
Hopefully it is merely another attempt by our [unregulated] media to generate sales.

[i]m.phillips@**** I think a few rational and well presented emails correcting her "facts" would help... [/i]
Nooooooo! You do understand how this sort of thing works don't you?

http://brackenworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/i-was-almost-knocked-down-and-other.html

wrecker - Member
Want to know why she's bitter? Go to google images. She's no looker.

🙄

Class prejudice using cycling as an excuse!
She forgets Brad Wiggins grew up in a local authority flat in North London...

What's class got to do with the price of fish?

I said it in one of the previous one of these threads, cycling is seen as a "Lefty" activity somehow, it's image being tied up with "eco-credentials" and the apparently un-self conscious wearing of "day-glo spandex" meaning that if you want a group to pick on, and your readership are broadly speaking right wing in their views, you can't go far wrong with people on bikes, they neatly embody all sorts of prejudices... Hence these articles make ideal click bait but have no real baring on any real debate.

Of course I still don't believe road cycling safety is or should be a political issue, in so much as it's not really a debatable concept; safer roads with fewer dead or injured cyclists would be a good thing, end of the debate, now how do we achieve such a Nirvana?

I think it's something more primal. Guilt.

Car drivers resent cyclists because they represent all the goodness they could be but choose not to be. We are better than them and they hate themselves for it 🙂

*goes to check "incitement to violence in UK law"......*

For anyone considering looking up the article on the DM website, let the immortal phrase of cyclegaz shake you back to your senses

[b]OOOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIII! WHATAREYOUDOOOOOOOOOOOOOIIIIN?[/b]

"Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something hurtling towards me and sprang backwards just in time. A cyclist had jumped the red light and almost knocked me down as he sped across the junction."

Of course, this never happens.

Be fair, you're on your bike, you see Melanie Philips, just there in front of you, no body guards, walking out into the road, all vulnerable...

Could you honestly resist the urge to try and get her... could you? not sure I could...

She forgot to mention these two tragic incidents - 2 pedestrians killed by car drivers within a week:

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-20572799 ]Dead pedestrian hit by car #1[/url]

[url= http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20552320 ]Dead pedestrian hit by car #2[/url]

do they have editorial meetings about these things?

"Right item 7, who's doing the the clickbait piece this week and which minority will you be bashing?.... Melanie, alright then, only been a couple weeks since the last cyclist one but yeah they're always good for a laugh go for it"

Read (the Flickr scan) up to [i]"Although I don't own a bicycle I enjoy... cycling".[/i] That made me frown so hard I couldn't see past my eyebrows.

I tried. But I couldn't summon any anger towards that [s]article[/s] crap at all.

3/10

I daren't read the comments though.