On the positive side reading this thread is aiding my understanding of what ablism is.
I hate that every time I ride on the road I get at least two close passes or other driving antics which actually scare me. I commuted into Manchester by bike every working day for 30 years so I am used to riding in traffic and not being over sensitive.
I don't know if the people who drive badly are fueled by click bait crap from the Daily Mail, in too much of a hurry to give people room or simply oblivious, but the situation is bad and something needs to be done. Building cycle lanes and painting lines on the road is not a complete answer because there are lots of minor roads in the countryside where they are never going to build a cycle lane. Cycling UK is asking nicely for cycle lanes but doing little else to make things safer. When there are cycle lanes like in the road where I live the lovely residents park on them.
Some of the residents have aske for parking restrictions to deal with this but apparently the car drivers like things the way they are.
I don't think South coast road warriors are the answer but neither do I think that Binners snipping at TJ is either.
Sorry rant over.
I'm with @binners, I don't need a protest group "helping".
1. Riding on roads is already hard enough without being lumped in with a group actively making it hard for others.
2. Where I live in Chorlton, they're currently digging the shit out of the roads to put in what will be some pretty impressive cycling infrastructure. That wasn't a protest group, that was Andy Burnham and Chris Broadman.
stuff being built that had nothing to do with gluing your hands to a panda.
And those saying "look at Suffragettes" well, that was over a hundred years ago. attitudes have changed. Also, their bombing campaign was deliberately aimed at empty buildings that posh upper class men left unattended, cricket pavilions, churches castles, 2nd homes 'in the country' that sort of shit. They generally didn't go after the man on the Clapham omnibus.
I do think extinction rebellion and its like are idiots but the idea that protests are useless does not bear scruitiny
@bruce - I also cycled into Manchester city centre every day for years too and the cycling infrastructure to do so now is a million miles away from what it was ten years ago. You have separated cycle lanes on a lot of the major routes in and no cars, only bus and bike lanes on the likes of Oxford Road and now the Northern Quarter, with plans to further expand these schemes.
Do you think that happened by chance?
It certainly didn't happen because of the Critical Mass bell ends annoying everyone every Friday evening when they just wanted to get home and start their weekends. I used to watch those gang of clowns and note how they weren't the same people I saw while I was commuting by bike every day
Also fairly sure the labour shortages in the first world war was the main driver in women getting the vote rather than the campaign tactics.
Agrew with other comments, we're already a geoup thats easy to other, odd when hou consider the only reason for that is we're different, add in this and we're a group that is seen as being actively antagonistic towards others and it ratchet up the othering from contempt to outright hostility.
Any other options to getting cycling infrastructure built other than becoming a world beating cycling champion?
<p style="text-align: left;">This thread only serves to show how many individuals in here are as close minded and knee jerk reactionary as the bell ends that populate any daily mail anti-cycling comments section.</p>
Thoroughly depressing.
but the idea that protests are useless does not bear scruitiny
Both the anti hunting ban and the Iragi war protests where two of the biggest this country's ever seen. I'm pretty sure hunting with dogs was still banned and we did an illegal war killing thousands in Iraq.
I agree with you that protest has its place, but I don't think they're nearly as effective as the folks that go on them think they are. (I include myself in that BTW)
@jimfrandisco - Is that what you honestly think?
You genuinely believe that looking for a more constructive and collaborative means to achieve positive outcomes for cyclists, rather than shouting at people and being confrontational and annoying, is 'knee jerk reactionary'?
Genuine question, BTW
Could you explain to me why you think thats the case?
The cycle lanes are ok but I am talking about outside the urban area where it's only better driving standards and more responsible behaviour from road users is going to improve things. To be honest some of the cycling infastructure is compromised by the inclusion of parking for cars and narrow pavements ( Rushholme).
You might live in the promised socialist utopia but the rest of us have to put up with idiots in powerful cars and mobile phones.
Any other options to getting cycling infrastructure built other than becoming a world beating cycling champion?
Not my area of direct experience, but I’d be looking at the decision makers and designers. Start at the council level - who writes the scope and design brief for the road infrastructure & look to get a job there. Again look to get your voice with whoever does the design selection and get a seat at that table.
Alternatively, who does the design; a big engineering consultancy such as Jacobs / Atkins etc? Who are brought in as consultants; sustrans etc? All of these would have scope to get involved with and to work with to produce better designs and infrastructure.
Furthermore there are companies who buy large swathes of land for putting in the utility infrastructure and putting down the layout for new towns; I H Brown are a big player in building the new town of Blindwells in East Lothian and I think Edinburghs new garden district from cammo out to the airport. Again companies like that will be all over the UK and will have scope for jobs to be one of the positive decision makers.
KInder scout trespass
Spawned the Ramblers, I think you'd struggle to find a more reactionary "pull up the ladder" small C conservative organisation. I don't think you can call that an overall 'win'
Sufragettes
see above, aimed their protest pretty much entirely at the men who could effect a change, almost never went after the man in the street
Fall of Berlin wall
An East German Guard officer scared that he'd get mugged if he didn't open the gates after a misunderstood radio broadcast had more effect that the years and years and years of placards ever did.
Greenham common
We have just as many weapons of mass destruction now as we did back then. CND has had largely zero effect.
You might live in the promised socialist utopia but the rest of us have to put up with idiots in powerful cars and mobile phones.
I live in Greater Manchester, the same as you. I'm far less despairing than you, obviously, as what I'm seeing is a constant improvement in the cycling infrastructure through the combined authority being pro-active and engaging with cyclists.
Lets look at an example. I live in Bury and when they recently spent a lot of money putting cycle lanes in the town centre, they were so roundly mocked that it made the national press. But the people conducting the mockery were car drivers. If you're a cyclist then it made perfect sense. I was using it on my commute across Bury - where due to the new cycle lanes you can now get across the town centre completely separated from the traffic - and couldn't see what all the fuss was about. Actually... thats not true. The fuss was obviously about cyclists being given a priority. How dare we expect that, eh?
I know a few of the local councillors and they're good people, are cyclists themselves and they want to improve things for the better for cyclists
I doubt that getting confrontational and shouting at them to do it faster and better will help. Much better to be collaborative and try and continue with the steady progress
Not at all. Agree completely about finding a more constructive method.
What's depressing is people making statements along the lines of 'all protesters are middle class trustafarians'.
Is that any better than 'all cyclists jump red lights'?
Alright... its a fair cop guv.... describing them all as middle class trustafarians is obviously a sweeping generalisation.
But we all know the kind of person I'm talking about. The type of person who's perpetually brimming with righteous and furious indignation about something-or-other and they're going to let everyone know about it in the shoutiest, most confrontational manner possible.
My point is that their actions are never actually about achieving anything positive, which tends to be done in a far more quiet, reasonable and boring manner, and more about T-shirt slogans and 'look at me' videos on Twitter
I'd rather not have them claiming to represent me, thanks
There is a big difference between protesting where the inconveniencing of others is a secondary consequence and a protest where inconvenience is the primary goal. A million people gathering in central London as a visually impressive signifier of broad public way of thinking will of course inconvenience people going about their every day life if their every day life is in that part of central London. But a handful of protectors gluing themselves to a road is specifically designed to inconvenience, with the visual images it generates being of the inconvenience. Of course the former relies on a significant number of people feeling the way you do in order to mass in sufficient numbers to be impactful. The latter is the act of the hopeful, the deluded or the lazy, not prepared or able to amass sufficient strength in numbers. Or the work of the permanently angry who's prime MO in life is being angry.
I'm with binners, protesting in a way primarily intended to inconvenience or embarrass other members of the public who otherwise could have had the potential to be won over is divisive and negative in the long term. Either work towards generating mass support for your aim amongst your fellow nobodies until you are an impossible to ignore body or attempt to change the system from the inside.
I do think extinction rebellion and its like are idiots but the idea that protests are useless does not bear scruitiny
Agreed it's effective protest that is needed. You want people to engage and think. It's like trying to convince someone of something and the first thing you do is call them an idiot. They have shut down.
It needs to be thought of like a good art peace that will make you think.
KInder scout trespass
Spawned the Ramblers, I think you’d struggle to find a more reactionary “pull up the ladder” small C conservative organisation. I don’t think you can call that an overall ‘win’
Just because you don't agree with something it doesn't mean it wasn't effective
A good example of a protest aimed at inconveniencing folk which worked is the fuel price escalator and the protests against it. Caused a change in government policy and the fuel price escalator was dropped
The cycle lanes are ok but I am talking about outside the urban area where it’s only better driving standards and more responsible behaviour from road users is going to improve things
I would agree with that but a extinction rebellion type protest doesn't engage people or make them think so is no help in achieving those ends.
"They're green haired vandals, ignore them.. You don't want to be associated with them? They inconvenience you. Carry on driving and flying, don't feel bad, you very worked hard to have this lifestyle."
A good example of a protest aimed at inconveniencing folk which worked is the fuel price escalator and the protests against it. Caused a change in government policy and the fuel price escalator was dropped
The fuel price escalator was dropped by a Tory government who had just replaced a Labour one, as they're generally more predisposed to the interests of angry, red-faced men in 4x4's, on account of them representing their core vote
still a protest that worked.
Protest has its place - without it many of the things we take for granted would not be here
That may well have worked. But I can't imagine a driver being held up by a group from the haulage industry, the red mist descending and then deliberately targetting a lorry as soon as they're on their merry way.
I've been on the receiving end of a (professional) motorist venting their anger at me for being the unfortunate rider at the start of a line of commuters; it didn't end well for me. It's fear, of course, but it's those of us actually riding bikes that bear the brunt of this, I guarantee.
Oh here we go again. The usual answer of our resident revolutionaries 🙄
Those of us who object to the shouty people do so because we'e unthinking lacky's, capitalist stooges, slaves to the military-industrial complex who need our opinions spoon fed to us by the tabloid press?
Does that about cover it?
Does that about cover it?
No, it's fairly simple, you don't have the answers. I doubt they do either tbh but at least they are doing something more than shouting down people on an internet chat bored and trotting out the usual tired tropes.
No, it’s fairly simple, you don’t have the answers.
If you actually read the posts, a number of us have detailed the answers. Engaging in local democracy etc to effect change without the need to be constantly shouting at people. Stop being hostile and confrontational and work collaboratively instead
I realise that doesn't sound very exciting and doesn't make for interesting revolutionary Tweets
It seems to me that some people just enjoy the process of shouting at people a bit more than trying to actually get some genuine results. Its all just posturing and not only does it not work, its totally counterproductive
Unfortunately, we all get lumped in with these idiots
Protests can and do work.
They may do, but I am absolutely certain, I and each of my colleagues will achieve more good in a year, than the whole of Extinction rebellion/ JsO will achieve in a decade and perhaps their collective life times.
So do they work? perhaps. Are the the best way to make a change - no not in the slightest and in many cases are outright counterproductive. They are however the Easiest and least effort thing you can do to whilst pretending to be making a difference
I have no problem with protest, in fact I'm all for it. The problem I have with this is that they are aligning themselves with exstinction rebellion and just stop oil, which have set them selves out to generally just piss off motorists. We, cyclists, need motorists on our side to make change. Aligning with those groups will potentially just make the gap wider and make riding on roads more dangerous as nob head drivers take aim at the rest of us just for being there.
I'd much rather the Chris Boardman type strategy of trying to make peace rather than trying to make war, when we already have a war brewing!
@binners, I know 3 members of XR, one a co-founder. None are from privileged backgrounds, in fact the co-founder brought his sister (now my mates wife) up alone in a glasgow council flat from the age of 16. All three practice what they preach and have total commitment to a sustainable future. None own a car and one refuses to even travel in them. Two work in sustainable transport solutions and the other runs a bike collective sourcing and repairing bikes for free for the local community. All 3 are very bright, one was a top games coder straight out of uni and made a fortune (to us in the 80's/90s anyway) which he mostly gave away to various charities before dropping out to build an eco house and live off grid and carbon neutral before the Guardian readers even knew that was a thing.
Now I'm not sure if XR and JSO are achieving anything overtly positive either but to label them all as 'posho virtue signallers' is way too simplistic
Also what have you and I done thats helping reduce climate change or at least raise awareness?
I think there is probably room for protest, strikes AND those working away behind the scenes using their expertise to effect change.
I think banners will prosper under that mealy mouthed Zionist reactionary Starmer.The rest of us will have to struggle on as usual.
None own a car and one refuses to even travel in them.
They refuse to travel by car? Oh god... I bet they love telling everyone that within 30 seconds of meeting them too, don't they? Just after the bit about being vegan?
Thats not actually an even remotely plausible approach for 99% of the population, ie: all those who don't live off-grid in carbon-neutral eco-houses, is it?
We need practical, workable solutions, not silly performative, 'look at me, polishing my eco-halo' self-indulgent posturing, and that isn't going to be achieved by shouting at people and glueing yourself to a motorway bridge.
Protests can and do work.
They can when the numbers involved become so large that they can no longer be ignored as pointed out by someone above.
The group aren't that and will never be. I saw them as I live here. There were about 15 cyclists deliberately riding at a walking pace blocking the whole carriageway. This wasn't 100,000 people making a valued point.
The general consensus here is "****ing **** cyclists being ****s as usual!" That is the attitude they are fueling withe their 'mass' cycling protest.
I was cycling the opposite way and had someone shout '****ing ****er' at me just after passing them even though I had nothing to do with them.
It has just reinforced the attitudes that cyclists are a minority and a nuisance on the roads.
The group aren’t that and will never be
Not YET!
I think we have to accept that there is no way to do this without annoying people.
These groups of activists polarise the discussion - so some will hate them and some will love them.
Polarising the discussion is good and necessary as it enables the two groups to see who they are dealing with.
Most of the time 'pro' and 'con' teams are very difficult to tell apart. All the "oh well maybe" kind of remarks muddy the waters so well that no one can tell who they need to influence to achieve the change.
So love 'em or hate 'em they are a necessary part of the process.
self-indulgent, clueless, sanctimonious, joyless, self-righteous middle class arseholes who’s activities are totally counterproductive
The sounds like they would fit right in here then.
I think we have to accept that there is no way to do this without annoying people.
Yes there is. There are many ways to do this without annoying people, as a number of posters have described in detail
Some people just seem to actively enjoy annoying people, despite it being, at best, useless and at worst (as seems to be the case) totally counterproductive.
Dragging this back on topic, it's hard to see how an XR-style group is going to change the typical local councillor viewpoint, ie:
- Cars are how 'normal' people get around (despite the fact that 1:4 UK households don't have access to a car)
- Traffic mitigation measures are unpopular (as the 2/3 of people who are largely supportive are drowned out by a small, shouty and occasionally antisocial minority)
- Infra is 'for cyclists' (when it's for people who don't already cycle, and enables transport choice)
Unless this is going to address that, and it's hard to see how it's going to be more effective than e.g. Walk Ride groups which already exist, then is it going to achieve anything?
Engaging in local democracy etc
Jesus, and you criticise others with that sad 6th form trope 😀😀😀
as a number of posters have described in detail
Could you point out this detail? I must have missed it!!
Engage in local politics and work in the energy industry seemed to be the sum total of it. Not really great options are they. The Green party has been doing one of those for decades and hasn't made a huge amount of progress due to our voting system
Sad 6th form trope?
Can you tell my what's '6th form' about getting involved in local politics - which is absolutely nothing like national politics - and trying to actually quietly get some stuff done that might actually benefit local people?
I can guarantee you that my local councillor has achieved more in the last 6 months than Tarquin and Tabatha will manage in a lifetime of walking slowly down roads in Islington in an orange hi-viz vest
But then he's more about actually getting stuff done rather than pointless, self-indulgent posturing
We, cyclists, need motorists on our side to make change
People who drive can also be people who support change in how cars are used, but I don't think the 'motoring group' and those with interests in car use will ever be on our side. We need reasonable thinking and policy change. 'Motorists' won't like what has to happen for public transport and alternative travel options to happen. They've had their time and though yes we need private car transport to some extent for normal life as we have it to function, I don't believe we don't need it in the form we have now. So I'd be plonked in the 'war on motorists' group then.
