Mumsnet on cyclists….

Makes for interesting reading…

HORA TO THE MUMSNET FORUM

“In general, cyclists are unreasonable”

I wonder how a sweeping generalisation like “in general, women can’t drive” would go down? 😉

Vivalebeaver is a feisty one !!!

awesome – mumsnet smackdown!

They’ve never really forgiven us here, have they?

For a non-specialist cycling forum, I’m amazed how sensible the majority of responses are (all except 2 in fact!).

<mysogynist mode> Obvs the school run mums are doing dinner at the moment </myso mode> 😉

For a non-specialist cycling forum, I’m amazed how sensible the majority of responses are (all except 2 in fact!).

Yep me too – Its actually very encouraging.

+2

Ooooof! Proper cat fight!

Nice to see trolling is alive and well on mumsnet – disguised as a pokemon over there though

Yeah, some well informed opinions.
Well done you muthas.

arguably better informed than similar threads on here…. chortle.

I do find it funny that we have a fairly stringent swear filter, whilst they have user names containing **** and everyone’s a **** or a ****!

That’s quite an eye opener, in a really nice way.
You gotta love mumsnet 😀

That thread pretty much sums up the entire situation to me.

Despite the super-charged media dispute between ‘cyclists’ and ‘drivers’ most people are actually reasonably intelligent and can employ their common sense and crucially, have no desire to harm another human being.

Unfortunately it’s the minority 10-15% or whatever that are totally ignorant idiots with their head up their arse who ruin it for everyone else.

I don’t commute on bike so maybe I’m unqualified but I reckon on average I see one stupid or dangerous piece of driving per ride. Given the volume of cars that must pass me that isn’t so bad in some ways. Unfortunately it only takes one piece of idiotic driving to ruin your day.

I much prefer STW 🙂

Isn’t it just a snappier title for middle class women with first world problems.net

Liked that thread.

No argument about it. I have a suspicion more people on there ride bikes than on here.

Ride what now?

“In general, cyclists are unreasonable”

Based on the golf R thread and most of the wheel size threads on here AND assuming there are some actual cyclists on here (I know this last assumption may be stretching credibility a bit) I can kind of see the posters point. 😉

Well that was refreshing reading – interesting that the women over there are generally very tolerant of cyclists. A couple mention their kids cycling, a couple mention riding horses in traffic, maybe it’s those experiences that make them so pragmatic about our right to be on the road.

Mind you, I understand that very few of them feel up to cycling back from Centre Parcs…. 8)

They probably just need better cycling shorts if they have a sore bottom, MCTD

Mumsnet is a Viper, you dance infront of it and it will take you down. Face down spitting out dust. No ta!

Isn’t it just a snappier title for middle class women with first world problems.net

‘STW’? I guess so 8)

significantly less automatically blame the cyclist posters on mumsnet than on STW. Strange.

(TBF I only read page 1, may have gone downhill since)

It all seems so much more grown up without the filter. The two words filtered out here are exactly the right words to use, no matter how wide your vocabulary.

Christ there are a lot of stupid **** **** on this thread. I really think there should be a compulsory cycling, riding or motorbike-riding element in the driving test, then maybe people might have a vague understanding of the needs of more vulnerable road users.

😀

Whilst I agree that it’s a lot more positive than I expected it has a few posts which make me incredibly sad:

I actually think they should ban cycling in central London and reduce zone 1 transport costs, that way cyclists can leave their bike at their outer station and not cause mayhem on the roads. There are not a huge amount of cyclists, they don’t reduce congestion at all as they wouldn’t otherwise use their cars. Central London can only just fit buses, taxis and delivery vehicles on its roads, there are very few car driving commuters. Cycling needs to be fitted into the streets properly with dedicated routes but having cyclists all over is causing a lot of grief and slows everything down, causes accidents and it’s only a small number of people doing this. They would be better off on the bus with everyone else.

…being a brilliant example

Whilst I agree that it’s a lot more positive than I expected it has a few posts which make me incredibly sad:

They’re a different kind of depressing though, that’s just ill informed, rather than frothing at the mouth hatred (although there are some of those too)!

It reads like someone who’s never actually been to London, not many Zulus cyclists 😯 , there’s thousands of em.

London – time to get rid of cyclists.

Less bikes = more better! Hear me out:

The city of Beijing (once home of some 9 million bicycles) is finally winning the war against cycling. A three pronged attacked seemed to work well enough:

1. Encourage car ownership for every type of journey.
2. Identify cycling as transport for ‘losers’. (See – ‘I’d rather cry in a BMW than laugh on a bicycle’)
3. Put bicycle bans in place citing ‘congestion’ as the reason *
* If they had just turned a blind eye then bans might not have been necessary. Social Darwinism would have won the day, albeit more slowly. (Motorists traditionally get a slap on the wrist if anything for killing a cyclist – it’s like the perfect murder, ok more like squashing a badger, as no-one really cares except for weirdos or close family)

London (and other UK cities) you’re lagging behind. Might I suggest:

1. Scrap Vehicle Excise Duty along with the roads component currently taken from general tax, and instead bring back a simple ‘road tax’ – payable only by and for motorists. This way motorists can feel rightly entitled to have sole use of the carriageway and be justified to point at/mow down cyclists for not paying it.

2. Following on from aforementioned tax reforms – public opinion is by now firmly anti-cyclist in every way. It should be easy to repeal original ‘public highway’ laws and hand the whole shebang exclusively to motorised vehicles. Horses, cyclists, pedestrians? All old technology, no place in the modern world. ‘Roads weren’t designed for bikes/horses etc anyway’ is a useful slogan. Just like pigeons are now known as rats with wings, cyclists are simply rats with wheels. What makes them think they own the roads eh?

Beijing is also beating you on smog levels by quite a margin. You’re supposed to be the ‘Big Smoke’, remember?

3. Use the ‘Big Smoke’ appellation with the righteous pride it deserves: ‘The Big Smoke’ – The Future. Today.

Who give a toss what ‘Mumsnet’ thinks anyway?

Bunch of Barbour wellied yummy mummies spending all the money that hubby earns in Costa whilst bleating about what a tough life they have.

Still, I guess it is better they vent their first world frustrations there rather than in the aforementioned hubby’s long suffering earhole.

I’d have to agree that, with a couple/three notable exceptions, that was a pretty reasoned and well thought out thread. A lot of sense being spoken there (apart from the trolls).

Who give a toss what ‘Mumsnet’ thinks anyway?

I do if they are representative of the general public’s attitude towards cyclists

all the money that hubby earns in Costa

I didn’t think Costa paid that well. Might have to send in my CV… 🙂

I didn’t think Costa paid that well. Might have to send in my CV

Er, they probably don’t pass on much of that money to the poor sods that actually work for them(!)

Agreed. I joined that there ‘streetlife.com’ the other day. Within a week it was full of Daily Mail UKIP ranters saying that all cyclists are dangerous and “until they have mandatory testing and insurance we’ll have to pussyfoot around them”.

Deleted account sharpish.

<sound of joke flying over dannyh’s head>

😉

Their thread seems a bit more rational than our commentary on it…. 🙄