Two-wheeled fascism: the trouble with London's cyclists
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By Michael Hodges
Updated: Thu Jul 30 2009
Ten Commandments for the London Cyclist
1 Once a human steps into a car they cease to be human. Their strength is magnified beyond their effective control. They become heavy, polluting and dangerous. They are the enemy of the cyclist. A battle line is drawn between the car driver and the cyclist. The cyclist is responsible not just for his own survival but for the effective representation of all fellow cyclists. To this end the car driver must be antagonized and challenged constantly.
2 Traffic lights are designed for large heavy vehicles that have catastrophic effects when they collide with a human. They are not relevant for human-scale transportation devices. When a cyclist reaches a red light and all the cars are sat still belching fumes. She is duty bound to cross the red light. This is one way of making it clear to a driver how inappropriate their vehicle is for a dense urban setting.
3 When a driver passes too close to the cyclist the cyclist should follow the car until the next light and shout in the window at the driver. Appropriate comments include "get out your car and get some exercise… you are rotting in there and those fumes are killing the rest of us". Should the driver be of the aggressive, anti-cyclist variety things can heat up quickly. Be ready to make a quick exit.
Feature continuesAdvertisement4 Pedestrians are like cyclists but without a bike. They should be viewed with sympathy and always given room for safe passage. However, on pelican crossings they do not need the entire strip for their safety. As discussed in 2 the bike is light and nimble. A cyclist can circumnavigate a pedestrian without total stoppage. If they have problems explain how traffic architecture is designed for the car not the bike.
The Admiral Melson
5 Slip streaming increases the efficiency of cycling in London. If cyclists in the front do not like it they can signal and shift left allowing others to take the lead. Cyclists should help each other at all available opportunities. Competition between cyclists is natural and healthy. However, never forget, it is the car driver who is your enemy.
6 Death is a real prospect for all London cyclists. Around 20 are killed every year by cars. It is useful to meditate upon death for at least 5% of all cycle journeys. Imagine being hit by a car and falling into an on coming bus. Imagine your relatives weeping. Then take care and assert yourself boldly to the car.
7 Car drivers get angry when they cannot pass you. They will normally rev their engines releasing excess fumes. When they can pass they will do so at unnecessary speed. Usually they will break soon after as they approach the next light/bumper of the front car. As you pass them shake your head and tap your head. These people are dinosaurs.
8 Sometimes the only safe way to continue your journey is to mount a pavement. Some pedestrians feel threatened by this. It is important they understand that pedestrians and cyclists are extremely closely related. They are of the same scale and both can move slowly and carefully. They need to understand that it is the car that: congests cities taking space away from other crucial needs of citizens; causes increases in asthma, lung cancer, brain damage and other illnesses caused by pollution; hit and wound 2 teenagers per week; contributes to soaring obesity and heart disease by promoting inactivity; prevents school children walking to school because of car-danger; leads to the delocalization of our basic needs leading to the death of local shops and the genesis of out of town shopping hell zones and also… contributes to global warming. Never accept that a bicycle is a threat when there are cars in the vicinity. By removing cars from London, cyclists and pedestrians could easily co-exist in peace.
9 The government pays billions of pounds every year to subsidize the car. They do this through road building, traffic management devices, police fees etc. the police are employed by the government to maintain a dangerous, potentially catastrophic system. Reasoning with policemen is not known to ever have worked. They should be treated with extreme caution.
10 Cycling is joy available to nearly all of us. It is amongst the most ingenious of all humanities inventions. Love your bike. Love your fellow human. Love this precious earth that we were inexplicably born onto.- Add your comment to this feature
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77 comments
Afraid of aggressive, threatening cyclists?
Stop moaning - and carry a stick to fend them off!
Use your civil right to self-protection!!
"Change the law so that cyclists only have to give way at lights, just like pedestrians, rather than stop like motor vehicles.
As long as they do give way, is there any harm done to anyone?"
Quite.
What the motorist mentality will never understand is that cyclists are pedestrians in everything but speed.
They are just as vulnerable, and just as non-polluting.
And as there is no 'jaywalking' offence in Britain, meaniing that the pedestrian ALWAYS has right of way, it would be in the spirit of that law to allow cyclists the same rights on the road.
People on bikes are not vehicles, they are people.
The reality of the situation is that cycling on pavements mainly represents a glorious piece of co-operation between people, not the nightmare of paranoiacs like the writer of this piece of trash.
It is the very fact that this behaviour reveals just how peacably people can co-exist which infuriated the reactionay neurotics.
The only thing missing is a sufficient level of expertise by cyclists. This is actively discouraged by the insistence on helmets and the armchair riding style encouraged by the pernicious bloated 4x4 of bicycles, the misnamed, overspecified, overpriced mountain bike.
It's wrong to lump all cyclists in with those who ride on the pavement and skip lights - quite simply because most don't. I cycle regularly in London but just because some pedestrians walk out into the road in front of me without looking I don't tar them all with the same brush.
Just as pedestrians can feel threatened by careless cyclists, cyclists in turn can feel threatened by those motorists who have scant regard for their safety. I was assaulted in central London this month because I tapped on the window of a car that was being driven very aggressively. It's not the first time I have witnessed aggressive behaviour from motorists. However, despite requiring stitches on my face, I wouldn't ever suggest that motorists are highly-strung maniacs. The bad ones, like bad cyclists, are a minority, albeit a very dangerous one.
There's something rather sad about this article, and Michael Hodges for writing it. The comparison with fascism exposes it for the nonsense that it is. If you want a lesson from history is is that we're not going to learn to live together if we demonise people.
The increase in cycling in London seems to me to almost totally made up of pavement cyclists. Yesterday I walked home from the town centre (Barking) with a friend, a distance of 1mile.
In that mile we were passed by 12 pavement cyclists; only one went by slowly and considerately although as this was not a shared path even he had no right to be there. The others went by at speed and within inches of us. If one of has had moved out of a straight line we would have been injured.
By the time we arrived home we were exhausted, angry, upset and stressed. This is the reality of increased cyclng in London for many people. Pavement cyclists are bullies; they are brave men (11 of the 12 were men) who enjoy dominating people who are older, slower or weaker than they are and get a kick of swearing at, threatening and abusing women.
We have always walked for exercise and because we (used to) enjoy walking under the trees in the pretty street that we live in. Now we are going to have to take the bus because this problem is getting worse week on week. Who is looking after the rights of people like us?
Is this piece of garbage still milking it?
Any serious publication would have drawn a line under this thread years ago. Does Time Out still need the traffic this scrap of sneering scribble generates?
Pathetic.
"Two wheeled Facism"?!? These articles are getting ridiculous. I wish you would look at real problems and dangers on the road such as the endless number of motorists still using mobile phones while driving; speeding cars in residential areas; blaring horns left right and centre; taking red lights in cars (yes I see it every day!); agressive drivers; impatient drivers etc etc etc.
Let's compare the problems caused by motorists compared to cyclists shall we?!? Deaths? Injuries? Pollution? Noise?
Is there really a 'trouble with London's cyclists' in comparison?
How about just writing an article called 'trouble with Time Out's low quality journalism?'
Motorcyclists - take a leaf out of the cyclists' book, and use those nice cycle paths!
Why not?!
It really is a shame that ego man Hodges has to use his undeserved pedestal to exacerbate this already ugly argument and promote further intolerance on all sides. It is a great shame that there seems to be so much hatred towards cyclists in London. It is a great way to get about and I believe you can experience a true sense of freedom when cycling.
While there are probably many people who use bikes who are inconsiderate, isn't this the same with drivers, pedestrians, tube and bus users?
It would be nice to see more focus on the positive aspects of cycling, together with more education about its benefits and greater investment in proper infrastructure that would move London closer towards other cities where the urban planning has been designed to consider all road users.
I feel a lot of hatred towards the writer of this article. How ridiculous. Cycling is terrifying in London, but sometimes lovely. If people stopped driving, which there is no need to do in London, and used public transport/bikes, cyclists would be able to use the roads. I have a bell, I use it, but people still don't get out the way. However, I am patient, often get off and walk when it's busy.
As for the white male comments.
I am a black female.
And have you ever been to South London?
Bikes are not used only by white males.
Why have the cyclists got the police in their pockets?
Has money changed hands?
Is there another dripping snout in the trough?
I live on a busy but pretty tree lined street in East London and I used to like taking a walk most evenings for exercise and enjoyment but now this has been ruined by the number of aggressive, arrogant cyclists who choose to ride on the pavement.
They don't give a damn about pedestrians and if tackled about their illegal behaviour they either swear and threaten you or scream like babies about their "rights".
I am sick to death of them and even more sick of politicians prattling on about how "vulnerable" they are. How are they more vulnerable than the disabled, blind and elderly people that they intimidate?
They don't belong on the pavement and I have lost all respect for the police because they tolerate them and do nothing about it. Where I live the police will even go single file to allow cyclists past on the pavement!
Drivel. Please fire the chimp who wrote this rubbish. Glad I don't subscribe to the paper version of TimeOut. "No such thing as a free lunch" springs to mind.
All the issues raised in this article seem valid, but I am concerned that Michael feels the need to make this a race issue. With constant references to skin colour. Then going on to call cyclists facists. The guys got some valid points, but frankly Michael.. You're a moron, why bring race and fascism into a transport debate? It makes you sound like a 14-year old, and with your references to the luftwaffe I believe you have broken Godwin's law, and am amazed timeout published this s****
Cyclists feel that their machines give them some power over the pedestrians.
And we all know what happens to people who get power, don't we?
Out comes that little fascist....