(He wasn't dead - he just smelt funny)
Moving Target,Issue #4, Summer 1989
I deny everything ......I never did it ever. Not even once....... ahahaI'm back. You all thought I was gone. Well, you were all wrong. The cherubscame and showed me a copy of the L.C.C. courier "manifesto" andit made me turn over and rise from my grave. May the fleas of a thousandmotorcyclists infest their chamois forever. If it was not such an obviousblooper from a patently flock-like confederation of well-intentioned wool-heads,it would be insulting to the intelligence of all urban cyclists everywhere.However, it is plain that they really don't know what goes on down in thestreet. Anyone who puts in ten-plus hours a day, 4 to 5 days a week, inand out of the saddle, knows that "anti-social " stunts don'timpress anyone, especially not the doctors who have to stick the resultsback together .
"...giant coffee cup!,"
It is partly a question of perceived margins of safety. The averageperson's eye to hand reaction time is 0.5 secs ( this being the time thatit takes for you to react to seeing an on coming hazard such as a 12-tontipper truck, kamikaze ped, traffic sign, brick wall, giant coffee cupetc by pulling the brakes). Mine was tested, under lab conditions, at amean 0.12 after 15 months on the streets over a year ago. At, say, 20 mphthis means pulling the brakes after travelling 0.9 metres as opposed to4 metres .In terms of gaps, most pedallers consider about 3/4 of an incheither side of the bars ample room . This, coupled with the fact that themajority of courier cycles are vastly superior in terms of maintenanceand performance than the average bicycle, allows pedallers to execute manoeuvresthat the ordinary, sane cyclist would consider suicidal in comparativesafety. This doesn't make us invulnerable supermen/women, it just makesus good at our job which is to penetrate the crowded city centre quicklyand efficiently.
In my experience (estimated 25,000 miles around town) it is nearly alwaysunwary and unprepared commuters who, stampeded by herds of marauding motor-vehicles,find themselves forced into ill-advised moves in front of traffic.
"...drug-crazed cyclists! "
Any pedaller knows that it is just dumb-riding to cut cars up and generallyhack about, kerbside, reds, peds and all. Who but a fool would willinglyput himself in the path of a snorting, bellowing, 1/2 ton monster of ironand steel with a vision-impaired moron at the wheel protected only by lycra,cotton and a pair of Ray-bans? The pedallers way is to go for the gaps,to sneak thru blind-side, minimum of fuss, hassle and risk, never lettingthe wind-screened maniacs get a clear sight of the target. As for the peds,I think the "drug-crazed cyclists mow down shoppers in High Streetshocker" scenario is a non-starter. When a cyclist is in collisionwith a pedestrian, the pedestrian will nearly always escape without a bruise;the cyclist, on the other hand, will sustain at least one bruise, gravelrash and suffer muscular pain for the following couple of days. So, clearly,a working cyclist cannot afford to ride thru town like Tony Doyle in ahurry. Who wants an enforced holiday, in hospital or worse, for the priceof a couple of pints? Sure there are a few looped-out Max Speed cases oncircuit, but we're talking handfuls here, not a major public menace ontwo wheels .
splattered!
I would like to see the L.C.C. address themselves to the ludicrous legalstanding of bicycles in road traffic law. The difference between road-legaland road-safe is great and getting greater. I got splattered pulling awayfrom a green light by a car burning a red. I was legal but not safe. Ifinstead of toeing the stop-line like a good boy, I had crept on the redand stuck my bonce into the junction I would have seen that lunatic comingand been safe but not legal. I would not expect members of Her Majesty'sconstabulary to sympathize with this interpretation, after all, the lawis there to protect us all from each other, but the same law stipulatesthat a pedal cycle is in fact a motor-vehicle. Road traffic legislationmerely reflects Peter Bottomley's boys' lack of coherent, imaginative transportpolicy.
sophisticated traffic jams
Anybody with eyes in their head instead of their wallet can foresee,without a tremendous leap of imagination that £12 billion spent on wideningand lengthening the U.K.’s major road network is going to lead to bigger,better, more sophisticated traffic jams, increased pollution and road trafficcasualties (and we all know who features near the top of those pops Theonly way to get these motorised simpletons to take notice of our needsis to shove cycling down their throats. High profile, mass civil disobedienceby cyclists will strengthen our hand by publicising our stance. Most non-bikersthink that L.C.C. stands for London County Council.
Only by bringing the bicycle bit into the public realm will the absurdityand outrage of road traffic legislation be exposed. I call on the L.C.C.as the spokespeople of all urban cycling tribes to stop collaborating withthe forces of inertia that keep rolling evermore cars into our crowdedcity space and to produce a campaign that we can all support without reservation.Where were you on the 21st? Take care.
Buffalo would like to take this opportunity to thank all those whosent flowers after his recent involuntary 'leg-clamping'. However nobodydid so fuck off you uncaring bastards.
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