Julie Burchill

Do cyclists know how hated they are?

Most seem to take pleasure in flouting the rules

  • From Spectator Life
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Cyclists. I’ve become a tolerant cove in my old age but if there’s one word certain to raise my dander, it’s cyclists. In Brighton they think they own the place, enabled by successive stupid councils, who have spent tens of thousands of pounds on cycle lanes and those eyesore e-bikes all over town. With a murderous version of droit de seigneur – at odds with their right-on, self-righteous self-image – cyclists appear to believe that walkers are a lower order who they are free to run over as they please.

Cyclists in Brighton seem particularly fond of riding on pavements, where the most damage can be done. It’s like they see pedestrians as targets in some sort of video game – ten points for a man, 20 for a woman, 50 for a child. And it’s not just Brighton; London sounds a pedestrian’s nightmare. I asked around on Facebook and got nearly two hundred horror stories in a few hours:

One cyclist grabbed hold of my wing mirror then fell over as I drove over a speed bump.

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