Do me a lemon. Drivers kill and hurt other road users at a ridiculously higher rate than cyclists, cause horrible pollution and cause a host of problem. Walking my children to school down multiple 20 zones I am passed by people doing well over 30 on roads that are single file because of parked cars (reasonably often blocking the pavement completely because hey, who gives a **** about people with pushchairs or in wheelchairs). The other day when I was walking down the main road at least 3 cars went past going 50 in a 30. I was waiting to cross the road with both my boys in a pram and a car flew into the side road I wanted to cross doing 30+ (entering a 20) and came within about 50cm of us. We were on the opposite side of the road to the one he should have been on.
So yeah, politely **** off with the idea that its ok to dislike cyclists or that its our own fault people hate us because some of us are dickheads. People hate cyclists because they have been conditioned to hate them by the media and the complete focus on cars and complete lack of focus on active travel.
If people didn't like cyclists for rational reasons, they would absolutely hate drivers. Shockingly we don't hear comments like yours from people about drivers. Cyclists are just one of the last groups its OK to publicly despise without people thinking you are racist, sexist etc.
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