Being a cyclist teaches you one thing, it’s no fun being lumped together with some snotty nosed teenager who happens to cycle on the pavement too fast. People are often lazy and label all cyclists as some homogenous entity. If one person on a bike does something wrong, the theory goes we are all like that.
I’ll never forget when a friend got knocked down by a cyclist on a canal path by a rude person on a bike. Now that’s pretty frustrating and irritating, but he came up to me and said ‘One of your lot, knocked me over’ It took a while to work out that ‘one of my lot’ meant any person who happened to ride a bike. Though I often wave to others training on road bikes in the countryside, I fail to see too much kinship with a random teenager showing off on his BMX.
It’s not just cyclists, even the Top Gear presenters say things like ‘Audi Drivers’ are the new ‘VW drivers’ – the random, half-serious observation that all now all Audi drivers are somehow arrogant and incompetent, which used to be the preserve of VW drivers.
So, after spending a long time saying how bad it is to judge separate people as one group, I’m still going to make the observation taxi drivers are often in a rush to get somewhere. (that’s a mild way of putting it) It’s hardly surprising since their livelyhood depends on it. Unfortunately, when motorists are in a rush to get somewhere, it’s often bad news for other road users. – U-turns in the middle of the road, squeezing past cyclists with inches to spare, not signalling e.t.c. Not great fun.
Anyway, when I get a taxi and the driver starts complaining about the irresponsible cyclists on a road getting in his way, I just tell him – he ought to ride a bike and see what it’s like to be nearly knocked over; in addition if you cycled a bit, you might lose some of your pot belly.
Actually, I never get round to saying that, but it’s what I would say if I was: a) courageous or b) felt like getting out and walking the rest of the way.
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Maybe all taxi drivers should be forced to drive Nissan Micras, I have yet to ever spot a speeding Micra driver, 20mph seems to be about the limit.
Couldn’t agree more, those taxi drivers all have pot bellies!
I must admit I do get fed up with being the cycling spokesman for the office. You’d think all I do is run red lights and mow people down.
Time will tell if attitudes change, I’m keeping optimistic.