Adrian Fitch highlights a refreshingly intelligent article which criticises the urban cyclist for actual wrongs, unlike the steaming pile of manure from Erin Baker last year. It’s great to see a journalist putting even a modicum of thought into an anti-cycling rant.

Brian Hennigan had a wonderful rant against what he described as antisocial cyclist s in Tuesday’s Edinburgh Evening News.

He targeted:

• Pavement cycling: “If you don’t have stabilisers on, the road is the only place we should find you whizzing along”.
• Running red lights: “Apart from anything else, your invisibility to other road-users might just be proven in a way you did not envisage”.
• Those who cycle where it is prohibited: “one day someone is going to get fed-up with your selfish behaviour and you will be amazed how far you can travel without a bicycle when someone jams a stick in your rear-wheel”.
• Stealth ninja cyclists: “Cycling without lights at night is not some environmentally courageous way of showing how you and the owls are as one; it’s a way of being on a bicycle that says: “I don’t care about anyone else other than myself”.
• And of course, helmets: “Anyone who thinks pedalling au naturale is fine deserves whatever non-indicating delivery van might lie in their future”.

It is a decently written rant. I’d agree with Brian on almost every point excepting the helmets issue. I think it’s not a simple argument, and I so believe it’s up to people to decide for themselves whether wearing £25 worth of potentially life-saving plastic is really that much bother. For me, there’s no question 🙂