"...
I want to say I was shocked by such unthinking driving. But after a year cycling on the roads of London — something I began only because I was sick of paying £80 a month to a gym I never visited — I was not remotely surprised.
...
A few days ago, the speed-hungry Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson posted a tweet which read: ‘It’s middle of the road point-makers like this who make car drivers so angry about cyclists.’
It showed a picture of a cyclist innocently occupying the middle of the lane just short of a zebra crossing.
...
So, in a state of fury and probably without thinking for long enough, I replied to Clarkson: ‘He has every right — you muppet.’
This then triggered the Twitter equivalent of a brawl in a Wild West saloon, where anyone within earshot (in Twitter terms, the thousands of people who follow us both) felt free to throw chairs and tables around.
I was told by several people that I ‘should not be on the road because you do not pay road tax’ (never mind that I do, on my car).
Another tweeter said Clarkson ‘should have knocked the cyclist over because that spot is near a hospital’. One wrote: ‘Run him down like the dog in Lycra he is!’
A few weighed in against Clarkson, but it was clear to me that he had won the argument in the eyes of the audience. Sure, on Twitter such a spat is entertaining. But take that hostility on to the road — put that angry mind in charge of a metal hulk on four wheels or even 12 — and it becomes a threat to the life of any cyclists."
Not a fan of either Vine brother myself (though Jeremey is the lesser of two evils in my book, and infinitely better than Clarkson!). However, I sympathise with his feelings even though I wouldn't let the swines get me down or put me off cycling.
(I notice that if you try to quote from the DM using copy/paste, you now get a whole lot of nonsense added about Facebook etc which this site doesn't like. Has to be edited out before posting).
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