Taken from Critical Mass London discussion list:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/cm-london
In 'The London Paper' on Wednesday there was a letter in which the
writer repeated the tired old rant about cyclists on pavements, jumping
red lights etc. He then described cyclists in London as "The scum of
the earth" and concluded by saying that " I shall take delight in
driving at, and knocking down as many of them as I can".
The next day, a woman wrote in to agree with him and said that she had
recently deliberately stepped out into the road in front of a female
cyclist, forcing the cyclist to brake sharply and fall off of her bike
into a puddle....which the woman who had stepped out seemed to find
hilarious.
Now, these people are obviously deranged....but it makes me furious
that a newspaper would even print these vile comments.
If it were somebody advocating shooting people at random it would never
get printed, but the fact that the weapon of choice is a car seems to
make it acceptable.
Similarly, If somebody were inciting hatred and violence against a
minority group based on race or sexuality then they would get arrested
for hate crime.....but making death threats against a certain section
of society based on their transport choices is deemed a suitable thing
to give publicity to.
I have personal experience of this kind of thing.....once when cycling
home late at night, a car coming the opposite way swerved right across
the road to deliberately knock me off my bike, the occupants of the car
were laughing like maniacs - playing with my life was just a game to
them.
I suppose they were safe in the knowledge that even if they had killed
me they would probably only get a 25 quid fine.