Passive motorist.

"Mike Sales" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

We hear a lot about passive smoking. It occurred to me
that, like many readers of this ng, I am a passive
motorist. We suffer most of the

problems

Quoted message said:

of mass motor use, and some more besides, but we get
none of the

benefits....

You have never drafted a bus i take it! ;-)

In message
<[email hidden]>, Mike
Sales <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

We hear a lot about passive smoking. It occurred to me
that, like many readers of this ng, I am a passive
motorist. We suffer most of the problems of mass motor use,
and some more besides, but we get none of the benefits. In
fact, a passive smoker has a smaller risk of death than a
smoker, whereas we have a higher burden of the risks than
the motorist.

Are you sure we have?

They wipe themselves and each other out in very large
numbers, often in circumstances where a cyclist would be
incredibly unlucky to be involved. I've only once seen a
cyclist on the M4; for a couple of years each week's
registered deaths for Reading passed through my hands. The
excess of addresses in London, Swindon, Bristol, Cardiff,
Newport and Swansea over other foreign addresses told its
own story. And what are the odds of a cyclist being in
front of that wall or tree when it exercises (yet again)
its magnetic attraction for speeding motors? It does
happen, but rarely.

--
Sue ]🙁🙂

Mike Sales said:

We hear a lot about passive smoking. It occurred to me
that, like many readers of this ng, I am a passive
motorist. We suffer most of the problems of mass motor
use, and some more besides, but we get none of the
benefits. In fact, a passive smoker has a smaller risk of
death than a smoker, whereas we have a higher burden of
the risks than the motorist.

Mike Sales

Well, we get some of the benefits.. like roads for example.
I don't believe we would have the same extensive road
network without cars, although after cycling through London,
I often wonder about the word 'paved'

Pete

"Mike Sales" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

We hear a lot about passive smoking. It occurred to me
that, like many readers of this ng, I am a passive
motorist. We suffer most of the

problems

Quoted message said:

of mass motor use, and some more besides, but we get none
of the benefits.

Aren't you forgetting all that tarmac? We may not wear it
out but we certainly use it, and it wouldn't be there
without motorists.

Quoted message said:

In fact, a passive smoker has a smaller risk of death than
a smoker,

whereas

Quoted message said:

we have a higher burden of the risks than the motorist.

But a motorist could die of passive cycling - they could see
a cyclist on the pavement or running a red light and get so
angry that they have a coronary.

Mark

In message <4086fec5$0$25234$cc9e4d1f@news-
text.dial.pipex.com>, MarkK <[email hidden]> writes

Quoted message said:

"Mike Sales" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

We hear a lot about passive smoking. It occurred to me
that, like many readers of this ng, I am a passive
motorist. We suffer most of the

problems

Quoted message said:

of mass motor use, and some more besides, but we get none
of the benefits.

Aren't you forgetting all that tarmac? We may not wear it
out but we certainly use it, and it wouldn't be there
without motorists.

ISTR reading that in the earlier times, some elements of the
CTC (and others I guess) campaigned against the 'metalling'
of roads becuase they felt it would lead to increased motor
usage, and disrupt their cycling enjoyment......
--
Chris French, Leeds

Mike Sales said:

We hear a lot about passive smoking. It occurred to me
that, like many readers of this ng, I am a passive
motorist. We suffer most of the problems of mass motor
use, and some more besides, but we get none of the
benefits. In fact, a passive smoker has a smaller risk of
death than a smoker, whereas we have a higher burden of
the risks than the motorist.

Mike Sales

Benefits?

Wasting away, waiting in traffic, stress, costs, breakdowns
miles from home, waiting for recovery vehicles etc.

mae <[email hidden]> wedi ysgrifennu:

Quoted message said:

Well, we get some of the benefits.. like roads for
example. I don't believe we would have the same extensive
road network without cars, although after cycling through
London, I often wonder about the word 'paved'

Pete

Well, there are two sides to this. Were it not for lobbying
by cycling clubs at the end of the nineteenth century, the
roads of this country would never have been in a state that
allowed private motoring to take off.

--
Rob

Please keep conversations in the newsgroup so that all may contribute
and benefit.

Ningi <[email hidden]> wrote: ( Well, we
get some of the benefits.. like roads for example. I don't )
believe we would have the same extensive road network
without cars, ( although after cycling through London, I
often wonder about the word 'paved'

Having just returned from Romania I shall never again
complain about the state of the roads in the UK. Well, not
for a week or two, anyway.

On a five or six lane boulevard in Italy you know that the
traffic is weaving about in an apparent attempt at a lane-
changing variant of change ringing because lane-plaiting is
what Italian drivers do. In Romania driving looks very much
the same at first sight, but it soon becomes apparent that
almost all of the sudden lane changing is down to dodging
potholes big enough to swallow a tractor wheel.

On some of the main streets in towns it looks as though they
have laid cobbles on tarred roads to outline the paths of
the buried services. It turns out that this is a consequence
of all of the upper layers of the road having worn away to
reveal the buckling of the lower strata at the tectonic
margins caused by trenching.

In article <[email hidden]>,

Mike Sales said:

We hear a lot about passive smoking. It occurred to me
that, like many readers of this ng, I am a passive
motorist.

Indeed.

I detest smokers and smoke, and will go to some lengths (eg
crossing a road) to avoid them. But since the 1980s I've
found car fumes to be on balance a worse hazard to my
quality of life.

--
Nick Kew

Nick's manifesto: htmlhelp.com~nickOpen ↗

Geraint Jones said:

Having just returned from Romania I shall never again
complain about the state of the roads in the UK. Well, not
for a week or two, anyway.

On a five or six lane boulevard in Italy you know that the
traffic is weaving about in an apparent attempt at a lane-
changing variant of change ringing because lane-plaiting
is what Italian drivers do. In Romania driving looks very
much the same at first sight, but it soon becomes apparent
that almost all of the sudden lane changing is down to
dodging potholes big enough to swallow a tractor wheel.

On some of the main streets in towns it looks as though
they have laid cobbles on tarred roads to outline the
paths of the buried services. It turns out that this is a
consequence of all of the upper layers of the road having
worn away to reveal the buckling of the lower strata at
the tectonic margins caused by trenching.

I forwarded your comment to a friend who is there. His
reply:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I'm in Bucharest at the moment where they have solved the
problem of potholes on one city street. The top surface
was scraped off to the level of the deepest pothole - and
left like that! No more holes (yet) and a reasonably flat
- albeit bumpy - surface.

--
Michael MacClancy Random putdown - "He has Van Gogh's ear
for music." - Billy Wilder www.macclancy.demon.co.uk
www.macclancy.co.uk

I think that the analogy is useful. For instance, non
smokers might decide to wear a gas mask to protect
themselves but to pass a law forcing them to wear one would
be adding insult to injury. Compare with cycle helmets.
Mike Sales