Quote:
"
Stop this critical mess
By Anita Quigley
November 25, 2006 12:00am
Article from: [img]news.com.auh14 dailytelegraph.gifOpen ↗[/img]
Font size: + -
Send this article: Print Email
A SCIENTIST recently discovered that motorists pass, on average, 7.5cm closer to cyclists in helmets than they do to someone riding along bare-headed.
Presumably, drawing some faith in his or her "riderly" competence from the mere presence of the helmet.
It has never occurred to me it might matter to drivers what a cyclist wears because, clothed or naked, with a helmet or not, all cyclists in the city are irritating and I find bring on an overwhelming desire to swerve towards.
But perhaps never so much as yesterday when they held every evening peak-hour motorist in Sydney to ransom.
Critical Mass, an organisation of "bicycle enthusiasts", headed off from Hyde Park North about 6pm over the Harbour Bridge and along the Pacific Highway before finishing for noodles in North Sydney in "celebration of non-motorised transport".
According to their website, cyclists taking over the roads in this way, is a "welcoming space where people feel safe". For the vast majority of the rest of us, it is as painful as a burst hernia.
Critical Mass is actually selfish inner-city [censored] who have no regard for their fellow Sydneysiders: people who have worked hard all week and who just want to drive home.
What Critical Mass fails to realise is that we don't want to spend our Friday night in gridlock while lycra-clad twits - with a police escort - whiz past to go have noodles and make the point that Sydney should be free of cars.
These are probably also the same errant cyclists who ignore the road rules, jump red lights (thinking it's their privilege) and ride on the footpath.
Sure, there are needless car journeys made, probably thousands of them every day.
But here is the news - damn few of them are made in peak-hour on a Friday night. For the sake of the majority, this "protest" of selfish idiot cyclists must not be sanctioned."