This is a rather dubious article from Miranda as she weakly mixes some dry humour with authoritarian concerns for the rule of law in a poorly judged attempt to provoke some controversy. It suffers from a limited perspective, the view from a comfortable middle class yuppy lifestyle which might include the odd casual sunday afternoon cycle down the footpath to the local coffee shop. According to Miranda it
“is classic angry cyclist behaviour”
born out of a
“1990s slogan ”the road is there to share” … It’s a big fat lie.”
As commentators to her article observe, all she is really doing is fanning the flames of division that already exist on the roads vis-a-vis cars and cyclists. One of her respondents sums it up this way:
To a car driver, a minor accident could mean damage to the car. To the cyclist, a collision means potentially serious injury or death.
But the article is more than a simple tactic to generate a bit of traffic for the SMH, it also reveals how the mainstream media is captive to the voices of the establishment. There is the affront to civility caused by an anonymous angry cyclist, there are the concerns of the Transport Workers Union, there is the interest of law and order as represented by the police who have generously released the CCTV material and spoken on the record in the accompanying video and then, because it’s really all the fault of the government, there is the weird association of Nathan Rees and the closing of the Sydney Harbour Bridge for a picnic with the story about bus vs cyclist.
Miranda may well be questioning the right of motorised transport to a dominant and monopoly position on the roads but if she is her article completely ignores the social and environmental benefits that cycling, as a mode of commuting, provides to society as a whole. It’s unfortunate that things have degenerated to this point, but until people like Miranda and organisations like the SMH start to seriously question the given moral authority of the car driving public over and above our concerns for the safety of cyclist and pedestrians, until then, things are only going to get worse.
Articles like Miranda’s don’t help, especially when they include the caricature of an oversized cyclist equipped with chariot styled spikes threatening a poor defenceless undersized car and its driver. Funny how easily we can personalise a car and demonise a cyclist. Fans of Jeremy Clarkson (Cyclists take up too much room and don’t pay to be there) will feel utterly vindicated in their belief that car driving is a right not a privilege.
