Irish cyclists have the money and power. Now they want the roads to annoy others on their €6,000 bikes. And motorists resent cyclists' air of judgemental purity; so says columnist with The Times Irish edition Sarah Carey.
Irish columnist says motorists resent cyclists’ “judgemental purity”
Columnist with The Times Irish edition Sarah Carey has departed from her paper’s official support of cyclists to take them down a peg or two.
Writing in the newspaper that is officially campaigning for the introduction of minimum passing distance legislation Carey turned her attention to leisure cyclists.
She distinguished between commuter cyclists and middle aged men in lycra.
Commuter cyclists were doing the right thing in using bicycles as a mode of transport. But those on expensive bikes were taking part in an “extreme sport”.
“I regret that middle-aged affluent men abandoned golf for cycling,” she said, adding they used to do no harm “knocking a ball around” before they took up cycling.
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Now they ride around on €6,000 bikes and brag about the networking they do cycling; a craze she says began in the technology sector.
“They have the money and power. Now they want the roads. The Sunday peloton grates,” she says of MAMIL extreme sport riders.
Sarah Carey also said she recently complained on Twitter about cyclists she encountered who were not wearing helmets and hi-vis.
The response from others "was a photo of cars at dusk with no lights on".
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However, she said commuter cyclists were staying healthy and easing congestion.
On this foggy evening big shout out to the 90% cyclists in Dublin with no HiViz gear & the tailgaters on the N4!
Which was particularly fun when that van shot out of a gateway!
Good work boys all round! (& it was boys).— Sarah Carey (@sarahcareyIRL) January 11, 2018
And she fully supported the campaign for better infrastructure and greater awareness around the vulnerability of cyclists as road users.
“Despite my support for the cause, though,” she adds, “I understand completely why drivers are resentful.
“It’s that judgmental air of purity from cyclists. Cycling is good; but that doesn’t mean cyclists are good people.”
She also said while driving was bad, drivers were not bad people. She needed to driver herself because her public transport choices were poor.
But she felt she was being judged for driving; one assumes by cyclists though she did not specify.
Sarah Carey added that because the sport was male dominated, “the line between entitled man and vulnerable road user is somewhat blurred”.
But she said cyclists were dying on the roads so relations between them and motorists must improve.
“So how can they win the drivers over and get them to respect their vulnerability? They could start by getting women to speak up for them.”
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