AA President calls for end to 'Two Tribes' mentality that divides cyclists and motorists

It's me again: banging on yet again about '20 is plenty'. Not only does a 20mph residential limit get motorists down from 35mph+ to -25mph but once it becomes wide spread it will calm all but the most impatient drivers down and make cycling safer and more attractive for short journeys for all road users

The AA make some great points and I welcome their support but speed reduction also has a major part to play in sharing the roads and they make no mention of it. Where I live the whole county will have 20mph residential roads by 2014 and there is talk of making rural roads and lanes 40mph - which will save a fair few lives as well

Hopefully coming to the roads near you - if you ask for it.

Sedgepeat will be along to troll this thread with the usual bigotry in 5-4-3-2-1...

While I agree that idiot cyclists will make idiot drivers and vice versa, I think there are also a couple of other attitude problems which are cropping up on both sides.

On the motorist side, there seems to be a feeling of unfairness, that cyclists can get away with filtering through traffic, jumping red lights, not following sped limits, not having to properly maintain their bikes and equipment or follow strict safety guidelines. Most of this is irrational and fairly easily explained such as, obviously one of the perks of being on a bike is that you can get through traffic easier, there's no MOT available or enforced etc. cyclists who do jump red lights and ride on the pavement do give fuel to this line of argument though and in my opinion should be following the rules and not doing it, you can try and excuse it all you want but it's breaking the law.

Motorists seem to have developed the idea that they should be allowed to drive on the road with no one to get in their way, this attitude is also very wrong, we all had a right to be on the road ad no one group should get preference meaning that if a cyclist or group of cyclists is on a road and a car pulls up to them, the car should wait until safe to overtake and then they can carry on with their journey, just like if it were a slow moving motor vehicle. Obviously cyclists should try and be considerate an help facilitate the overtake but not at the expense of their own safety.

I've noticed a lot of cyclists point out that if everyone followed the rules, the road would be a much safer place and we could all get along, I do agree with this, but I think a lot of people need to be taught those rules first.

In my experience, people tend to cycle as they drive (or for some, as they would drive if they could get away with it).

Edmund King is right on this, the whole two tribes mentality doesn't help at all as the person cutting you up on their bike, behaving unpredicatably or getting too close, would probably do the same thing in their car, and possibly on foot.

The big thing for me is inconsistent attitudes towards law-breaking on the road. I see a number of cyclists jumping reds on the way to work (and the outrage it provokes!), but I also see a lot of motorists speed up for orange, running reds at full speed when pedestrians or other lanes have green, and usually without slowing down or looking. There is no outcry about this, despite it being so much more dangerous for the people around them. I stop at pedestrian crossings but it is not an easy decision when you have a black cab thundering along behind you, giving you as little following distance as they think they can get away with.

You still hear people boasting about how fast they drove from A to B, about how they dodged getting demerit points and parking tickets, and speed cameras that catch too many people speeding are derided as being money-spinners, with sympathy being the general attitude towards those who are caught breaking the law in their cars. If I boasted about lawless/careless cycling noone would laugh politely and offer their own RLJ-on-a-bike story, they would look on it more like I was cheerfully admitting to burglary or assault.

I would love for the road rules to be enforced more rigorously but for all users, and in proportion to the risk they pose to other people. At the end of the day someone who is impatient and inconsiderate of other road users on a bike will be much the same in a car, and they will continue to behave that way until they get the message that it is unacceptable, either from the police or from society in general.

The vehicle is not the issue, it is the operator.

I think it is a lot to do with attitudes and education, hopefully they can go some way to tackle both. Their website with advice to cyclists and drivers is good, hopefully their name will ad some clout and clarity to the 'debate' that both tribes seem intent on having.

The article written on the Express website is laughable and until people like her are stopped and their attitude changed I don't know how effective any safe cycling campaign will be.

"When two tribes go to war..."

Yep, he's right in that motorists and cyclists are often one and the same. By far the majority of adult cyclists are motorists too, though the reverse is not always true.

There's a lot of sense in what he says.

Cause for some (guarded) optimism there I think.

When's the conference?