There has been much in the cycling press and online about riding practice.. from the ASA's ridiculous and dangerous ruling on a road safety advert, to Clarkson yet again whinging about a perfectly legal rider.
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Let us analyse this mentality. On the right is an image screen-grabbed from someone's twitter feed. I've blanked out a number of names and faces as I want us to focus on both the riding and the driving displayed.
If we take the lane that generally means being center of the lane to control traffic. There are a number of reasons to be where this rider is - junctions ahead (on the right), there could also be glass and debris at the side of the road.
If you read Cyclecraft, or British Cycling's Effective Traffic Riding, or indeed if you take a Bikeability course, you learn very early on that this is good riding, not bad. You learn the hazards you need to address, just like being visible near a junction (on the right of the image).
Now let us look at the driving.
Most worryingly the driver appears to be hand-holding a phone or camera to take the picture. His attention, whilst on the rider for the wrong reasons, is also distracted from everything he should be doing to be safe on the road.
We also have to consider why this is such an issue to the driver? The lane to the right is empty, visibility clear, he could very easily just pull into the contraflow lane after the junction and overtake safely. It seems to me that some people see cyclists in a way that others see race, sex or religion. It also seems that some wish to project a negative image of others and don't consider their own negative actions - I believe psychologists call this "transference".
I note now that within the time I've written this the original Twitter user has deleted said post. I also note a couple of other people have screen-grabbed and alerted the Police.
Let us analyse this mentality. On the right is an image screen-grabbed from someone's twitter feed. I've blanked out a number of names and faces as I want us to focus on both the riding and the driving displayed.If we take the lane that generally means being center of the lane to control traffic. There are a number of reasons to be where this rider is - junctions ahead (on the right), there could also be glass and debris at the side of the road.
If you read Cyclecraft, or British Cycling's Effective Traffic Riding, or indeed if you take a Bikeability course, you learn very early on that this is good riding, not bad. You learn the hazards you need to address, just like being visible near a junction (on the right of the image).
Now let us look at the driving.
Most worryingly the driver appears to be hand-holding a phone or camera to take the picture. His attention, whilst on the rider for the wrong reasons, is also distracted from everything he should be doing to be safe on the road.
We also have to consider why this is such an issue to the driver? The lane to the right is empty, visibility clear, he could very easily just pull into the contraflow lane after the junction and overtake safely. It seems to me that some people see cyclists in a way that others see race, sex or religion. It also seems that some wish to project a negative image of others and don't consider their own negative actions - I believe psychologists call this "transference".
I note now that within the time I've written this the original Twitter user has deleted said post. I also note a couple of other people have screen-grabbed and alerted the Police.