Cyclists are the rats of the road............

In a week where more cyclists are dying under the wheels of lorries in London, another critically injured on the dual carriageway between Moneymore and Cookstown, and reports of any numbers of near misses, the cyclist has once again been the target of near hate speech by the BBC.

Funnily enough, the catalyst for this was good old Bo Jo, Mayor of London, Father of the Boris Bike, sometime bike rider and professional "Wise man playing the Fool". Boris, made a remark along the lines of  pavement cyclists should have their bikes crushed, a reasonably throwaway remark, but dear old Auntie Beeb leapt upon it like a pitbull on a poodle.

Our local Radio Ulster, as I wrote only a few days ago, took it upon itself to start promoting cycle hate, as this twitter exchange shows.

https://twitter.com/BBCTalkback/status/613649986488795137

And, are you sick of cyclists on the footpath? Boris Johnson has a possible solution: he says we should impound their bikes. #Talkback

— BBC Talkback (@BBCTalkback) June 24, 2015

Even funnier was when the presenter, whom I had previously held in high(ish) regard decided to try to be a bit sarky. 

https://twitter.com/nigreenways/status/613659943015723009


 

Colouring by numbers @BBCTalkback continues its descent into tabloid territory, so much for @williamcrawley's reboot https://t.co/J38MaPY4ry

— NI Greenways (@nigreenways) June 24, 2015

 He also said NI Greenways sounded paranoid, which as anybody who has met the man will attest, is about a wide of the mark as you can get. Smart, determined and no pushover? Definitely! Paranoid? No!

Funnily enough, telling Crawley he was Nolan Lite was strangely prophetic, as on his show the very next morning, Fat Lad was on the radio extolling the virtues of a petition for cyclists to be registered like cars.At the time of broadcast, the signiture count of the petition stood at..................

Wait for it...............

Four.

No, that's not a typo, the self proclaimed "BIGGEST SHOW IN THE COUNTRY!!!!!" dedicated a large chunk of licence payer funded airtime to an online petition signed by four people. Seriously, this is the BBC doing their best Wayne Gale impression, repetition works, stir up the rabble out there in Zombieland. NI cancer rates are going up and targets for treatment are not being met and the local BBC care more about a comment about cyclists made by the mayor of a city 400 miles away. Swap "cyclist" for "Muslim" or "Black" and all hell would break loose.

 

What?! Tell me you didn't run a segment onto @bbcradioulster about a petition with FOUR signatures @StephenNolan?! https://t.co/8GDcoG29pj

— NI Greenways (@nigreenways) June 25, 2015

Of course, it's not just Radio Ulster who have been sucking at the anti cycling nipple until it bleeds. BBC Radio Kent had a phone in much like Fatty's, here are a few choice nuggets from the presenter.

Charming isn't it?

What makes me a big deal on the Road? How many tests have I done?

Well, there's the car test, the motorcycle test, the HGV test, need I go on?

And after Kent came BBC West Midlands.

TALKING POINT: should dangerous #cyclists have bikes confiscated? #DannyKelly on @bbcwm http://t.co/yspzxxCdTW (1/2) pic.twitter.com/NogDD6gRk9

— BBCLocalLover (@BBCLocalLover) June 25, 2015

So, there's THREE separate BBC regions having anti-cycling phone-ins on ONE day, call me cynical but that is no coincidence, there seems to be a concerted effort to rubbish cycling coming down from somewhere on high.

Now people on bikes are no angels, just this week a chap who ran an old lady over on a bike was jailed for 12 months, personally I object to the sentence as it is in my eyes, unduly lenient, but what I also object to is everybody making great capital out of his being a cyclist. To me he was a twat on a skip bike, he has as much relation to me as a cyclist as Josef Mengle has to the nice German girl I met on holiday a few years ago. Could you imagine if the headline was "Black Guy jailed for 12 months for killing pensioner" The outcry would be national news for days.

Also compare the sentence to this............

Just one example

An unlicenced driver kills somebody and gets off with a curfew.

And again.......

Community service for killing someone........

Yet another...........

Mitigating circumstances, but not even banned?

I could go on all day here but my fingers would get tired before I ran out of examples. It seems that it's perfectly ok to whip up hatred, and that's what it is, hatred, agaist cyclists, safe in the knowledge that you can probably get away with it, cyclists are expendable, an inconvenience to be eradicated, in short. vermin.

These aren't the rantings of some lycra lout Mamil, they're the thoughts of an ordinary bloke, Mondeo Man, a son, a friend, a colleague. And he has had enough.