We should take the cyclists out and shoot them

It takes a special type of moron to look at the sea of cars and buses choking the quays every morning and think the problem is cyclists.

O'Leary is smart, he's just a shameless self promoter and a scumbag. Some of the people who are lapping up this nonsense are likely to be dangerous cretins though. The sort who think cyclists are forcing them to make dangerous overtaking manoeuvres by being on the road in front of them. The sort who think they should teach a cyclist a lesson by overtaking them too close and too fast for the imagined offence of slowing them down. This sort of tripe enables those dangerous cretins. In an ideal world he wouldn't get away with this however a significant minority will agree with him and the majority of the rest will just think it's a harmless joke (the Clarkson defence).

People often say that there is no reason that Dutch or Danish style infrastructure can't work here. Claims that peoples attitudes to cyclists are different here are dismissed as nonsense. I wonder if the likes of this would be published, or even written, in either of those countries. I wonder whether the reactions in the comments if it were published would be different to those we would get here.

beauf wrote: »

IngazZagni wrote: »

....Cycling infrastructure should of course be invested in and encouraged but not at the hinderence of affecting other transport options because of the reasons I pointed out earlier....

Putting cyclists back into cars isn't going to ease the traffic.

But nobody said this did they? We are talking about the future and developments of the future.

To virkdoodo I'm saying that the government are pussyfooting around with certain infrastructure projects like Dart underground and metro north yet come up with other smaller projects, among them cycling related investments. That's fine but we need serious infrastructure to be built now or we will have chronic traffic problems with more cyclists or not.

beauf wrote: »

IngazZagni wrote: »

...we will have chronic traffic problems with more cyclists or not.

Then its nothing to do with cyclists.

Of course it has nothing to do with cyclists. It's too do with cycling projects. Putting these projects ahead of proper big infrastructure projects that will help enormously with traffic congestion. Pretending that creating a few extra cycle lanes (which I'm in favour of) will help traffic congestion. Rubbish. Dublin is a big city and growing. We need propper transport options and soon.

It ain't about one person beauf. Some people need to drive and I am indeed in that category. Due to distance, and often starting work well before public transport operates or finish after it has stopped. Plus I also have to bring heavy gear with me making the cycling option non existent unfortunately.

"often" is the key word. Shift work. Sometimes it's rush hour. I don't know how people put up with that traffic every day.

Clearly i'm not getting my point across very well in text format so I won't bother continuing.

Haha well clearly my point is completely lost on you but I think we can both agree after looking at that photo that we should instead round up the local planners and shoot them. (not really for the pc brigade)

Imagine for a moment that, rather than planning and buying air flight in advance, we each just hopped on our Gulfstream with no submitted flight plan and decided to head to London, Frankfort or Farranfore... The result would be unmanageable chaos, instead flight is strictly regulated and as a result is probably the safest form of travel.

It's definitely the case that public transport should be favoured over private and it is true that many large ticket public transport infrastructure projects have been put on hold pending the availability of finance. If you ask most cyclists here cycling infrastructure projects are usually a hindrance to experienced cyclists rather than an advantage though they may encourage inexperienced cyclists to try commuting but they tend to be cheaper to implement and the "We must do something, this is something ergo we must do this" logic comes into play.

O'Leary's a deeply unpleasant troll exploiting the clickbait tendencies in Irish media to gain free publicity, the danger is that mouth-breathing George Hook fans will have their prejudices reinforced and courtesy on the road will decrease further.

IngazZagni wrote: »

Of course it has nothing to do with cyclists. It's too do with cycling projects. Putting these projects ahead of proper big infrastructure projects that will help enormously with traffic congestion. Pretending that creating a few extra cycle lanes (which I'm in favour of) will help traffic congestion. Rubbish. Dublin is a big city and growing. We need propper transport options and soon.

It ain't about one person beauf. Some people need to drive and I am indeed in that category. Due to distance, and often starting work well before public transport operates or finish after it has stopped. Plus I also have to bring heavy gear with me making the cycling option non existent unfortunately.

O’Leary is misrepresenting the problem in the same biased and self-serving way as often happens when people perceive a problem as being due to everyone but them. He sees congestion and blames the council, other motorists, cyclists, etc.

He probably looks at the car in front of him and resents the driver for being in his way, they are part of the problem as far as O’Leary is concerned. The motorist behind him sees O’Leary’s car in front of them and resents O’Leary for being in their way, O’Leary is part of the problem as far as they are concerned. Etc. As far as everyone is concerned, everyone else is the problem while they themselves are the victim. They all want someone else to fix the problem, they themselves don’t feel the need to be part of the solution they just want to benefit from whatever that solution is.

We all think like that to some extent, but maturity and rationality usually kick in and we acknowledge to ourselves that the world does not revolve around us and that the “solution” is not so simple and certainly won’t happen without effort on our parts. The likes of O’Leary are far to lazy to apply some common sense, maybe they have more important things to do than take the time to apply the effort that most of us just take as being a necessary part of being a member of society generally.

So the lazy people just blame everyone else and whinge and moan that no-one has fixed the problem yet. They could blame other motorists as being the main cause of the roads being packed with cars but as lazy as they are they know they risk a backlash from those that might point out the utter hypocrisy of that argument. Picking on cyclists is an easy option though, as is picking on the council. There already exists a lot of animosity towards cyclists (and the councils) so they can distract from their entirely self-centred complaint by stoking the fires of that animosity, you’ll inevitably get some other bigot to agree with you that cyclists are the bane of the roads and your complaint will gain momentum based entirely on outrage despite it being entirely illogical.

There is no magic and painless solution to the issue of congestion on the roads, certainly nothing that will appease those many of us, like O’Leary, that would ideally just like the roads entirely to ourselves and nobody else. There are simply too many cars that want to occupy the same limited road space at the same time. It has been shown time and again that if you provide more roads you are just postponing the problem as they’ll fill up quickly too. Given that space and budget limit the number of actual roads that can be installed, it seems that the only route to a solution is to reduce the number of cars occupying them at any one time.

There are obviously many ways of achieving that, but they generally boil down to getting people to use alternative means of transport (or get people to work from home or from less congested locations). Improving public transport certainly deserves more funding, but so does promoting cycling and walking as means of transport for those for whom it is feasible. Unfortunately narrow-minded people like O’Leary don’t even acknowledge cycling as a reasonable option, so they moan about it and disparage it, and they promote the idea that it should not be considered by any “right-minded” person. They ultimately shoot themselves in the foot in doing so, of course, since they are encouraging people into cars but what do they care, sure some adult will come along soon and give them their own private road, or something, and all will suddenly be right with the world.

Motivating people to cycle (or walk) doesn’t have to require huge investment, the major hurdle as I see it is convincing people generally that it’s a perfectly feasible and rational option. Investment can help, of course, but I think it’s pointless without changing what seems to be widespread attitude that “commuting by bike is just not for me”. O’Leary’s childish rant promotes that latter view.

I agree with Michael. He couldn't have said it better. Cyclists around the city are a nuisance. Albeit a great mode of transport for your health and the environment, there is a clear mob mentality from the hardcore cyclists. If there is ever an interaction between a motorist and a cyclists it is always the motorist who is blamed regardless of the circumstances. There is a reason why the government left the need to implement on the new legislation to allow the Gardai to issue on the spot fines. By the looks of it there will be more regulation to follow.

Many hardcore cyclists are holding on to the fact that the number of cyclists is increasing in Ireland but this is surely a given considering the trends...recession over the last few years has forced people to be frugal with their disposable income...perhaps a bicycle might save me money?...perhaps they lost their job and were forced to cycle? On the other hand the attached to the current culture of being a hipster the preferred mode of transport is stereo-typically a bike. Increase in numbers is inevitable. Of course the governments reaction to this is to expand the Dublin City cycle network and pedestrianized zones and remove access from private cars. This sounds great in theory but where is the consideration for the retail economy in Dublin City Center? how many cyclist do you see carrying bags home after a nice day shopping? I personally cant recall any. It is a backward cycle to remove access to motorists from a city.

Michael O'Leary for Taoiseach.