Sunday 30 January 2011

Sleeping with the enemy

We at Bristol Traffic never hesitate to drive where others may fear to tread in the pursuit of truth and justice for motorists. It is in no small part to our fearless reporting that the war on the motorist is finally being won but are always keeping a look out for any danger that the enemy will retaliate.

Which is why we were very concerned to hear about a splinter group that is being formed specifically with the aim of attacking the rights of the motorist to drive where we damn well please. Who else but the tax dodging, lycra lout, cyclists, always whinging about our hard taxed money being spent on cycling "farcilities" that they should be grateful for. It seems that they want cycling infrastructure that is as good as the Dutch model (which, incidentally, we were very disappointed to hear does not involve David Walliams's wife.)

The meeting of this splinter group was in a far away forbidding place designed to strike fear in the heart of any motorist, yet we were spurred on by the recent revelation that the police planted an informer into an environmental activist group. If they could do it then so could we and so we fuelled up the white van and headed east, braving the congestion charge and the danger that we may need to have sex with some of them (despite being confident that they were all certain to be mamils.)

Our fears were realised; not the sex part unfortunately, but the purpose and organisation of this subversive organisation. Calling themselves the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, it was a group of diverse, passionate and probably even intelligent people that are trying to take road space away from the motorist and give it to pedestrians, cyclists and communities. We were disturbed that there were so many attendees and as far as we could tell, not one of them was actually wearing lycra (apart from us trying to blend in), in fact the ringleader was wearing a suit!

It may be humble beginnings but we really fear that this group could actually make a difference with this manifesto. Whatever you do, do not encourage this behaviour or talk about the set up of their "Embassy" or before you know it there will be 20mph zones and no pavement parking for starters.

Do you really want this to happen to Bristol's gloriously car centric streets?

6 comments:

SteveL said...

@Rhrode, where you really there? Where are the photos?

Rhode Long said...

I was indeed there and have some photos and video of the crowd (gathering evidence!) Obviously need to pixelate the faces... ;-)

Rhode Long said...

Actually you may recognise a handsome chap in this.

http://goodbyejacque.com/2011/01/30/cycling-embassy-of-great-britain-founded/

SteveL said...

No, no handsome chaps there. Nor this one: http://ibikelondon.blogspot.com/2011/01/founding-of-cycling-embassy-of-great.html

Rhode Long said...

I am relieved you said that actually! :-)

Anonymous said...

I must confess Mark Ames from ibikelondon didn't really catch my best side (if I ever had one)! Thank you for coming along, monitoring the crowd and reporting accordingly. I look forward to seeing more of your evidence and the tinny sound of someone trying to hack my phone. Mind you, all they'll get is my wife asking me to get some more Cow & Gate. Not really News of the World material, but more interesting than Gwyneth Paltrow.

All the best

Jim