Wednesday 19 January 2011

Welcome to Bristol, Kayla Maratty!

We are pleased to welcome Bristol 24-7's correspondent, Kayla Maratty, who provides a well argued explanation of why cyclists deserve to be run over in her article "My homicidal tendencies towards cyclists".

Kayla manages to completely summarise how it is bicycles on Whiteladies Road and Blackboy hill that bring the city to a halt, as we have discussed previously. She says
"Part of me would take great pleasure in mowing them down when they choose to cycle in the middle of the road or are determined to peddle all the wayup Black Boy Hill. But obviously I would never do that; I can get by just on the thought of it to restrain my road rage."

We find driving really close behind them intimidating enough. Sadly, it is actually legal for them to cycle down the middle of a single lane road, which Whiteladies is. And when they are going over the Downs, they do need to pull to the right of the left turn only lane, so sounding your horn doesn't help.

Still, we are glad to see your fight against university tuition fees continue. Obviously this isn't an issue for you, as not only will the fee rise kick in after you have finished your course, if you can afford to drive and  park anywhere near the university, then you are clearly part of that set of students known as "well-funded", and we expect your parents to pay for all your living expenses. We look forward to your complaints about how the rollout of the RPZ is forcing you park and walk further. If you do not write such an article, we shall assume that the fact that Woodland Road and St Michael's Park now offer more short stay paid parking than ever before actually benefits you, as it makes it easier for you drive down to the university for a lecture and latte before heading home again, albeit held up by all the cyclists.

Can we take this opportunity to remind our readers that Bristol Traffic is not some satire or spoof. If it were, you'd have to conclude that the whole of the UK printed and online press is also some kind of spoof. The Daily Mail has been going on for over a hundred years now, so its time to own up to being a wind-up, if it really is.


Update 24-Jan: the original article has been pulled, the editor apologises and denounces the bullying by cyclists.

8 comments:

Mike F said...

"determined to peddle all the wayup Black Boy Hill!"

What exactly are these ne'er-do-wells intent on selling?

Valerie Sinatra said...

link to article is dead? As is the whole of their website by the looks of it? Maybe their upload speeds weren't fast enough and a server running higher bandwidth with faster traffic ran it over? It'd only be right to do so wouldn't it?

SteveL said...

worksforme, as we say. I have the PDF of the page for posterity

Quercus said...

Come on guys, leave off the poor girl.

She apparently works hard at Henbury Golf Club and has probably got you out of trouble if you've called the RAC. You may even have bought something from her at Miss Selfridge or Primark in the last few years.

Anyone studying History and Journalism at UWE can't be all bad.

Just don't tell her that she can save time and money by using the cycle path.

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amoeba said...

Kayla Maratty is clearly mentally unsuited to operating dangerous machinery.

Her licence to drive must be revoked immediately.

Cheffervescence said...

Looks like cyclists' ire lead to the article being pulled, hence why the link is dead. Editorial here:

http://www.bristol247.com/2011/01/23/editors-blog-response-to-cyclists-fury/

Cheffervescence said...

Looks like cyclists' ire lead to the article being pulled, hence why the link is dead. Editorial here:

http://www.bristol247.com/2011/01/23/editors-blog-response-to-cyclists-fury/

Cheffervescence said...

Oh, whoops, I see you've already updated the article with the editorial link, sorry!