Regional Press advocating violence against cyclists

We have mixed opinions of the Bristol Evening Post, and mourn the fact that whenever it tries to be more forward thinking -as in its coverage of gay marriage- the remaining readers find it offensive.

The Western Daily Press -the Somerset paper that seemingly never gets sold in the city- isn't trying to be so forward thinking, not with its Chris Rundle article "Cyclists are a nuisance on Somerset's roads and byways"

1. Columnist complains about cyclsts being on on shared path while he is warning
2. Same columnist expresses sympathy for people in the new forest who endangered cyclists and horses on roads by throwing tacks on the road -a crime for which the police are making enquiries
3. Columnist then complains about cyclists not being on a shared path while he is driving
4. Columnist expresses surprise that when he shouts "get off the road" to cyclists as he drives by that they are insulting back
5. Columnist proposes assaulting cyclists with a billiard cue

The author here clearly has some hate issues, or he is trying to be witty in the style of Matthew "string them up" Parris  by advocating violence against residents and visitors to the area.


And the Western Daily Press encourages this? Actually prints articles advocating violence against cyclists? As that is what they are doing.

Matthew Paris eventually apologised -after hundreds of Press Complaints Council complaints. We wait to see what the Western Daily and Chris Rundle do.

Before anyone says "we are coming out as a cycling organisation"  Not so. We give cyclists exactly the same respect we give anyone else in this city: nothing whatsoever. But nor do we go out of our way to run them over, shout abuse or try to hit them. Violence tends not to make the original problem go away -it just escalates things.