The constant smear campaign against cycling

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uart
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby uart » Sun May 21, 2017 2:30 pm

human909 wrote:I find it hilarious that if a riding is travelling faster than cars nearby then they should slow down because it is dangerous.

Yet the same people will abuse and tell cyclists that they shouldn't be on the road if cars are travelling faster than the nearby cyclists. :roll:
Yes, that's exactly the thing isn't it. In just about every single case like this, if you reversed the position of the car and the cyclist then (in the public perception) the cyclist would still be at fault!

Imagine for example that a cyclist were making a right turn across several lanes of oncoming traffic. The outside lane traffic is stopped so the cyclist decides to turn straight through the gap, but the inside lane still has traffic flowing so the cyclist gets taken out. Those same commenters would now be complaining how the stupid cyclist ploughed straight through an intersection without looking. In other words, they would suddenly adopt the exact opposite position on who's at fault. :?

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby cp123 » Sun May 21, 2017 8:03 pm

if anyone hasn't seen the latest hating page on FB look up aussies over cyclists. be warned.... we all deserve to die...

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby mikesbytes » Mon May 22, 2017 10:25 am

Yeh, the T-boning incident happens regularly at an intersection near where I live with the difference been it is a car t-boning a car. Each time it happens it get posted on my local FB page with calls to install right turn arrows. Not once has it been reported in the news and not once has anyone said the car driving down the left lane was going too fast.

While I hope it never happens, I wonder if at that same intersection if the vehicle in the left lane was a bicycle and that bicycle t-boned the right hand turn car, would they be saying that the cyclist was entitled to be riding there, not taking due care, going too fast and reported in the news?
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby cp123 » Fri May 26, 2017 12:12 pm

of course they would! cyclists are cause of ALL issues on the roads...

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby BradL » Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:39 am

A while ago I vowed to stop reading/commenting on articles in the MSM that mentions bikes, because I don't believe it does anything to change the attitudes of the ignorant. They will only respond to the overall narrative that the media serves to them.

However, this morning I broke this vow, as part of an experiment. I'm expecting that any time now my comment on this Messenger Press article will disappear, and yet the entire comments section is filled with the likes of Chris' comment.

The selective moderation of comments demonstrates just how complicit the main stream media is in promoting violence towards people on bikes. I do wonder about the possibility of class action, but yeah, who has the time to do that eh.

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby biker jk » Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:52 am

BradL wrote:A while ago I vowed to stop reading/commenting on articles in the MSM that mentions bikes, because I don't believe it does anything to change the attitudes of the ignorant. They will only respond to the overall narrative that the media serves to them.

However, this morning I broke this vow, as part of an experiment. I'm expecting that any time now my comment on this Messenger Press article will disappear, and yet the entire comments section is filled with the likes of Chris' comment.

The selective moderation of comments demonstrates just how complicit the main stream media is in promoting violence towards people on bikes. I do wonder about the possibility of class action, but yeah, who has the time to do that eh.

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The cycling "advocacy" organisations have the resources to launch a class action on the incitement to violence issue but are more interested in making money via organising over-priced grand fondos.

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby bychosis » Thu Jun 01, 2017 10:57 am

It is a problem. They kinda say they want to end domestic violence and racism (with all the vitriolic rants etc), but also relish in stories that promote violence. Then editors/moderators etc do very little in discouraging openly violent and hate filled speech as long as long as it isn't against one of the groups that anti-discrimination focus on.
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby find_bruce » Thu Jun 01, 2017 2:26 pm

Trying to stifle free speech is rarely effective & there may be better ways to combat this than legal action (I can't believe I am said that either)

Lets go back to why do people think it is ok to publicly threaten to harm someone? A couple of theories
  • They are a sociopath and intend to carry out their threats
  • they are looking for a reaction from their "fellow travellers"
  • provoke outrage from others
Ben Smith was in the first category. I am glad he made his vile and offensive posts as it was a part of the strong evidence that got him convicted of manslaughter, rather than the usual treatment of death being the result of some sort of whoopsie.

So here's an idea, rather than giving them an outraged reaction that they may be seeking, how about responding along the lines of "thank you for putting your threats on record. If you are the sociopath you pretend to be, may your words come back to haunt you."

The internet is nowhere near as anonymous as some people seem to think. Perhaps someone more tech savvy than me can come up with a system where such comments are reported & the perpetrator tracked, facebook style. We may not be able to get preventative action, it would be handy to correlate after the event.

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby bychosis » Thu Jun 01, 2017 3:05 pm

find_bruce wrote:The internet is nowhere near as anonymous as some people seem to think. Perhaps someone more tech savvy than me can come up with a system where such comments are reported & the perpetrator tracked, facebook style. We may not be able to get preventative action, it would be handy to correlate after the event.
Yes, some type of software that combs the interwebz for hate speech and collates it for the constabulary. They probably have something like that already, but comments against non-minority groups would probably be ignored as white noise.

Tell you what though, if you do ever get involved in a court case involving a jerk like Ben Smith it'd be worth getting a thorough 'net search done.
bychosis (bahy-koh-sis): A mental disorder of delusions indicating impaired contact with a reality of no bicycles.

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby BradL » Thu Jun 01, 2017 6:51 pm

find_bruce wrote:Trying to stifle free speech is rarely effective & there may be better ways to combat this than legal action (I can't believe I am said that either)
I'm not suggesting that free speech needs to be curtailed. The right to free speech does not allow you to incite violence towards others, nor does it allow you to threaten others with violence.

My point was more so that the moderators of MSM comments sections tend to allow all manner of "free speech" to be posted, as long as it conforms to the narrative that "cyclists are freeloading and taking things from you and it's ok to run them over if you feel angry about this or anything else". If you attempt to call this out for what it is, your comment is moderated out of existence, as mine has now been. So much for "free speech". In doing this, the media are willfully normalising the idea of violence towards cyclists as a reasonable response to motorist's frustrations.

So, in my mind, a class action would be focused on the media's willingness to publish content that incites violence towards cyclists, not necessarily the individuals who make those comments. The process of moderation enables the media to choose which comments are published, so therefore they are entirely responsible for providing a platform for the dissemination of these views. If the view that it's ok to be violent towards cyclists is removed from online discussion, through legally compelling the media to do so, then perhaps it's less likely to be manifested on the roads.

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby BJL » Thu Jun 01, 2017 7:33 pm

Been thinking a bit about this today. Part of it comes back to my post on the Facebook moderation thread and some of it came from listening to the radio today. They were talking about how some people are saying that refugees or children of refugees from the middle east are more likely to become terrorists or aligned with extremist causes. But I believe that a large part of the problem is the rapid proliferation of social media like Facebook which makes it easy to engage with large audiences in a very short space of time. Basically, what we're seeing is social media fueling hatred at a never before seen rate. You now longer have to travel somewhere to talk to someone or wait days/weeks/forever for letters to be sent by mail. And unlike talk back radio, the internet allows for instant commenting and communications. Self moderation by sites like Facebook is in my opinion, criminally neglectful. Mob mentality is more efficient than ever! And all the while, the law is an ass.

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby human909 » Sat Jun 03, 2017 7:03 am

You do have a point there. Modern media brings people together faster than ever before.

"Extremism" normally occurs when groups of similarly distorted mindset group together and feed on each others anger/hatred. When it is much easier to do this it becomes much easier for such behaviour to develop. Even hundreds of years ago this was the case. If you lived in a quiet farming village you were far less likely to become extremist in your views than if you lived in a larger city. Still, the printing press is credited with a fair bit here.

Not "extremism" in of itself isn't a bad thing. Bob brown and some 'greenie' extremists saved large sections of Tasmanian wilderness from being dammed. Meanwhile a few extremists in Australia believe in a world where foam hats are optional for cycling....

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby mikesbytes » Wed Aug 02, 2017 8:23 am

The motorist in front of me turned right at a no right hand turn, it also has a traffic island designed to stop people turning right, so (s)he had to do a hook style turn to get around it.

Now if that was a cyclist people would be saying that cyclists need to earn respect but when I motorist does it no one says that motorists need to earn respect
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby bychosis » Wed Aug 02, 2017 9:38 am

mikesbytes wrote:The motorist in front of me turned right at a no right hand turn, it also has a traffic island designed to stop people turning right, so (s)he had to do a hook style turn to get around it.

Now if that was a cyclist people would be saying that cyclists need to earn respect but when I motorist does it no one says that motorists need to earn respect
No, anyone near there will think that particular driver is an idiot and needs training (or a fine), when a cyclist does it it is a reason to get all cyclists off the road.
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby mikesbytes » Thu Sep 28, 2017 4:06 pm

Now the smear campaign has moved against the hire bikes. Cheap hire bikes that you can grab almost as easily as a taxi are a threat to those trying to limit and reduce the number of cyclists.

We are seeing statements like "The bikes are an eyesore" but I never hear someone say that the parked cars are an eyesore.

Now we are seeing vandalism but rather than blaming the persons committing the crime, they are blaming the victim of the crime

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/inne ... ae0d7546da

When you read down further in the article the victim of the crime says that it was the person who did it, not the bike company but the article is written in a way to blame the bike company up front and then abstain themselves of bad reporting by correcting the statement deep down past where most people read.

And why is it that the have added a video explaining the road rules associated with bicycles, what does that have to do with the article?
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby Leethal » Thu Sep 28, 2017 5:09 pm


That's a ridiculous news article. Bicycles don't end up on cars, in trees or in rivers by themselves! How about the Police (and this might be really difficult for some to grasp) make an effort to catch the thugs doing it!? :roll:
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby Trevtassie » Fri Sep 29, 2017 9:17 am

Leethal wrote:

That's a ridiculous news article. Bicycles don't end up on cars, in trees or in rivers by themselves! How about the Police (and this might be really difficult for some to grasp) make an effort to catch the thugs doing it!? :roll:
And in other news a man calls for bricks to be banned after one was thrown through his front window. He has engaged Slater and Gordon to start a class action against Adbri on behalf of all brick victims...

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby human909 » Mon Oct 02, 2017 12:12 pm

From the opposite side of the fence...


The effort that is gone to in this headline and the article's contents to avoid the use of 'driver' is impressive. In fact apart from the charges you would even know that he was driving let alone driving the bus. I had to check another source just to be sure that the bus was not driving itself.

Man charged after pedestrian struck and killed by bus in Mordialloc

A MAN has been charged over the death of a pedestrian who was struck and killed by a bus in Mordialloc.

Police arrested and charged a 41-year-old Oakleigh man at Melbourne Airport yesterday.

The charges come after a pedestrian died after allegedly being struck by a bus at the intersection of Centre Way, Mordialloc, about 4.40pm on September 7.

The 67-year-old pedestrian was crossing Beach Road at the intersection of Centre Way when the incident occurred.

The man has been charged with, dangerous driving causing death and careless driving.

The man appeared in Melbourne Magistrates’ Court yesterday morning and was remanded to reappear at Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on October 4, for a filing hearing.


Lets not mention the fact that he was only allegedly struck by the bus. After-all he might have crawled under it himself! :?
(But allegedly is abused by all media. I'm surprised they didn't say the pedestrian allegedly died.)
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby mikesbytes » Fri May 11, 2018 12:16 pm

It seems to me that the bad reporting reduced but is still there, just less in your face. A small example appeared in the moron motorists thread

https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/ ... -melbourne
- No one was hurt
- It wasn't reported
- No one was charged

So why bother reporting on such a minor incident?

What it does is entrench the fear of being hit by a car if you cycle and the fear of being hit by a car is a major and possibly the main reason others don't take up cycling
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby Tequestra » Fri May 11, 2018 1:18 pm

mikesbytes wrote:What it does is entrench the fear of being hit by a car if you cycle and the fear of being hit by a car is a major and possibly the main reason others don't take up cycling
I did that once in Surin, Thailand, trying to park a 4x4 dual-cab Hilux straight, and there was a small alley off the street right next to the bay I found. Just as I reversed back a few metres (much more slowly than the SUV pictured) to get in close to the kerb, a young girl on a little motorbike rode down the alley and stopped right behind the raised 4x4, and I did not see her, but heard the crunch as my RHR wheel rolled over her bike's back wheel. Luckily she was not hurt, oh but I remember watching the poor girl ride off after making my sincere apologies with a wonky back wheel. I am so ashamed but nothing short of a rear-view camera would have stopped this unfortunate Accident, in the true sense of the word. That SUV in the photo reversed much too fast, unless the footage is sped up.

I am lucky that she didn't call her brothers to come over and punish me for it, even though it was in no way intentional, and I still can't think of how I could have avoided it because her head was below the height of the tailgate, making her invisible to the driver. It goes without saying that my entourage and I left for Mukdahan province as soon as the young lady wobbled off down the road on her wonky wheeled motorbike, poor thing. Oh I am so ashamed.

Back on topic, what might be in part the cause of the misunderstandings between cyclists and car drivers is that riding a bike in the city is a very dangerous activity, and so when I am on the bike, I am ten times more alert and anxious than when I get behind the wheel of my brand-new, second-hand Big Truck. This is much like the comfortable feeling of driving a car. It is not so blatantly dangerous as riding a bike, and this is why on the bike, my mind is much more engrossed in survival mode than in the car or the truck. It is sometimes in the survival mindset appropriate to behave in a manner which maybe hard for a car driver to understand if they don't cycle too.

The reason that the cyclist is mentally inclined towards the survival mode is purely because of the danger imposed by the presence of heavy metal vehicles, but the media is a political tool and the majority of voters drive heavy metal vehicles, so it would be of no use to the majority for the media to support the views of a minority like us. There is no money minorities unless they're in fashion, and cyclists are gaining slowly, but not anywhere near as popular as some of the usual fashionable set. We don't attract the same sympathy as the YKWs.
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby AdelaidePeter » Fri May 11, 2018 1:36 pm

mikesbytes wrote:It seems to me that the bad reporting reduced but is still there, just less in your face. A small example appeared in the moron motorists thread

https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/ ... -melbourne
- No one was hurt
- It wasn't reported
- No one was charged

So why bother reporting on such a minor incident?
Because it makes good TV, of course. (Regardless of whether the almost-victim was a pedestrian, cyclist, or another car).

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby JPB » Fri May 11, 2018 3:32 pm

AdelaidePeter wrote:
mikesbytes wrote:It seems to me that the bad reporting reduced but is still there, just less in your face. A small example appeared in the moron motorists thread

https://www.9news.com.au/national/2018/ ... -melbourne
- No one was hurt
- It wasn't reported
- No one was charged

So why bother reporting on such a minor incident?
Because it makes good TV, of course. (Regardless of whether the almost-victim was a pedestrian, cyclist, or another car).
Bingo

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby mikesbytes » Fri May 11, 2018 7:07 pm

Its about as news worthy as the new bell I put on my pub bike;
- No one was hurt during the installation
- The style police didn't arrest me
- The hipsta's didn't give me black looks
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby bychosis » Fri May 11, 2018 7:24 pm

mikesbytes wrote:Its about as news worthy as the new bell I put on my pub bike;
- No one was hurt during the installation
- The style police didn't arrest me
- The hipsta's didn't give me black looks
If you can upload a video it will be newsworthy.
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Re: The constant smear campaign against cycling

Postby mikesbytes » Fri May 11, 2018 9:07 pm

bychosis wrote:
mikesbytes wrote:Its about as news worthy as the new bell I put on my pub bike;
- No one was hurt during the installation
- The style police didn't arrest me
- The hipsta's didn't give me black looks
If you can upload a video it will be newsworthy.
LOL
If the R-1 rule is broken, what happens to N+1?

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