I was listening to some guy waffling on the other day, getting on his high horse as to how eco friendly he is because he cycles to work. Granted I don’t have the lung capacity to cycle to work and I live too far away to make it viable, I’d be inclined to agree normally, except for the fact that from my perspective, one guy cycling doesn’t make him Captain Planet.

Mark Cavendish can cycle in the road properly, most cyclists drive like pricks.

This then transpired to my thinking on my way back the other day. I was part of queue of cars stuck behind a cyclist who was cycling in the middle of the road. Cycling Proficiency states that cyclists need to be more the left hand side of the road in order for cars to pass safely.

Even when I was having driving lessons many years ago was I taught that you give a wide berth to a cyclist because they stick to the left of the road. But this guy was in the middle. Smack bang in the middle. As a result I was late but my point is, since cyclists in general cannot maintain the same speed as the speed limit, i.e. this chap was doing about 20mph in a 60mph zone, the subsequent cars behind cannot drive efficiently as they are all compensating for driving slowly by being in lower gears.

Since lower gears consume more fuel than driving in fifth gear for example, surely the exhausts emit more pollutants into the atmosphere. But I ask you this, if the cyclist was driving his car would they choose to be labouring at 20mph in 2nd gear? No because they’d be driving normally. I agree that cycling to work is better for the environment, but that’s if everyone does it. Not just one idiot with zero road sense. Cycling irresponsibly causes the subsequent tailback to use lower gears which produces more emissions and that isn’t very green is it?

I do agree that exhaust emissions are a problem, but I don’t like it when some people think that cycling gives them some kind of righteousness over the rest of us drivers. I’ve had it several times that bikes just swerve in front of you from driving on the pavement and cause you to break suddenly all because they decided to be irresponsible. I actually had an incident in the summer where some guy decided to go from the pavement to the road as I was negotiating a traffic calming bollard (where it’s on your side of the road). The fact that the guy cut me up didn’t piss me off, but after I slammed on my brakes the stupid cunt audaciously threw his water bottle and its contents over my windscreen because I nearly hit him. Now seeing that he swerved in front of me coming from the pavement puts him in the wrong right? But then he does something which potentially can cause an accident. But I’d be at fault because I’m in the car. It’s madness. I still think I’d perfectly be in my rights to smack him with my door, but again I’d be in the wrong. Prick.

So yes, as high and mighty that some cyclists seem to regard themselves, cycling to work or wherever doesn’t make you a better person.