Why we should all steer clear of road rage (and cyclists)

In the past two weeks six cyclists have been killed on London's roads. Right now their families are organising their funeral arrangements, packing their things away to be sold or stored in the attic, having difficult conversations with the banks and utility companies about winding up their financial affairs, and facing a future without their loved one.

Meanwhile, in the same timeframe, a girl called Emma Way (presumably short for Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted) was found guilty at Norwich Magistrates’ Court of two charges related to an incident in which she knocked a cyclist off his bike, carried on driving, and later tweeted a lol-ish tweet about it, saying "Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier. I have right of way - he doesn't even pay road tax! #Bloodycyclists." And last week Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted appeared on ITV's flagship breakfast TV programme Daterape to tell the world about how difficult it has been for her since the incident came to light.

It's hard to know where to start lampooning Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted. Like the cyclist she hit, she is an easy target. Her PR person must have been to the Miley Cyrus & Cat Bin Lady School of Public Relations. But as she explained on Daterape, she was only 22 at the time and let's face it who didn't mow down defenseless road users and then brag about it online when they were 22?

But seriously, although Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted clearly lives up to her name, she is sadly not nearly as bad as many drivers out there, and only indicative of a worryingly common attitude amongst drivers. The stupidity of her tweet is hopefully self-evident (even Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted rated it as 11 out of 10 on the stupidity scale - make of that what you will) but the idiocy of her argument isn't so obvious. So allow me to spell it out.

Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted is correct in her assertion that the cyclist she hit does not pay road tax. However, what Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted almost certainly doesn't realise (A. because it would undermine the implication that it was ok to knock the cyclist off his bike and drive on, and B. because she is clearly an idiot) is that she also doesn't pay road tax. This is because THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS ROAD TAX!

Road tax was abolished by Winston Churchill in 1937 and replaced by Vehicle Excise Duty. The building and maintaining of roads is now funded entirely by general and local taxation, both of which are, of course, paid by cyclists. Vehicle Excise Duty (or 'car tax' as many sensible authorities now refer to it) is charged on the basis of engine size and CO2 emissions, and not paid at all by various types of vehicle, including electric cars and bicycles. It is spent by the government on anything from building hospitals to building duck islands for Peter Viggers.

But even if it were true that cyclists made no contribution to the cost of building roads, what alternative, exactly, do Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted and her fellow (fictional) road tax payers propose? That cyclists be banned from using the roads because they don’t pay for them? And drive instead? Would they like those thousands of former cyclists to be congesting the roads in petrol-guzzling vehicles? Or is it just that these #bloodycyclists should be taxed in the form of occasional deaths underneath the wheels of left-turning lorries? Should the cycling community, like the rebellious districts in The Hunger Games, be forever obliged to offer up human sacrifices, in return for their non-payment of (fictional) road tax?

In a quite flagrant example of victim-blaming, some astonishing vitriol has been poured on cyclists in response to the reporting of these deaths, from mainstream newspapers running articles asking why cyclists take unnecessary risks, to some Twitter users (or Twits, for short) even complaining that the drivers were victims in these situations too. I suppose in the same way that Syrian civilians have been wantonly inconveniencing President Assad’s chemical weapons.

But what really troubles me as a cyclist is the way the cycling community all too often hits back at drivers with equally simple-minded spleen and abusiveness - like the EDL hitting out at #bloodypakis because some extremist Muslims choose to puts bombs in their shoes and get on planes. The reality is that there are some arrogant, idiotic and downright dangerous people on bikes out there, just like there is Jeremy Clarkson in cars. But we shouldn't allow one idiot's behaviour to tarnish all those who choose to use the same type of vehicle. This kind of us-and-them mentality only perpetuates the notion that each side deserves the inconveniences the other can inflict on them, and this increases the likelihood of accidents happening.

What the roads need now is not more hatred and divisiveness but an understanding that we are all road users and all deserve to be treated with the kind of respect that stops these accidents from happening. Except Emma Way Stoopider Person Than Should Be Legally Permitted - she should be put in a hot air balloon and left to float into oblivion until she pays her air tax.

Why Little Hufferingham may not be all bad

A little while ago I wrote a blog post about why you don't need to leave The Big Smoke to have a little sprog. I may have given the misleading impression that I think London living is all roses. And I may have been a little bit harsh to Little Hufferingham. So to redress the balance here's a list of 20 signs you've been in London too long...

1.    You think a shop assistant is flirting with you if they smile or make eye contact during your transaction.

2.    You know the rule about how you're only allowed one attempt at touching in with your Oyster card and if the red light comes on you have to rejoin the back of the queue, not just try again.

3.    You always flout this rule because you're in a hurry.

4.    You think 9 to 5 is part time.

5.    You couldn't identify your neighbours in an ID parade.

6.    You roll your eyes at people who think the OPEN button on the tube actually opens the doors.

7.    You think a window box constitutes reasonable 'outside space'.

8.    You have had to physically restrain yourself from punching a tourist for standing on the left on an escalator.

9.    You can't understand why other cities don't have escalator rules.

10. You think Birmingham is The North. You can't be certain but you think Peterborough is probably The North.

11. You have figured out what the pink Oyster touch points are for.

12. You have never been to Madame Tussauds.

13. You wouldn't dream of taking the tube from Leicester Square to Covent Garden. Not least because Covent Garden is for tourists.

14. You don't flinch when asked to pay 89p for a bag of crisps.

15. You understand how to find out which bus stop you need.

16. You know that Sir John Soane’s Museum is not a 'hidden gem'.

17. You think Eternity is waiting 4 minutes for a tube.

18. You know there are 100 seconds in a TFL minute.

19. You think it's fair game if someone nicks your bike when it was only single locked to a lamppost.

20. You know Camden is an abomination.