Diversion tactic 1: Why can’t riding a bike or dealing with misdirected aggression be as this much fun?
The blog title alone should score me a few hits with the pig shooters & roided up cartards. What’s this one about then?
This.
“I’m not a cyclists hater, I’m not nothing,” Jason told Macquarie Radio this morning.
“I was just driving along and I had a car failure and now I’m in trouble - I dunno.”
Oh the hiliarity which has ensured since “Jason” had his epic moment of cognitive and mechanical dissonance on Sydneys Southern Cross Drive on Thursday morning. Not only did he piss off from a road incident (yes, obviously clearly illegal), the lad then had the temerity to go on 2GB and have a chat.
Shoutback gets fun
And then, in a now legendary moment in Australian live radio, Ben Kersten called into 2GB talkback and went mano-a-mano with the hapless Jas. For feck sakes, even a garden snail would have more sense than this tool than to talk to the media. Where’s his legal rep?
The torrents of bullshit from this latest round of anti-cyclist palavar are further examples of lazy, but somewhat cruel, entertainment for the plebs. Needless to remind you, in Sydney the likes of gormless idiots like Anita Quigley and overwrought shoutback AM radio announcers relish these pointless circular arguments. Does nothing. Proves nothing. Makes some people feel momentarily better about something they never knew anything about at all. Push repeat.
I have a itsy-bitsy hunch that this variety of online commentary is likely to be ever so slightly tilted towards marketing and branding, like who wouldn’t want to have a clickthrough ad on a article page with a raging river of shite being updated every 5-10 minutes?
Rego
The reheated rego issue is bollox, like as if having licensing for vehicle operators has created 100% compliance? As for taxation issues, petrol tax only pays for a tiny section of road infrastructure, as most governments infrastructure costs are paid from consolidated revenue. The lie that ‘cyclists’ don’t pay tax is a lazy furphy.
It gets trotted out for another airing again and again as it’s easy to repeat, sticks like shit and doesn’t it just make a great sound bite?
The comments on these articles are mostly a beatup and best ignored. For the more disgusting variety: have a look at this Media Watch segment and follow up if necessary. In this case I’m taking screen shots of the lot. And following up with appropriate action.
Although I’ll add a gentle caution, please don’t get too despondent over this latest outburst, pander the pun it’s a cyclical thing that pops into the public consciousness at least twice a year and then goes off the boil.
Remember: the vast majority of drivers and cyclists are completely normal law abiding people.
Two weeks to the Australian Ride of Silence.
