CONTRAFLOW with Bobby McWheeler
Mean on the streets... and the English language!

Thank you Toyota for spoiling my start to 2006. Apparently my remarks about the Prius have offended you again and you will certainly not be inviting me to the South of France to meet Mr Tom Cruise or anyone else connected to your struggling car building enterprise. Just as well really, as I read that you are about to show your true colours with a concept vehicle called the F3R.

This monster mobile home of an SUV is described as ‘funky’. Is that ‘funky’ as in overweight and wasteful of resources and fuel? It even makes a Humvee look modest. My advice to this company is to knuckle down and start building something useful while they have a chance. If they have a change of mind I’ll be happy to advise.

The second bit of shock news was the fact that push-bike use continues to rise in some areas. I caught a glimpse of this in my home town when out for a drive a few Sundays ago. Evidence of this anti-social activity can be found on this site. I’m sure your city may harbour similar groups intent on occupying the streets at weekends. Just imagine if motorists went out for mass drives every Sunday? There would be even more traffic chaos on top of the chaos we alreay have! So push-bike users, please let hard-working press-victimised motorists have their own ‘chaos’ without adding to it.

And what exactly do I mean by ‘anti-social’? Well traditionally Sundays are the day when you can park on cycle lanes - a reward for all the petty rules we persecuted motorists have to endure the rest of the week. On Sunday rides, push-bike users seem to insist on using the narrow road space left between lines of parked cars. What’s wrong with pushing your bikes along the pavement?! I thought that the council had got this right. The idea was to have cycle lanes open at times that family groups would not use. That way the council shows willing but doesn’t actually encourage people to get on their push-bike in the city. So when the average family go shopping in town at the weekend they can park on the cycle lanes. The effect of this is two-fold. It sends a message out that it’s ‘not a good time to cycle’ and it shows that bike lanes don’t really matter too much if you drive. In my view cycling is work and Sunday is the ‘day of rest’. It’s also the ‘day of shopping’ after resting whilst driving your comfy car. If cycling was allowed to happen frequently it could end up affecting the retail economy. Apparently these little selfish city tours involve meagre purchases of light snacks but never anything of real value, like walk-in fridge freezers. I’m sure some CC readers believe that Sundays should be a cycling day but I just can’t agree. Maybe they should take/drive their bikes somewhere else?