"... whenever I am in an area with predominance of Africans, Jews, South Asians, Cockneys or other uncivilised lovers of black tinted windows, the respect for vulnerable road users sinks to Thirld World levels."
"The Dutch recognise the problem they have and openly talk about it: dark-skinned immigrants do not cycle and that lowers the standards of the nation."
The problem isn't the dark-skinned people, or the Jews, or Cockneys, or people who like tinted windows. The problem is the people who aren't accustomed to sharing the road with cyclists, or don't respect the rights of cyclists. In the UK and especially Central London, that seems to include 80% of all motorists, be they black, white, rainbow-colored, Protestant, atheist, or Jedi.
Perhaps it's true that in the Netherlands, there's a strong correlation between people who don't respect cyclists, and immigrants from countries without strong cycling cultures, who happen to be dark-skinned. But to put up a picture of a black woman with a bicycle and commend her for "raising standards" is the worst sort of imperialistic condescension... next thing you know, he'll be talking about "civilizing missions".
And just as a bit of counter-evidence: I was in Morocco for 9 days last month. Traffic in Marrakech is absolutely horrible, it's pretty much a free-for-all of cars, mopeds, bicycles, and pedestrians. But if you get out of central Marrakech and into villages, you start to see a lot of people on bicycles, and they co-exist perfectly peacefully with cars.
"... whenever I am in an area with predominance of Africans, Jews, South Asians, Cockneys or other uncivilised lovers of black tinted windows, the respect for vulnerable road users sinks to Thirld World levels."
"The Dutch recognise the problem they have and openly talk about it: dark-skinned immigrants do not cycle and that lowers the standards of the nation."
The problem isn't the dark-skinned people, or the Jews, or Cockneys, or people who like tinted windows. The problem is the people who aren't accustomed to sharing the road with cyclists, or don't respect the rights of cyclists. In the UK and especially Central London, that seems to include 80% of all motorists, be they black, white, rainbow-colored, Protestant, atheist, or Jedi.
Perhaps it's true that in the Netherlands, there's a strong correlation between people who don't respect cyclists, and immigrants from countries without strong cycling cultures, who happen to be dark-skinned. But to put up a picture of a black woman with a bicycle and commend her for "raising standards" is the worst sort of imperialistic condescension... next thing you know, he'll be talking about "civilizing missions".
And just as a bit of counter-evidence: I was in Morocco for 9 days last month. Traffic in Marrakech is absolutely horrible, it's pretty much a free-for-all of cars, mopeds, bicycles, and pedestrians. But if you get out of central Marrakech and into villages, you start to see a lot of people on bicycles, and they co-exist perfectly peacefully with cars.