The newspaper journalists LOVE to stir sh*t and create confrontation! It sells the paper and that’s what their job depends on, so we fully understand that. ;-) However if you brought the wrong two sides up against each other you could get squashed in the middle, so you have to pick wisely! A good target to pick are cyclists and motorists. There is a natural dislike for each other it seems and also you steer far away from any racial or gender issues and accusations of discrimination.
Last week the Irish Times reported that “More fines issued to cyclists but not to drivers parking in cycle lanes”. I get the link BUT this is just sh*t stirring! The journalist didn’t write about “More fines issued to speeding motorists than to drunk motorists” or something like that.
Cars in cycling lanes is against the law (during the hours a cycling lane is active or if there is a full white line) and there is no justification for parking there. And in the same way, crossing a red traffic light is against the law and there is no justification for doing it, but comparing the number of tickets is nonsensical.
It is interesting though that there were 571 (!) fines given to cyclists who crossed red lights in the Dublin region. Considering that you can hardly ever be at a red light as a pedestrian or in a car WITHOUT seeing a cyclists crossing a red light, this is just a tiny tip of a HUGE iceberg and but it did already amount to a sizeable number of 571.
It is a totally stupid and very dangerous thing to do at best of time! So I hope that the Gardai will continue stopping cars and bikes who cross red lights!
