Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

How else would you explain people who live less than 15 minutes' ride from
an office but choose to spend 25 minutes driving it instead?

That's one of the excuses. Remove that and it becomes the hills. Or the
weather. Or the lack of changing facilities at the office. Or they ran
outta gas. Had a flat tyre. Didn't have enough money for cab fare. Their tux
didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from outta town.
Someone stole their bike. There was an earthquake, a terrible flood,
locusts. It isn't their fault, they swear to God!

As I see it the basic problem isn't laziness (after all, these same
people will drive to the gym to do bloody hard work at great expense),
but more cultural. Someone in the UK wants to get somewhere the default
option tends to be "I will drive". Only if there are insurmountable
problems with the default option do alternatives get looked at in many
cases.

I don't think we'll be winning until riding half a mile to the shops becomes
the norm instead of a Big Deal, showing your fgreen credentials so you can
brag to your mates when you drive to the pub later in your 4x4.

They certainly encourage leisure cycling. But I am not convinced that leads
to utility cycling in any great numbers.

I'd agree with this. A pal of mine is a roadie, but I've only ever seen
him cycle a Serious Sports Bike dressed to the hilt in all the lycra
going out for a ride rather than to do a utility chore. He'll drive for
social calls about 1 km away. Same pattern for his girlfriend, who
seems to do most of her cycling on a turbo trainer. The concept of
going somewhere by bike because it's easy just doesn't seem to enter
their heads, though both would list "cycling" as hobbies.

Sure. There is very limited capacity to add such provision where I live and
work. Better to make the roads less hostile.

This is also my feeling. The creation of a major, well engineered
network of segregated cycle-lanes across the UK just isn't going to
happen any time before there's skiing in hell and the pigs are grazing
on clouds, so I think it's better to work with what we /do/ have. And,
imperfect as that is, the figures still demonstrate it's not actually
hideously dangerous to cycle there.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch University of Dundee
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Medical Physics, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/