More Fabulous Anti-Cycling Stuff from the Cycle Touring Club

In the past, we've lauded the quisling work of our entryist agents in deep cover at CTC Grampian and the Aberdeen Cycle Forum. Unlike the results brought by foreign cycle advocacy groups like the so-called "-izes", (see Copenhagenize, Amsterdamize, Hamburgize, Portlandize and on and on) our fifth columnists at CTC Grampian and Aberdeen Cycle Forum manage to keep cycling down, keep it in it's place. They do this by means of a variety of wheezes involving:

Making cycling irresistible. Ha! Yeah right.
So you are.

1. Divide and rule (CTC and the Forum are always at each other's throats); 
2. Deep satire (the members of these clubs are very often photographed looking bloody ridiculous); 
3. Pusillanimity (invariably compromising on cycling issues, rights and facilities in favour of the needs of the more important family motorist on the streets of Aberdeen "City and Shire); 
4. and, best of all dangerism.

Dangerism is a term which refers to the practice of maximising the perception of risk and the cultivation of fear and the accommodation of those fears by a "hardening" of safety measures, which then, in turn feed back into a greater yet perception of risk in an increasingly strident feedback howl, until an activity comes to be regarded (however irrationally) as being almost unthinkably dangerous.

So we congratulate the entryist factions of UK cycle 'advocacy' groups for their excellent dangerism praxis. We were particularly impressed by the CTC's "Children and Young Person's Participation Policy" which we spotted online recently. It sets out rules and policy, guidance and advice for young people taking part in cycling activities. Here it is. Frankly, it was too long, so we couldn't be bothered to read it:

Now, if before you saw that, you were in any doubt about our assertions that cycling is a dangerous activity requiring serious consideration; requiring special permission, planning, equipment and supervision, you shouldn't be now, eh? What with all those rules, and responsibilities and forms to fill in and stuff. Just so a kid can go on a bike, according to the Cycle Touring Club. We particularly enjoy the fact that, when the authorities (local or national government) are consulting on transport issues, it is to these people - the CTC - to whom the authorities turn for the cyclist's view. This fact makes us laugh out loud. Yes, we laugh all the way to the petrol station.

We thank Ford that our undercover agents at CTC have managed to insert this kind of thinking into the corporate body of the organisation, for without them, we might have to tolerate sights like this on the streets of Aberdeen "City and Shire":

Copenhagen

Amsterdam

Paris

Can you imagine anything worse than Aberdeen being though of as being like Copanhagen, Amsterdam or Paris?