What amazes me is how a number of people on this topic just refuse to recognise quite how bad a minority of cyclists can be.
Speaking for myself I'm sick of reading your anti-cyclist nonsense. Being polite, staying quiet has got UK cyclists how far? Pretty much nowhere, we are harassed and bullied on the roads, and we have people who claim to be pro-cycling whining that we should also get out the way of non-cyclists on cycle lanes.
I've been riding for forty years, and I for one will no longer be 'polite and silent', because it gets us nowhere.
I don't know what you mean by "anti cycling nonsense." I can't see how letting someone rollerblade in a cycle lane is anti cycling. Isn't it similar to a slow cyclist in the cycle lane? It's not cyclists keeping out of their way, it's just accepting someone else using the cycle lane. I personally have no problem with that, unless they are being a tit, but I generally don't like people being a tit, regardless of whether they are on rollerskates, foot, bicycles or whatever.
You do get tits on bikes who behave like selfish arseholes.
Being polite, curteous and sharing the road/cyclepath just makes life more pleasant and less stressfull. I'll still be rude and aggressive to anyone who is rude and aggressive to me though, or better still find a better way of putting them down a peg or two. I agree that we should stand up to bullies, but I don't think we should become bullies ourselves.
I often come across small kids on foot scooters on my way to work on the cycleways. They're just kids having fun. Where exactly would my being impolite and noisy at these happy kids get me? I can't see any benefit to myself, nor the image of cycling. Why would a kid want to grow up to be an angry cyclist who shouts at little children?
I reckon the fact that the yummy mummies I see every day and their kids feeling safe and relaxed that I wont intimidate, threaten, scare, bully and certainly not injure them or their kids when I cycle past them is much better for cycling than being an intolerent beast full of self importance of people who dare to use anything other than a cycle or their feet on a shared use cycle path. Seeing the kids happily playing is one of the best bits of my very short commute. If I was in
that much of a hurry, I'd use the road.