Everyone seems to be talking about cycle safety right now, what with the injuries to both Bradley Wiggins and Shane Sutton over the past week. But London-based ad firm Karmarama have taken it upon themselves to solve the problem with a simple message: Don’t be a stupid twat.

Because apparently, that’s the root of the problem. “Every year in this country there are around 19,000 reported cycling accidents on our roads, and on average 3,000 cyclists who are killed or seriously injured,” their website, www.ride-smart.org, states. No argument there, it’s a sobering statistic.

“Cyclists riding like stupid twats cause a percentage of these accidents so lots of accidents, injuries and deaths could therefore be avoided,” it then goes on to say. And helpfully lists the most twattish things you can apparently do, which in order of twattishness are jumping red lights, cycling with headphones, not having lights at night and just “being stupid”. [road.cc]

—

The sad thing here is that this PR firm had to issue an apology for this. Why? Point to me in this article where they said anything that isn’t true. Does it suck that bicyclists get killed? Of course. Did they say that every accident is the bicyclists fault? Nope. Did they say that a whole bunch of accidents ARE bicyclists fault? Sure did. Is that wrong? Pretty sure that couldn’t possibly be more true. Tells you a lot about these peoples’ mentality though. Better not imply that an accident is the bicyclists fault, ever. That’s totally wrong and it’s blaming the victim and FUCK YOU YOU CAR DRIVING MANIAC.

They didn’t even say the most obvious thing of all: even the bicyclists that AREN’T involved in accidents are stupid twats. 100% of them. Like the fact that they’re trying to help bicyclists avoid getting into terrible accidents is really secondary to the goal of raising awareness for the fact that bicyclists are, in fact, stupid twats. That they’re even making an effort to protect them at all is incredibly altruistic and, frankly, commendable. But that’s bicyclists for you. Looking a gift horse in the mouth. No helping these people.