Australian Cycling Forums - Bicycles Network Australia

A little something to share with you all. We have all felt unjustly persecuted or treated overly aggressively by motorists at some time or another. You only need to read the comments on any article about cycling to see the hate spewed from the comfort of an anonymous keyboard. Well, a good friend of mine set up a beach and water clean up on Bare Island. She has been campaigning to make it a fishing free zone. During the day the group collected all manner of fishing related garbage. Anyway, her facebook post about this worthy cause was subject to attack by "fisho's" from a local club. The chairman of which said, and I quote (I was staggered when I saw this) "You should be sold to ISIS as a sex slave" - this guy posted under his own name and proudly announced he was chairman of a club. There were other comments about her needing a "bullet in the head". I guess my point is to illustrate that yes we are marginalised and abused sometimes but that we don't have the monopoly, others trying to do the right thing are also on the receiving end of totally unacceptable behaviour. My friend is currently pursuing getting her experience and screenshots more widely shared. P.S. I don't intent to open a debate on the rights and wrongs of fishing, I just thought this would resonate with fellow cyclists.

It's just part of being a minority.
The more minorities you are a member of, the more you cop hate from majorities...

ngalbrai wrote:A little something to share with you all. We have all felt unjustly persecuted or treated overly aggressively by motorists at some time or another. You only need to read the comments on any article about cycling to see the hate spewed from the comfort of an anonymous keyboard. Well, a good friend of mine set up a beach and water clean up on Bare Island. She has been campaigning to make it a fishing free zone. During the day the group collected all manner of fishing related garbage. Anyway, her facebook post about this worthy cause was subject to attack by "fisho's" from a local club. The chairman of which said, and I quote (I was staggered when I saw this) "You should be sold to ISIS as a sex slave" - this guy posted under his own name and proudly announced he was chairman of a club. There were other comments about her needing a "bullet in the head". I guess my point is to illustrate that yes we are marginalised and abused sometimes but that we don't have the monopoly, others trying to do the right thing are also on the receiving end of totally unacceptable behaviour. My friend is currently pursuing getting her experience and screenshots more widely shared. P.S. I don't intent to open a debate on the rights and wrongs of fishing, I just thought this would resonate with fellow cyclists.

And how quickly the keyboard warriors revert to rape threats against any woman online who dares to have an opinion, or even just show a presence online. Spewing things they'd never say face to face.

This guy lost his job because of this exact sort of behaviour, violating his company's social media policy, if your friend feels like pursuing such things.

http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-l ... 2735e4a157" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Can this be reported to the Police?

I don't think this is a parrellel,

Yes there was hate, but two things are different;
she attacked their sport (right or wrong that may be).
the abuse wasn't instantly endangering her life.

As a cyclist you are hated by motorists for just being there. We are not inciting motorist, or protesting cars should be off the road, or people should stop driving.

No i still think cyclists are the most attacked group for just existing.

yes and know,magoroty of motorist are very good,pedestrian cyclist motorist respect and compatability is great up to 90 per cent in my opinion,then you get the od ones the od ciclest the odd car driver,there the ones that make the bad numbers

You would probably forgive those sorts of comments made in a closed circle during a night of drinking, but facebook comments have really highlighted how acceptable intimidation and disgraceful talk is. You also see comments like that in dash cam videos of driver and cyclist incidents.

I will say that: Fisheries is extremely dangerous almost mob like industry (at least in QLD). We brought fisheries licences and started using it we experienced a spate of malicious damage, our cars being smashed up with bricks, boats being sabotaged, work shop being robbed. We honestly had no idea and thought it was badluck or left wing greenies, but it actually turned out to be compeditors (thanks to CCTV). Vulgar comments like the above examples are a dime a dozen. If she successfully got a 'their' fishing spot shut down, I would not be suprirsed at all if vigilantees went after her and her property. There is this literal culture of 'protecting' your patch, with violence and intimidation.

BTW: In NSW it got so bad that many commercial licences were re-arranged into non-overlapping zones of smaller sizes - purely because of the amount of physical fighting going on in each zone! You will probably find that there is some sort of commercial licence that incorpates the area she wants recreational fishing banned in, and they will come out fighting to make sure they don't lose commericial fishing rights.

I dont think you can generalise regarding fools. They are well represented in all demographics.
Any group under attact has the right to feel threatened and rightly so.
Whilst i dont beleive its right for any groups/individual to bully, harass, threaten etc. My point is its hardly unique with regards to cyclists. You only have to look at road rage as the obvious example. Nothing like eating your own with regards to some motorists.