City councillor Mannix Flynn took the opportunity of discussing a new cycle route to launch his latest tirade against people who cycle in Dublin.
When on Prime Time at the start of the year to discuses cycling safety after 15 people were killed when cycling last year, Cllr Flynn said that “the biggest problem we have is cyclists behaviour” and cyclists being disrespectful of other road user.
The independent city councillor was speaking yesterday as the South East Area Committee of Dublin City Council discussed the Fitzwilliam Cycle Route — a parking-protected cycle paths which is due to be constructed early next year.
Audio from the South East Area Committee council committee was posted on fm104.ie, while at the time of writing the official webcast of the meeting was still in the process of being archived.
“I think it’s really important that you send out a message that you’re not developing a racing track because more and more cyclists think they’re in some sort of velodrome,” said Cllr Flynn.
Flynn added: “They’ve got their earplugs in, they have their hi-vis jackets, they’ve got their helmets and they’re zooming down the street screaming their head off to Nirvana, you know what I mean, or some band, and they don’t see anybody.”
Cllr Flynns previous comments include his view that the Liffey Cycle Route will “kill the city economy. Cyclists don’t keep the economy going.”
While he said today he welcomed the new Fitzwilliam route, he recently voted against the South Dublin Quietway.
Cllr Mannix Flynnn is a fantasist and an idiot. I don’t know why he really hates cyclists but his claims are gibberish.
Mannix Flynn is another of those individuals who claims to have nothing against cycling and yet consistently fails to do anything to help increase the modal share of people cycling. Indeed they even go against actions that will help promote cycling. Kinda like a racist who says: “I’m not a racist but…..” and then they come out and say something that’s clearly racist. Dermot Lacey is another one that says he’s pro-cycling but… never acts this way when people in cars might be inconvenienced.
“……..cyclists being disrespectful of other road user.” Let’s talk about drivers being disrespectful to other road users, the cyclists. If there is a problem, then this problem shouldn’t be considered from only one side, but from all sides. Why are the cyclist behaving like cllr Mannix Flynn says they do? Are they really behaving like that or is the cllr making things up? What makes cyclists behave like that? These questions should be answered before you can draw a conclusion.
I cycle a lot and I meet a lot of cyclists every day. I have never met one zooming down the road screaming their head off to Nirvana (or some band from this century). I have come across motorists blasting their music loud enough to be heard inside houses along the road side. I have to conclude that Flynn is just making things up.
Every criticism you can level at cyclists (and there are plenty) can just as easily be levelled at motorists. Dangerous, inattentive motorists actually kill people so it seems truly bizarre, insane even, to claim that cyclists are the major problem on the roads.
It’s ironic to read this nonsense the day after a so-called professional driver ploughs in to cyclists because they were in a rush (perhaps we could call it zooming?) and decided it wasn’t worth taking the time to drive safely. I suppose Flynn thinks the cyclists were in the wrong there too because, no doubt drunk on phat beats, they didn’t account for someone zooming past a stationary car and cutting across them.
Flynn’s opinion on cyclists is clearly worthless. Claims like this put all the blame on cyclists in ignorance of the statistics indicating that the motorist is to blame in the majority of collissions. If I was the relative of one of the cyclists killed on the road in the last few years I would want to spit in Mannix Flynn’s eye. Any decent human being would be ashamed, I suspect Flynn is proud of himself.
Hi there, I left a very long email to Cllr Flynn (below) Please feel free to contact him with the text of this email, with amendments/edits if possible. Thanks.
Dear Councillor Flynn,
Regarding your comments during a Prime Time broadcast earlier this year on the topic of cycling, I admit that I found your comments about cyclists highly offensive, particularly in light of the significant and mounting numbers of cyclist fatalities on our roads each year. Comments such as “they’ve got their earplugs in, they have their hi-vis jackets, they’ve got their helmets and they’re zooming down the street screaming their head off to Nirvana, you know what I mean, or some band, and they don’t see anybody” make it clear that you have a very deeply held prejudice against cyclists and furthermore, you don’t seem to appreciate just how popular cycling is both as a sport and as a form of transport, for people of all walks of life (just one example which springs to mind is the fact that in the legal profession the managing partners of many of the biggest firms are very strong and indeed public advocates for cycling). Unless you take this point on board and modify your conduct accordingly you will only be alienating yourself from a significant and growing portion of Dubliners. Given just how doggedly and indeed irrationally prejudiced you are against cyclists I feel that you should not have taken part in this debate and you are clearly incapable of engaging in a balanced debate on this topic. Indeed RTE’s standards were sorely lacking in this regard. At a minimum, you should not have used Prime Time as an outlet for your anger.
The need to improve cycling facilities in Dublin and throughout the country is not in dispute however the task of achieving this necessary task will be all the greater when public representatives like yourselves spout out comments such “the biggest problem we have is cyclists behaviour”. This kind of language is highly unconstructive and indeed stigmatises cyclists – in the minds of certain drivers it fosters the utterly false idea that it is acceptable to take liberties with cyclists’ safety because of their perceived recklessness. On this point, nothing could be further from the truth – the overwhelming majority of cyclists are very very serious about their safety. It is also unhelpfully distracting from the serious practical difficulties which we face in this country in making our roads fit for purpose.
You probably don’t cycle in Dublin but I recommend you try crossing the city during rush hour a few times so you can appreciate just how nerve-racking it can and you may not be all too surprised how quick to anger you may become at times where you perceive that other road users disregard your safety. This is a very basic aspect of human nature – the mind kicks into survival mode but my expectation is that improved road/bike/pedestrian infrastructure will promote higher standards of civility. Getting out on a bike also make you appreciate that a lot of changes need to made to improve our roads and footpaths – at the moment the result is that different road users are brought into conflict and this is highly unsustainable given the significant growth projections for Dublin.
Easing vehicular traffic is in everyone’s interest – I’m sure I don’t need to point out that benefits such as reduced congestion with knock-on improvements of air quality, well-being, health indices as well as tangible economic benefits. My experience from countries with a strong cycling culture strongly suggests that when road infrastructure is perceived to be safe, fair and rationally designed, a culture of compliance and civility will follow. All these improvements have the potential to benefit the wider public, including motorists, who are of course often to be found on their bikes, let’s not forget. As a public representative you have a duty to promote these very compelling public objectives. However your contribution to the Prime Time debate was totally counter-productive and ultimately cast you in very poor light – the impression I got is that you are an intransigent, uninformed and petty populist who is not interested in promoting the public interest, only in generating publicity for your own interests and to satisfy your own ego. This broadcast has not been forgotten and is still doing the rounds of social media. Therefore I would strongly suggest that you go some way to repairing your tarnished image by making genuine, constructive and practical efforts to promote sustainable travel, including but of course not limited to cycling.
Yours sincerely,
Is mise,
The above comments and especially Eric’s, comment that “Cllr Mannix Flynnn is a fantasist and an idiot” is undeniably correct. Mannix Flynn has gone 360 degrees from a brainless jailbird (jailed for pointlessly setting fire to a hardware store called Dockrells without any reason at all for doing it; causing danger to lives and loss of many jobs) to nowadays – a Law & Order fanatic. In line with Flynn’s fantasy-mindset, his infamous book was a total fantasy- a complete shred of invented, made-up lies that he dreamed-up, making many dangerous enemies in the process. But the media gave it credibility to simply because he’d been in prison. In reality, he would not have known anything about the crime scene because he was viewed as a weirdo in prison where the other criminals laughed at him, didn’t trust him and would have had nothing to do with him,because they viewed him as an informer. Us cyclists should just laugh at him like everyone else. He’s a buffoon.