Is slowing traffic/making traffic jams effective for change?

[G]

[Edit - poll added]
By a decent chunk of the biking community it seems to be taken as fact that 'the way' to stop or reverse government decisions is to inconvenience general members of the public.

Now, I appreciate the 'peaceful protest' is a long held method of attempting change.

But has anyone actually looked in to how effective or not it is?
Personally, I think a lot of the time (the nay sayers, etc) it's more likely to have an overall negative affect on biking and the perception of the public.

[Jefr0]

Right take yesterday as an example. I was stuck behind about 10 rat bikers doing a 20mph roadblock in a 70. All the car drivers including me was getting annoyed and people were making very risky overtakes because of the bikers being idiots.

How the hell was we supposed to know they were protesting. All we saw was bikers causing traffic for no reason. No banners, no nothing.

Only the cars at the front could see the bikers and didn't know why they were doing it. The hundreds of cars behind thought they were just in traffic.

So them doing a 20mph rolling roadblock gave bikers a bad name, and that's coming from a biker too.

What did it prove? How did anyone know the protest? It just caused the public to get annoyed. Who would support them for doing that???

Now if I saw them on the inside lane going slow, allowing for overtakes, with something on there backs or whatever to show what they are protesting then they are going to get thousands of cars overtaking them knowing what they are doing and without causing accidents and they may earn some respect.

Absolutely ridiculous way to protest, considering it's the government they are trying to get at, what does a 20mph rolling roadblock prove? Why not go to them or do something which will help the cause?
____________________
Rides: Honda XR 125 ('03) Honda CBR 600F ('91), Ducati 916 Biposto ('95)

[bike-shack.com]

Don't think there's much point annoying the general public countrywide, we are almost powerless anyway. Seems the way to get attention is to setup camp en masse outside parliament!
____________________
www.bike-shack.com - Probably the best free motorcycle classifieds website in the UK...

[fatpies]

Peaceful protest does not work, effectively the government is very clever in using divide and conquer tactics against any group with a greivance legitimate or not.

So a bunch of bikers block up the roads.

The state propaganda channel the BBC and other state propaganda like the newspapers demonise them and use sock puppets to demonise such people. They edit footage to make these people look evil. For example the 1980s the BBC edited footage to show the miners attacking the police.

Thus population is divided and instead of bleedin' high petrol taxes the agenda changes to bleedin' scummy bikers.


As before peaceful protest does not work, the only way to affect real change is via violence on a grand scale. Which is ironic because modern states are all backed by violence (the 'money' in your wallet is an example of this).

So 20,000 bikers turn up, pff, 1 million people turned up in London, did anything change bog all did. Did voting change anything naw... Hypothesise if those 20,000 people turned up with AK47s and rope.
____________________
"It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one"

[G]

[Snorty]

The suffragettes used violence and succeeded with it.

[fatpies]

[leonski]

If I was in my car and you horrible lot slowed me down i think i would be against you. But I support all that is going on because i understand. But I don't think a few thousand cagers would have appreciated being delayed.
But we have to get the message out there so what other options do we have ???
____________________
there is nothing like the smell of 2stroke in the morning
current beasts..lol de-restricted ludix classic 50 fastest ped ive ever ridden
yamaha ybr 125 working progress .......

[G]

Suffragettes are an even more questionable protest than Ghandi I reckon. A lot of changes in England and the world after the first world war.

[t120paul]

so we just do nowt then an let bikeing disapear i think not i was one of the 40000 bikes and i will be again and again till this eu crap stops

[ians238]

we should do what the french did, block up the city centres , Do it Peacefully, put notices up and banners telling people why its happening, that way car drivers will understand and news people cant say its evil bikers, and promise to do it every week until its thrown out. a one off roadblock with no information does f all.
OK its a start but if no one notices then wtf. was the point?

[Snorty]

People who don't ride bikes aren't likely to care to be honest. I'm guessing it wasn't to try and gain the non-bikers' support, but to show them how we feel about the issue.

If this EU goes ahead in spite of bikers' (the people who it affects and hence the peoples' opinions that should matter!) is there likely to be a larger, much more disruptive protest?

Let's face it, the government isn't exactly known for its good judgment. Look at the reclassification of cannabis to a class B drug, they ignored their own advisory panel on the matter, who were paid to be impartial and factual, and classified it contrary to the advice!

Just shows if the government, or "powers that be" want to go ahead with something, they will.

[fatpies]

TBH I've got absolutely no idea what to do.

We have the same issue in the BPA (British Parachute association). There are only 4600 of us. And the government are constantly on our backs....

What we do in the BPA is pretty much unionise and elect a council of 12 and have an STC (safety and training council). To react to whatever the CAA says and tells us to do...

The result?

It is completely ineffective and voting is about 3-10% (of 4600) annually. The CAA tell us to jump we say how high? Weston the biggest DZ in the UK was recently closed down. We managed a 3000 signature petition and also proved that Weston bought in about half a mil to this airfield. They closed it anyway.

You could always implode the government..... Greece is about to implode which will implode Germany and France (they hold greek debt). Which means the EU will implode.
____________________
"It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one"

[t120paul]

This sums up quite well the reasons for the protest:
"To all the irate car drivers abusing bikers nationwide, may I paint you a picture? Imagine being told that you had to use OE parts every time your car needed attention. Bye bye Halfords, Kwik Fit, etc. Imagine being regularly stopped by the police when you were out driving perfectly legally, for them to check you hadn't tampered with your vehicle or fitted any non-standard parts. Imagine being told that you were forbidden to drive unless you were wearing a certain colour clothing. ... Imagine having the control of your vehicle taken out of your hands and trusted to a computer. Imagine being told that your 7 year old car, your pride and joy, was now forbidden from entering towns and cities. This is the reason you were held up for 20 minutes on 25/09/2011. Be under no misunderstanding, Car drivers will soon be moaning when the new MOT rules come into play in 2012, It's just the start!, the bikers are the first in line for draconian EU interference. If we fall, it will be a domino effect.

Support us now, because u are next..

[fatpies]

The propaganda wars have started already:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2011/09/26/bikers-take-over-motorways-in-eu-protest-115875-23446629/

[Snorty]

[G]

I don't think it's shown anyone that bikers 'care' because only a few realise it was due to bikes and those that do I doubt have taken in the reasons.

[iooi]

Well this protest was so well planed and advertised that as a biker the 1st I knew of it was a poll on this site asking who went.....

Causing other road users delays is not the way to get support... unless its a national issue such as the fuel pricing that effects everyone.

Will it have any effect on the result.... NOPE.

Perhaps if ALL bikers turned up and rode round the EU office's then it might just make someone take notice....
More likely the result would be lets ban bikes.....

The buracrats in the EU don't give a stuff about anyone but making sure that their gravy train keeps running.
____________________
Just because my bike was A DIVVY, does not mean i am......

[Nai]

I agree with G on this. Motorcyclists are as much of an enemy to cars as cyclists are. Anything on 2 wheels is generally preempted with a 'fookin'. 'Fookin cyclists', 'fookin motorbikes'. Sorta rolls off the tongue easily as well doesn't it? People have no interest / desire to know about any 'hard ships' we may face. So when we cause the public issues, it just reinforces the 'fookin's.

[ians238]

We have the same issue in the BPA (British Parachute association). There are only 4600 of us. And the government are constantly on our backs....

like that

[G]

[Bendy]

[fatpies]

The problem is Bend, you're part of the problem.

Whenever the government introduce something like the SORN rules and the recent must be insured rule, it seems you're always in support of it.

Cus like we bikers are elite right and whats the problem with a tiny extra bit of paper work?
____________________
"It's easy to attack and destroy an act of creation. It's a lot more difficult to perform one"

[Nai]

[G]

So, can anyone answer the original question:

Has anyone actually looked in to how effective or not it is?