road.cc live blog – Mandatory helmets and hi-vis rumour keeps on spreading + BMW e-bikes in the sky… in China
…Maybe + L-plate school cyclists update, Pro team sells bus (well it is Black Friday) and LOTS more
Fri, Nov 24, 2017 15:30
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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Latest Comments
Motivated 11 minutes ago
My point is that we can discuss various aspects about women's sport and that increases the reach. On the topic of comparison ... many friends I talk to about cycling assume that women are slow and that's way they don't watch. I think I've convinced some people to tune in by giving examples of how strong they are *and* how entertaining the races are. I was at the Women's Fleche Wallone (and LBL) and saw Demi win ... that's why I used that example of the Mur du Huy. To your reply ... I would say that your view of stifling discussion won't help sell women in sport - case in point is the headline quote from Sarah Ruggins. My understanding of your reply is that you would disagree with a woman who's out there literally selling the sport to her sponsors and her awesome achievements as being newsworthy material for this site. Regarding your choice of word 'amalgamation' ... it implies I proposed to mix Men's and Women's sport. I don't believe that and did not write that. I think we are all fans here!
Pub bike 41 minutes ago
@mitsky The police allegedly have better things to with their time than ignore millions of speeding reports. Why even allow the car to exceed the speed limit in the first place? For context: "under UK law, all new cars manufactured since July 2024 must be fitted with Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) systems. These systems use cameras and GPS to detect the speed limit and will trigger an audio, visual, or haptic alarm when you exceed it. While these alarms can be temporarily turned off via the infotainment screen or steering wheel buttons, the system automatically resets and turns back on every time you start the car. "
Xenophon2 48 minutes ago
Anything that improves safety is a plus. Whether it will make a real difference is another matter: it's not because the system correctly detects a dangerous situation that you'll be able to do anything about it, or that you'll have the time to react, such as with a parked car opening a door without looking (keeping your distance is still the best strategy there). It's a bit like my Garmin Vario rear light: 90% of the time the radar adds nothing, 10% of the time what it displays is really helpful and I guess that once every couple of years or so it might really make the difference between nothing happening or an accident. Still worth it imo.
Xenophon2 1 hour ago
An incredible feat, hat off to her!
mctrials23 1 hour ago
@mdavidford clearly. Children congregate around schools. Once they have left the area around the school they are completely safe from twats in cars.
mctrials23 1 hour ago
@Smoggysteve oh god don't mention any speed lower than 20mph to drivers. They will have an aneurism as they formulate their anti 20mph for safety arguments. Usually something along the lines of "well, why don't we all drive at 2mph with someone in front of us waving a flag, then deaths will be 0". Obviously a well thought out and brilliant argument against lowering speed limits in built up areas.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@chrisonabike Don't forget that cars simply aren't designed to go at 20mph.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@Motivated I think that pointing at a single data point doesn't prove a point. Women do seem to be very well suited to these ultra endurance events and I believe that in running they are similarly exceptional. We need to be careful with this sort of discussion however because the amalgamation on mens and womens sports would do women absolutely no favours. I appreciate the sentiment and the encouragement this gives women in sport but competing with men shouldn't be how we try to sell women in sport.
Smoggysteve 2 hours ago
If we follow the logic that 20mph drivers are more dangerous than say 30mph drivers, how deadly are they when driving 5mph in congestion?
mitsky 2 hours ago
"We have the technology..."
17 thoughts on “road.cc live blog – Mandatory helmets and hi-vis rumour keeps on spreading + BMW e-bikes in the sky… in China”
Times’ front cover should be
Times’ front cover should be withdrawn. Reporter likely wasn’t at conference where subject was raised. I was, and so was Mark Hookham of the Sunday Times, who asked the helmet/hi-vis question.
Full transcipt is available, as is audio.
See: http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/the-times-leads-with-false-story-about-helmet-compulsion/022270
If this is the sort of misleading reporting that politicians have to deal with on a daily basis I feel very sorry for politicians, and rather ashamed at fellow journalists who’ve got this story so about-face it’s shocking.
Hm, could a newspaper with an
Hm, could a newspaper with an ageing tory readership possibly have an agenda?
Daily Wail running it now…
Daily Wail running it now… apparently due to be introduced in the new year!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5113697/Cyclists-wear-helmets-high-viz-vests.html
edit to add DONT read the comments below their article. You will dispair.
Zero sympathy for Norman: he
Zero sympathy for Norman: he needs to get a straighter bat and a better grasp of his subject matter.
@CygnusX1 – I like your
@CygnusX1 – I like your thinking.
@Carlton,
@Carlton,
Your article makes for interesting reading – particularly the last paragraph with the various headlines used by various rags. The Daily Mail’s is a SHOCKER of a headline, but what we’ve come to expect. Click bait indeed.
Let’s hope none of the anti-cycling lobbies realise they need to submit as a suggestion to the review (maybe these headlines may actually help – they may think its already on the table).
Shhh! don’t tell!
I’ll agree to helmets and hi
I’ll agree to helmets and hi-viz if, and only if, the Daily Mail readership agrees to wear LGBT-rainbow-coloured burqas whenever they leave the house .
ConcordeCX wrote:
Or, if all dark/dull coloured cars vehicles have to be painted in high viz (white vans included as they blend into the sky if it’s a bright day).
ConcordeCX wrote:
Just make them wear LGBT colours with reflective strips so they will be visible while walking and driving should be sufficient.
The Daily Mails is a horrible
The Daily Mails is a horrible rag posing as a newspaper. It’s be better suited as toilet paper except that the ink leaves marks.
I mean, compulsory helmet use has had such a beneficial effect in reducing deaths and injuries for cyclsits in NZ hasn’t it?
OldRidgeback wrote:
If the goal is actually to reduce KSI rates then the answer is indeed clesr. If the true goal is to reduce cycling rates then the answer is also clear.
Nice Helmet Row jpeg but I
Nice Helmet Row jpeg but I think mine’s better (had to check it was a real street on Google Maps, and saw this):
Those old CRT TVs in the bus,
Those old CRT TVs in the bus, just lol, what is this back to the future to the olden days!
I always figured if this
I always figured if this country made helmets compulsory I’d move aboard. Not because it’d be such a terrible imposition in itself, but because it would be a sign that pandering to irrational groupthink had reached a level that threatened individual freedom. However, that was before legions of idiotic gargoyles, who’d never previously given enough of a toss about anything to schlep to the polling station, decided their lives would seem less pathetic if they voted to strip the rest of us of our right to live in Europe. Being stuck on this island with that bunch is one thing, having to do so while forced to dress like a Belisha beacon, so drivers can feel like they’ve taken back control of the roads as well as the country, is another.
handlebarcam wrote:
Thats it: it’s not wearing a helmet that’s so objectionable, if you decide to wear one, but the *compulsion* to wear a helmet. No choice in the matter, no attempts to make the road environment better or safer; just make everyone wear a styrofoam hat because that will protect them from everything ever (honest!). Like rear lights in the 30s, make the cyclists dress in hi-viz so it is *their* problem and not the problem of the motorist who should be looking where they’re going. Hell, I could go further and invoke Godwins in this, but I shall restrain myself 😉
handlebarcam wrote:
I hear you. I’d be tempted to move overseas, too.
I think the hills of Afghanistan might be better suited to your level of mindless prejudice of people you’ve never met, based on what box they ticked in a democratic process.
I didn’t think the Daily Mail
I didn’t think the Daily Mail piece was that bad. Presumably the improvement to American football players’ safety from helmets was in relation to…playing American football? that kind-of makes sense in a bears/woods kind of way.
BY LAW – like mobile phones while driving, MOTS, speed limits, not getting the red mist* and just generally looking where you’re going – you mean those laws, right? I could just about, just about suffer new laws about cycling if the other lot played fair and did their bit.
The helmet law thing if it came to pass for adults, would surely mean pretty much the end of the city cycle hire schemes? Acquiring still more armour plating for road users (of all types) is NOT the answer!
This is the government that flunked the whole healthy eating thing a few months back – maybe that’s because of food industry pressures, maybe because they don’t see themselves as regulating people’s lives in this much detail?
There is a curtain-twitching segment of our society that believes that if you’re out late/after dark and a bad thing happens to you then, that it’s your own silly fault. It probably isn’t a good idea to leave your laptop on view, it probably is a good idea to lock your house when you go out, in line with police advice. But let’s not forget that the factors that lead us this way are a bad thing and in an ideal world it wouldn’t be like that. I think it’s in those terms that non cycling people see hi viz and helmets.
i don’t think anyone (usual exceptions: Audi, etc) actively hates cyclists and cycling – we’re more of an irritation, an annoyance, shaving vital nanoseconds off important car journeys, that somehow I remember used to be quicker (yes – less cars).
It’s a slightly strange thing to be defending the ongoing use of mixed use highways (against the “push” referred to in the Mail story, what with us cyclists being so darned numerous and all) but that’s what we now need to do.
When this wretched review was announced, many of us had a good rant about it – now we need to get our shit together and present our arguments around the many benefits and freedoms of cycling. We should expect something to replace “furious riding”, I think, but let’s make sure it’s proportionate/ reasonable and also keep other road users’ behaviour in the conversation.
*By the way, red mist drivers, I notice that somehow you’re allowed to barge your way past me, but the moment I pass you when you get stuck, it becomes a matter to be avenged – how does that work, exactly?