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Live blog: ONS shopping basket 2018: GoPros in, pork pies out, Kwiatkowski wins Tirreno, Thomas 3rd, Brenton Jones’ rad helmet design + much more

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@jackcycles I'm not sure my grandchildren got that memo. Cycling should not be just for hardened road warriors.
Chrisonabike There are a number of police forces in England and Wales that are using portable testing equipment already... How effective it is another matter, I haven't looked into the results of failing (I would hope they just seize and crush the motorbike without any faff but I am sure there are appeal processes, promises not to use them on public roads etc).
Woah there - a precision-engineered European-made product, with unparalleled adaptability, is somehow a ‘rip off’? Compared to what - Temu? As per the article, most quality through-axles go for £50-60+, but aren’t adaptable and don’t provide any stand or trailer capability. If you want to balance your £3-4-5k suspension or carbon bike, or bikepacking setup on a budget product subject to highly focused stresses, fair play. Cycling’s a broad church.
@eburtthebike I've found Spanish drivers to be almost entirely excellent around cyclists.
I agree, the study was made after cycle paths that had been introduced in Berlin during the 70’s and 80’s caused a big increase in cycling deaths. It is an interesting study for cyclists to read in order to know what dangers exist at badly designed junctions. Here in Paris we have very few bi-directional paths. The ones I have cycled on have no building entrances or courtyards (so no cars crossing the path) and every junction is traffic lights to prevent accidents.
We have enough regulation. They're running a motorbike without insurance/registration and possibly without a licence, and the punishment for being caught with all that is pretty severe already. The problem is lack of enforcement.
In my experience with anything less than one of those serious mid-bike two-foot kickstands, a wall / tree / hedge is the better option, or the bike will sometimes show you the alternative and lie down by itself. Maybe I've got panniers that are just too large and the wrong balance of (too much) cargo though? And of course Edinburgh streets are great at funneling gusts of wind...
I agree there's a clear legal line * but I do see something here. Like much tech it's entirely opaque from the outside (without even invoking things like the VW emissions cheating).** I know in NL they have trialled semi-portable "test stations" to check max motor speeds. However with the latest "but there's no money" crisis I can't see that over here. Indeed it's hard to see the police being motivated to do any more roads policing, with this even further down the priority list. Hope I'm wrong... While I guess many of us *would* be fine with EAPCs as a means to attract "non-cyclists" ... perhaps there's an "attractive nuisance" element to this? We're ushering people into an apparently effortless, easy and minimal consequence mobility mode without the "learning experience" of managing a lighter, unpowered machine on roads. And it's still (busy) *roads* where the new power-assisted riders will often find themselves. Not like in more advanced countries where people usually cycle in much safer and more controlled environments. OTOH we should always balance such concerns against "but cars and full-power ICE motorbikes now" though! Number plates, licences and insurance aren't necessarily mitigating that well... * As soon as there are laws games will be played. How long can you be above the "continuous rate power" for? Can we have *multiple* legal motors on one machine? ** Is the power / speed actually regulated by software, and how long will that keep a child armed with the internet from unlocking it?
And maybe a planning obligation to have traffic Marshalls controlling access out of the site not obstructing the path and restricting it if cyclists are likely to be obstructed …one can hope
I'll stick to my low rider with Karrimor Kalahari dry bag panniers and Karrimor Kalahari barbag thanks.
4 thoughts on “Live blog: ONS shopping basket 2018: GoPros in, pork pies out, Kwiatkowski wins Tirreno, Thomas 3rd, Brenton Jones’ rad helmet design + much more”
“Road Safety Minister Jesse
“Road Safety Minister Jesse Norman commented: “The penalties for holding and using a mobile phone while driving have proven to be a strong deterrent, and more and more people are aware of just how dangerous this is.”
Total BS. If the penalties are such a strong deterrent, why do I see dozens of people a day doing it. Yet more spin and newspeak from the person responsible for government cycling and walking policy. We’re as safe in his hands as the NHS.
Agreed! What’s the point of
Agreed! What’s the point of having fairly draconian mobile phone laws now that the great unwashed have worked out there’s basically no such thing as road policing any more due to police funding shortages and austerity?! 10 years ago you’d have a few days every autumn where the nights were drawing in where you’d see cars with defective lights before people got them fixed. Nowadays it’s a joke, I’ve seen loads of cars with no working rear lights at all except the high level brake light and the idiots don’t care. They know the chance of getting stopped by an actual police car is just about zero.
StraelGuy wrote:
Actually I think a lot of the time drivers have their lights on for daytime running only, which means the front sidelights are on but not the tail lights, for a lot of cars. I see this regularly as well.
But with regard to mobile phone use by drivers, I don’t think the penalties are in line with the risk. Using the penalty for DUI of a 12 month ban as a base line, surely the penalty for using a cellphone at the wheel should at least be the same. Given that using a cellphone to send a text while driving increases the risk of a crash by a factor of 23 (according to research by the TRL – it is on the website), then surely the penalty should be higher still, say 24 month ban and a compulsory retest.
Unless the penalty matches the offence, people simply won’t take it seriously. And yes, the minimal traffic policing doesn’t help either. We can than Theresa May for the big cuts to police budgets remember.
26,000 people seam like a
26,000 people seam like a large number given that there is little inforcement. these people must the permanently glued to their phones give how unlikely you are to see a road traffic policemen.
This number is clearly only the tip of the iceberg.