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Live blog: When to take a nap during the Tour de France; Sky booed at team presentation + more

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@slc Just read that comment to Mrs H, worryingly she looked thoughtful and said, "Mmm...how nice a bike are we talking here?"
@DrG82 The implementation costs were £32M and there has been an additional £3M spent on adjustments. It's estimated that the savings to the NHS and other bodies in terms of fewer casualties with which to deal come to around £44M. Odd economics where a £9M net saving is a waste of money.
@DrG82 is a liar. First off, who here said they got everything right? "I wouldn’t say that the Welsh government got everything right." The article contains commentary saying they didn't get everything right. I suppose saying something obviously true sets you up to lie later... "They applied the speed limit changes uniformly, without considering exceptions" You are a liar. The Welsh Government guidance contained rules that would allow councils to exempt roads from 20mph. As an example, much of my route into town stayed at 30 and 40mph because my council bothered to apply the exemptions. I particularly enjoyed your unsupported claim of "This has been a massive waste of money". The article states "collisions involving all road users on 20mph and 30mph are down 37 per cent, with casualties dropping by 35 per cent". I'd say a one-off cost of changing road signs for a permanent 1/3rd reduction in collisions is gonna save the taxpayer a chunk of healthcare costs and owners and businesses a chunk of money not fixing car bodywork. Nothing but contempt for you. Take your lies elsewhere.
With so many people using and looking at mobie phones whilst driving and other distractions, may I suggest you always wear Hi viz and stay at home.
The design of the "car" has played a role in this. SUVs and what the Americans call "trucks" are exempt from the pedestrian safety regulations which apply to passenger cars. Had the victim been hit by a car designed in the past twenty years he would have been "scooped" onto the bonnet and either over the roof or off to one side. Still a serious injury risk and potentially fatal but they have the benefit of those passive safety systems to improve their chances. With vehicles with such a high bonnet line as this Volvo has what tends to happen is the person bounces off the bonnet and falls on the road in front of the vehicle where they're then run over. This has happened time and time again and is becoming more of an issue as the numbers of vehicles exempt from the safety standards grows.
@Accessibility for all Reducing the speeds wouldn't have helped in this case as the driver was reported doing 65 in a 40 zone on the approach to the junction, his driving described by the witnesses as erratic and evidently had no intention to stop to give way even though he had been warned by the passenger who apparently shouted "bike" three times just before the collision. He would have likely flown through that junction even if it was traffic light controlled with a red light for him at the time. In my own experience the entire area i.e. east of Lymm towards Warburton and along Dunham Road all the way up to Altrincham and past into Hale Barns, all those wealthy, posh settlements around Manchester Airport are best avoided by road cyclists. A disproportionally high number of psycho drivers must for some reason live in that area because every single time I went there on my road bike in the past, I either got harassed myself or witnessed proper dickhead driving - speeding, close passes, overtaking into oncoming traffic or round a blind bend, accelerating towards pedestrians already crossing the road, you name it. I gave up road cycling in that area years ago and only use the local TPT these days.
In respect of the murder charge: based on him hitting Mr Mullins and making no attempt to help him (this killing him), how would the case compare to a hit and run driver who seriously injures or kills a cyclist, knowingly, and flees the scene without helping? Would this make the cut for a murder charge? Or is there something very different going on here that I’m missing? Genuinely curious because I don’t recall there being a murder charge before for this kind of thing unless it was premeditated. In fact, in my experience most cases like this seem to go the opposite way - where the driver can merely say the sun was in their eyes and get away with a slap on the hands.
@Rendel Harris...and there was me dishing out the praise!
@polainm He must also be an already hardened criminal. It wasn't mentioned during the court proceedings to avoid influencing the jurors and ensuring he had a fair trial, but he had been released from prison shortly before this incident and was couch surfing at his cousin's house days before. Just look at his face, he's only 35, but looks older than his victim who was 56. Must have spent half his adult life in prison.
@jaymack They did offer him manslaughter though but he declined to plead guilty. Without wanting to seem curmudgeonly, yes great that they preferred the most serious charges but hard to see how they could have done differently considering that Richardson got out of the car, saw Mr Mullins was stuck underneath and then got back in and carried on. That clearly moved it above anything that falls under death by dangerous driving.
27 thoughts on “Live blog: When to take a nap during the Tour de France; Sky booed at team presentation + more”
That seems a bit harsh… I
That seems a bit harsh… I lose track, but haven’t we now all agreed that if there was no case to answer on Froome’s salbutamol matter, and the various governing bodies are all happy, then everything is copacetic…?
brooksby wrote:
I had to look that up.
Chateau!
davel wrote:
Are you sure you didn’t mean Gateau!
So if there’s no drug case to
So if there’s no drug case to answer for and no one in the Sky team has recently crashed/abused/tripped a popular rival, then the only thing left to blaim must be….
Brexit!
Disgusting behaviour from the
Disgusting behaviour from the alleged supporters of cycling. You could see the team were not impressed.
Pathetic. I hope Sky do
Pathetic. I hope Sky do really well in the Tour. And not just because I have a tenner on G. Each way, mind.
S_P_A_C_E_M_A_N wrote:
To win or to crash? 😉
Disgusting behaviour, such
Disgusting behaviour, such ignorant barbaric people. Team Sky can shove it in their faces by winning it.
This is what happens when the
This is what happens when the media, assisted by the UCI leaker, Hinault & others, feed the barbarism. We’ve seen it repeatedly on this website and many others. The sport is the poorer for it.
Vaughters is expressing concerns about security: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jul/05/team-sky-tour-de-france-rival-education-first-chris-froome-jonathan-vaughters
Thanks to all the haters for screwing things up, you fucking morons.
All this booing is pretty
All this booing is pretty poor, but no worse than being called a fucking moron for having a fact based differing opinion.
Go figure.
don simon wrote:
opinion
əˈpɪnjən/
noun
noun: opinion; plural noun: opinions
1.
a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
fact
fakt/
noun
noun: fact; plural noun: facts
a thing that is known or proved to be true.
So you can’t really have a differing opinion about something that is fact. It is fact, that’s it. No question.
Obviously you can have an opinion about the methods used to reach that fact and apply the appropriate debate skills to discuss such a subject.
Martyn_K wrote:
opinion
əˈpɪnjən/
noun
noun: opinion; plural noun: opinions
1.
a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge.
fact
fakt/
noun
noun: fact; plural noun: facts
a thing that is known or proved to be true.
So you can’t really have a differing opinion about something that is fact. It is fact, that’s it. No question.
Obviously you can have an opinion about the methods used to reach that fact and apply the appropriate debate skills to discuss such a subject.— don simon
Back out of the woodwork, are we?
WADA & UCI decided to drop charges as they weren’t able to do a reliable test. That is the fact. He hasn’t been proven innocent, just not guilty. You think he’s innocent based on that fact, I think that I’d be naive in thinking that the peloton is clean and that he’s had a lucky escape. If you can’t deal with that, it most certainly isn’t my problem. I will get more robust with responses hereon in.
[/quote] Back out of the
[/quote] Back out of the woodwork, are we? WADA & UCI decided to drop charges as they weren’t able to do a reliable test. That is the fact. He hasn’t been proven innocent, just not guilty. You think he’s innocent based on that fact, I think that I’d be naive in thinking that the peloton is clean and that he’s had a lucky escape. If you can’t deal with that, it most certainly isn’t my problem. I will get more robust with responses hereon in.[/quote]
Wrong.
WADA and the UCI never raised ANY charges, therefore there were no charges to drop. The FACT is that those bodies found an adverse test result that needed investigation and decided not to progress with the matter as evidence indicated that there is/ was no wrong doing. This is not my opinion as it has been detailed in all communications from the UCI & WADA.
Your blatant flaming and trolling regarding this matter is tiresome.
If you really think that he is guilty then i suggest you focus your energy on attaining a position or role within WADA or the UCI where you can officially progres your vendetta to reach an endpoint that is obviously badly needed by you. Good luck.
Martyn_K wrote:
I agree.
Jonathan Vaughters, definitely not a Sky fanboy, has a clearer view of the process than the morons. From the link I posted:
In this case, it was public, which is really unfortunate and whoever leaked it — because somebody inside the UCI leaked it — it’s just nasty, vindictive behaviour to do that,” he said. “It doesn’t actually allow the system to work in the way that it should in a case involving a restricted substance, as opposed to a banned substance.”
So before you all cry ‘foul’ and ask for beheading, bear in mind the… oh sod it I give up, you simply don’t give a shit about facts. <sigh>
And if you don’t like being called a moron try being a bit less moronic.
Martyn_K wrote:
Wrong.
WADA and the UCI never raised ANY charges, therefore there were no charges to drop. The FACT is that those bodies found an adverse test result that needed investigation and decided not to progress with the matter as evidence indicated that there is/ was no wrong doing. This is not my opinion as it has been detailed in all communications from the UCI & WADA.
Your blatant flaming and trolling regarding this matter is tiresome.
If you really think that he is guilty then i suggest you focus your energy on attaining a position or role within WADA or the UCI where you can officially progres your vendetta to reach an endpoint that is obviously badly needed by you. Good luck.
You’ll have no problem going into detail about what the evidence is then, will you? Repeating that there is evidence, isn’t evidence in itself. This moron is perfectly happy that the hard of thinking can’t stand that there is an opposing view.
Challenging a position is not rolling, so grow the fuck up. If you’re tired,you know what you can do too.
Keep on supporting Froome, I don’t fucking care. Let him race (UCIsay he can) I don’t fucking care.
I’m surprised it took so long to not raise charges after an AAF. You seem to think it was simple, 9 months says it wasn’t. Not being charged does not prove innocent.
Sad really.
Sad really.
Let’s just hope that all they
Let’s just hope that all they do is boo. If i was Froome i’d rather that than having piss thrown at me or even worse.
The best way to answer these people is to go and win the thing.
If Froome is on the podium for any stage or even at the end the meeting with the badger is going to be an interesting watch!
Or will he take his own
Or will he take his own advice and strike!
Sky should be twinned with
Sky should be twinned with Millwall FC – No one likes us, we don’t care!
In the meantime the Froome fans will be happy that he’s competing and the anti-Sky can please themselves by asking how if Froome won the Giro sans asthma nebuliser, why did he need one at last year’s tour?
The rest of us can just hope to enjoy some cracking sprint finishes, at least one successful breakaway and some beastly days in the mountains.
Froome needs to go on the
Froome needs to go on the counter attack and have a bottle of piss to squirt at ‘fans’.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
That’s not a bad idea at all. He should definitely make sure his bidons are clearly labelled though
.
StraelGuy wrote:
“Bleurghh..!! Don’t remember having asparagus last night!”
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
With or without salbutamol?
Sad shameful behaviour. Mob
Sad shameful behaviour. Mob mentality.
Eat Gateaux wearing your
Eat Gateaux wearing your chapeaux in the chateau on the plateau.
It is just strange that all
It is just strange that all other riders previously caught with AAFs remain so silent. Don’t they deserve equal treatment, i.e. to be exonerated?
Really fascinating and
Really fascinating and illuminating words from Jonathan Vaughters talking to The Cycling Podcast about Froome, anti-doping, WADA and more:
https://thecyclingpodcast.com/podcast/a-pre-tour-de-france-ramble-part-two-episode-23
Those wishing to remain ignorant should not listen to in case they accidentally learn something.