"This is supposed to be 2023, not 1823": Cyclists slam Aldi for opening a new store with no bike parking; Primož Roglič joins Bora-Hansgrohe; Almost 20 cars line up on the cycling lane near Richmond Park during school hours + more on the live blog

Sorry, that's not full marks. They've not parked on the double yellows or directly across a junction, only on the pavement and blocking someone's view...

Those tyres are looking dangerously under-inflated as well. 

Meanwhile, in America....

Cycle lanes being cleared of detritus. I thought cycle lanes were where car rubbish was meant to be stored.

Assuming he lives in the house it is parked outside of, there seems to be a perferctly serviceable empty drive next door. If it isn't there house, there seems to be a perfectly serviceable road next to the lane with no parking restrictions. 

I don't know if this is a francise but I don't think it is. Under the reg of his old vehicle he seemed to get a lot of feedback. 

The media push against anything that makes driving slightly less easy has begun!

They trash Sustrans and Living Streets, using pejorative phrases like "they pocketed millions of taxpayers money".  At least they contacted Sustrans and Living Streets for their views, and, you won't believe this, but the article wasn't accurate!  In the Mail!!!!

"A spokesman for Living Streets said: 'Living Streets’ income from charitable activities was not £10.6 million in one year. 

'For the financial year ending 2021, this was £4,827,012 and for the financial year ending 2020, we received £5,798,981. £10.6 million is the combined total for two financial years. 

'This covers income from all charitable activities, including grants from central and local government, contracts, and funding from trusts, foundations and other organisations.

We received funding from government to deliver specific projects, including supporting more children and families to travel to school safely with our walk to school programme. 

'We do not receive funding from national or local government for campaigning.'

A Sustrans spokesperson said: ‘We do not recognise several assertions made in this article. Accurate numbers relating to our finances can be found in our Annual Report.’"

brooksby wrote:

Wasn't Priory Lane on road.cc once before? - some manic looking bloke in a too tight leather jacket complaining that cyclists weren't using the cycle path...

Yes, the owner of a chain of local coffee shops as I recall (not a good idea to piss off cyclists if you're trying to sell coffee and cake). I think I did note on that story though that the cycle path is absolutely useless anyway, it's too narrow for two cyclists to pass each other and the pavement is so narrow because of it that anyone in a wheelchair or with a buggy has to stray into the cycle lane. I've never used it, I don't think I've seen anyone else use it except very small children while the supervising parent rode alongside in the road. Not that that excuses the parking of course, but to be honest they may as well turn it into parking bays for all the use it is the cyclists.

I've just read it. I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

The government declared a consultation on banning pavement parking in, IIRC, 2014, and in the last few weeks, there were off-the-record briefings with journalists that they weren't going to ban it.

Well that's a worrying document to read through. Lots of anti-LTN, 15-minute city conspiracy nonsense (I'm not sure how providing local amenities within a 15-minute walk, so people aren't forced to drive is "policing people's lives").

Three highlights for me were:

"Drivers are justifiably irritated by traffic not flowing when it easily could."

You mean that thing caused, almost exclusively, by people conducting pointlessly short journeys by car and clogging up the roads?

"10. Smarter traffic lights. A £20 million ‘Green Light Fund’ to tune up traffic signals to better reflect current traffic conditions and get traffic flowing."

Gee, I can't wait for the 5-minute wait to cross a road to get even longer. We can't go inconveniencing the people in the motorised armchairs now, can we?

"An insurance company poll of drivers in 2023 found that the examples of bad driving that most upset people were:

• driving to the front of a merge lane and then pushing in (37%)
• not merging in until the last minute (35%)"

You mean merge-in-turn exactly as instructed by the Highway Code?

BalladOfStruth wrote:

 

"An insurance company poll of drivers in 2023 found that the examples of bad driving that most upset people were:

• driving to the front of a merge lane and then pushing in (37%)
• not merging in until the last minute (35%)"

You mean merge-in-turn exactly as instructed by the Highway Code?

 

Thought exactly the same. One of many misconceptions that mandatory periodic testing/refresher courses could address. Just like you get in the workplace...

There were some roadworks on the northbound A38 near me recently whereby the road went from two lanes to one in the 40mph average speed check bit near Lichfield.  You'd think this would be easy.

There were road signs in the 800m leading up to the cones saying "WHEN QUEUEING USE BOTH LANES" and one at 200m to go saying "MERGE IN TURN".  Big signs, block capitals in white font on a red background.  Still ignored by most drivers whose British sense of "ooh there's a queue I'd better not push in" kicked in, resulting in an unnecessarily long tailback and drivers trying to stop people merging <sigh>.  Other than a public information broadcast "Charlie says read the ****ing Highway Code" (he must be old enough to drive by now) what else can they do?

I reckon they should just legalise the power-ups you get in Mario Kart.  Knock other drivers out of the way and cause the ones reading your collar size to go for a spin.

Waiting the adverts for this: "Are you a hard-working, law-abiding, tax-paying motorist?  Do you know that you're a better driver than at least 90% of drivers on the road?  We're here for YOU and will fix all the lights to speed up your particular journey!"

Hopefully they'll get flushed at the next election and Starmer and co will relax and stop trying to copy them once in office.  Not that they'll do anything positive for active travel either - but hopefully they'll just fail to implement this nonsense because they'll realise they've bigger problems.

Jebus wept (great name for a band before anyone suggests it).

"It is not right that some drivers feel under attack."

Most of the increasingly marginalised "non-drivers" (ie people that don't happen to be behind the wheel in a given moment) on the other hand.... fair game for them to feel almost permanently under attack?

I think we're looking at that video the wrong way.

It's not a line of parked cars.

It's a line of cars that have pulled over to let the much faster cyclists go past. Very decent of those drivers.

In their own minds, I think they are being considerate.  

Being half on the road, half on the path it isn't really possible for a car to get past them, only a cyclist, given the oncoming traffic.  If I were on a bike then I'd actually rather be on the road on the outside than on a cycle lane on the inside knowing they all want to turn into the school and a fair percentage of them are likely being distracted by small passengers (based on my own experiences of doing the school run).

I don't know the road - is the cycle path intended for use in both directions?

Wow; just, "wow" 

Anyone reading that would think that motorists had never had any real money spent on them or any Govt subsidy, that they were the most persecuted group ever etc etc etc.

Very depressing reading.

(Of course, in a month's time the news cycle will have moved on and the Govt can pretend that they never said any of it, like with Gear Change...).

The situation on the roads is immediately, noticeably worse as well. I have had about the same number of close passes and aggressive drivers today as I would usually have in a week. 

That number should be 0 but is closer to 8

I didn't get to the end of the first paragraph.  I had a skim read of the next few and then left.

The document is flame bait appealing to the lowest common denominator.  We're on target for the hottest year on record, the hottest October day on record and the idiots think more of the same is what is needed.

"The Plan for Drivers, published on Tuesday, originally said there were successful appeals against 42.8% of Penalty Charge Notices in London - which would be a staggering 3.2mn a year. The true figure is 18,130."

"The DfT has changed the document today to make clear the claim is only about the tiny numbers of appeals. But the text still insists the high proportion of successful appeals shows there's a problem."

Presumably it's a way of having a pop at Sadiq Khan.

The Plan for Drivers is a misuse of the machinery of government for party political purposes.

HarrogateSpa wrote:

Presumably it's a way of having a pop at Sadiq Khan.

The Plan for Drivers is a misuse of the machinery of government for party political purposes.

Reminds me of when Thatcher used the police as her own private army against the miners

When the strike ended she held a drinks party at the Home Office to congratulate the chief constables of forces who helped defeat the miners. Disgusting woman.

This petition for a general election now has gathered 160,383 signatures in about seven hours.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/641904

eburtthebike wrote:

This petition for a general election now has gathered 160,383 signatures in about seven hours.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/641904

Signed, though it'll be ignored