Forests have already been felled and a zillion innocent pixels, er zapped bringing you the news that Lance Armstrong and Don Catling the UCLA drug-testing expert have agreed to end their independent doping program before it started. So what do a few more matter!
Just in case you’ve been locked in a cupboard for the last 24 hours I might as well throw my two penn’orth in, and point you at the choicest opinions aired on the matter so far.
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There are a lot of mentally ill motorists on our roads
@mdavidford It is a shame that the clips doesn't show it but I would guess that the cyclist's wheels were on the left of the central lines on the road and the right side of the handlebar and the cyclist's right elbow would be on the line or barely over it. At the end of the day, we as cyclists can pass more closely (filter) than drivers should.
@Bungle_52 PS I posted a link with more details on fridays blog but it didn't appear for ages. I'm not putting the link in again so you will have to find it in Fridays blog. Well worth a look in my opinion.
And regardless of UK law, a decision in the EU is likely to impact UK customers anyway, since AliExpress and it's ilk aren't likely to want the bother of maintaining two different standards - anything they do to stay legal in the EU they'll probably do for the UK too, to keep things simple, more than anything else.
@mdavidford I suspect they are saying that the oncoming driver was inconvenienced by being forced into the gutter. I also suspect that a cyclist forced into the gutter wouldn't be inconvenienced because that is where we belong!
Yep. I suspect being in the oncoming lane* as the Volvo approached round a blind bend / hill brow contributed - would be interesting to know if they'd have taken action if the cyclist had remained in their lane throughout. * don't know where the camera is mounted, so not sure, but the before and after position below suggests so.
The more I see this, the less I like it. I wouldn't describe it as riding by a "careful & competent" rider. BUT; the rider was passing a parked, locked (mirrors were folded) car, slowly, on a good road suface, on their side of the road. The oncoming car was travelling slowly and could use their entire lane. A bit of a squeeze, but the police have been quoted (elsewhere) as saying, "a close pass doesn't occur if the vechicles remain in their own lane". So no close pass occured (they are going in the wrong directoion, anyway), filtering is allowed, the only danger was to the cyclist themselves and they had obviously assessed & accepted that risk.
We left the EU, but still retained a huge body of its regulation as it applied at that time. Yes, we can diverge from it. But I don't think that 'freedom' or 'innovation' is best expressed by e.g. allowing demonstrable fire hazards.
@AidanR It’s not great cycling, but I have the same from drivers practically every day on my commute. I don’t imagine for a moment that, if I reported it, anything would be done How right you are!
Just a quick note to let road.cc know we left the EU several years ago and aren't bound by their rules and regulations any more. There is no UK or EU version of AliExpress and one of the many reasons for this is that the EU systematically stifles innovation by hamstringing companies with red tape. It's up to the UK to break free and innovate again, as we've done in the past. My concern is that we've become a risk-averse, rule-taking society that's afraid to embrace the freedom we now have.
