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Live blog: Geraint Thomas back in Cardiff for homecoming parade this evening, Ned Boulting quits as Metro columnist after their victim-blaming tweet, Tokyo 2020 road cycling courses announced + more

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Latest Comments
@perce everyone should wear lights, full stop. And punctuate properly - that really gets up my colon! Anyway, must dash...
@Ojisan My old English teacher told me i had to work on my punctuation, so I started going to school half an hour earlier.
Arrogant obnoxious Tory.
How do you see them then? Do you regularly drive into black cars?
@Blackthorne83 He'd love to, but some bastard's taken out the cycle lanes.
I was a few bikes away from the fatal collision during Ride London a few years ago, I barely avoided the victim's dog which was running loose. Definitely one of those slo-mo adrenaline fuelled moments and I was only doing about 40kph. At lead out speeds it really doesn't bear thinking about.
@Xenophon2 "That’s a lot of batteries to keep track of, to the point that I have a dedicated charger with 3 m USB-C cable in my office, another one at home. Can’t imagine having to deal with another battery such as on the Flight Attendant." Top tip: In reality most of the SRAM stuff lasts a month or two even with pretty heavy usage. I just charge all the batteries on the last Sunday of every month and have yet to be caught out. The SRAM batteries are so cheap / small / light it's also worth keeping a spare in a saddle bag or similar.
@chrisonabike There does seem to be evidence that 20 mph limits work on roads that already lend themselves to such low speeds, and I do think the lack of a 25 mph limit option is an issue for some roads. Speed limits should especially not be set very low in the hope that many or most drivers will only exceed them by a set amount because, not only is it not true that many people drive like that, the opposite can happen. Instead of targeting the drivers most likely to cause harm, you're putting the prohibition onto the behaviour of more sensible drivers and forcing the police to target them. The DfT guidance used to have a paragraph calling out this presumption. The extent to which road design and conditions at the time dictate traffic speeds is too stark to ignore. I've seen urban roads with signed 40 mph limits have lower average speeds than some roads with posted 20 mph limits. And yes, that road in Gloucester has signs openly inviting drivers to go faster, and almost none of them do: the non-compliance was about 2%. Compare that to over 99% non-compliance on some roads in Wales. What I'm mainly talking about is the increasing imposition of 20 mph limits on much higher-standard main roads. That's where you see extreme levels of non-compliance. In some cases, the average speed has even been known to go up after the limit has gone down. Showing such contempt just brings speed limits into disrepute and my contention is that drivers should take speed limits seriously.
@chrisonabike There does seem to be evidence that 20 mph limits work on roads that already lend themselves to such low speeds, and I do think the lack of a 25 mph limit option is an issue for some roads. Speed limits should especially not be set very low in the hope that many or most drivers will only exceed them by a set amount because, not only is it not true that many people drive like that, the opposite can happen. Instead of targeting the drivers most likely to cause harm, you're putting the prohibition onto the behaviour of more sensible drivers and forcing the police to target them. The DfT guidance used to have a paragraph calling out this presumption. The extent to which road design and conditions at the time dictate traffic speeds is too stark to ignore. I've seen urban roads with signed 40 mph limits have lower average speeds than some roads with posted 20 mph limits. And yes, that road in Gloucester has signs openly inviting drivers to go faster, and almost none of them do: the non-compliance was about 2%. Compare that to over 99% non-compliance on some roads in Wales. So no, when speed limits match the road, compliance is much higher, but speeds are not. What I'm mainly talking about is the increasing imposition of 20 mph limits on much higher-standard main roads. That's where you see extreme levels of non-compliance. In some cases, the average speed has even been known to go up after the limit has gone down. Showing such contempt just brings speed limits into disrepute and my contention is that drivers should take speed limits seriously.
5 thoughts on “Live blog: Geraint Thomas back in Cardiff for homecoming parade this evening, Ned Boulting quits as Metro columnist after their victim-blaming tweet, Tokyo 2020 road cycling courses announced + more”
Well done Ned for standing up
Well done Ned for standing up for what you believe in, not just knuckling under like so many other journalists have done. I hope that some other, rather more ethical, publications snap up a contributer of such proven worth.
Not sure that the utter idiot of a driver being known to the police is much of a surprise, I’d have put money on it.
Agreed, well done to Boulting
Agreed, well done to Boulting, definitely one of the good guys. And yet some idiots are still arguing it’s the responsibility/fault of the rider ffs!
Horrible for the US guy, let’s hope he’ll be back on a bike in short order, as nasty as losing a part of your leg is there is no reason he can’t carry on cycling even if that might not be at a top level but you just never know.
The women only doing 137km for the Olympic course is pretty sad, just why, in this age of equality why are the races still so short, surely the strongest riders will benefit from a harder/longer ride and that’s really what we want isn’t it?
Admire your conviction Ned,
Admire your conviction Ned, but would’t it have been better to eductae the stupids from within the organisation?
don simon wrote:
I very much doubt it. He may have tried that previously.
The fact that he is prepared to give up something he liked doing means it’s important to him. On top of that the publicity is likely to be much more effective – a number of Ned’s twitter followers are likely to give them some entirely justified grief, flagging the issue for their own followers in the process.
opportunity lost perhaps? I
opportunity lost perhaps? I wonder if Ned might have remained had the Metro published a full page correction in the next edition.