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Live blog: Netherlands to ban cyclists from using phones while riding; 12 hours, 100 miles, 12 years old! LEJOG in a recumbent bathtub + more

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Latest Comments
Currently riding home powered by this for the last 6 months after someone stole my SeeSence beam, LOVE it. super durable and batter life gets me home on full beam for 55 minutes
Comments and an article by people who organise NOTHING! Promoting an event is mostly by volunteers and an AI poster done at midnight after sorting the British cycling insurance, the toilets, the Marshalls, the council and a landowner is so draining. The effort is massive for usually a small team. Grab a flag and help rather than moaning about a generated image...o look the image is eye catching so it must work .
I have Wizzard works bag from 2018 (bought for my 30th) and this is a complete rip off it!!
6 times division champion, 1st cat road man, semi-pro for 3 years. Sub 21 min 10 and sub 55 min 25 on a steel road bike. Forty five years riding. Forgotten more about riding bikes than most on here will ever know. If you want to pay £6k for an aluminium road by all means go ahead.
@Borisface Probably for the best, if you're as ignorant about bikes and materials as your comment suggests you wouldn't appreciate it anyway. Go and buy something on the UCI weight limit made out of the latest space age super carbon and wobble around on it looking daft and feeling uncomfortable and to hell with aesthetics, practicality and real-world use cases, at least you'll have the right numbers ("6.85 kg, awesome!") and words ("Yeah, it's UHM 12k carbon, actually") for the cafe. Enjoy!
Why not use winter to explore other interests and thus use it to your advantage? It could easily turn out as a win-win: you recover from cycling-related injuries and fatigue, get to miss your favourite pastime and rekindle your love for it or who knows, maybe even discover a new one! Oh, did I mention that changing your movement patterns is also quite awesome for the body, too?
@hotspanners I think Jo's issue is with slop. I didn't get the impression that this article makes you look rubbish as a club! Hopefully CX league will take better steps next time and include input from the clubs. Perhaps Jo will make it clear that it was generated by the league opposed to individual clubs.
I'm more interested in the opinion of the person who's actually ridden the bike.
@DS2025 I literally just found out it was done by the CX league, which explains why Jo had seen so much slop, and why I wasn’t aware of it until it was too late. I think the article needs to be amended - Jo’s issue is with the CX league, not the clubs. This article makes us look rubbish!
This was my children's headteacher and I had spoken to him just weeks before, he was a terrific fella. To put this in context, I regularly cycle down the same route as this incident, it is too narrow with many impatient commuters on it. There is no cycle provision, the surface is terrible on the whole and little obvious effort is made to reduce the speed of motorists. There is a car in my road right now with no front number plate (read into that what you will), GMP say it's not their job, the council say it's not their job either, the DVLA are my last opportunity. I have no faith I. Then to act. The pavement on both sides of my road is impossible to walk down, the local pcso said he won't act, and the local councillor visited and then also did nothing. I regularly cycle with my son (18 years old) but I wouldn't let him go out on his own because I have suspect too many of the local motorists have lite care for the safety of others a the regulation is nil.
12 thoughts on “Live blog: Netherlands to ban cyclists from using phones while riding; 12 hours, 100 miles, 12 years old! LEJOG in a recumbent bathtub + more”
The Dutch already ban
The Dutch already ban cyclists from using headphones, why not ban motorists from having music and using phones, oh wait, they already do yet deaths increased again last year with 60+ deaths at junctions/crossways between cycling infra and roads. The Dutch are going backwards in their thinking if they believe this will do anything, a few anecdotal incidents and one death equals a ban. Why stop there, let’s ban pedestrians from walking and using a mobile phone, surely cycling is simply an extension of walking, well that’s what it’s supposed to be promoted as, a basic every day activity.
I bet more people on foot have died due to using mobile phones, oh and policing it, that will be hot compared to motorists no doubt, just like in Australia where helmetless or bell free cyclists are hauled over the coals for a fine the same as a speeding motorist.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Not a bad shout if we have got to the point where consideration is being given to pavements being installed with warnings!
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/09/03/glue-road-signs-floor-zombie-pedestrians-phones-government-adviser/
Well Hector Rees-Davies , no
Well Hector Rees-Davies , no point having a helmet on if you don’t wear it properly.
hirsute wrote:
At least it’s buckled on. People riding round with them undone never cease to bewilder me.
Enjoy your freedom, cute
Enjoy your freedom, cute Morning Commute infant, in a year or two when you’re cycling to school the fun police will on your case and demanding you wear a helmet and have a number plate.
BTBS, just because cars cause
BTBS, just because cars cause more carnage than bicycles doesn’t give cyclists licence to do any old daft shit they want. Cyclists on mobiles are dicks. If you use the road, pay attention.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
But it does justify calls for proportionality; for the enforcement and punishment to correspond to the risk.
davel wrote:
BTBS, just because cars cause more carnage than bicycles doesn’t give cyclists licence to do any old daft shit they want. Cyclists on mobiles are dicks. If you use the road, pay attention.
— davel But it does justify calls for proportionality; for the enforcement and punishment to correspond to the risk.— Yorkshire wallet
I’ve not seen anything yet in this change to suggest a lack of proportionality in either – but i’ve also not seen the associated guidance for the legislation.
davel wrote:
The risk is you ride one hand on bars, not paying attention and die? Remember that drunk woman who died, not in full control?
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
More people die because of head phone wearing phone using pedestrians than same on bikes, if we are to have a ban for one group then surely if the reasoning is to make that safer (for whom??) then we must apply that to all persons especially those that do the most harm to others and to themselves. people on bikes are the bottom of the list when it comes to harming oneself and others whilst doing their activity and indeed also whilst listening to music and/or using a phone or in some cases in the wilds of Kingston upon Hull, rolling a woodbine, whilst on the phone riding no handed and still avoding weverything.one.
More than any of the other groups cyclists are aware of their vulnerability (well the helmetless ones at least), thus even with these other ‘distractions’ they are still safer to themselves and others are without.
A ban is discriminatory, bias, illogical and without factual merit.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Where do you get that from?
I’d suggest motorcyclists are also pretty aware of their vulnerability based on comments I have seen them make.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Figures and statistics please.