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Live blog: Alejandro Valverde says “I never tested positive,” Frankfurt tow away nearly 800 cars in a month for parking in cycle lanes + more
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Mon, Nov 05, 2018 15:42
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Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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Latest Comments
mdavidford 1 minute ago
They may have looked, but did they see?
jackcycles 33 minutes ago
Ds2025: where they are going wrong is that they are crushing the motorbike rather than the person sat on top of it. If they did the latter this issue would be solved in less than 24 hours.
Rod Marton 34 minutes ago
I came this way today with the car boot sale in operation. There was a marshal at the entrance, who stopped a car turning right across the cycleway as I was approaching. So that certainly works. I think it necessary for the marshal to be there, I couldn't say if the driver would have turned if he hadn't been there but you always have to suspect the worst. Unfortunately there is no marshal at the exit, and there was certainly a car stopped across the cycleway as I was approaching it. But he pulled onto the road before I reached it, and the following car stayed off the cycleway as I went through. Ideally there should have been a marshal there too. On the whole, though, it's a really high standard piece of infrastructure. Just a pity it doesn't extend a bit further.
eburtthebike 50 minutes ago
“absolute carnage” So right! Just look at the bodies piled up, blood running in the gutters and injured people limping away. It's a bit of a problem with a road, delaying some people for minutes at a time: it isn't carnage, let alone 'absolute carnage'. Anyone who exaggerates so ridiculously really shouldn't be allowed to comment in public, unless they want to demonstrate their idiocy to all and sundry.
Jakrayan 2 hours ago
I'm criticising them for not riding in secondary position, not primary. At least 60cms (2 feet) from the edge of the road as the HC explicitly recommends. Leaving aside the small minority of riders who find mounting and dismounting a bike difficult - which sounds suspiciously similar to the motorists "but, but what about disabled drivers?" when talking about LTNs - what's wrong with able bodied riders walking the few metres over that narrow, Victorian bridge? Sure, if there's clearly no-one on it I wouldn't condemn anyone for riding it slowly, but if it's not clear forcing pedestrians to stop and squeeze to the side is, frankly, a rather entitled opinion. Plus it's easy to hold a road bike a little ahead of you and hold the saddle - normally no need to hold the bars if it's straight - so you're really not taking up much more room at all. There's a railway underpass near me that links to a shared then segregated path. It's narrow, and the path approaches at an angle so you can't see if it's clear, but many riders still choose to pedal through despite the clear 'no cycling' signage. Why?? Personally I don't go that way, except on foot, preferring the surrounding roads.
bensynnock 2 hours ago
I think you're giving drivers too much credit. Many would not think twice about blocking the road if it makes their life easier, such as when turning right onto a busy road.
bensynnock 2 hours ago
They might have to, but they won't. What they will do is pull out over the cycle path while they wait for a gap in motor traffic.
Safety 3 hours ago
"We have enough regulation." I agree with the exception being legally allowed to sell something which is virtually illegal to use. How many purchasers own a suitably large piece of private land?
Tradescant 6 hours ago
@jackcycles I'm not sure my grandchildren got that memo. Cycling should not be just for hardened road warriors.
DS2025 7 hours ago
Chrisonabike There are a number of police forces in England and Wales that are using portable testing equipment already... How effective it is another matter, I haven't looked into the results of failing (I would hope they just seize and crush the motorbike without any faff but I am sure there are appeal processes, promises not to use them on public roads etc).
17 thoughts on “Live blog: Alejandro Valverde says “I never tested positive,” Frankfurt tow away nearly 800 cars in a month for parking in cycle lanes + more”
Quote:
Would love to see that happen in places around the UK, but it would be seen as more of the Great War on the Motorist (TM) and no police force would touch it.
brooksby wrote:
Would love to see that happen in places around the UK, but it would be seen as more of the Great War on the Motorist (TM) and no police force would touch it.
Think they would need to build a bigger compound first.
Grahamd wrote:
nah, just crush them and deposit the offending cube of scrap metal on their porch.
brooksby wrote:
Would love to see that happen in places around the UK, but it would be seen as more of the Great War on the Motorist (TM) and no police force would touch it.
It’s a bit of a giggle commuting (by bike/car/bus/horse/whatever) down Hotwell Road in the morning – any of the cars left in the left-hand lane just get picked up and stuck on the back of a lorry
Canyon48 wrote:
You realise that they have to do that *every* morning- there are some people down there seem to think that recovery charge is just part of the cost of running their car, it seems…
Quote:
Duplicate post.
Except clearly the prospect
Except clearly the prospect of your car being towed has no effect on driver behaviour as (a) there are dozens of tow companies making a healthy living from doing this already, and (b) inspite of a month of warning, 850 drivers in one city still parked on the bike paths. Useful as revenge, but not sure how useful as a deterrent. Perhaps if the cars were then crushed……
I love the word
I love the word Abschleppdienst.
ConcordeCX wrote:
some of the German nouns are pure class. While the compound nouns are in a league of their own. I still break into cold sweats thinking about it and trying to get my tongue around them when I attempted and failed my German O’Level quite spectacularly.
I think it’s not so much the
I think it’s not so much the police that wouldn’t touch it as local councils.
Bezirksschornsteinfegermeiste
I used to be a bit of a bookie in my early teens and was fascinated with long words, I can’t recal many so had to look it up but some of the longer words in every day use are in German, Finnish + Scandanavian words too
Bezirksschornsteinfegermeister – head district chimney sweep
Donaudampfschiffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän – Danube Steam boat river captain
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
it’s a process called agglutination. The second word breaks up quite easily into “Danube steam ship travel business captain”.
you’ll enjoy this one, which I’m going to practice shouting at recalcitrant drivers, just to disorient them:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lopadotemachoselachogaleokranioleipsanodrimhypotrimmatosilphioparaomelitokatakechymenokichlepikossyphophattoperisteralektryonoptekephalliokigklopeleiolagoiosiraiobaphetraganopterygon
ConcordeCX wrote:
I don’t recall seeing that in Auguste Escoffier’s Reportoire de la Cuisine, that’s a belter!
Valverde: “I never tested
Valverde: “I never tested positive”. Oh well, that has a long history as a valid defence then….
I was almost starting to feel
I was almost starting to feel sorry for Valverde, thinking that he was getting a disproportionate amount of stick, but then he goes and says something like this and any sympathy disappears. So he was just storing his blag with a highly notable doctor linked to doping for prosperity?
Footpath parking seems to be
Footpath parking seems to be default setting for a lot of Drivers, no matter the situation. I have noticed an increase in people parking a few inches onto the footpath in locations where it makes no difference “Emergency Sevices might need to get by” … Well, don’t fucking parking there if Emergency Services are so important to you.
one from down under on
one from down under on yesterday’s ride – not 100% sure on the law – parking in a bike lane is legal in Victoria unless signs (none) say otherwise – blocking access to/from probably is a parking offence I’m told but at most its around a $95 fine