Chris Boardman says MPs “should be embarrassed” & don’t “even know the most basic of facts” about cycling

Simmo72 wrote:

Often on my commute I get caught in a big tail back because a cyclist is on a busy road at rush hour and no one can get past? In part this is caused by drivers not having the skill to judge a safe gap and sitting behind unnecessarily.

all you're doing is reaching a queue at a different point in your journey. unless, once you get to town, all those cars are magically transported somewhere else. they'll get in to town before you, tail back and you'll be behind them. the fact that you were stuck behind a cyclist for 30 seconds earlier on won't make a second of difference to your journey time in most cases. especially at rush hour.

i see this all the time. people overtake me, i overtake them, they get cross that they have to overtake me again, then i overtake them again, they get more cross, etc, etc. the fact is that your journey time in your car is almost entirely unrelated to what i do on my bike because the speed of my bike journey is almost entirely unaffected by traffic volume. you keep having to overtake me because my average speed is the same or better. if you just sat behind a bike instead of having to overtake it, a lot of the time it wouldn't make any difference at all.

bikes aren't the problem in cities. single-occupancy cars are the problem.

Dave Atkinson wrote:

Simmo72 wrote:

Often on my commute I get caught in a big tail back because a cyclist is on a busy road at rush hour and no one can get past? In part this is caused by drivers not having the skill to judge a safe gap and sitting behind unnecessarily.

all you're doing is reaching a queue at a different point in your journey. unless, once you get to town, all those cars are magically transported somewhere else. they'll get in to town before you, tail back and you'll be behind them. the fact that you were stuck behind a cyclist for 30 seconds earlier on won't make a second of difference to your journey time in most cases. especially at rush hour.

i see this all the time. people overtake me, i overtake them, they get cross that they have to overtake me again, then i overtake them again, they get more cross, etc, etc. the fact is that your journey time in your car is almost entirely unrelated to what i do on my bike because the speed of my bike journey is almost entirely unaffected by traffic volume. you keep having to overtake me because my average speed is the same or better. if you just sat behind a bike instead of having to overtake it, a lot of the time it wouldn't make any difference at all.

bikes aren't the problem in cities. single-occupancy cars are the problem.

Yeah that's the idealistic approach but it's easy to see how drivers are tempted to "yo-yo overtake" in slow traffic because if anything, it gives a more consistent spread of progress when stewing a traffic jam.

But single occupancy cars... mayyyn. It just occurred to me lately how perverted the idea is. Upwards of 1000kg of metal to move just ONE person, often over pretty small distances. Comes across very grim.

There is undoubtedly a use for cars, lol, but I guess the ever increasing petrol prices might be an opportunity to publicize cycling more as a way of getting around.

It all boils down to perception and awareness - even the best shops/services/products are of little use to someone if they are looked at from a skewed angle and/or people don't know about them.

Simmo72 wrote:

'Cycling doesn't cause congestion' This really is not true, especially outside of the towns.

Often on my commute I get caught in a big tail back because a cyclist is on a busy road at rush hour and no one can get past? In part this is caused by drivers not having the skill to judge a safe gap and sitting behind unnecessarily.

If this number increases significantly, what will happen - even more hatred + less revenue for the government and more anger to cyclists, including me as I am sometimes one of those cyclists causing the backlog.

Then how much extra Co2 is caused by having bike generated tail backs and the excessive power used to overtake quickly? I often wonder how much this increases your Co2 saving commute.

It really isn't simple and that is why I would be prepared to pay an annual cost towards dedicated cycling schemes, but only if we do away with this stupid CO2 VED based tax. A toyota prius is generating wear and tear, more than others because it weighs more and why pretend its saving polar bears, its not. Build the ved into the cost of fuel, you use, you pay, you drive a big car, you pay more, you cycle more you pay less. don't penalise me because I can only afford a 5 year old car.

Often on any journey I make (other than the middle of the night) I am delayed by huge queues of traffic (often with cars alternately at the kerb or further out, thus making filtering on either side very difficult). The congestion is due to cars being too large and too numerous for the road (and they have gotten wider on average over the last couple of decades).

They drive down side-roads, overtake me, and then find they can't pass the car coming the other way, for example, and make me wait while they stop and try and maneuver past each other.

Its the cars that delay _everyone_. The idea that bikes significantly delay cars and cause more CO2 is nonsense. Its overwhelmingly the other way round. Cars constantly stop and start due to lights and other cars.

Perhaps VED should be rolled-up into fuel tax, I'm not 100% sure on the relationship between fuel-consumption and emissions though (I guess it must be a simple one for CO2, as the Carbon in petrol hasn't got anywhere else to go, but there ought to be a cost for all the other crap cars put out, and surely that can vary depending on the engine?).

But there also needs to be an element of congestion charging, because emissions is one cost, but the use of in-demand roads by such large vehicles is another. I think that is actually a more important issue than the cost of wear-and-tear. That roadspace is a scarce resource.

I got exactly the same response from MP Vickers. Basically the MPs are there to throw in an idea (probably thought of by someone else), and if its a flier then they will take the credit, if its a duffer then issue statements such as these.

To be honest it sounds like a blinding job!

Precisely @Neil753 must catch up with you sometime. I was wincing and shaking my head at the lack of any proper structure or briefing to this - it was rushed, it was grandstanding, with both the cycling panel and the hauliers panel having prepared well.

I was especially interested by to point that Jack Semple of RHA managed to get in despite the committee failing to ask the question. Two thirds of the operators called in for formal interview and (usually) some form of sanction being imposed on their licence are operating on a restricted licence - they don't have to have a CPC qualified transport manager, and are often in the waste management sector (ie skip lorry operators) .... speaks volumes?

Also had a useful piece of feedback - many are embracing the LCC proposal to design a truck which does not need a small forest of mirrors to actually see what is happening immediately beside the cab because the driver has direct vision of that area. Refuse trucks are widely being specified with 'walk-in' cabs that have the driver's eye-level just 2 metres above the road - practically in line with an adult pedestrian on the footway - look in from outside and you'll see the driver from bonce to bum and they will see you.

But this type of truck is not primarily being specified because of the lack of blind spots. A major source of crew injury on refuse collection is slipping and falling when climbing up or down from the 'classic' high cab. So I asked the MPA guy after the session if their members had any similar issues on tipper operations and guess what - tipper drivers are getting injured in exactly the same sort of incidents. So what of logistics and distribution?

I've also seen at least two recently registered 18T box trucks on logistics/parcels work (TNTPost and DHL) with the footwell part of the n/s door panel as a glazed area. Are we being listened to at last? (Unfortunately both sightings in traffic and at night so no opportunity to grab a picture)

Your thoughts also on the fact that a lot of muck shift and other construction haulage is very sporadic as sites start, finish, etc, and driver pool is often as transient as the work, with a possible bias to Class C's, as they are more readily available?

Precisely @Neil753 must catch up with you sometime. I was wincing and shaking my head at the lack of any proper structure or briefing to this - it was rushed, it was grandstanding, with both the cycling panel and the hauliers panel having prepared well.

I was especially interested by to point that Jack Semple of RHA managed to get in despite the committee failing to ask the question. Two thirds of the operators called in for formal interview and (usually) some form of sanction being imposed on their licence are operating on a restricted licence - they don't have to have a CPC qualified transport manager, and are often in the waste management sector (ie skip lorry operators) .... speaks volumes?

Also had a useful piece of feedback - many are embracing the LCC proposal to design a truck which does not need a small forest of mirrors to actually see what is happening immediately beside the cab because the driver has direct vision of that area. Refuse trucks are widely being specified with 'walk-in' cabs that have the driver's eye-level just 2 metres above the road - practically in line with an adult pedestrian on the footway - look in from outside and you'll see the driver from bonce to bum and they will see you.

But this type of truck is not primarily being specified because of the lack of blind spots. A major source of crew injury on refuse collection is slipping and falling when climbing up or down from the 'classic' high cab. So I asked the MPA guy after the session if their members had any similar issues on tipper operations and guess what - tipper drivers are getting injured in exactly the same sort of incidents. So what of logistics and distribution?

I've also seen at least two recently registered 18T box trucks on logistics/parcels work (TNTPost and DHL) with the footwell part of the n/s door panel as a glazed area. Are we being listened to at last? (Unfortunately both sightings in traffic and at night so no opportunity to grab a picture)

Your thoughts also on the fact that a lot of muck shift and other construction haulage is very sporadic as sites start, finish, etc, and driver pool is often as transient as the work, with a possible bias to Class C's, as they are more readily available?