road.cc live blog – Mandatory helmets and hi-vis rumour keeps on spreading + BMW e-bikes in the sky… in China
…Maybe + L-plate school cyclists update, Pro team sells bus (well it is Black Friday) and LOTS more
Fri, Nov 24, 2017 15:30
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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Latest Comments
Blackthorne83 3 hours ago
Hey, but their wool blend cycling adjacent t-shirts are/were fantastic.
RoadYeti 4 hours ago
@Surreyrider Still the boss. Ride one, you'll see why
chrisonabike 7 hours ago
@Smoggysteve "Most would happily ride on the roads and be treated with respect by drivers". But people aren't - and as far as I can see they won't be. Not until there is a lot less driving and it's slower around cyclists, and far more people driving have "skin in the game" eg. they sometimes cycle and their friends and family do also. That's what leads to the model - which is perhaps most advanced in NL - where cycling, walking and driving are all seen as separate normal transport modes. Their needs, vulnerabilities and any dangers to others are considered. And *that* leads to "mix / share when possible, separate when necessary". But "possible" is "where your 10-year old would be safe to cycle unsupervised" - so very few motor vehicles, going slow! And AFAICS everybody - even "existing cyclists" - is happy with the result. (I dunno about a few pro cyclists - but don't they tend to have training camps in different counties anyway?)
chrisonabike 8 hours ago
@quiff as an Edinburgh resident I can confidently say he's speaking without moving his lips in one sense: - while as I noted in a separate comment there *is* now some real separated cycle infra, all the examples i can think of have *at least as much space* for pedestrians. The rest of the "cycle infra" is essentially similar to the situation in the rest of the UK: eg. bus lanes*, cycle lanes and shared use paths (eg. "build" infra by sticking up a sign). Edinburgh is one of the places with a moderately extensive network of former railways which have been converted to "shared use" paths (completely motor traffic few). However though shared they are not narrow by UK standards. And this is all effectively a "free extra" for all non- motorised users, not like the "sign a cycle path" where pedestrians do lose space. I think this all comes from the "popular understanding" of cycling in which ultimately cyclists are the "other". They don't fit "motor vehicle" or "pedestrian" (including wheelchairs on the very rare occasions people think about that). Thus "cyclists are cheating" in multiple ways! They shouldn't get their own space as "there aren't enough" of them. And "they can just use the road / path". But being able to *choose* "on the road" or "on the footway" (shared use path) is clearly unfair - nobody else gets to do that! BUT of course even if they did pick just one of road OR pedestrian space it's still not fair anyway because they're "too slow" for the road (don't pay "road tax" etc...) and "far too fast" for pedestrians... * Though some existing cyclists may appreciate them when there are few buses, buses and bikes are a very poor mix for several reasons.
mikecassie 8 hours ago
Whilst a shame for any employees, their bib shorts had the worst chamois pad I’d ever encountered, utter waste of my money. Even though they were Strava challenge discount purchases, still a waste of money.
ktache 9 hours ago
Thanks, just going to have to suck it up. Got next week off and will take the easy, if expensive option...
Rendel Harris 9 hours ago
@ktache Just go for the TNT Sports only package, £30.99 for a month. Alternatively have you considered experimenting with a VPN for a few pounds, allowing you to sign up for a free stream abroad, e.g. SBS Australia which streams the Tour live? If I didn't have a kind mate's login that's what I'd do!
ktache 10 hours ago
So, it's now the month of July and I'm going to have to pay to watch the TdF, for one month only. On a tablet unfortunately, as I didn't manage to get a laptop to rig up to the TV, grrr. Just wondering, what package will I have to fork out for? Not wanting to pay for the wrong one...
Rendel Harris 11 hours ago
Not that it sounds like a dealbreaker given the other faults you've identified, but that cable isn't really a "proprietary" cable, four pin magnetic cables like that are quite common on bone-conducting headphones and other devices (my inexpensive smartwatch uses one) and they can be had for £4.99 on UK Amazon.
17 thoughts on “road.cc live blog – Mandatory helmets and hi-vis rumour keeps on spreading + BMW e-bikes in the sky… in China”
Times’ front cover should be
Times’ front cover should be withdrawn. Reporter likely wasn’t at conference where subject was raised. I was, and so was Mark Hookham of the Sunday Times, who asked the helmet/hi-vis question.
Full transcipt is available, as is audio.
See: http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/the-times-leads-with-false-story-about-helmet-compulsion/022270
If this is the sort of misleading reporting that politicians have to deal with on a daily basis I feel very sorry for politicians, and rather ashamed at fellow journalists who’ve got this story so about-face it’s shocking.
Hm, could a newspaper with an
Hm, could a newspaper with an ageing tory readership possibly have an agenda?
Daily Wail running it now…
Daily Wail running it now… apparently due to be introduced in the new year!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5113697/Cyclists-wear-helmets-high-viz-vests.html
edit to add DONT read the comments below their article. You will dispair.
Zero sympathy for Norman: he
Zero sympathy for Norman: he needs to get a straighter bat and a better grasp of his subject matter.
@CygnusX1 – I like your
@CygnusX1 – I like your thinking.
@Carlton,
@Carlton,
Your article makes for interesting reading – particularly the last paragraph with the various headlines used by various rags. The Daily Mail’s is a SHOCKER of a headline, but what we’ve come to expect. Click bait indeed.
Let’s hope none of the anti-cycling lobbies realise they need to submit as a suggestion to the review (maybe these headlines may actually help – they may think its already on the table).
Shhh! don’t tell!
I’ll agree to helmets and hi
I’ll agree to helmets and hi-viz if, and only if, the Daily Mail readership agrees to wear LGBT-rainbow-coloured burqas whenever they leave the house .
ConcordeCX wrote:
Or, if all dark/dull coloured cars vehicles have to be painted in high viz (white vans included as they blend into the sky if it’s a bright day).
ConcordeCX wrote:
Just make them wear LGBT colours with reflective strips so they will be visible while walking and driving should be sufficient.
The Daily Mails is a horrible
The Daily Mails is a horrible rag posing as a newspaper. It’s be better suited as toilet paper except that the ink leaves marks.
I mean, compulsory helmet use has had such a beneficial effect in reducing deaths and injuries for cyclsits in NZ hasn’t it?
OldRidgeback wrote:
If the goal is actually to reduce KSI rates then the answer is indeed clesr. If the true goal is to reduce cycling rates then the answer is also clear.
Nice Helmet Row jpeg but I
Nice Helmet Row jpeg but I think mine’s better (had to check it was a real street on Google Maps, and saw this):
Those old CRT TVs in the bus,
Those old CRT TVs in the bus, just lol, what is this back to the future to the olden days!
I always figured if this
I always figured if this country made helmets compulsory I’d move aboard. Not because it’d be such a terrible imposition in itself, but because it would be a sign that pandering to irrational groupthink had reached a level that threatened individual freedom. However, that was before legions of idiotic gargoyles, who’d never previously given enough of a toss about anything to schlep to the polling station, decided their lives would seem less pathetic if they voted to strip the rest of us of our right to live in Europe. Being stuck on this island with that bunch is one thing, having to do so while forced to dress like a Belisha beacon, so drivers can feel like they’ve taken back control of the roads as well as the country, is another.
handlebarcam wrote:
Thats it: it’s not wearing a helmet that’s so objectionable, if you decide to wear one, but the *compulsion* to wear a helmet. No choice in the matter, no attempts to make the road environment better or safer; just make everyone wear a styrofoam hat because that will protect them from everything ever (honest!). Like rear lights in the 30s, make the cyclists dress in hi-viz so it is *their* problem and not the problem of the motorist who should be looking where they’re going. Hell, I could go further and invoke Godwins in this, but I shall restrain myself 😉
handlebarcam wrote:
I hear you. I’d be tempted to move overseas, too.
I think the hills of Afghanistan might be better suited to your level of mindless prejudice of people you’ve never met, based on what box they ticked in a democratic process.
I didn’t think the Daily Mail
I didn’t think the Daily Mail piece was that bad. Presumably the improvement to American football players’ safety from helmets was in relation to…playing American football? that kind-of makes sense in a bears/woods kind of way.
BY LAW – like mobile phones while driving, MOTS, speed limits, not getting the red mist* and just generally looking where you’re going – you mean those laws, right? I could just about, just about suffer new laws about cycling if the other lot played fair and did their bit.
The helmet law thing if it came to pass for adults, would surely mean pretty much the end of the city cycle hire schemes? Acquiring still more armour plating for road users (of all types) is NOT the answer!
This is the government that flunked the whole healthy eating thing a few months back – maybe that’s because of food industry pressures, maybe because they don’t see themselves as regulating people’s lives in this much detail?
There is a curtain-twitching segment of our society that believes that if you’re out late/after dark and a bad thing happens to you then, that it’s your own silly fault. It probably isn’t a good idea to leave your laptop on view, it probably is a good idea to lock your house when you go out, in line with police advice. But let’s not forget that the factors that lead us this way are a bad thing and in an ideal world it wouldn’t be like that. I think it’s in those terms that non cycling people see hi viz and helmets.
i don’t think anyone (usual exceptions: Audi, etc) actively hates cyclists and cycling – we’re more of an irritation, an annoyance, shaving vital nanoseconds off important car journeys, that somehow I remember used to be quicker (yes – less cars).
It’s a slightly strange thing to be defending the ongoing use of mixed use highways (against the “push” referred to in the Mail story, what with us cyclists being so darned numerous and all) but that’s what we now need to do.
When this wretched review was announced, many of us had a good rant about it – now we need to get our shit together and present our arguments around the many benefits and freedoms of cycling. We should expect something to replace “furious riding”, I think, but let’s make sure it’s proportionate/ reasonable and also keep other road users’ behaviour in the conversation.
*By the way, red mist drivers, I notice that somehow you’re allowed to barge your way past me, but the moment I pass you when you get stuck, it becomes a matter to be avenged – how does that work, exactly?