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
rookybiker 7 minutes ago
I've used Challenge, Vittoria, Veloflex and Continental tyres. What stands out for me regarding Challenge is how robust their supple tyres are. Usually there is a tradeoff there, but Challenge somehow manages to keep both.
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
Well, many of them are more correctly "emit elsewhere". However as we do successfully move away from "coal, oil, and latterly gas and wood" the fraction that is actually emitted does go down. So overall, welcome. (It's complicated... the renewables business is just business like any other so we aren't keen to discuss all the resources being used / new places that get trashed. Example being how much steel (mostly still "dirty") and concrete we need for the new infra. And of course where humans can, they will, as much as they can afford, so Jevons Paradox applies).
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
RE: Royal Mail 4-wheeled "bikes" - hadn't they been trying to ditch the bikes for ages (like society overall)? When they did they dumped them in favour of vans plus those trolleys. Overall if this means it ends up more "micro-van" rather than "walking plus full size vans" I guess a degree of pedalling is an improvement? When Royal Mail and parking came up before someone said they can ditch their vehicles where they want (if they have to/within reason... but nobody's going to do anything about it). The real issue is all the other commercial deliverers do that anyway. Plus most of the rest of the population...
mitsky 2 hours ago
@david21 Such as this one... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY6fhhmen8w
MaxiMinimalist 2 hours ago
Will Royal Mail release facts and figures that really matter - costs of acquisition, costs of maintenance, impact on productivity, depreciation, loss of residual value? Zero-emission vehicle means carbon emissions are released upstream.
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
RE: Royal Mail 4-wheeled "bikes" - should be worried in case they get Fujitsu to manage the routing and logistics...
Smoggysteve 2 hours ago
One thing that's missed out is upgradability. By which I mean, what is the benefit of upgrading my bike? Over the last decade or so , we have had, electronic gears, disc brakes, fully intergrated cable free designs, more aero frames, there has always at lease one reason to eye up an upgrade. Lets use the Specialized S-Works Tarmac SL9. What is the difference between that and the SL8? its so marginal. same can be said for so many new releases. the upgrades are so marginal and when they are always boasted about in ridiculous terms like a 5 seconds saving over 80km averaging 45kph. its preposterous to the average mere human non pro rider. Its like the evolution of the iPhone. the leap in every new model was always worth the cost of upgrading. bigger screens, higher resolutions, better camera etc etc. but now each new model is almost identical to the last and people stopped upgrading every year, to maybe ever y 2-3 years instead with the new contract etc. In the last 4-5 years, with the exception of a few radical bikes like the Factor One or the Colnago Y1RS etc, upgrades are not worth the expenditure. Especially when people are more prepared to buy Chinese instead. Why spend 5 figures on a top end Dura Ace clad superbike from a marquis brand when you can get a very good alternative from China for almost half the price? Its happening in bikes, phones, electric SUVs. Big brands took the piss and now they are paying for their greed.
Rendel Harris 3 hours ago
Not a reply to car drivers but one I do like using on the fairly regular occasions some mean-spirited grumbler complains about bikes on trains (almost invariably when the train is less than half full and the bike is neatly tucked in the legitimate bike space!), muttering, "You've got a bike, why aren't you riding it?" to which I like to reply, "You've got shoes on, why aren't you walking?"
Terry Hutt 3 hours ago
My favorite rude driver retort was when I had two teenage children and there were four cars in my driveway. Driver: Get off the road! Me: How many cars do you own? Just the one? I own four. Get off my road!
Rendel Harris 3 hours ago
@Bungle_52 The ones I have seen don't, as I said they are not much wider than a large cyclist with MTB bars so they can safely (and I presume legally) park on pavements when making their deliveries without obstructing pedestrians, given that, in London at least, segregated cycle lanes almost always run alongside wide pavements. If they were to stop in cycle lanes that would be annoying, although at least they are narrow enough to ride around without having to use the road/pavement, unlike the motorised vans.
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?