road.cc live blog: Team Sky bike build, motorist documents crap cycling with dashcam + more
Cyclists seem to be the ones likely to come off worst
Fri, Jan 05, 2018 14:45
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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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HarrogateSpa 21 minutes ago
I take a different view. 'Vehicular cycling' gets you modal share of 2%, whereas proper joined-up cycle facilities can result in 30%+. Most infrastructure projects are to provide for utility cycling - short trips in town - not leisure cycling in the countryside. The original designs for Harrogate Station Gateway (funded 2019) were excellent. Since then North Yorkshire Council has (a) failed to build anything at all and (b) diluted the cycling elements of the scheme to the point that they are disappointing and do not provide a useful route.
AidanR 25 minutes ago
I don't drive often, and I assumed that drivers around us were pulling out on me when I'm cycling for exactly the reasons you cite. But then I hired a car and, lo and behold, drivers still did this. It turns out it has everything to do with them being crap and aggressive, and not much to do with what it is they're pulling out in front of (except possibly lorries!).
Jakrayan 49 minutes ago
I wonder if it's a location thing? I live in Canterbury and, apart from the odd close pass, I find the vast majority of drivers are actually very considerate. In fact it's a common occurrence for someone coming the other way to stop and pull in if we're both on a narrow lane. I do the same if there's a wide bit close to me, or someone's been stuck behind me for a little while, and I almost invariably get a 'thank you' wave or flash of the hazard lights.
Jakrayan 53 minutes ago
On one occasion when we went to watch the Tour on a cobbled stage, one of the sponsors in the publicity caravan was a chain of retirement homes. My wife is somewhat younger than me; the lady leaning out of the open-top car took one look at us and made absolutely sure she actually passed one of the fridge magnets to her rather than throwing one on the ground as usual. We still laugh about it. Well, my wife does!
Rendel Harris 1 hour ago
@mctrials23 I wasn't thinking of identifying poor driving, which is obviously tricky without supplementary evidence, but given the huge amount of incidents that involve excessive speed GPS for keeping people to the speed limit is perfectly valid; even if there were issues with identifying the exact speed at any point, if it can be measured (as you can) that somebody has gone from point A to point B, a mile apart, on a 20 mph road in two minutes instead of three then get the fine and points in the post. Remove excessive speed and you remove the cause of numerous injury and fatality incidents.
wtjs 2 hours ago
@Sheen wheels I have a version of the R8100 and you definitively need ceramic for the socket Oh no, you don't! Ceramic sockets pretty rare and, as far as I know, only with ceramic and not metal 'ball' (femoral head)
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@mitsky Its another one of those things that makes no sense isn't it. Someone was saying in another thread that we need a harder driving test. I don't think we do. Everyone who has passed in the last 20 years has done a test that is more than happy to fail you for behaviour that 90% of drivers exhibit every time they get behind the wheel. The test is fine. The fact that getting your license seems to be considered some weird proof that you will continue to drive safely is the issue. The fact that when you prove that you cannot drive safely its not immediately revoked is the issue.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
@Rendel Harris The issue with GPS chips, as everyone who has one of those black boxes will attest to, is that they are crap. They interpret heavy braking as poor driving rather than someone else forcing it. They see rapid acceleration where there is none. All we need is a much higher chance of people being caught and punished for their everyday shit driving. I'm sure as a cyclist that every single time you go out on your bike you will have a dozen or more times when you think "that would have been a nasty accident if someone was coming the other direction". Eventually, when bad behaviour suffers no consequences it becomes completely normalised. Then we struggle to treat it as anything but a normal, unavoidable accident when that bad behaviour does incur consequences.
mctrials23 2 hours ago
Drivers regularly pull out in front of me and cause me to slam on the brakes or avoid them. Very often they have seen me and just assume I'm not going very fast or they assume I will slow down/stop (which I do). Too many drivers don't look for cyclists, hate giving way to them or expect the cyclist to be moving slowly and just pull out.
14 thoughts on “road.cc live blog: Team Sky bike build, motorist documents crap cycling with dashcam + more”
What a massive compilation…
What a massive compilation…..a number of incidents that could be counted on one hand.
Clearly this person needs needs to type in UK dashcams into YouTube for some real stupidity.
It does surprise me the
It does surprise me the number of people who have crap / no lights.
The last clip was a ‘yoof’ in a hoody – a user of a bicycle rather than a cyclist. But we’re all tarred with one brush!
J886atv wrote:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cyclist
cyclist (or cycler) [sahy-klist]
noun 1. a person who rides or travels by bicycle, motorcycle, etc.
Origin of cyclist
First recorded in 1880-85; cycle + -ist
If there’s a more narrow definition, then please do expand on it – does it depend on particular clothing, or particular type of bicycle, or is it just on whether the person is doing something you approve of?
brooksby wrote:
Exactly, how many comments here on sh#t drivers & driving, when not all of them are terrible?
Many sporting cyclist also don’t like to stop for red traffic lights, & if they do, will stop past the cycle box etc. So maybe it’s just anybody slower than them at the time?
I love my bike wrote:
……..
The last clip was a ‘yoof’ in a hoody – a user of a bicycle rather than a cyclist. But we’re all tarred with one brush!
— I love my bike
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/cyclist
cyclist (or cycler) [sahy-klist]
noun 1. a person who rides or travels by bicycle, motorcycle, etc.
……
If there’s a more narrow definition, then please do expand on it – does it depend on particular clothing, or particular type of bicycle, or is it just on whether the person is doing something you approve of?
— brooksby
Exactly, how many comments here on sh#t drivers & driving, when not all of them are terrible?
…….
— J886atv
What’s this? Fellows denying the fundamentalist Blighters’ right to stereotype others on the basis of one example of the lowest demeanour!!? One feels that such denialists of this Basic Freedom To Be An Intolerant And Unthinking British Pillock should be reported to The Daily Mail, so that the denialist too can be villified with a handy Mail Hate-Them label.
Everyone knows that all teenagers, cyclists, motorists and women are Very Bad Indeed, as my Great Uncle Barmpot pointed out years ago, just before he had his apoplexy. He had other lists of Vey Bad Types, which included Those Who Begin At Calais, People From Not-Here & Anyone Disagreeing With Me. Also Wives, Neighbours and even Cats & Dogs (and Horses).
If Uncle Barmpot was alive today, he would be pleased to see that his notion is gaining ascendency, perhaps stimulating him to poop his horn gleefully whilst running over a child, a cyclist and a horse all on the same day, as that would teach them.
Cugel, sterotypically compromised in several fashions.
Cugel wrote:
Are you sure he’s actually dead, he may just be hiding in a garden shed commenting on road cc under then name Valbrona…
brooksby wrote:
Yes, I guess by definition, an irresponsible twat on a bike is still a cyclist. Just as a drunk car thief, high on drugs, driving the wrong way on a one-way street is still a motorist.
I’m just hopeful that the above descriptions do not apply to the vast majority of RoadCC readers!
J886atv wrote:
I assume by your comment that in your oppinion a cyclist is only a cyclist when they wear racing type lycra? Why have you not pulled up the articles classification of the person capturing the video as a “motorist” as he is unlikely to be wearing motor racing type gear?
J886atv wrote:
When you ride with bicycle lights you are just making drivers complacent and it makes it less safe for everyone else.
For greater safety of the cycling population you should ride without lights, in dark clothing and preferably doing a wheelie for 50% of the journey (at least)
I make no apologies for the
I make no apologies for the cyclists without lights on….but the “Cycling” infrastructure in St Neots and the county of Cambridgeshire is ….well….. Crap… if you look at the shot of the St Neots Bridge…you’ll see the painted cycle symbol in th road…. great huh….
The driver also never slowed on the last clip where the Danger triangle with cycle in it was positioned well before the bend….. when the hooded chap on the bike “rode” out in front of him, the biker should also have looked in the drivers defence…
This cycling is normal for these parts as many don’t care because they can get away with it as the Police don’t give a sh*t …I don’t condone their behaivour…and I’d sell loads more lights if they took responsibility for themselves and other road users…… Clearly too….the driver is like most of them a “Guardian of the road”….
Its worth repeating that it
Its worth repeating that it is nothing like the amount of idiots you can watch on Youtube care of dashcams, in fact I subscribe to a few channels simply because they are so entertaining both for the car drivers and bicycle riders.
On the other hand – since Christmas and every evening that I have cycled home on my regular commute I have passed by what I can only assume is someone who recently got banned from driving and thinks he’s found the perfect way to get to work – wearing a black suit and black full length raincoat and black wooly hat with his briefcase strapped onto his black bike and with no lights and what I suspect is ye olde rod brakes and down twisting country lanes that have no lighting… I wonder what he plans to do when the M6 is closed down and car rivers use the same roads as a shortcut/ratrun doing 60 odd MPH, which they regularly do despite the fact there are dire warning signs about horses and livestock dotted all over the place that they completely ignore.
That last example, I have to
That last example, I have to say that I thought the driver was travelling at a speed excessive for the roads he was driving on. This was demonstrated when we narrowly avoided an accident with teh cyclist.
The cyclist was also conducting himself in a less than exemplary manner, but that last one was a solid 50/50 IMO.
As for red light jumping, I see it all the time… mainly by car drivers who seem to believe that if a light has only just turned red, it isn’t as red as a proper red. I genuinely see little red light jumping from cyclists and those that do, generally do it a lot more safely than the car drivers I see blindly accelerating through a red light.
I have to say though, i can see no reason why you wouldn’t have lights on your bike.
Err, where’s the video?
Err, where’s the video?
Bout half way down, unless
Bout half way down, unless you’ve got an ad blocker on, then it may not be there…