Live blog: Giro towns turn pink, South Yorkshire Police targeting close pass drivers + extreme wheelie video
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Tue, Jan 23, 2018 15:00
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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
thrawed 10 minutes ago
I wonder if these national highways air quality numbers are published anywhere. There has been this one road near me (that sees a lot of traffic) that is carved out in this little valley and it feels like it's hard to catch a breath in there sometimes, almost like the valley is causing the noxious fumes to collect and probably shortening my lifespan cycling through there.
mdavidford 11 minutes ago
I guess that's what they mean by Given your username, though, presumably you won't be making the switch?
Rendel Harris 18 minutes ago
As was explained to you at length at the time, Nigel, Khan was forced by his Scotland Yard security detail to use armoured vehicles and take his dog for a walk in Battersea Park rather than his habitual Wandsworth Common because they had been given details by the Secret Service of credible threats against his life. Such threats, of course, are provoked and fermented by an atmosphere in which people like yourself are continually criticising certain individuals with thinly-veiled racial slurs (I remember you and your friend Thisismyusername (aka Left is for Losers, Ledner Sirrah etc) made great play of his short stature (average height for a man of Pakistani descent) and his hooked nose (common feature of Pakistani/Afghani men)) and outright libels; the same people who attempt to stir up hatred against him then sneer when Scotland Yard and the Secret Service (not the Mayor himself) insist on his security being tightened. It's hard to decide if it's the hatred or the hypocrisy which is more repellent - six and two threes really.
Smoggysteve 28 minutes ago
Sorry, but are we not all meant to be buying EVs now? Surely thats gonna bring down pollution.
ROOTminus1 37 minutes ago
@jackcycles You do realise that editing is possible again now? You don't have to comment on your own post.
ROOTminus1 41 minutes ago
HSE Risk management 101: Risk = Level of harm x Likelihood of harm from hazard Hierarchy of risk controls: - Eliminate hazard (0 Level) - Reduce hazard (reduced Level) - Isolate; physical/ engineered barriers containing hazard (near 0 Likelihood) - Control; "soft" separation of people away from hazard (reduction of Likelihood) - PPE; mitigate harm of hazard to exposed people (small dent to Likelihood) - Do nothing Excessive vehicle traffic is producing levels of pollution harmful to health - Hazard Given the above, National Highways have straight in with poorly implemented Control measures. "oh, no, please don't cycle or walk here. if you have an asthma attack, don't say we didn't warn you" Closing the road would eliminate the risk at that location, but isn't a practicable solution. They could have very easily reduced the dual carriageway to single lane running in each direction. Slower vehicle movement, sure, but fewer stop-start surges in traffic, halved the number of offending vehicles in the area at any given time, and after a period of time, some people will find driving it unpleasant and seek alternative means of transport. At least the response wasn't to tell people to wear FFP2 masks.
jackcycles 1 hour ago
Pardon me! Mr Rahman.
jackcycles 1 hour ago
On the blog post about the Tower Hamlets mayor, road.cc write "From a strictly active travel perspective we’ve not been a huge fan ever since he decided he needed a chauffeur-driven Mercedes to drive him around the 7 square miles he represents." I'm pretty sure that the precedent for this goes back to the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. Lord Khan was exposed as taking a convoy of chauffeur driven limousines for trips to take his dog for a walk, when there was a field a few metres from his house, under the guise of "security". It therefore hardly seems fair to try to impose two-tier security on Mr Luhman to stop him having the same level of amenity. In fact, it sounds like he's traveling economy class compared to the Lord himself.
Paul J 1 hour ago
@PoorInRichfield Except the 1×13 has even thinner sprockets again than the 2×11, which will wear a little quicker. And, despite the thinner sprockets, the 13 will be slightly wider - combined with the single front ring, your chain will be pulled out to greater angles in your higher and lower gears. Again, a bit more friction, a bit more wear.
Smoggysteve 1 hour ago
@PoorInRichfield 1. I never mentioned cross chaining. 2. "a 1×13 with the correct cassette can nearly mirror what I have." Shimano generally do at least 2 or 3 cassette variations. Especially at 105 / Ultegra level. So that probably wont be an issue. And since thay aint cheap, having 1 cassette that can cover everything from potentially 10t to 36t like Sram do but with the added capacity to have a1:1 ratio or very close to it is something that many people would find very appealing
11 thoughts on “Live blog: Giro towns turn pink, South Yorkshire Police targeting close pass drivers + extreme wheelie video”
So, 2 in 3 drivers think
So, 2 in 3 drivers think they’ll get away with ‘careless’ driving.
This rather gives the lie to a lot of what is seen as (and comes before the courts as) so called careless driving.
How can you premeditate a ‘lack of care’ and make a judgement about the likelihood of getting caught?
As I, and I’m sure a lot of readers, have long suspected, ‘careless’ driving is often calculated and deliberate risk taking, conscious omission (E.g. indicating), plain old ignorance, impatience and bad manners and a perfectly predictable endangerment of other road users.
Driving above the speed limit
Driving above the speed limit, driving through a red light, driving whilst under the influence of drink or drugs, using a mobile phone whilst driving – all these are against the law.
I could (I wouldn’t however) drive around my local area, North Somerset, whilst on my mobile phone and speeding and I am very confident wouldn’t get caught.
Why? Because I can’t remember the last time I saw a police car patrolling here. There is very little, if any, enforcement for most traffic offences.
I do hope most drivers think
I do hope most drivers think the way I do and the survey has picked that up. I too think it would be unlikely that I got caught doing some of thes things, I still never would think of doing them :-/
Having driven and ridden
Having driven and ridden bikes and cars since the early 80’s I think it’s pretty much always been the case that the odds were low that you’d get caught. What has changed is the nature of the stupidity.
We have less drink driving https://www.drinkdriving.org/drink_driving_statistics_uk.php but we now have the curse of the mobile phone (which may actually be worse http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1885775.stm). I also suspect that the problem of exceeding speed limits in urban areas https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/623261/vehicle-speed-compliance-statistics-2016.pdf is now worse than it used be because of traffic volume, cameras and the cars being much faster.
Overall, as someone who is a “techie” I find it hard to understand why we do not automate compliance. Why on earth do we still allow new cars to be sold that are capable of exceeding speed limits on our roads and people to use mobile phones whilst driving. Both are (and have been for a number of years) very very fixable problems e.g. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/5300462/Speed-restricted-car-a-review.html, https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208090 It’d be a prime opportunity for a government to grab a technical world lead in such systems, we just need one to show a bit of leadership and care more about its citizens than pleasing the automotive lobby.
shufflingb wrote:
I can’t remember which manufacturer it was, but one of the interviewees on Radio 5 this morning said they had a car that detected they had a mobile phone and automatically placed it into “Do not disturb” mode as soon as they got in.
As for auto-compliance on speed, I agree in principle but … in some circumstances it is safer to accelerate out of trouble rather than brake and it would be foolish to remove that option from drivers because they were already at the speed limit.
And, even if manufacturers were only permitted to sell cars that couldn’t exceed 70mph, they could still wreak havoc in a 20/30/40mph zone.
The only way to make enforced speed limits work would be to build electronic speed controls into our roads that limited the top speed of the cars driving along it. Installing that across the whole road network would be a nightmare.
Whilst I am sure there are some theoretical circumstances where a burst of acceleration might avoid an accident, I have never experienced such a thing in 50+ years on the road in almost all categories of vehicle. I have however, permanently etched on my memory, several horrific collisions where excess speed was a major factor.
I would actually go further than a speed limit and I’d also support an acceleration limit that removed the temptation to outsprint the other driver to the next set of lights. If all cars could only manage 0 – 60 in, for example, 20 seconds what a relaxed world it could be.
mike the bike wrote:
Whilst I am sure there are some theoretical circumstances where a burst of acceleration might avoid an accident, I have never experienced such a thing in 50+ years on the road in almost all categories of vehicle. I have however, permanently etched on my memory, several horrific collisions where excess speed was a major factor.
I would actually go further than a speed limit and I’d also support an acceleration limit that removed the temptation to outsprint the other driver to the next set of lights. If all cars could only manage 0 – 60 in, for example, 20 seconds what a relaxed world it could be.— shufflingb
I agree. The only situation I can think of where a burst of acceleration might avoid an accident is during a misjudged over-taking manoeuvre. In which case if the driver hadn’t f****d it up in the first place it would not be necessary.
Jetmans Dad wrote:
Excuse me, I have something called a sat nav in my car and it displays the local speed limit. Link that to the car computery thing and tell it not to speed whatever the limit.
Electronic speed controls in the road………. what?
Just had a thought though, it would be brilliant, the day it came into force there would be zero car sales and dealers would be falling over themselves to sell cars.
grumpyoldcyclist wrote:
May sat nav displays the wrong speed limit on some roads, but compliance woukd rise to 98% instead of probably about 50% at the moment.
On the contrary, only today I
On the contrary, only today I was driving along to find red and white barriers and “BRIDGE OUT!” blocking the road. Fortunately I was able to accelerate out of trouble, and I cleared the creek and made it to the County Line.
50%, a bit optimistic. Drive
50%, a bit optimistic. Drive at the speed limit, see how many overtake or the large queue that will form behind.