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
wtjs 17 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris This study was thoroughly debunked in later analysis... This is less significant than the fact that the notion of most drivers appreciating anything about a cyclist beyond hyper-junk press spinal reflex level hatred is obvious bollocks
chrisonabike 25 minutes ago
@AidanR the whole body dummy refused to continue after the first test?
Rendel Harris 35 minutes ago
@fwhite181 The only test I'm aware of that allegedly demonstrated drivers passed closer to cyclists with helmets is Ian Walker's 2006 study which found that on average drivers passed cyclists with helmets 3.3 inches closer than those without, a statistically negligible distance given that the average pass in the study was 4.5 feet. This study was thoroughly debunked in later analysis which demonstrated that Walker had not incorporated such variables as rider distance from the kerb, size of passing vehicle, overall road width etc.
fwhite181 52 minutes ago
Or the classic far-too-loose helmet strap which risks garrotting you when the helmet hits the ground. Also not helpful if it makes drivers drive even worse around you, which seems to be demonstrated in numerous tests. I've often found I _feel_ safest on a bike when I'm riding in 'civvy' clothes and a bobble hat. Everyone seems to assume I can't ride a bike and you get acres of space.
mdavidford 1 hour ago
Not actually true, though. A badly made helmet, or one that you've altered or not looked after, could potentially exacerbate injuries in the event of an impact.
Zermattjohn 1 hour ago
@Aluminium can and even if the camera identifies the thief, the police won't do a great deal. My bike was stolen from our work lockup, all seen by CCTV, and the police knew who it was (a well-known local by all accounts) but the policeman admitted to me that gaining a warrant to search his address for it was never going to be granted. Bicycle theft is treated with about the same urgency as phone snatching. The copper told me that they want to get these guys arrested for crimes that will get them put away, like drug dealing. Nicking stuff to fund the drug dealing falls outside that. (This was all revealed to me by the cop in a strange, Friday-evening email that I think he sent after a few beers!).
OnYerBike 2 hours ago
@mdavidford I suppose 'illegal e-motorbike' would be acceptable. I do still think "illegal e-motorbike" specifically conjures up images of Sur-rons and the like. Sometimes that is correct - certainly for the bikes in the top picture on the Police Scotland facebook post, I'd be perfectly comfortable calling them all illegal e-motorbikes. But I think "illegal ebike" is a broader church and is more understandable when talking about the end of the spectrum that is closer to a legal EAPC. E.g. ebikes that are illegal because they have a throttle but aren't especially fast or especially powerful (commonly used by delivery riders round here). Legally they are not classified any differently from "illegal e-motorbikes" and so that term is technically accurate, but linguistically I think "illegal ebike" paints a clearer picture.
AidanR 2 hours ago
Helmet impact testing only involves a head? Looking at videos of testing appears to confirm this. Presumably this is taken into account somehow in the methodology, but it seems like having such a small mass attached to the helmet, rather than a whole human, is an obvious flaw in the process.
jasperdog 2 hours ago
@lesterama I have one of each as I couldn't decide :)
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.