Live blog: Deaths caused by drink-drivers on the rise, introducing the Podbike, Robocap, and more
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I think the issue about speed limits isn't actually a debate about what the speed limit should be. Moreover, It's people talking past each other because they working from different frameworks of what the speed limit is. There's one group of people who say the speed limit is a legal tool there to single out reckless drivers, and there's the other group who assume they're traffic calming by fiat, because, they don't understand how speed limits work. There is evidence to suggest lower limits work on the sort of narrow residential streets that already lend themselves to such speeds, when it comes to much wider main road where you see non-compliance rates of well over 90%, those people who limits were previously able to single out and target are the sort of drivers most likely to hurt of kill a cyclist. Meanwhile you help to make speeding normalised and socially acceptable instigated by people who claim to want the opposite.
If motorists stopped drinking and/or drug driving and driving faster than the speed limit, that would reduce the head injuries to cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists.
Our window cleaner told me that he rarely gets Christmas tips from his customers in the wealthier areas of town. Maybe it's part of the go getter / climb the greasy pole mentality. I once read that many Olympic gold medalists share a lot of common personality traits with psychopaths - the need to dominate, to come out on top, to soundly beat your opponents. Perhaps the same applies to some high fliers in business?
The only important characteristic for me is whether I can mount a front derailleur, so I can have my preferred 550+% gravel-bike gear range with no large gaps (for doing long, steep Alpine climbs and also have a gear for pedalling on the downhills)?
38x10T on 32in wheels? Sounds like some solid leg power there!
Imagine how their brains would react, if they ever visited the Netherlands (on so many other levels, too)
@mdavidford Perhaps it's for lycrist infiltration - or maybe they're doing anti-doping work with the UCI? Breaking into the peloton disguised as avid cyclists?
Hexlox to protect your bits. Pricey but oh so ingenious...
The bit about evil rich people has some road relevance. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/sep/03/ig-nobel-prize-awards-2026-winners
Yes, but those are essential vehicles. Without them able to drive up and down that road (Park St) at will, fighting over the parking spaces, all the local shops would close immediately. The looney-green council had a plan to bus gate one end, but fortunately the WECA mayor decided to refuse the cash in the face of mere democracy.
7 thoughts on “Live blog: Deaths caused by drink-drivers on the rise, introducing the Podbike, Robocap, and more”
The very best that can be
The very best that can be said about helmet promotion is that it distracts from measures that really work to make cycling safer. As long as most people think that all you have to do is wear a helmet, nothing else will ever get done.
If helmets did work, perhaps they might have a point, but since all the long term, large scale, reliable data shows that they don’t, there is no point to promoting them. Let’s talk about the stuff that works, the stuff that the government won’t actually implement because they spend all the transport money on ego schemes like HS2 and new roads.
I’ve read the whole article
I’ve read the whole article from Applied Mobilities, and while it’s about the US experience there’s sadly much that resonates with policy here (starting with LAs who won’t let kids as much as climb on a bike in their Bikeability lessons without a crash helmet on, the teaching delivered by instructors who are often required to wear a crash helmet as a “good example”).
As well as persuading people that cycling is inevitably dangerous, the more time and energy we spend telling people that they should wear special safety gear to ride a bike, the more we tell anyone averse to wearing that stuff that they shouldn’t be riding a bike.
That Podbike could quite
That Podbike could quite easily become my new winter bike!
KendalRed wrote:
€4500 plus postage and very likely plus import duty+VAT, gonna be nearer £5k and that’s only for the base model. You do get 8% off retail if you pay €2700 up front however. Given the massive subsidies given to potential EV owners why can’t pedalecs like this get a big wedge off too as an incentive?
I’ve been looking for something that is pretty much gadget free, no fancy opening system or like the pod more mechanicals so you can stack it upright (which would blow over in a decent wind if parked up) I don’t want an internal computer just maybe a connection to a phone/device that can show you the charged state.
I just see these pods as being too over complicated, want wheels that can take tyres that you can buy from most bike shops and some space for a reasonable amount of luggage. It should also have a better range, 38 miles is really stingy/not that great given how aero the pod is meant to be.
The Schaffler is more like it but I’d want more low slung – it’s just too upright, it’s too heavy with 4 shock absorbers/4 disc brakes and there’s no space for luggage though I like how tight you can turn it.
As for the Iris E-trike, it’s doubtful there ever will be an end product, there are lots of negative murmerings about how he’s shafted people and other ugly stuff. I’d avoid it like a dose of the clap.
Somewhere, Clive Sinclair
Somewhere, Clive Sinclair spends every day ruing the fact that he was just thirty years ahead of his time. Still a genius.
Suprised that school kid hasn
Suprised that school kid hasn’t had his bike impounded by the school’s Principal (they never seem to be head-teachers at academies) for not wearing hi-vis & helmet and no school issued licence plates!
Good luck Kien.
That’s some bling levers,
That’s some bling levers, brakes and seat post clamp he has there
Good luck son, hats off to you for Jogle!
PP