Live blog: Got 20,000 euros burning a hole in your pocket? (plus a few more stories)

Peripheral to your point, but parking facing oncoming traffic is advised against at all times, but only an offence at night, I think?

@mac f 1896 If you look closely at the video you will see that the cyclist remains entirely in his own lane on his side of the white lines as he passes the oncoming vehicle, which also stays entirely within its lane. There is therefore no need for either road user to give way to the other and as they are both travelling at low speeds there is no danger to themselves or to any other road users. I would love to see a transcript of the magistrates' court proceedings as prima facie there is no justification in law for the guilty finding or for the penalty imposed.

@perce pedantry but I think Séamus Ennis would be scunnered with that ... had he not been Irish... (Uilleann pipes are bagpipes of course, though personally I'd much rather those - or small pipes - than the GHB)

@quiff I think you are probably right here - but - is that _really_ being inconsiderate to the oncoming driver? Looking again at the video, the oncoming driver appears to be over the centre line when approaching the parked vehicle and just seems to be straightening the bend a little, so you would expect them to be moving towards the kerb anyway. As driving interactions go, it's about as benign as it gets. I expect the magistrate has never ridden a bicycle, but I also wonder if they've ever driven a car?!

Thanks - I only had a quick peek on Streetview and I'm glad it works for locals, but it looked like "you say 'shared used facility', I say 'same old not-over-generous footway now with the odd blue sign". We don't need cycle paths absolutely everywhere, but looking at the size of the road, where it goes and runs though I would be thinking more like this (minus parked cars): https://maps.app.goo.gl/gswbQefKzc47nEJm8 Or... declare it an urban freeway and get rid of the junctions and houses next to it! Maximum flow...

@C3a Sadly, you are not far off the mark. I know of two instances where promising junior riders "stopped" racing; they didn't disappear, just did not attend races, were still doing all the training and then came back a couple of years later at 18/19 year olds and were starting to destroy races. You don't find them racing anymore, and the "bans" are not listed anywhere. I guess the same as any individual riders in this case would not be listed anywhere because of their age.

My personal theory is that this is how modern doping happens; do all of the performance enhancement early on and train hard on top of that - the boost will allow you to reach heights that would otherwise not have been attainable. After that it is all about maintenance and minor improvements, likely achievable after the pharmacological crutch has been removed. From this story it seems the spectre of doping will continue to hover over professional cycling that little bit longer. No other sport seems to have been affected in quite this way.

Of course most (otherwise law abiding) motorists don't keep to the 20mph limit especially without enforcement, guess what, given the opportunity, many, if not most, will not keep to the 30mph limit and there will still not be any enforcement. But what a 20mph limit does is bring the speeds down, resulting in less crashes, which, when they do occur will result in less damage, reduce the severity of injuries and the number of deaths. And what we really want is more dead children, isn't it councillor?

I think the prosecution have just persuaded tthe magistrate that the driver had to move towards the kerb to accommodate the cyclist. That movement is visible in the video, though I accept there's a chicken and egg question whether the cyclist forced the move, or only proceeded when it was clear the driver had moved over for them.

Which rule(s) are you thinking of? The 1.5m wording appears in rule 163, which is expressly about overtaking.