Live blog: Keeping kids safe the American way, running coach causes collision on running track (on his bike), Pontiff blags a Giro VIP pass, Dave Brailsford on Strava + more
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Wed, May 16, 2018 14:00
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Jack is group editor across road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips, overseeing all three sites in the F-At Digital group to make sure everything’s up to scratch. He’s been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of road.cc including tech, news and video, and also contributed to ebiketips before being named editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town, and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master’s degree in print journalism, and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it’s a long story).
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Latest Comments
jackcycles 1 hour ago
Many thanks for posting these statistics and showing the downward trend in fatalities. One thing that stood out for me when clicking through to the government statistics page is the UK's exemplary record on this Vs other European countries, especially the much-vaunted record of The Netherlands, which actually shows twice as many fatalities as the UK per million of the population. The question that arises is therefore: why are the greens and other left-wing parties so keen to adopt an inferior and more dangerous road system when ours is obviously working well? It smacks of a need to regulate people's lives and curtail freedom. We need to stop these idiotic Dutch roundabouts and segregated cycling infrastructure, and get people sharing the road in a fair and equal manner, when the statistics show it's safer to do so. (Chart shows road fatalities per million population)
ChasP 2 hours ago
That's where the convertible aspect comes in. I've got a gravel bike but the canal I sometimes commute on has roots under the tarmac and barriers. The mtb with 'drops' is more comfortable for this and fits through the barriers. If I want to do something more technical I can put the flat bars on.
wtjs 17 hours ago
@FionaJJ These officers deployed next-level stupidity, and it must be difficult for the police to find people this dim. It doesn't even need rolling-roads or whatever, just a reputable bike computer on a quickly changed mount for the difficult cases where a proper EAPC has been modded, although you would need to look hard in Lancashire to find a police officer who knows how to make a pedal cycle go. Most illegal electric motorbikes are immediately obvious, not least because the crim is wearing a face mask. I saw an obvious one tonight coming out of Garstang Sainsbury's, not pedalling but without a face mask because everybody knows that the police only come into the town to hide away in the police station 200 yards away.
bikeman01 18 hours ago
Gustav Gullholm.. that's not a good look mate
mdavidford 20 hours ago
@Chris RideFar I think what you meant to say was "REMOVE this and put it on PODCAST CC".
jaymack 22 hours ago
As Mary Whitehouse never said - one doesn't have to read the article if one doesn't want to read about an off-road bicycle.
Rendel Harris 23 hours ago
@FionaJJ In London they're allowed to stop on single and double yellows to deliver packages or empty pillar boxes; in practice they take this as carte blanche to park wherever and whenever they want, such as this chap on the Brixton Road who pulled into the bus/cycle/motorcycle lane without indicating, as I approached at 20mph, to park on a red route, response to a remonstrance, "I suppose you never get post delivered do ya?"
FionaJJ 23 hours ago
@Rendel Harris We have a pavement parking ban, but around here at least, royal mail vans are already exempt, subject to certain caveats, such as allowing at least 1.5m, and only being stopped to do their work.
FionaJJ 23 hours ago
It was already embarrassing for the police that they made such a mess of their attempt to determine whether a bike was legal or not, but I had assumed it was a group of well intentioned, but under-trained officers acting on their own initiative, having spotted something they thought looked not quite right. I'm now discovering this was a planned activity, something sufficiently organised to have been given a name - Operation FRISLEN, designed specifically to identify and remove illegal e-bikes and scooters. It's apparent that the officers were sent out without adequate training, never mind the kind of equipment that should be used for this sort of work. I'm not saying they always need specialist equipment to spot all illegal bikes, but at least if they'd been given a demonstration with that equipment, they'd have realised why their approach was not going to end well.
Geoff Ingram 1 day ago
Have put drop bars on a 2001 B1 mtb, a 2007 stumpy hardtail and a 2010 stumpy full suss. In all cases fairly basic conversións leaving gearing and wheels broadly the same and concentrating on correct positioning of bars and fit. Oddly, with all 3 I was happy with the result when recently done, but after a few months found that the extra speed on easy trails was more than offset by the lack of ability (probably mine) on tougher routes and finally preferred flat bar with slammed and inverted stem as best overall compromise. Good fun playing around, though.
23 thoughts on “Live blog: Keeping kids safe the American way, running coach causes collision on running track (on his bike), Pontiff blags a Giro VIP pass, Dave Brailsford on Strava + more”
You can tell government all
You can tell government all you want but they won’t/don’t listen or action anything, ONE fucking over the top bias case involving a person on a bike and a ‘poor’ woman who was “mowed down” and they go into overdrive to get the knives out to punish, yet ignore the deaths of people on bikes every single week and the 7 serious injuries every day, most of which are at fault motorists.
In fact they go in to victim blaming mode with their cack about left turning LGVs and publish video’s to increase the blame culture, add on plastic hat and hi-vis promotion and it’s clear they’re a bunch of scraggy c####s the lot of them.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Don’t hold back, BTBS – tell us how you really feel!
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
You’ve missed out the 40,000 people dying each year due to poor air quality in the UK.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Aye but the report is about cycling safety, as in on the road, I know that knocking on the head motoring use and other aspects in our lives can reduce the deaths/ailments suffered but this is focussing solely on road safety, well allegedly.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
And that’s the problem: the powers that be really (probably) couldn’t care less about cycling safety – they want to restrict cycling (I believe) so as to smooth the passage for the introduction of self-driving cars.
brooksby wrote:
What you say may well be true but I suspect that self-driving cars are MUCH further away than the hype would have you believe. They might – might – become a thing on easy roads like motorways with well marked and predictable lanes but on shared-use urban roads a self-driving vehicle will be a much more difficult proposition. Not only that, the necessary sensors and computing are going to be expensive and that will hinder mass uptake.
Miller wrote:
Well yes… and so it would be much easier to convert urban roads into easy roads by banning bikes and introducing jaywalking laws.
I don’t believe this is actually what the powers that be want, yet. I would be surprised if Google etc are admitting failure yet, even in behind-the-scenes lobbying.
But it’s a risk to be aware of for the future, certainly. Indeed, if self-driving cars that can safely mix with bicycles continue to be elusive, I can imagine there being a referendum: would you rather have self-driving cars banned and bikes allowed as now, or vice versa? And I fear we would lose that.
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
In my mind, pollution caused by vehicles should be considered as part of road safety. If vehicles on the road are doing something that ends up shortening people’s lives, then I’d consider it to be unsafe.
I get your point though – I just think that not enough people are up in arms about the government’s failure to address the illegal pollutant levels.
hawkinspeter wrote:
At least the new MOT regulations coming in this weekend should make it stricter on diesel vehicles that churn out clouds of soot, now they just have to make sure that the tests are actually being enforced as there still seems to be far too many places people can get an MOT signed off by a slightly dodgy garage, or they just don’t bother getting it tested at all.
hawkinspeter wrote:
… except that it not actually true.
I’ve read it’s been described as a “zombie fact” by a senior respiratory consultant. When such a ‘fact’ gets on the internet then it can never, ever be killed. It just keeps getting regurgitated by ill-informed folk like Sadik Khan (and yourself).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-39129270
Joeinpoole wrote:
Thanks – I just googled for a figure and accepted the figure as it had been quoted on the BBC and Guardian websites amongst others.
So, the question remains, how many early deaths in the UK are caused by poor air quality? Does anyone know?
Joeinpoole wrote:
The article you link indicates that the figure is a statistical estimate, sure, but not that it’s untrue.
rkemb wrote:
Here’s a GreenPeace article discussing the figures: https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2017/03/06/air-pollution-cause-40000-deaths-every-year-fact-check-linked/
TLDR: no-one really agrees on a number.
hawkinspeter wrote:
THat says much the same thing: there’s a statistical model covering the number of premature deaths attributable to air pollution. The issue with the 40,000 number is that it’s bad communication of what that statistical model tells us, which is about shortening of life, not that “air pollution isn’t that bad”.
And… that doesn’t mean that the number’s wrong and can be airily dismissed either. It just needs caveats.
rkemb wrote:
Exactly… probably between 5,000 and 60,000.
Could be 20,000ish, could be 40,000ish.
It’s in the ballpark, and a big number.
Does Joe’s ‘zombie fact’ respiratory expert have some actual quotes or original research on this, or are they too busy sunning themselves in their Road Haulage Association-sponsored conservatory?
davel wrote:
Here’s one article reporting the Physician’s observations;
“Sadiq Khan’s figure on pollution deaths is a “zombie statistic and it’s simply not true,” according to a respiratory physician.
Figures have been released claiming pollution causes almost 40,000 premature deaths a year in the UK. Air pollution is also said to cause a total 340,000 years of lost life in the UK.
Figures originated from a Royal College of Physicians report and Mr Khan has cited the figures in announcing measures to cut pollution in London.
But Tony Frew, respiratory physician at the University of Brighton, told Julia Hartley-Brewer this is merely an example of a “zombie statistic”, meaning “however much you try to kill it it comes back and it’s simply not true.”
He explained that the 340,000 life years figure doesn’t equate to real life, and in reality each person loses only about three days from their lifespan as a result of pollution.
Frew also said that the 40,000 deaths a year figure is “a guess” using information about two pollutants which overlap.
He added that pollution levels are “illegal because we made it illegal, not because it’s dangerous.”
http://talkradio.co.uk/news/sadiq-khans-40000-pollution-deaths-year-zombie-statistic-and-isnt-true-says-respiratory
Quote:
And to follow up the other comments, what, [i]again[/i]? How often does the government need to collect information on this issue before it does anything? This is at least the third call of this type I’ve come across in the last few years.
rkemb wrote:
And to follow up the other comments, what, [i]again[/i]? How often does the government need to collect information on this issue before it does anything? This is at least the third call of this type I’ve come across in the last few years.
IIRC they still haven’t done the review promised back in 2012…
Quote:
That there’s fightin’ talk!
Shouldn’t ride a bike on an
Shouldn’t ride a bike on an athletics track, but definitely idiotic to be ambling around in the inside lanes (especially without regularly checking if anyone is coming up behind you).
ChrisB200SX wrote:
I assume he is pacing the runners (not that means he shouldn’t be keeping an eye out as well but at least he probably has a legitimate reason for cycling where he is – assuming pacing is an accepted training technique – I couldn’t run for a bus)
On the subject of historical
On the subject of historical air pollution in London this report is well worth a read to give context to today’s issues.
London’s air pollution, measured in ‘suspended particle matter’ (SPM), which is the stuff that does the damage, was about 30x worse in 1900 than it is today. By contrast Dehli’s air pollution today is about 25x worse than that in London.
https://ourworldindata.org/london-air-pollution
Just seen that the UK is
Just seen that the UK is being taken to court by the EU over the air quality ‘apathy’.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/britain-government-eu-court-air-pollution-dangerous-levels-european-commission-latest-a8355711.html
And yes, they are quoting the zombie 40,000 figure.
Edit: The Grauniad is covering this too:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/17/uk-taken-to-europes-highest-court-over-air-pollution
although they are using a figure of 23,500 early deaths due to NO2.