Live blog: Highways England ‘Get on your bike’ tweet backfires, drivers ignorant of mobile phone penalties, Toronto police overkill, Sagan spotted on new Venge? + more
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Mon, Jun 25, 2018 14:20
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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
chrisonabike 10 minutes ago
@Rendel Harris indeed, but giving this a sympathetic reading it *is* a bit harder to see cyclists especially in low light conditions. I think this usually means "I was a bit startled when I noticed cyclists where not expecting them / so late that if I had needed to I wouldn't have had time for evasive action". That might be when unlit non-reflective cyclists appear from a side road - or where people are salmoning against traffic flow / on and off the footway. We all have tons of experience looking for motor vehicles and are familiar with where they'll be and how they will move. Cyclists are significantly smaller, have more complicated shapes and may not be exactly "where we expect the motor vehicles". They may be moving at unexpected velocities. Plus even if cars don't have their lights on they tend to reflect. I put this one in the "follow the opposite philosophy to 'shared space' for better safety" category. That is: safety between road users is enhanced when a) people can clearly see other road users b) and have as much time as possible to deal with them c) and know exactly where to expect them / what to expect from those other road users. Most humans perform very poorly when faced with the unfamiliar and worse when startled...
chrisonabike 27 minutes ago
@ajuk.uk@gmail.com "There does seem to be evidence that 20 mph limits work on roads that already lend themselves to such low speeds, and I do think the lack of a 25 mph limit option is an issue for some roads." Again - not disagreeing that numbers alone are not the best way. But I ask: were people already doing 20mph or near that when those roads that "lend themselves" to that speed had a 30mph sign? I would expect in most cases the answer was "no, people saw thirty and that primed them for the 'expected' speed". Or perhaps "they hadn't noticed the signs at all but it seemed like e.g. a residential area and they recalled from all those years back 30mph probably made sense"? Since we've previously gone through the evidence * that merely changing a number on a sign *does* in fact change behaviour and lower average speeds, and AFAICS nobody has proposed a "a set amount" they hope it will constrain people to ... ... is it fair you're disputing the evidence because it doesn't fit with how you feel it *should* work / your local experience? Or do you believe that eventually everyone will revert back to the old speed or higher because 'freedom' or because nobody's actually getting nicked for ignoring the limit? (And if the latter - what's the point of proposing that the speed limits should help with policing, if there aren't the police?) While I can believe that the truly reckless and *some* less circumspect wrong'uns are more likely also to wildly speed, I think this assertion needs more scrutiny **. As for "forcing the police to target them" I think it's been amply illustrated on this site that many of the police don't feel forced into doing much if any enforcement on the roads (see wtjs etc.). Even where they are more active the level of enforcement isn't such to make many drivers worry about "what happens if I break the law *and* get caught?" I don't feel we need 25 or 32 or other intermediate speed limits. In practice where there's enforcement at all there *may* be the discretionary 10% + a few mph in play - so you might even be fine and not fined doing 35mph in a 30mph limit. But you're far more likely simply not to experience any enforcement. And even if you are detected it's still first chance, then maybe any number of 2nd, 3rd etc. with a reasonable lawyer / sympathetic magistrate. Although if you feel the most important thing is to identify indifferent drivers (and assuming we've got enough police / cameras / "spy in the car" black boxes from somewhere) then having lots of non-power-of-ten speed limit signs might be a way to spot who's paying attention or not. Or ... if we changed to km/h (imagine!) you get a finer-grained 10 / 20 / 30 etc. * The last time this topic came up, or the time before! ** I don't know if anyone has studied this, but I'm not sure of the relative amounts of harm caused by a) a small minority of reckless joyriders and "sod getting a licence" types (who *are* very likely to cause serious harm) and b) vastly more "average reasonable drivers" - who are human and thus cut corners and sometimes make unfathomable errors - who cause damage (up to killing people and destroying buildings) at a small but definitely non-zero rate overall. It wouldn't surprise me if the overall determinant of harm turned out to be simply proportional to the number of drivers times time driven for times some measure of speed. (Since speed reduces both time to do something about a situation and increases the harm, absent a lot of engineering to mitigate it - e.g. evidence shows motorways are statistically safe environments).
belugabob 31 minutes ago
Now the wands are gone, I look forward to the cycling lanes being cleaned regularly - and not parked in (thereby leaving plenty of room for the buses and emergency vehicles) (all to delivered before Coventry win the FA cup again)
chrisonabike 1 hour ago
@perce everyone should wear lights, full stop. And punctuate properly - that really gets up my colon! Anyway, must dash...
perce 1 hour ago
@Ojisan My old English teacher told me i had to work on my punctuation, so I started going to school half an hour earlier.
60somethingcyclist 2 hours ago
Arrogant obnoxious Tory.
Rendel Harris 2 hours ago
How do you see them then? Do you regularly drive into black cars?
eburtthebike 3 hours ago
@Blackthorne83 He'd love to, but some bastard's taken out the cycle lanes.
kil0ran 4 hours ago
I was a few bikes away from the fatal collision during Ride London a few years ago, I barely avoided the victim's dog which was running loose. Definitely one of those slo-mo adrenaline fuelled moments and I was only doing about 40kph. At lead out speeds it really doesn't bear thinking about.
20 thoughts on “Live blog: Highways England ‘Get on your bike’ tweet backfires, drivers ignorant of mobile phone penalties, Toronto police overkill, Sagan spotted on new Venge? + more”
Toronto cyclist was a bit of
Toronto cyclist was a bit of a dick, wasn’t he? Why couldn’t he be polite: “I think you’re wrong officer” rather than immediately going on the offensive? Politeness costs nothing.
FrankH wrote:
Yes, he was impolite but you must know that’s besides the point? Whether he was polite, or rude, you have five police officers misunderstanding the law at his expense. This isn’t an uncommon situation, and in many “developed” countries we are seeing cyclists treated as second-class citizens for no reason other than ignorance. It’s common from motorists to hear “get in the cycle lane” and cyclists battle punishment passes on a daily basis for merely minding their own business. When police officers are propogating this attitude it’s scary and alarming.
I have bigger concerns with the officers’ ignorance rather than the cyclists’ attitude.
FrankH wrote:
Absolutely right. What a world we live in.
simonmb wrote:
,
Yeah. Fuck you, you polite, little, diseased scrotum.
Ush wrote:
— UshCongratulations! You are the winner.
Only the fifth comment and you managed to drag the discussion into the gutter. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Simon E wrote:
Congratulations, you are officially a thick-as-fuck cunt. Give yourself a kick up the arse, Ms. Manners.
I think the cop was being a
I think the cop was being a bit of a dick. To detain him (i.e hold him under threat of assault and imprisonment) for no reason.
I supect the real crime he was stopped for was “cycling whilst black”.
Deeferdonk wrote:
Police officer was no WASP either. Stop playing the victimization card all the time as it may lose its purchase.
On a lighter note, it was
On a lighter note, it was good to see the support that the Toronto cyclist had. Big thumbs up to the members of the public that ensure that they were not merely passive bystanders. I think that probably had a big outcome on the result of this, which would otherwise plausibly have resulted in this man being beaten up and framed.
$127,000 salary for being a
$127,000 salary for being a traffic cop? Good gig when you can get it. You’d think there’d be a requirement to know the law for that sort of money…
jestriding wrote:
I can’t think of any other jobs where you can get away without even knowing the basics of your own job, let alone wasting time and resources on doing the wrong thing. Excepting politicians, of course.
I wonder if HE are ever going
I wonder if HE are ever going to learn? I mean, they’ve just had a new cycling strategy, including making sure that they consult, and that all new infrastructure is actually fit for purpose, but they still don’t consult and their infrastructure is a joke.
Obviously the police officer
Obviously the police officer hadn’t done his cycling rules homework but the cyclist got a chip on his shoulder and was pretty much begging for a confrontation in order to prove that he was the victim of police brutality (which, unfortunately, happens all too often but *not* in this case).
Boss Hogg wrote:
Because when you’re harrassed for no good reason, assaulted with the cop driving within 18″ and on top of that cops ignore you when people on bikes are mown down THAT is the result, you’ve had enough and it’s time to stand up for what is right.
Or maybe you think allowing those who supposed to keep the peace keep on doing the same old shit time after time with a pass through go and collect £200?
Get lost snowflake.
LA cyclist need to give out
LA cyclist need to give out some free ‘I parked in the cycle lane’ bumper stickers… er wait, what are the guns laws like in CA?
The cyclist was a complete
The cyclist was a complete dick, he was loving the whole process playing it up for his you tube audience thinking about all the likes and views he was going to get, he even made sure to get his own face included in the video on a few occasions for his big 15 minutes.
MaxiW wrote:
One comment, eh? Well, hello there, officer!
MaxiW wrote:
No he wasn’t. He would have been perfectly happy to go about his business if it wasn’t for the dickhead of a cop trying to unlawfully detain him. He had every right to call out the cop’s bullshit and if he wants to post it on YouTube, then why not? It’s about time incompetent police were named and shamed so they can go learn the actual rules that they are supposed to be enforcing. They have literally one job to do.
Love how all the police cars
Love how all the police cars end up parking in the cycle lane to “clear the road”, thus forcing the other cyclists that come along into the road.
Should have given themselves tickets for blocking the bike lane!
That Highways England ‘Get on
That Highways England ‘Get on your bike’ tweet is appalling – does nobody there look or even think before they send off their soshul meeja stuff?