Live blog: Olympic track champ Kristina Vogel airlifted to hospital after serious crash, big news on the way for Greater Manchester cyclists + more
All today’s news from the site and beyond
Tue, Jun 26, 2018 14:33
Help us to bring you the best cycling content
If you’ve enjoyed this article, then please consider subscribing to road.cc from as little as £2.49. Our mission is to bring you all the news that’s relevant to you as a cyclist, independent reviews, impartial buying advice and more. Your subscription will help us to do more.
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.
13 Comments
Read more...
Read more...
Read more...
Latest Comments
chrisonabike 11 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 28 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 32 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.
13 thoughts on “Live blog: Olympic track champ Kristina Vogel airlifted to hospital after serious crash, big news on the way for Greater Manchester cyclists + more”
Interesting development in
Interesting development in Melbourne. Are the Aussies finally waking up to the disaster of their anti-cycling policies of the past thirty years?
burtthebike wrote:
All those drivers who look like they’re either really upset or have hayfever… Seems to me that if Australian drivers didn’t seem so keen to run down cyclists (in every sense of the expression) then their authorities wouldn’t have seen the need to put this experimental (for Oz) roundabout layout in.
burtthebike wrote:
Nope, you only have to listen to the old ‘they don’t pay reggo’ bollocks from the fat knacker first interviewed. They still hate cycling, it gets in the way and the perception is that it’s all about the head down lycra wanker when many people just want to get from A-B without being killed/injured/harassed and also to be able to cycle without plod wasting time unlawfully penalising them for not wearing a plastic hat. That is one of the clearest signs of an anti cycling nation. I’m proud to say that I’m part of a campaign group trying to help and put pressure on australian government to get the unlawful helmet rule abolished.
Until that happens and police focus on stopping and arresting those that kill and maim nothing meaningful will change as per the load of bullshit ‘infra’.
That’ll be a “fixed”, not a
That’ll be a “fixed”, not a “fixie”
dreamlx10 wrote:
Also, given the distance, he’s covered far more than just the Fred Whitton route. Chapeau!
dreamlx10 wrote:
Except where people use the term ‘fixie’, which is to say a lot of the time.
To call it cyclist priority
To call it cyclist priority is slightly misleading; that implies cyclists have somehow been given priority over other traffic on the roundabout. Instead, it’s taken cyclists off the roundabout and given them a circumferential lane which has priority over the main carriageway where the two intersect. Cyclists choosing to remain on the main carriageway (I don’t know the law regarding mandatory cycle lanes in Melbourne?) do not have priority! In fact, it’s a “Dutch style” roundabout. I think we might even have one or two somewhere in the UK.
Quote:
The word “impact” is surely being used negatively in this context but they’re looking the wrong way down the telescope. Surely any business would see it as a chance to sell stuff to the thousands of cycling fans hanging around for a day or a long weekend. Use your imagination folks, isn’t that why you’re considered as entrepreneurs and “business people”? Otherwise you might as well give up and get a job in a supermarket.
With regards to the
With regards to the Harrowgate business impact assessment, I’d hope that they have enough time to start collecting data about footfall and conversion rates.
It will probably drive business to catering outlets (restaurants and cafes for example), but if you run something that is unlikely to attract inwards trade (a launderette or a pet shop for example) then you might well be worried about business impacts.
If the council had a clear picture of spending patterns over the course of the year, then they could look at what impacts an event of this type has and perhaps compensate those businesses that lose out (a reduction in business rates for example?). Without this research it’s all meaningless.
Don’t bother cycling anywhere
Don’t bother cycling anywhere around Harrogate, the roads are shocking. Been out that way today, think I’ve vibration white finger now.
The country roads are shit and the urban roads are beyond shit. You get these roads full of £1m houses and the roads look someone lifted them from Syria. Now wonder everyone drives Rangepigs.
Yorkshire wallet wrote:
There may be a correlation between £1 million+ houses and bad roads, I had a bone shaking ride through Alderley Edge this morning.
Apparently it’s an area where huge 4 x 4s are compulsory.
It’s likely that the Range
It’s likely that the Range Rovers have caused the potholes.
I don’t think it’s anywhere near as big a problem as Yorkshire Wallet claims. Maybe you rode Penny Pot Lane? That one has a less than perfect surface, but it is shown as Rough Road on an OS map.
Harrogate is an events
Harrogate is an events/visitor/tourism town. Don’t be surprised if it puts on events. It can’t always be the Eurovision Song Contest.
The moaning about road closures was bound to start – I’m surprised it’s taken them this long. But, as at the TDF, the World Champs will be overwhelmingly supported by local people.
Businesses in town massively overestimate how many people arrive there by car. Just stop complaining, look for the opportunities, and it will be a big success.