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Live blog: Mail Online cycling whataboutery; deer who attacked cyclist “known to police”; impatient lorry driver + traffic island… + more
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Fri, Nov 23, 2018 18:03
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Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn’t especially like cake.
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-300x225.jpg "“Was one of them bad driving?” Newspaper criticised for publishing “8 dangerous cycling mistakes that put people in hospital”; Punchy finale without fans at wildfire-affected Tour de France + more on the live blog")
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Latest Comments
quiff 20 minutes ago
As I think that poster liked to remind us, explosion in the hi-viz aisle of Decathlon is also a big risk for cyclists.
quiff 29 minutes ago
@IanGlasgow indeed - my point was really just in answer to the reviewer's apparent surprise they didn't add discs - but the Kinetic kits show it actually requires quite a lot of change.
chrisonabike 48 minutes ago
...And another one turning up on a bicycle to another former poster's soirée and then being hurt by his reaction?
chrisonabike 49 minutes ago
8 dangerous mistakes that put riders in A&E - was one going on a ride with former(?) poster wheelywheely... and being run over on the pavement by a mob of cyclists riding furiously through a red light on the wrong side of the road ... and then having wheely's wheelchair fall on you?
Rendel Harris 1 hour ago
@ktache Just came here to say that, heard them too (watching on delay after work). Sounds a sensible approach and hopefully will stop the idiots, though there will doubtless always be some.
Rendel Harris 1 hour ago
@MaxiMinimalist Please don't dirty these pages up with cut and paste from AI, if your comment wasn't worth giving your own thought and effort to why is it worth inflicting it on anyone else? In this case, as MDF notes, it doesn't even answer the question you asked, let alone have anything to do with the article. One wonders if this is why your comments are so often absurdly phrased, tortuous word salads with only tangential relationships to the matter under discussion, do you just ask AI to write them for you? If so, please stop it.
IanGlasgow 2 hours ago
@GravelIsNothingNew Reporting poor driving in Scotland is much more difficult than in England. I've done it three times in more than a decade. It involves making a statement at a police station or arranging for them to visit you at home to take a statement. Then the chances of action being taken are almost nil. Apparently Scots law prevents them acting on an online report and an uploaded video and there appears to be no interest among Holyrood MSPs in changing that.
IanGlasgow 2 hours ago
@chrisonabike Edinburgh and Bristol both strike me as cities where cycling is popular DESPITE the geography and lack of infra. I grew up in Edinburgh, but having lived and worked in York, Cambridge and now Glasgow I'm always surprised how many people cycle despite the hills and lack of adequate infrastructure. My daughter lived in Bristol for a few years and it struck me that cycling there was part of the counter-culture, and - again - popular despite (incredibly steep) hills and an almost total absence of cycling infrastructure. Glasgow has started from a much lower base than York, Edinburgh, Cambridge or Bristol but Glasgow City Council are determined to press ahead with a network and some of the infra they've built is really very good and doing a great job of encouraging cycling. Unfortunately, some is a great deal less good and the scale of the proposed network has been cut considerably.
IanGlasgow 2 hours ago
@quiff For those who want a spec that Brompton don't make - disc, brakes, fatter tyres, bigger wheels (18" is an option), belt drive, Shimano or Rohloff hub gears, etc. - Kinetics offer pretty much anything. But as it involves replacing the rear triangle (and forks for most options) it makes more sense to start with a basic-spec C-line (or the even more basic A-line) as a donor bike.
OldRidgeback 3 hours ago
So the driver who left 1.5cm distance between my bar ends and his car on Saturday afternoon instead of 1.5m wasn't driving dangerously?
20 thoughts on “Live blog: Mail Online cycling whataboutery; deer who attacked cyclist “known to police”; impatient lorry driver + traffic island… + more”
That’s mighty bloody close.
That’s mighty bloody close. At least the company acted on this occasion too.
Paul Murden wrote:
They claim they acted..I bet they didnt though. I’d want him fired, I wouldnt want someone that thinks they can drive like that in a lorry with my company name on the side working for me. Fire him and take his HGV license away for good. I’d put a bet on that the driver is the “Pay road tax” type just from the way he drove..
Paul Murden wrote:
Clearly, easing off the accelerator for a couple of seconds was beyond that driver’s ability
I read somewhere that tipper trucks / skip lorries are often the most dangerous because they are rushing to get from job to job through the day, and this one is certainly an example of that
brooksby wrote:
Add multi drop courier drivers to that list. I live in a surburban housing estate and the speeds they drive around our streets because they’re in a rush to get to the next job is scary
Paul Murden wrote:
Really terrifying
Paul Murden wrote:
Yeah, the slap on the back in the staff canteen and the ‘Andy, ah’ve told ye: cyclists are only fifty fackin’ points. Get a fackin’ ped next time, innit?’.
I can sense the driver’s contrition from here.
I can see how you’d catch a
I can see how you’d catch a bungee cord or something else loose in your cassette (happened to me once…) – but a phone?!
Yikes! as Shaggy (the cartoon
Yikes! as Shaggy (the cartoon character, not the reggae artist) would say. That was scary. Driver thought he could get away with it too, except for meddling kids and their cameras. Hopefully a NIP will be dropping through his letterbox soon.
I was thinking how the hell too… My guess: it was half shoved into the back pocket of jeans, falls out, maybe catches a spoke and/or chain stay, rotates around landing on the lower part of the chain, and gets pulled inexorably towards the jockey wheels just like 007 strapped to a bandsaw table or something. But unlike Bond, unable to get free in time.
Impressive fail, though.
The truck company may have
The truck company may have taken action, but the fact that it has been reported to the police gives me hope that this driver will receive some kind of punishment for quite deliberately putting another human being’s life at risk. Clearly not responsible enough to be in charge of a lethal weapon.
The twitter feed comments are almost completely supportive of the cyclist, with only one gammon in evidence, and it’s interesting that the feed contains a request from the police to report the incident.
Given that I’ve been told
Given that I’ve been told today by the police they are only going to offer a driver education course to the driver who ran in to the back of me at 50mph, I’m not surprised drivers think they can get away with murder.
The Twitter accounts identifiest the vehicle as belonging to Volume Metric Concrete Ltd. (https://www.vmcltd.com/). Would advise that people should, even though they say they’ll dealt with it, contact the company and their MPs expressing their disgust – especially as this is Road Safety Week. Ask the company how many vulnerable road users they’ve killed over the last few years.
gcommie wrote:
Don’t accept it and make an official complaint. Basically this is perverting the course of justice, if someone slammed into the back of a poice officer on duty at that speed all hell would break loose and it’d be dangerous driving/attempted murder etc.
Far too often police are a bunch of scumbags not prepared to enforce the law/keep the peace, I have no respect for them sadly
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Have been in touch with them asking about the process they’ve used and the reasoning/logic behind the dession. Pending what they say will be pursuing this further with a formal complaint as you’re not the only one who feels the police don’t take road safety seriously – other than, as you say, unless it happens to one of them.
Have also enquired with the Cyclists’ Defence Fund as to the process of bringing a private prosecution. Will look to have a day in court, and the press, one way or the other.
Yep as another poster
Yep as another poster comments, skip lorries and tipper trucks are a particular hazard to other road users. There’s a reason for this as the drivers are basically paid by the load, so are trying to get from A to B as quickly as possible. Not all the firms are the same. Some have made real efforts to improve safety. Some haven’t. For this latter category, it’s of note that there are some firms involved in repeat offences. Some ‘phoenix’ firms close up shop and then reopen for business again with a similar name shortly after with a son or daughter or other relative being named as director. For these last, there may or may not be some very unsavoury links as well.
I think I have been banned
I think I have been banned from the DM, whenever I send a positive cycling comment it never gets shown.
kingleo wrote:
Welcome to the club. Nice to know that DM readers are too sensitive to read posts from cyclists.
kingleo wrote:
Remember that there are two types of Daily Mail article: premoderated and post-moderated. If it’s an article involving children, Islam, Israel or – curiously – Chloe Madeley (I can only imagine that her father has threatened to sue them enough that they’re very cautious about what they allow as comments), it will be pre-moderated. For post-moderation, you can usually get away with a lot more, but remember that they have a filter that will remove ‘naughty’ words automatically. The usual stuff like ‘c**t’, ‘bastard’, ‘pædophile’ etc will all prevent your post from appearing. Curiously, the words ‘Dacre’ and ‘editor’ used to be banned during the reign of that particular pile of subhuman filth. I’ve not tested if this is still the case.
Remember also that the VPN and TOR will afford you a certain degree of anonymity, but I would caution against doing something like threatening to kill the Prime Minister or something similar. I feel sure that they would expend the effort to find you, if you did so.
That is unbelievably
That is unbelievably frightening! The number of these reports warrants urgent attention by the judiciary; we simply must have severe punishments given out to these offenders in the same way as drink-driving offences and for those convicted for using mobile phones while driving and causing accidents. Bad driving which threatens vulnerable road users also needs to be made as anti-social and stigmatised as in the way for drink-driving. Cycling organisations and the responsible press need to get aboard this issue and press for an educational change in the way drivers treat cyclists – in other words we need complete reform and a big noise made about it. We simply cannot stand by anymore accepting the victim blaming handed out by motorists and the daily abuse given out by them. I have sent 3 reports to Hampshire police in the last 3 weeks for close passes against me which were not as bad as the one portrayed here – nothing heard back yet. I am also going to write to my local MP outlining the issue and demanding that serious consideration be given to greater and more wide-ranging punishment of motorists who abuse the safety of cyclists. I am not going to accept the childish arguments of the anti-cyclist brigade of cyclists jumping red lights, no ‘road tax’, no insurance, no lights, no hi-vis clothing etc.
Having had an email reply
Having had an email reply from a Mr J Sing, Operations Manager of VMC Ltd. to an enquiry about how many road users their drivers have killed or injured, the driver in question was supposedly dismissed yesterday.
Mr Sing’s response was very defensive. This may be in part due to the number of enquiries they have ‘received for the last 24 hrs’, but also came across as though the company does not take its corporate and legal responsibilities seriously.
Anyone got any contacts in the local media in Kent, as they may be interested in the company’s response.
I bet that stag doesn’t even
I bet that stag doesn’t even pay roe tax.
Personally, I’d have moved
Personally, I’d have moved left out into the lane to take any doubt out of the morons mind. That was an absolute Cnut pass by the truck. As for “there’s a cycle lane, use it” the cyclist was clearly riding way faster than the 12 mph maximum guideline / law applicable to paths / cycle lanes, so they can shove that up their arse as well.