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Live blog: Belgium’s word of the year? “Murderstrip” – a painted bike lane, pump track cycle lane, Geraint Thomas the Grogg + more
After the BBC’s blunder of editing out G’s Welsh flag as he celebrates his TDF victory, national pride is restored after we spotted that he’s proving so popular as a Grogg you’ll have to wait five months for one!
Tue, Dec 18, 2018 17:01
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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
eburtthebike 39 minutes ago
@bikeclips Last week, I was almost thrown out of a meeting because I was swearing under my breath while I read the 'Lydney Cycle Improvements' document, which includes such gems as: "The Lydney Cycleway improvement scheme was completed in spring 2020 and has improved access and increased connectivity by creating a pleasant, safe and accessible network of pathways around Lydney....." The 'improvements' are almost entirely narrow, on-road bike lanes on narrow roads, where two cars cannot pass without going into the bike lanes. They don't increase connectivity, they aren't pleasant, or safe or particularly accessible, but hey, why quibble over irrelevant details? "The scheme was developed with the aim of promoting cycle usage and reducing car journeys within Lydney." Since 2020, car journeys have increased but cycle journeys haven't. Have a guess how much it cost. Go on, have a guess. £1,000,000. Entirely wasted.
Smoggysteve 1 hour ago
@bikeclips When you see how narrow that cycle 'lane' is to begin with its ridiculous councils think they are satisfactory. But as the clip moves along, how many puddles, patches of debris etc has narrowed that path? And when you have a large vehicle inches away from you, where are you supposed to go? It also , in both clips, shows how other drivers can get by safely if you just have some patience. The driver of the Fiat at the start was waiting to pass for a while but they were safe and probably only held up for around a minute. Why do people feel so ready to take risky overtakes just to save literally minutes?
wtjs 1 hour ago
Advice letters are worthless junk designed to appease the gullible, as the offenders are fully aware that the police don't possess the the wit or the willingness to find out whether the driver has received a joke advice letter for the same offence in the past- and that's even within the same force. Imagine the vanishingly low probability that they would trouble to find out about offences in the jurisdiction of a different cyclist-hostile force, and refusing to look at the video unless the cyclist has been KSI'd is pretty hostile- wait till they catch onto the Lancashire technique of just binning everything that comes into OpSnap from cyclists! Kent has clearly been on the Lancashire Stagecoach course: ttps://upride.cc/incident/sk19evu_stagecoach42_closepass/ ttps://upride.cc/incident/px12dmy_stagecoach40_closepass/ ttps://upride.cc/incident/pk05opm_freelander_closepass/ The last one is the latest ignored routine Lancashire driver attack. These are minimum field of view videos- they would look even closer if I used wide angle like the OP
Smoggysteve 1 hour ago
Am I the only one who is concerned that it looks like the pedal & shoe brands are making systems that tie you into buying a whole load of things that only work together and remove your ability to shop around or experiment with alternatives? This shoe / cleat system and also the new Shimano SPD-SLR look like you need to buy not only the pedals but only their products (so far) to work with them? And even if they get more third party support, I cant just swap one system out and try another like I can with SPD-SL , Look Keo and even Wahoo/Speedplay.
Rendel Harris 2 hours ago
@bikeclips A slight correction, in the driver's imagination it relieves them of any obligation, under the Highway Code guidance that only applies to a completely segregated lane, the same instruction to leave 1.5 m applies whether the paint is there or not.
Rendel Harris 2 hours ago
Fabulous race, really gripping once the necessary rather boring softening up 100 km or so was completed. A lot of the riders in the final chase group will look back, if they end their careers without a rainbow jersey, and think you know what, I really didn't play that right; no diminution of McNulty's achievement implied by saying that they could've caught him easily without the multiple sit ups. I don't understand why they couldn't have agreed to work together in equal turns until they caught him 10 km out, as they so easily could have done, and then played cat and mouse from there. Huge kudos to MVDP for achieving a bronze on a course which, as he said, was absolutely on the limit of what was possible for him. As they noted in commentary, no other race this week on that course was won by a rider weighing more than 70 kg so for a rider his size to be able to hang on over the climbs and still be able to contest the sprint was amazing.
the little onion 2 hours ago
@bikeclips Famously, these painted lanes have been shown to be more dangerous than no lane at all. If it doesn’t have bollards, it isn’t infrastructure
Miller 2 hours ago
> If you’re ever at a bike show and Darimo are in attendance .... The German lightweight specialists are always coming up with something fun Darimo is a Spanish company. Just saying.
bikeclips 2 hours ago
Another great example of how dangerous these token 'bike lanes' are. The magic white paint relieves the driver of any obligation to leave a safe distance.
tigersnapper 3 hours ago
You did well to get any result from Kent Police. I gave up after reporting a couple of incidents and not even getting a request to submit video evidence. They don't seem to care about roads policing. Well done for getting these 2 actioned.
22 thoughts on “Live blog: Belgium’s word of the year? “Murderstrip” – a painted bike lane, pump track cycle lane, Geraint Thomas the Grogg + more”
So other police forces
So other police forces responded and said they would take action, but is there anything from the Met?
The BBC was best described as “where the truth comes to die.” Removing the flag is crass.
burtthebike wrote:
I’m hoping that the Met aren’t commenting because they’re dealing with the driver.
The BBC is truly a disgrace – it’s supposed to be “British”, not English.
burtthebike wrote:
— burtthebikeDisagree. Removing the SKY logo was crass.
Removing Geraint’s flag is deeply offensive.
Good of the WMP to emphasise
Good of the WMP to emphasise ‘if it were on our patch’ – puts the onus on the Met to treat JV and other London commuters fairly.
Re G and the flag – a bit antagonistic, given some people’s sensitivity, but you coulld argue that it looks better aesthetically for their purposes – it looks a bit ‘busy’ with the dragon directly behind his head. The removal of the Sky logo on the other hand just smacks of petty rivalry!
Why is is always so
Why is is always so predictable:
Cyclist: I was almost killed
Some idiot: Ye, well what about cyclists that run red lights?
Cyclist: Drivers run red lights too/speed/put more road users at risk
Idiot: Were not talking about that. We are talking about cyclists!
I got in to one of these arguments at work the other day. Apparently it is totally acceptable to stand in the middle of the office bitching loudly about cyclists running a red light at the end of the road, but I’m being rude when I butt in to point out that its because drivers also ignore the light, stop in the ASL and cut the corner (It’s left only for cars and a crossroads for cyclists. I have seen cyclists hit there) and cycists feel unsafe stopping there. Still bitter about that.
John Smith wrote:
Don’t waste your time being bitter. Gammon’s gonna Gammon.
John Smith wrote:
Like pretty much every local paper story that mentions a cyclist, and is used as an excuse to talk not about the story in question but “about this one time, there was this one cyclist, and he did something I don’t agree with, and another time I saw this other cyclist who…, and another time…”.
John Smith wrote:
Get a new job. It sounds like you work with a bunch of morons.
That’s pretty embarrasing by
That’s pretty embarrasing by the BBC.
BBC removed the Sky logo
BBC removed the Sky logo because one of their core sports didntd win POTY. It’s infuriating for them that these bally cyclists keep winning when our other national teams have won nothing this year.
They don’t give road cycling any coverage in their sports reports, apart from the mearest mention when G,Yates or Froome win a stage. This despite the UK public loving road cycling, witness the crowds by the roadside during major events, and ITV4s viewing figures for the TDF and Vuelta.
But give them a cycling scandal and it’s all hands to the pumps
maviczap wrote:
Brushing out the SKY logo is the least of the BBC’s problems in that photo, byt.
maviczap wrote:
I was trying not to mention the BBC’s 30 year helmet campaign that breaks every rule in their own Editorial Guidelines, but you made me do it! And they have endless programmes about obesity and always, but always, blame it solely on diet, and never, but never, ever mention the single most effective way of treating it; cycling.
Ergo, they hate cyclists.
From what I can see the Flag
From what I can see the Flag was removed from the picture that was used in promotions prior to the votes for SPOTY, just as the union flag was removed from the picture used for Lizzie Yarnold, it’s not about Celt bashing but a clumsy attempt at reducing the “vote for the one from my part of the country”
As a Scot I’m not suddenly getting upset that no Scots were in the short list this year, though I do get annoyed by the amout of Football drivel on the show (mostly because I love nearly all sport but really really dislike football and this country’s obsession with it)
EK Spinner wrote:
Missed this earlier. So why not use a different picture of Thomas? There are surely lots to choose from.
Merely the possibility that the editing was politically motivated is disconcerting. Or perhaps some of us are interpreting it has having a particular meaning when there is none.
Football drivel is a staple of British sports media. It sells newspapers and website clicks and it’s not hard to find a pundit as any dimwit can spout about footie.
Are there Scottish athletes / sportspeople / hoofball celebrities that should be on the list? I don’t follow sports other than those with 2 or 3 wheels so wouldn’t have a clue. TBH the programme is a backslapping exercise and of no relevance to anything else. Its only merit is in showcasing people from less popular sports. Cycling surely isn’t one of those now but I can’t imagine what that must have been like when Tom Simpson won spoty.
I don’t get it? Morrissey isn
I don’t get it? Morrissey isn’t Welsh.
See 59 wrote:
Now you’ve pointed that out…I actually laughed out loud when I went back to look what you meant!
Perhaps the JV footage should have a Smiths soundtrack “…and if a double decker bus, crashes into us…”)
Either way, at least he’s a Sports Personality who actually HAS a personality for once!
The tarmac hasn’t risen up
The tarmac hasn’t risen up between the concrete blocks, it has been laid on top of the original flat tarmac so that pedestrians can easily get up to the road. It would have been extremely difficult with a wheelchair/buggie or any kind of disablement to get onto the road. Looks hideous, is probably dangerous for cyclists and demonstrates the complete lack of forethought by the planners.
You don’t say where it is, but it’s kind of comforting to realise that it isn’t just UK planners who can screw up so utterly royally. Kind of.
No experienced planner would have done this, but it seems that the raw planners, straight out of college, are given the pedestrian/cycling schemes, so we keep getting results like this. Experience is what you get when you make a mistake, but after they’ve got some experience they are promoted, and the next school-leaver gets to practice on the cyclists/pedestrians, and the cycle continues. When I used to go to meetings with the local planners, I often wondered why poor little amateur me seemed to know more about planning for cyclists than the professionals and eventually worked out that I had read the books and the planning documents, they’d just spent a couple of years at college talking statistics and getting pissed.
Reminds me a little of the
Reminds me a little of the cycle lane on Sealand Road heading towards Chester, running across all of the dropped kerbs for the drives to each house.
Tommytrucker wrote:
My thought exactly.
Murderstrip, I get that.
Murderstrip, I get that.
I just love the bluntness of
I just love the bluntness of the Belgians….
Chris Hayes wrote:
I was in a relatively small Belgian town (Dendermonde) on a business trip last week. The place was absolutely teeming with cyclists who have priority most places and the “protection” of presumed liability laws. Driving round with a local four things were noticeable:
It’s an odd mix and I can see why they’re called murder strips. It felt like around town the average driving speed was over 30mph, or certainly higher than it is in a UK town. The strips are narrow, and most cyclists are getting it done too, even on hybrids and dutch bikes. So plenty of overtaking in narrow cycle lanes alongside fast traffic, and most kids cycle to school.
Looking at the stats fatalities are between 73 & 90 deaths per year since 2011. Couldn’t find anything on fatalities per km travelled but clearly Les Belges cycle more for utility than we do.