Highway Code changes criticised in bizarre "I'm a cyclist, but..." Spectator article; Chris Froome channels his inner Steve Irwin; Atlético Madrid could host Vuelta stage...during a La Liga match; Count the cyclists + more on the live blog

Courtesy and politeness!  All it takes...

Nah, you also need Thoughts and Prayers. Works for mass shootings, so think how good it must be for cycling.

Why can't the message be; if we all just stick to the highway code then disputes between different groups of road users will be dramatically reduced?

Plot spoiler: the answer is not because of cyclists sense of entitlement.

HoarseMann wrote:

Seems Jake of The Spectator took up cycling after a massive car crash left him injured. I think the story here is "bad driver becomes bad cyclist".

At least on a bike he's less of a risk to others and perhaps himself.

That's what we want - let's celebrate the worst cyclists because they've chosen the most benign form of transport. (I sometimes wonder how bad a driver I would have made - most likely a MGIF type).

I'm curious about where these bike lanes built "at great public expense" are.

I nominate cycling bogeyman Jeremy Clarkson, because he's been seen on a bike several times, often without a helmet or hi-vis and even on "special" cycles.

hawkinspeter wrote:

I'm curious about where these bike lanes built "at great public expense" are.

I think he's referring to the two-and-a-half tins of Dulux that someone's spread along the gutters of a handful of the roads on my commute that entices drivers to pass me even closer.

" I'm curious about where these bike lanes built "at great public expense" are."

London.
Where else would they be?
Most of us have to scrape by on poorly maintained suicide lanes.

One of these between Leeds and Bradford

Motorists!  Avoid showing prejudice by blocking cyclists or pedestrians - by blocking both.

I did search him to see if I could find details on the crash. Only found an autobiographical DM article where he states it is an accident blackspot in the area. Another local paper seems to mention this junction is known for lots of accidents including one in 2019 so I am assuming this is it. (comment on that story is very good and could have been written by one of us). Anyway he never mentions who shot the junction or what punishment the other driver got for it which is telling.

He then uses the rest of the article to essentially plug what items he uses like an influencer trying to get sponsorship, and to wheel out all the DM cycling tropes whilst winking (stroke caused him to change his personality, looked and realised I was now a mamil). Seems to take a snide potshot at the attending officer (upset when breathlyser showed not over the limit) and the NHS (my family members did better for me). Also seems his first amateur race was actually the New Forest Sportive. He came 40th out of 300 apparently in 2020. As he mentioned in his article, big up for ignoring Covid to ensure it went ahead. 

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Anyway he never mentions who shot the junction or what punishment the other driver got for it which is telling.

Agree. Plus the other statements about cars having no option but to hare around bends squeezing cyclists between wingmirror and hedge, don't exactly speak of a competent and careful driver.

An alternative reading is that drivers are awful and will remain so so keep out of their way for your own good.

The point is that the HWC is actually telling cyclists to change their behaviour and get out of the gutter. How many close pass videos on this site are enabled by cycling too close to the edge or single file?

All fair points, Ian.  One simple change to his article makes the point

"Cyclists can now ride in the middle of the road so that when there is no room for cars to safely overtake us,"

Close but no cigar.

"Cyclists have always been able to ride in the middle of the road where there is no room for cars to safely overtake us."

The HWC did not change that, it just brought it to other road users' attention.

Hmm... "middle of road" or "middle of lane"?

Why do drivers hate learner drivers so very much? It would seem even more than cyclists.

I don't think they hate them more per se, just that they hate anything which might make them slow to safer speeds like with cyclists, caravans, tractors, buses, lorries (especially when they overtake one another).....

But unlike the rest of the causes, everyone was once a learner driver which should make them forgiving of the nervousness or mistakes but that doesn't seem to be the case for most of them. 

They also hate other car drivers, old ladies, men with hats, anyone sticking to the speed limit, anyone else driving too fast, anyone in the "fast" lane doing 70mph overtaking a lorry (my pet hobby when I see a car approaching fast is to extra carefully pull out and to extra carefully check my mirror and extra carefully pull over when safe just to see how hard I can get them to accelerate after I pull in), traffic in queues, drivers who push in, drivers who don't let them push in, drivers on roundabouts they have to wait for, drivers who use the other lane at traffic lights when it goes down to one lane, drivers who won't let them in after they've overtaken 50 cars in a queue and ended up in the cones, drivers who overtake them in a queue before the cones. 

You get the idea.

Driving is isolated and encourages a selfish and self-centred mindset and the most peculiar factor is how we can ascribe malice to every action of another road user when most of the time they are oblivious to other road users.

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

But unlike the rest of the causes, everyone was once a learner driver which should make them forgiving of the nervousness or mistakes but that doesn't seem to be the case for most of them. 

More likely it causes cognitive dissonance by reminding them that driving isn't some innate skill, and that it's therefore possible that their own driving education is incomplete and fallible.

ktache wrote:

Why do drivers hate learner drivers so very much? It would seem even more than cyclists.

Because learner drivers are quite likely to hold them up for a few seconds - possibly even up to a minute if the learner stalls the car and/or panics.

ktache wrote:

Why do drivers hate learner drivers so very much? It would seem even more than cyclists.

Anecdote alert.

Last week, I had the office window open.  I could hear a car horn blaring for what felt like ages.

Looked out in time to see a Golf or similar overtaking a AA driving school car on the main road outside, then stopping right in front of it.

The driver leapt out (leaving his door open, which stopped a bus passing in the opposite direction).  He ran round to the passenger side of the driving school car, pulled open the door and started screaming at (presumably) the instructor.  I couldn't hear it, except it started with "What the F do you F-ing think you are F-ing teaching people, you F".  This went on for a couple of minutes, then he stalked back to his car, tried (and failed!) to do a three point turn, then abandoned that and screamed off at definitely more than the 20mph speed limit.

A woman walked over and spoke to the driving instructor (I imagine, asking if they needed a witness...?).

The driving school car tried to pull away, stalled, then tried again.

I'll tell you what, I hope that learner got their money back!

That just shows how bizarrely people can behave when in a car and presumably stressed by the driving conditions. Imagine someone behaving like that at a supermarket if a new cashier was being trained.

I really think we need to be able to temporarily revoke someone's ability to drive if they behave like a spoilt child - something like a yellow card/timeout to give the driver a chance to reflect on why they let their emotions control their behaviour.

Maybe give everyone a supply of yellow card stickers that they can use if they think a driver is acting up or if a car is badly parked. Once someone picks up two or three yellow cards, then they're banned from driving for 24 hours or so. It'd be great to see someone park in a cycle lane, then return to see a flurry of yellow tickets over their vehicle. Maybe have a limit of 10 yellow cards in an hour which would lead to the vehicle getting immediately towed and confiscated for a week.

hawkinspeter wrote:

Imagine someone behaving like that at a supermarket if a new cashier was being trained.

Having in my younger days been that new cashier being trained, I can definitely imagine someone behaving like that. Some people really are just simply that far gone, whether they're behind a wheel of a car or not. Personally I put it down to a power thing.

hawkinspeter wrote:

Imagine someone behaving like that at a supermarket if a new cashier was being trained.

I don't need to imagine it, I lived it for four years during my part-time stint in retail whilst at school. I saw plenty of abuse hurled at trainees, fist-fights over the last parking space/tin of biscuts, I had a death-threat over pork loin ribs once, then there was that one time a guy threw a punch at me because I got his fresh loaf of bread sliced too quickly...

You're right though - driving a car is just a "target-rich" environment for the sort of frustrations that can really push people over the edge. It also gives them the tools to present maximum risk to others when the red mist does descend.

BalladOfStruth wrote:

... then there was that one time a guy threw a punch at me because I got his fresh loaf of bread sliced too quickly...

Wow!