"Totally unacceptable": Cyclists react to concerning close pass prosecution figures; How much should hiring a bicycle cost?; Pedalling squares (literally); Cycling drops heart and cancer risks, study shows; Disc brake orchestra + more on the live blog

NotNigel wrote:

The Kriss Kyle hot air balloon video is nuts, especially the ice pick on the rail.  No room for error,  although would be pretty spectacular if he went over and had to use the parachute 

Am I the only one a bit concerned about where the bike would have gone in that case? Looked like a rural area but hardly uninhabited, a BMX descending from that height...

I believe the stats do show a couple of KSIs on car occupants by cyclists over the last half-decade - maybe here's the explanation?

wycombewheeler wrote:

Quote:

Cycling drops heart and cancer risks, study shows

Shock news just in: excercise has health benefits, stay tuned later for our expose on whther ursine faeces can be found in the woods.

I thought that as well, but this was specifically about electric bikes, which also provide the same benefits as riding an unpowered bike, so pretty relevant news.

It was on the blog and discussion yesterday. I don't think it will be missed much, considering how many people were complaining of lack of organisation.

We could start by treating "traffic offences" as crime. It is breaking the law. We have a current focus by political parties on attacking everyday low-level crime but nobody is mentioning road crime, there are far more people affected by speeding, bad parking and poor driving than there are by burglaries and recreational drug use.

bobbypuk wrote:

We could start by treating "traffic offences" as crime. It is breaking the law. We have a current focus by political parties on attacking everyday low-level crime but nobody is mentioning road crime, there are far more people affected by speeding, bad parking and poor driving than there are by burglaries and recreational drug use.

Didn't you get the memo? Apparently road crime isn't "real crime" and the police need to spend more time on whatever the speaker decides "real crime" actually is (usually something they haven't done themselves...) 

brooksby wrote:

Didn't you get the memo? Apparently road crime isn't "real crime" and the police need to spend more time on whatever the speaker decides "real crime" actually is (usually something they haven't done themselves...) 

Yup.  Real crime.  Not something that kills 2,000 people a year.

eburtthebike wrote:

Yup.  Real crime.  Not something that kills 2,000 people a year.

I think you're underselling it.

Let's not forget that 26,000 people were seriously injured in 2021 (gov.uk should list them and the cost of their treatment) and that there were an estimated 128,209 casualties of all severities.

If we want to get a glimpse of the scale of the problem we should add to this the ones that thankfully have no reported casualties, the unreported collisions and single vehicle incidents, the near misses that scare the sh*t out of even the hardiest types, the aggression* and threats and all the many people who are deterred from cycling or who give up cycling because of the danger...

* not just towards cyclists, I had an Audi driver force me to take evasive action while walking on a quiet lane yesterday evening because he/she couldn't didn't want to turn the steering wheel an inch or two to go around me (there is room for 2 vehicles to pass).

Road crime is real crime, as most of us on here are only too aware.

IanMK wrote:

An update on yesterdays story

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/12/arnold-schwarzenegger-ca...

I think you're about the fourth person to post this update, now, Ian 

Apologies to all.

Has anyone posted this story yet? If they have I'll head on home.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1757697/driving-laws-motoring-...

File under: ....but cyclists

IanMK wrote:

Apologies to all.

Has anyone posted this story yet? If they have I'll head on home.

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1757697/driving-laws-motoring-...

File under: ....but cyclists

Interesting - reminding motorists that a PCN can impact their insurance premiums too.

On the sidebar, it had this one:

https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/cars/1756632/smooth-speed-bumps-ang...

The Express wrote:

Mr Smith said the bumps are narrower than the width of a car’s wheels and are the “smoothest speed bumps in Teeside, possibly England”.

While the road is supposed to be a 20mph road, this does not stop people from speeding through.

They've just put ones like that in my village.  A normal car can drive with its wheels either side of the bumps, and there's room for a normal car to actually drive around the bump (ie. between the bump and the kerb).

Apparently the council intends eventually to put in a painted cycle lane at each side of the road, to narrow the road and (supposedly) stop cars going around the bumps.*

*but only when there's a cyclist passing there too?

Speed bumps are useless. If anything they slow you down.*

*Viz

absolutely mind boggling that the city think it's OK for a company to leave the road in this state for an extended period.

At least anyone with a damaged vehicle now knows they can bring action against the city and the utility company, who have taken deliberate action resulting in damage to third party property.

Awavey wrote:

Find anyone hiring out Ebikes in the UK for significantly less than £40 per day

Zoomo in London, Manchester and Edinburgh will rent you one for £35 a week, though admittedly that's with a 150km a week cap. Their "Pro" subscription for £49 a week is unlimited mileage.

You are correct in general though but that just highlights how greedy people are being, e.g. Decathlon's £40 is 5% of the price of the bike they're offering, twenty hires and they've made it back. Imagine if car hire worked on the same metric, you'd have to pay £800 a day to rent a £16k hatchback! 

But Zoomo is a subscription service, it only makes sense to compare like for like day hire rates to judge if Decathlon are above the market rate.

This is my experience with Lincs Police. If I send them the ones that really put the $h!ts up me or are clearly agressive they tend to do something about it. If I send in the mildly annoying ones where they could have given a full lane and chose not to then they do nothing.

I was quite miffed when I was close passed when I was cycling at 20 in a 20, with weird street markings (representing pavement past front doors and gates with wheelie bins in it) so single lane with a speed chicane for good measure, and a van close passed me at speed as a punishment pass. The driver stopped as I shouted "Oi!" because both I and the oncoming car had to take evasive action. He did the usual "all over the road" bit and then swore at me. I reckon there was video evidence of multiple offences, speeding - readily calculated from road markings - close pass, careless to oncoming car, obstruction, public order, but it didn't make the cut. Stupid thing was if the driver had stuck to near the limit they wouldn't have been near me until the road widened and was 40mph.

My front camera died a couple of months ago, and I haven't bothered to replace it.

I wouldn't mind if they said "Can't be bothered with court but we will sling out a warning letter with a cut and paste of the HWC and other words of advice". Why bother to accept submissions if they won't do the bare minimum?

IanMSpencer wrote:

I wouldn't mind if they said "Can't be bothered with court but we will sling out a warning letter with a cut and paste of the HWC and other words of advice". Why bother to accept submissions if they won't do the bare minimum?

Completely agree. 60min was quoted as the average time to deal with a submission. That shouldn't take more than 10min, especially if they didn't insist on 2min either side of the incident. The only proviso I would make is that a record of the letter needs to be kept and repeat offences dealt with properly and that the driver is made aware of this.

If I send in the mildly annoying ones where they could have given a full lane and chose not to then they do nothing

Lincs Police has clearly failed to totally adopt the Brave New World where you do nothing no matter how fast and close the pass, or whatever the road traffic offence. BMW AF11 XVU MOT expired 2.6.22, reported to the UK's most idle/ bent and useless police force 18.7.22. Still on the road without MOT/ insurance 9 months later. You can forget all these Righteous Cops Kicking Ass telly programmes- in reality, they just do nothing