Britain's most pointless cycling 'infrastructure'? Team car driver rear-ends Giro d'Italia rider; Danny MacAskill is human after all; Wrecked £250k Ferrari smashes into cycle lane; Police appeal; Tom Dumoulin is back; Bidon bins + more on the live blog

Exactly.

Personally, I would throw Bike Exchange out the race.  Rider safety doesn't seem paramount to them.

If the UCI can throw the likes of Schar out because he threw a bottle away in the wrong place, then...

I moaned a couple of days ago about team car driving standards - have a look at the Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert celebrations. On the radio, off the radio, one hand, no hands, looking around the car, over his shoulder, all while driving pretty rapidly. Much like the bidon lobbing the whole thing just looks dreadful and sends the wrong message about the sport.

kil0ran wrote:

I moaned a couple of days ago about team car driving standards - have a look at the Intermarche-Wanty-Gobert celebrations. On the radio, off the radio, one hand, no hands, looking around the car, over his shoulder, all while driving pretty rapidly. Much like the bidon lobbing the whole thing just looks dreadful and sends the wrong message about the sport.

Do not understand why a DS/coach/mechanic should be driving team cars. These are multi-million pound operations, they can't afford a professional driver? That's disregarding the fact that I'm sure there are plenty of cycling fans who are brilliant drivers who would be happy to do it for room and board. Surely having to focus (or not, as this sad incident shows) on driving as well as your actual job means you do neither 100% effectively?

dubwise wrote:

Exactly.

Personally, I would throw Bike Exchange out the race.  Rider safety doesn't seem paramount to them.

If the UCI can throw the likes of Schar out because he threw a bottle away in the wrong place, then...

Couldn't agree more.

I would have thrown the bike at the car windscreen.

I think they should turn the mountain running numpties into mobile bins.

Strap a bin to the back of them and you have a mobile bin to shed those last grams before the summit.

Probably an auto AI Bot doing it for their pics so potential court cases aren't jeapodised.

Black boxes post-prosecution would be a great idea. The technology exists to quite effectively monitor driver behaviour, it could even be managed by issuing a court order that any future insurance for the driver must include a black box policy, it wouldn't even require the police to take on the effort of administering the boxes/data. 

fwhite181 wrote:

Black boxes post-prosecution would be a great idea. The technology exists to quite effectively monitor driver behaviour, it could even be managed by issuing a court order that any future insurance for the driver must include a black box policy, it wouldn't even require the police to take on the effort of administering the boxes/data. 

Yep

We can fly an unmanned mission to Mars, fly a drone there, but as yet no electronic means to clamp down on rogue drivers. New drivers can have a black box to reduce insurance, so why don't insurance companies insist on bad drivers having them? Or do they prefer raking in the extra premiums? That's if the driver is insured?

they already have black boxes  Every new car has them the manufatures have acceses to them. Im sure the local concil in England will take money from the cycling infastruture budget to fix the Ferrari

In many US states it's routine to impound the car, and police will get a warrant to access the black box data. There's a huge amount of data stored, even on relatively old cars. Back in my trackday days I remember Honda refusing a warranty claim because the black box showed that the engine had been buzzed through a missed shift - this was on a Civic Type R, late 90s. That Ferrari will have stored lots of potentially incriminating and circumstantial evidence, particularly as the airbags deployed.

maviczap wrote:

 Yep We can fly an unmanned mission to Mars, fly a drone there, but as yet no electronic means to clamp down on rogue drivers. New drivers can have a black box to reduce insurance, so why don't insurance companies insist on bad drivers having them? Or do they prefer raking in the extra premiums? That's if the driver is insured?

We have the means, just not the will. 

2.7m insurance claims last year and allegedly 170,000 of those are considered to be crash for cash. 6% of all road traffic collissions are considered to be deliberate, I find this quite shocking.

Surely a sign of how safe the inside of a car is for the occupants, if people are prepared to have a deliberate crash, it stands to reason that most people will not be overly considered with the consequences of an accidental collission. Replace all the air bags with spikes and the number of crashes would surely go down.

I'm not suggesting this incident was crash for cash

I agree.

Back in 1994-98, typically there were around 5,000 killed on the public highway.  The death toll has now reduced to about 1,700 deaths per year.  Makes you think the roads are so much safer!

However, if you look in detail at the Road Casualty data for Great Britain (RCGB) over the last 25 years, you realize the reduction in road deaths is for occupants of motor vehicles only.

BTW:  The number of cycling casualties dropped 32% between 1999 and 2002 !!!!  Most likely due to the introduction of the MG NSRF form!?  Perhaps too many Police Officers don't want to do the paperwork when a cyclist is injured in a RTC.

Back in 71 there were nearly 5 times as many road deaths/year in the UK than there are now. It makes you think.

and there were at least half the number of vehicles on the road back then too

So might be less traffic meant more bad driving and more traffic generally slows down everyone. After all the 1st lockdown showed that drivers sped more when the roads were emptier.

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

After all the 1st lockdown showed that drivers sped more when the roads were emptier.

That doesn't really tell us anything. Attitudes to driving on relatively emptier roads as the norm in the 1970s will not be the same as attitudes to driving on relatively emptier roads in 2020 when we are used to driving on roads that are normally a lot more congested.

Cars today are also (in general) capable of accelerating a lot faster to higher top speeds, and are bigger, heavier and employ significantly more safety features. 

There are considerably fewer deaths and serious injuries to vehicle occupants for the following reasons:

Cars are constructed of better quality steel, welded together better, passenger cabins protected better by thicker A, B and C pillars, crumple zones, collapsable steering columns, ABS, airbags, and lets not forget about "Clunk, Click every trip" (seatbelt laws front & rear), child safety seats .....

The standard of driving, I have observed during 40 years as a driver, has got worse, more drivers being more reckless.

If the drivers of today were driving Vauxhal Vivas or Ford Cortinas, the death toll would probably be in the 10's of thousands!  Then again, perhaps driving in less safe vehicles might make these drivers more cautious!?

One went through a red light if it is side on / front damage.