Shocking moment dangerous driver hits cyclists at speed after drifting onto white line; Jeremy Clarkson hates cycle lanes shocker; Trenching is the new Everesting: 91 ascents of Box Hill in 450km epic ride; Sagan in space? + more on the live blog

The patronising tone didn't work the first time.

Looks like you'll have to learn a new trick.

You can learn the definition of coherent while you're at it.

Rich_cb wrote:

The patronising tone didn't work the first time. Looks like you'll have to learn a new trick. You can learn the definition of coherent while you're at it.

I'm sure I don't know what you mean. Have a great evening

I thought "The people seems remarkably high, didn't think that was quality journalism" then I saw the scale. So depressing, a damning indictment of the people of this country really. They say people get the press they deserve, and to some extent it is true, if people are choosing to buy rubbish, then the publishers will print what sells.

The quality scale denotes the severity of the headache I get after 20 minutes of reading.

But then how to explain the Mail, which has somehow pulled off the trick of being utterly tedious to read and is ranked rock bottom, below The Sun.  

the duration of my exposure to these tabloids is dictated by how quickly the take away get my order ready. 

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Additionally, Shaun Bailey (Tory London mayor candidate) promising to pause temporary cycle lanes and suspend LTNs - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/11/29/shaun-bailey-will-pause-.... "The evidence is clear: LTNs have caused gridlock in London, even though there are fewer cars on our streets. By funnelling drivers on to main roads, the scheme has led to massive queues of idling engines pumping out fumes."

Shaun Bailey promising something that wouldn't be within his remit. Sounds like the promised sunlit uplands of Brexit. The things he promised to abolish are not on TfL roads and therefore as London Mayor he can't effect them. He probably knows this, it's propaganda that some idiots will fall for. It's quite obviously lying to get votes, but it seems there is no law against that?

You'd like to think it's he knows that LTNs are on council operated roads but then again he also says 'the evidence is clear: LTNs have caused gridlock in London' so maybe he's genuinely clueless. The problem is with using anti-LTN nonsense to get votes is that the overwhelming majority of people who live in them are in favour of them. 

Probably because the ascending is the hard part.

You've obviously never seen me descending. (And, yes, I know that really )

Steve K wrote:

Just to be a pedant, but if the ride was about "trenching", shouldn't the headline read "91 DESCENTS of Box Hill", not ascents.

Yes, rather like planes only being charged landing fees; they can take off as many times as they like for free.

Agreed. Poor guys ;-(

Scumbag driver did it and didn't stop ;-(

NZ Vegan Rider wrote:

Agreed. Poor guys ;-(

Scumbag driver did it and didn't stop ;-(

According to the radio interview, he did stop.  Should still be prosecuted and lose his licence though.

Spot on. This road is in my neck of the woods, and I use it semi regularly because it links to cycle routes. There's a bicycle crossing at the intersection at my end to access it, a dangerous crossing point at an on-ramp because they were too lazy to put an underpass for cyclist in, and the road shoulder is 2.5m wide with the usual debris. There's a 90kmh limit but drivers treat it like a racetrack - the roads either end are bottlenecks and they just can't help themselves.

My thoughts exactly. That's like a car driving onto the pavement, hitting a pedestrian and blaming the pedestrian for being there. A solid white line is basically a kerb. 

Technically the 'hard shoulder' is part of the road so even if the driver hadn't swerved into them, it would have likely have still been a very fast close pass.  Once the driver sees a cyclist up ahead, whether on the hard shoulder or in a cycle lane, they should move across partially into lane 2 when safe to give the cyclists 1.5 metres.  
 

It does beg the question- would the cyclists have been safer riding on the actual carriageway thereby forcing overtaking traffic into lane 2? 

And the answer to that question is no. If the cyclist is hit when they leave the entire 3.2m wide lane for drivers to position their vehicle in, which would allow the driver to give up to a metre without leaving the lane, then moving closer to traffic just increases the probability of a close pass or collision. Road positioning when cycling is not what determines driver competence, nor should we go down the victim blaming rabbit hole by implying that the riders had any control over what the driver does behind the wheel.

oh, and the hard shoulder isn't classified as part of the road in Australia, it's a "road related area". Section 12 of the road act covers this.

I don't see it as 'victim blaming', it's defensive cycling.  I'd rather be safe and alive rather than dead or seriously injured just to prove a point that it's the motorists responsibility.  There are far too many idiots on the road to have any level of trust.  

You might not see it as victim blaming, but I do. There's no contributory negligence, they're riding in the road shoulder not the lane, no weaving, as a pack which means they are occupying the space of a HGV and are very visible. It was two hours after sunrise on a Saturday morning when traffic levels are low, the road is straight with good sight lines and there's ample room for drivers to pass given two 3.2m wide lanes to the right of the cyclists. And you want to talk about defensive cycling, just what the f*ck else do you think they could do to prevent an inattentive driver from hitting them? Stay at home and not ride at all?

At first I was impressed by people achieving this, but now, it's all a bit...meh. I'm actually bored by more attempts. 

'Everesting' is about climbing, but the 'trenching' is actually no different, is it? They're still having to climb to be able to descend the correct amount of metres.

They're both purely physical efforts, and like hill climbing, etc require not much technical skills. Now if someone did it off road on a DH MTB trail, I'd be more impressed.....

Probably can, although you would have to cycle back up it being as no mountain is 10k metres high on this planet. (Well until manned Mars missions it isn't possible anyway.)

True, but if you're allowed to start at the top and finish at the bottom, you could save yourself one ascent, which could be ~1km elevation gain if you choose carefully.

No mountain has a peak 10km above sea level, but Mauna Kea is over 10km tall from bottom to top - it's just most of it is underwater. Not sure how easy it would be to descend that tho...