[Secret_squirrel]

Friendly warning.  Ashley Neal’s gone full on troll (if he wasnt already).  If you havent seen his latest piece of them and us trash I’d block him before your blood pressure goes up like mine.

Do a favour and dont link it on here. (though Im sure it will be on the live blog soon).

Topic

[Ashley Neal]

Thanks for your input Matt,

Thanks for your input Matt, as it was probably mainly you plus a couple of others who have made me realise there was more to this clip than I used it for. The video has just been finished and will be uploaded tonight and scheduled soon. Kindest regards

[mattw]

This is a good idea, Ashley.

This is a good idea, Ashley. I think these crosscutting debates – even though they are sometimes abrasive – are essential and valuable.

I have not felt I have enough information to make a judgement on the risks taken or not taken by the cyclist. It is something like 95% divided between Edinburgh Council and the person on the bike – but I cannot draw the dividing line with the information I have, even though I have asked colleagues in Edinburgh. A legal claim against the Council is quite possible, however.

We cannot expect every cyclist – for example a 13 year old, a parent with a child, or a 75 year old – to be a vehicular cycling expert. They must be safe, and *feel* safe, on the cycle facilities provided, if they are to use them – which is what we all want.

The elephant in the room is infrastructure design that is less safe than could have been done, and UK politicians / designers, who choose to place the public at risk rather than follow known good practice. If it is wrong in the first place, it stays dangerous – risking injury unnecessarily – for decades. As people committed to improving safety, we have to be concerned about this.

Edinburgh Tramway is a prime example; it was rushed in in a desperate hurry for basically political reasons. We know that people on foot or bike were not considered as part of the design, and were a bodged afterthought.

There is, for example, a cycle lane under 1m wide in the Haymarket – a busy, complex junction – which is painted right up to the tram track, where cyclists are directed to cycle. But the trams are 2.6m wide and overhang the 1.4m tram track by 0.6m each side.

We know that strong feedback was offered, including professional consultancy from Europena countries, and was not taken seriously enough. A strong Not-Invented-Here syndrome.

We know that money ran out and safety features for people on bikes were omitted from the design to save budget.

And we know – reported by the BBC – that between 2012 and 2022 there were 422 people on bikes involved in tramway related accidents, and that £1.2m compensation has been paid out by Edinburgh Council to 196 claimants in that period.

Even the “planter” that hid the cyclist discussed over at your channel, is a stop buffer put there because they had to shorten the tramway for money reasons.

We even have academic research about it:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Chris-Oliver-8/publication/317427109_Edinburgh_Cyclists’_Tram_Injuries/links/593a607645851532063b7905/Edinburgh-Cyclists-Tram-Injuries.pdf

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228472750_Edinburgh_trams_a_case_study_of_a_complex_project

And so Edinburgh will continue to live with a less-safe-than-possible dog’s breakfast for some decades.

To be clear, I post over at your place, and on Twitter, as Matt Wardman.

[OnYerBike]

No-one is saying the cyclist

No-one is saying the cyclist wasn’t in the wrong by going through the red light.

However, from your commentary you make it clear you believe the cyclist did it deliberately – you actually say the cyclist “planned” the red light jump. Telling people to “curb their selfish behaviour” is no help when it wasn’t “selfish” but a genuine mistake.

By completely ignoring the confusing road layout that led to the cyclist making this mistake, you fail to provide any opportunity for learning. 

[Ashley Neal]

I’m going to try to do this

I’m going to try to do this today to be scheduled later in the week. Nice comment btw

[mt1138]

Thank you for clearing that

Thank you for clearing that up. You never struck me as the sort of guy that would delete critical comments, and I must admit that thinking that my comments were being deleted did have me a bit triggered. We did actually have an exchange earlier today, but I think this is probably a better platform for a reasoned and respectful discussion.

Ashley Neal wrote:

The junction is poorly laid out, but it wouldn’t of caused me many problems.

If somebody who’s made a career out from being an advanced driver thinks it is poorly laid out, then it seems likely that a lot of people will struggle with it. It took me a while to work it out, although streetview is hardly as a substitute for actually navigating the junction. But it seems to me that if it’s not immediately obvious how a set of traffic lights should be navigated, then pretty much by definition they’re dangerous and will lead to problems.

Ashley Neal wrote:

The big thing I’ve been disappointed with though is using the layout as an excuse

That depends what we mean by “excuse”. If we mean “let off the hook entirely” then no it doesn’t – the cyclist was still guilty of a lapse of judgement and awareness. But if the question is to whether it reduces their liability for the collision, then I think it surely does. Consider if the roles were reversed – the difference between deliberately jumping the lights, and accidentally jumping them after getting confused by a poorly designed set of signals would surely be sufficient to reduce “dangerous driving” to “careless driving” at the very least? And it would suggest that the council bears at least some responsibility.

That’s why I took exception to labelling the cyclist as 100% responsible. If I were the cyclist, having suffered an injury and possibly having had my bike destroyed in the process, I think it might be quite traumatising to have my honest mistake regarded as intentional.

Ashley Neal wrote:

and they were also plenty of clues after the cyclist entered the junction.

I’m not sure what these clues were though. My reading of the situation was that any clues pointing to the cyclist’s mistake were obscured by the combination of the poor layout and a very specific set of circumstances.

Ashley Neal wrote:

the whole point of the video was to highlight the dangers of a scenario similar to this to both motorists and cyclists. Not sticking to the rules and jumping lights, whether it’s intentional or unintentional affects a wide circle of people, sometimes for the rest of their lives.

I understood and appreciate the point you were making. But a lot of people in the comments have taken it as an excuse for a bit of cyclist bashing. And that’s something that understandably gets a lot of cyclists triggered and very defensive.

Ashley Neal wrote:

It might be a good follow-up to discuss the junction in a little more detail and the difficulties the cyclist may have faced.

I think this would be an excellent idea.

[HoarseMann]

I’ve never run anyone over in

I’ve never run anyone over in my car – but I nearly did… a bloke passed out in the road, wearing a long black coat, on a dark winter night. When I spotted the gloomy lump ahead, I assumed it was a black bin bag that had blown into the road (it was bin day the next morning and there were lots of bags out lining the street). But I stopped to move it out of the road, then discovered what it actually was.

I was on my way back from picking up a curry, only a mile round trip, a journey I would normally do on my bicycle – but it was out of action with a seized freehub.

That really got me thinking just how much more risk I posed in the car than on the bicycle. There’s no way I would have run over them on the bicycle. Even if I did, I’d likely come off worse.

My choice that night to take the car could have had dire consequences. It really made me appreciate the greater danger I created by driving a car.

[Seventyone]

Hi Ashley. Thanks as ever for
Hi Ashley. Thanks as ever for posting on here. I’ve not watched the video as I don’t want to give you publicity for this kind of thing but my three points are:

1.what have you got against dropped bar bikes?

2. While it is obviously awful for anyone involved in an accident, it is almost invariably the most awful for a person on a bicycle in that situation rather than the person in a car, often by many orders of magnitude.

3. I think the comments on here make plenty of points as to why the person on a bike might well have jumped the red lights inadvertently, do you have any response to those apart from saying the cyclist was “abysmal?”

[Ashley Neal]

Good to see the video being

Good to see the video being discussed as some important further points have been raised. Just for the record I moderate all comments but there are a few things that will always get pulled. Certain swear words and anything with a link in, as spam comments are a big problem. I’ve had a quick scan through a few other comments and there are some good points. The junction is poorly laid out, but it wouldn’t of caused me many problems. The big thing I’ve been disappointed with though is using the layout as an excuse, and if you’re not sure you shouldn’t go, and they were also plenty of clues after the cyclist entered the junction. The cyclists skill level or even their concentration was abysmal and the whole point of the video was to highlight the dangers of a scenario similar to this to both motorists and cyclists. Not sticking to the rules and jumping lights, whether it’s intentional or unintentional affects a wide circle of people, sometimes for the rest of their lives. It might be a good follow-up to discuss the junction in a little more detail and the difficulties the cyclist may have faced. Any other pointers from the cyclist perspective would be appreciated. 

[HoarseMann]

Yep, that will be the reason.

Yep, that will be the reason. A YouTube channel owner can place restrictions on links in comments. On Ashley’s channel, you can post a link to another YouTube video, but anything else will be automatically deleted.

To be fair to him, I don’t think he deletes criticism. I’ve had a few disagreements on there with him and they’ve not been deleted – just been “deluded” apparently!

[mattw]

IanMSpencer wrote:

IanMSpencer wrote:

It may not be Ashley. If he has some over-zealous fans, or anti-cycling zealots, they might be reporting posts which are then going into moderation. Another possibility is that Ashley has appointed moderator’s to the channel who are inappropriately moderating comments as they think that complaining is wrong. So again, it might not be Ashley himself. I’m not an expert in YouTube comments but I would guess that Ashley has set some moderation option up so perhaps comments may be being gamed by other users.

It’s certainly true that there is a sprinkling of moto-trolls there, but also some international posters who discuss from eg a North American viewpoint – had a bit of a debate with one person about froward-in or reverse-in echelon parking. Not worth the chat with the USA-centric person on that one.

[mattw]

I have had Youtube comments

I have had Youtube comments with links repeatedly go missing.

Streetview vanishing is a surprise as it’s owned by the same bods.

Not enough experience to comment further.

[mt1138]

HoarseMann wrote:

Did you put a link in your post? Those are automatically deleted.

Some of my comments definitely contained streetview links, I can’t be certain if they all did now. But that might explain it. Thanks.

[mt1138]

Ok, I had no idea that this

Ok, I had no idea that this was possible. I thought only the commenter or the channel owner could delete comments, thanks for pointing that out.

[HoarseMann]

Did you put a link in your

Did you put a link in your post? Those are automatically deleted.

[IanMSpencer]

It may not be Ashley. If he
It may not be Ashley. If he has some over-zealous fans, or anti-cycling zealots, they might be reporting posts which are then going into moderation.

Another possibility is that Ashley has appointed moderator’s to the channel who are inappropriately moderating comments as they think that complaining is wrong. So again, it might not be Ashley himself.

I’m not an expert in YouTube comments but I would guess that Ashley has set some moderation option up so perhaps comments may be being gamed by other users.

[Author]

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