[iandusud]

Although this isn’t specifically about bikes it affects all cyclists. I have read of two accounts on BBC News this morning of pedestrians being killed by drivers of cars which are marketed on the basis of their high performance. In these two incidences an Audi and a AMG Mercedes. I don’t think that the cars themselves are particularly more dangerous than an avergage family car, lets face any lump of 2 tonnes travelling even at legal speeds is likely to kill a pedestrian or a cyclist if there is a collision. The point is that these cars are deliberately made for and marketed at people who wish to drive at levels of performance that are totally inapropriate for public roads. When will our governement do something to curb the marketing of such cars for use on public roads? 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-54932641

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-54945577

Topic

[David9694]

Just out of sight : one of

Just out of sight : one of our bird feeders, that my wife has assured me are placed so high up that they are squirrel proof. 
 

 

[hawkinspeter]

David9694 wrote:

Oh, so now it’s “mean-spirited cyclists want to bump up fuel duty and turn roads into a skate park” is it?

Maybe not as catchy as “war on motorists”. To be fair, some of the potholes on the roads are becoming like halfpipes.

[iandusud]

Secret_squirrel wrote:

You need to take your blinkers off, no matter how important you think the point you are trying to make is.  Which BTW I disagree with – you are in Daily Mail “wont somebody think of the children” territory.   The problem isnt performance cars – its that we live in a car-centric culture.   Changing that is meaningful, banning performance cars on the assumption that thats the problem is just daft.

I’m not sure who you are replying to but if it’s my original post I wasn’t advocating banning performance cars. As I clearly stated any car is potentially a lethal weapon in the wrong hands. What I did suggest should be controlled is the way cars are marketed. 

[David9694]

Oh, so now it’s “mean

Oh, so now it’s “mean-spirited cyclists want to bump up fuel duty and turn roads into a skate park” is it?

 

[hawkinspeter]

David9694 wrote:

“…so what we need to do is actualy conduct a ‘war’ on law-breaking motorists.”

or “war on motorists” as the Daily Mail will no doubt have it, with a cast of traffic police “only in it for the fines revenue.” 

To be honest, I’m okay with drastically increasing taxes on fuel which would hit all motorists, though I’m not sure if that counts as war. Also, I’m in favour of redistributing road space to pedestrians and active travellers (is that what you call cyclists and skaters?) which could be considered a takeover of territory.

[David9694]

“…so what we need to do is

“…so what we need to do is actualy conduct a ‘war’ on law-breaking motorists.”

or “war on motorists” as the Daily Mail will no doubt have it, with a cast of traffic police “only in it for the fines revenue.” 

[kil0ran]

Some more thoughts on car

Some more thoughts on car culture, why people are into it, and how it aligns with cycling.

I went through a few phases.

1) Wanting to be Colin McRae. The rally fans tend to focus on function over form – hence the popularity of the Impreza. Not a looker, terrible interior, but cheap and incredibly capable off road. Oh and highly tunable with simple cheap modifications. Bike equivalent is buying a low-end Giant with Claris on it and upgrading the group and wheels to something more exotic. See also buyers of, for example, Calibre MTBs (guilty m’lud)

2) Showing off to the neighbours. Stupid LCD lights, loads of bling, blacked out windows, massive in-car entertainment system, change the car as often as the contract allows. Not much brand loyalty, buy what’s currently seen to be cool (see Nissan Qashqai from a few years back). Bike equivalent currently will be a gravel bike – probably that Canyon with the hoverbar. It will likely never see much mud other than runoff from fields.

3) Brand Zealots. All other cars except my brand are rubbish. Constantly dreaming about earning enough to own that brand’s halo car even if they don’t have a means to exploit its abilities. They’ll have their brand’s superbike in the shed but hardly ever ride it

4) Tinkerers. Guilty m’lud. I did things like half engine swaps on VWs, ran motorcycle carbs on Yamaha-head Toyota engines, different width wheels front and rear, obscure Japanese suspension, that sort of thing. They’ll refer to cars by engine codes and model years and intimately know performance specs and the like. Bike equivalent is Shimergo drivetrains, or mixing MTB with Road to get wider range gears. You know pull ratios for SRAM/Shimano/Campy and know what works together, and initimately understand and advocate for new BB standards or things like Boost spacing

5) Weight weenies. Guilty m’lud. Strip everything out of the car to lighten it to get the power to weight ratio up (actually, this is the cheapest and most effective mod to start with if you want to improve the performance of a car). Get obsessed by unsprung weight, rotating mass, and rolling resistance (yes, I’m still talking about cars here). Usually end up with a car with no interior, race seat (driver only) and 6-point harness, which is a right pain in the drive thru for MaccyD’s. 

6) Style is everything. Basically, you end up driving an Alfa. Getting harder these days because everything looks so similar. When I started driving in the 80s there was still a huge variety of design language – think Saab, VW, Alfa, BMW, Volvo, Renault/Peugeot. There’s a reason those cars are now silly money on the classics market. Bike equivalent – probably a Colnago. Definitely Italian. Ideally with a chromovelato finish.

7) Classic beards. Where I am now (why, hello, Volvo 940). Spend most of their time under the bonnet or under the car, fixing things with hammers and getting oily. No matter what you do the car is still massively slow and thirsty compared to modern vehicles. Car equivalent of Eroica types. 

8) Campers. Stupidly expensive driveway jewelry that are a bitch to park and get used for their intended purpose maybe once or twice a year. Why, hello bikepackers with your Bombtracks, Salsas, and Opens

The point is – if you banned performance cars you’d ban all this stuff too. As with cycling, there’s always a subset of drivers who are twats. Of course, the difference is that a cyclist rarely kills anyone except themselves with their twattishness. 

One final thing – I just don’t get why people feel the need to spend so much on cars. Even when I was a petrolhead I refused to buy new. I know families who are by no means well off spanking £500 on lease contracts every month for cars they barely use. Madness. You can send your kid to private school for that, or pay off your mortgage years early.

[quiff]

Ditto again! I’d put myself

Ditto again! I’d put myself in a similar category – through my teens and twenties I loved cars, and did some mildly stupid things in cars that I would now frown on. Later I spent a bit of time working for car makers, and as a result have been fortunate enough to drive some very nice, fast cars on road and on track (and to be driven in them by people with far more skill than me). Unlike kil0ran though, despite ‘identifying’ as a petrolhead, aspiring to all sorts of exotica for many years, and briefly toying with buying a hot hatch (Clio 200, liquid yellow, since you ask), I only bought my first car (a run of the mill second-hand hatchback) a few years ago, am highly unlikely ever to buy anything more potent, and my current car aspirations waver between buying an estate and considering if I need a car at all any more (it only gets used for long motorway trips).

I still read car magazines occasionally, but they ring a bit hollow now. I have no doubt that the journalists who write for them are very skilled drivers, but seeing images of the latest preposterously overpowered Ferrari being drifted on an open road seems massively irresponsible to me now. Likewise, talking about the pleasure of well weighted steering, perfectly timed heel and toe downshifts and the ‘adjustability’ of a chassis, evocative though that is, only thinly disguises the fact that road tests in these cars involve driving which would, if not conducted out of sight on remote Welsh and Scottish roads where most people are not going to enjoy these cars, attract police attention.

I do feel a bit conflicted – I spent so much of my formative years aspiring to fast cars that, now that it’s vaguely possible, I wonder if I should do it anyway to satisfy the teenager inside me (who, by the way, had even worse taste and wanted a TVR Cerbera). But if I did, I would want to use that performance. Going 10/10ths on a track doesn’t really do it for me, and my older self just doesn’t think it’s ok to use that performance on the road. And owning an expensive performance car just to drive the same way I drive my runaround now feels a bit irrelevant and unnecessary. 

It’s true that having a performance car doesn’t mean you have to drive like an idiot. But even if manufacturers comply with the guidance in the advertising codes and don’t expressly market them this way, it seems clear to me that what they are selling is road cars with performance that, for the most part, cannot be used legally or safely on the road.   

[Captain Badger]

Secret_squirrel wrote:

The probabilty of a bike interacting with a pedestrian – particular for bycycle commuters is much, much higher. Eg on mixed use pavements.

Hence not an even comparison.

The annual butchers bill of pedestrians killed by cars and their drivers (both on and off the pavement) might tell a different story…

I’m afraid that I remain unconvinced that legislating a low risk activity whilst ignoring a high risk one, both of which inhabit the same environment, is anything other than absurd. To me the comparison stands.

[Captain Badger]

kil0ran wrote:

 

I know in my 20s I thought I was (a) invincible (b) Ayrton Senna and (c) didn’t care if I died. I can remember saying to my Mum something along the lines of “I don’t have any passengers, if I do crash it will just be me who suffers”.

Indeed, I remember those days as well. Also remember being involved in 2 collisions (not driving, although that doesn’t mean that I was a saint myself) where we came off the road, both due to racing. Unbelievably no one was hurt in either case. 

The Dunning-Kruger effect applies behind the wheel every bit as much as elsewhere, and folk rarely think that there is a realistic chance of them crashing, because of course, they are good drivers, along with the other 98% of drivers who are above average.

[Secret_squirrel]

Captain Badger wrote:

Seems like a fair comparison to me….

Cars and pedestrians are almost totally segregated and their interactions strictly controlled via crossings & pavements etc.

The probabilty of a bike interacting with a pedestrian – particular for bycycle commuters is much, much higher. Eg on mixed use pavements.

Hence not an even comparison.

[kil0ran]

I hitched a lift home from a

I hitched a lift home from a trackday once with a former Le Mans 24h driver in a tricked-out Nissan Skyline GTR. Something like 450bhp which was a lot back in the 90s. Was expecting it to be a white knuckle ride and he just pootled back at the speed limit. When I asked him why he said he saved driving fast for the track, where it was safer for everyone – he’d driven Le Mans style cars through the 70s and seen so many mates die road racing.

I know in my 20s I thought I was (a) invincible (b) Ayrton Senna and (c) didn’t care if I died. I can remember saying to my Mum something along the lines of “I don’t have any passengers, if I do crash it will just be me who suffers”.

[rjfrussell]

Rendel Harris wrote:

Agree 100% – all cars should be limited by law to 85 mph (15 mph extra in case a boost is needed to avoid a collision on a motorway). The fact that it’s illegal to run an ebike on the public highway that can exceed 15.5 mph but you can run a car or motorcycle that can do 200 mph accentuates the absurdity.

I’m genuinely trying to work out what sort of collision could be avoided by the 15mph boost?

surely it would only be if something was coming at you from behind at more than 70mph.

But if all vehicles were physically limited to 70mph then this would never happen.

What did you have in mind?

[hawkinspeter]

Although I don’t driver, I

Although I don’t drive, I don’t agree with limiting the top speeds of vehicles. The danger on the road is not so much with drivers going at 90mph, but far more with drivers not paying attention or performing risky maneouvres at “legal” speeds.

The way I see it is that the problem is not with the way that vehicles are built, marketed or sold, but the lack of enforcement on the public roads. If people thought that they’d regularly get caught for speeding or using phones whilst driving, then most people would soon change their behaviour.

Cameras are cheap and it’s getting pretty easy to throw together automated number plate readers, so what we need to do is actualy conduct a ‘war’ on law-breaking motorists. If we were to use some of the fines collected to fund the traffic police, then we’d soon make the roads a safer place.

[EddyBerckx]

Secret_squirrel wrote:

Secret_squirrel wrote:

Captain Badger wrote:

kil0ran wrote:

Reformed petrolhead here. ….

 

Really intelligent post, and very readable. 

Ditto

Ditto!

[Author]

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