road.cc live blog: BBC guest likens cyclists to Nazis, big Black Friday deals and more
It’s ages since someone in the media compared cyclists to Nazis. No, hang on…
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Latest Comments
bradu 12 minutes ago
I've used this light for 2 years and can absolutely recommend it. Sure it has some weak points, battery life could be better for example, and it's hard to understand why charging only works from a USB-A charger if the light itself uses USB-C. The important stuff they got right, it feels very solid and well designed, you can tell they iterated a lot while prototyping. The light modes are also effective and thoughtfully designed. I've used the optional saddle rail mount with no issues, very nice to have a quarter-turn quick release that just works. For me, it's an innovative and tasteful object which is rare in this category, that also proves a point and works as advertised. The only thing it lacks that I truly wish it had is a brake function.
Rendel Harris 1 hour ago
@AidanR It's not a perfect metric for sure, just trying to find something less biased towards cars than incidents per miles travelled which is a somewhat absurd way of calculating relative dangers, in my opinion, given how much further cars travel for a given time. Using distance, if a driver averaging 60kmh and a cyclist averaging 20kmh both log 100 hours on the road and one incident in that time, cycling becomes one incident per 2000km and motoring one incident per 6000km, so motoring looks three times safer even though we have the same number of incidents in the same amount of time travelled.
chrisonabike 9 hours ago
@Rendel Harris "Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?" Given the filter of the court system that would a) likely only introduce another source of bias and b) mean the cycling numbers had dubious statistical meaning relative to the motoring ones since after removing e-motorbikes (unless we didn't? But even then...) that is ... one or two in the last 5+ years?
Rendel Harris 10 hours ago
@mdavidford You've made me curious so checked: in Devon and Torbay (in common with many councils, apparently), any project under £500,000 can be internally approved by the Corporate Director for Strategy, Performance, and Sustainability, whereas any project costing in excess of £500,000 needs a full cabinet vote. So it looks suspiciously as though there's been a bit of jiggery-pokery with the numbers to avoid full cabinet scrutiny.
ceppm 10 hours ago
From the screenshots, the software looks very similar to the Coospo CS600. I used it for a tour in Ireland and on the first day, I realised that the map of Ireland wasn't loaded by default. I could see my route as breadcrumbs but not the road or anything else around me. It looked very similar to what you saw when you went off-route. Are you sure you had the map of Scotland in your unit? Luckily for me, at the end of the first day, after tons of searches, trials and errors, I managed to download the map of Ireland into my phone, connect the Coospo to my phone as an external drive and upload the map. Not an easy task but that solved the problem. For the next five days I had a proper map to navigate. Regardless of that, I sent it back. Loading routes into it was a real PITA, the routes the app plotted were terrible compared to Komoot's and it didn't have re-routing.
AidanR 10 hours ago
@Rendel Harris I'm not sure why trips made is a better metric than miles travelled, but yes, that does yield a 9x difference for cars vs bicycles in pedestrian deaths. The real anomaly using that basis, though, are motorcyclists, who are a staggering 72x more likely to kill a pedestrian per trip than a cyclist. That suggests that speed, more than mass, is the real danger. And that young men are the greatest danger of all.
Rendel Harris 10 hours ago
@chrisonabike Indeed, you put your finger on another problem with the fatality statistics in that we don't know in how many of the fatal incidents the driver/cyclist was to blame. If the two cyclist-caused-pedestrian fatalities the pedestrian was drunk and fell off the pavement into the path of the cyclist that could obviously change the lethality ratio considerably if factored in. Perhaps lethality should be measured as drivers/cyclists found guilty of causing death per chosen metric, rather than simply numbers killed?
chrisonabike 10 hours ago
Finally (on cyclists and junctions) cyclists may not be as observant themselves there. While junctions are high-mental-workload spaces (or should be...) for all road users I suspect cyclists - mixing with the motor traffic - are going to be focusing strongly on that for obvious reasons. Which is again why in places which are more advanced in this respect not only are junctions given better designs *, but network-level thought goes in to routes for each mode, the better to minimise the need for interactions. Especially when speeds might be higher. * Separation in space and/or time when modes cross, explicit space for different modes so it's clear who goes where / what to expect...
chrisonabike 10 hours ago
I'm not sure about the "60% of pedestrians killed at junctions are killed by cyclists" number, but i *could* believe it's relatively high. Why? Other "qualitative differences" - "noticeability" and "expectation". In the simplest sense cyclists are smaller and quieter than motor vehicles. (There's a lot of "looking with our ears" when eg. crossing roads believe). But more: in the UK we *expect* cars. We've learned to deal with cars both by formal teaching and daily experience. We know "how drivers behave" - where to expect them. I strongly suspect it's not just drivers "only looking for the motor vehicles". We don't *expect* cyclists. And (if taken at face value) there's a lot of quote anecdata that people are genuinely surprised by them / completely unfamiliar with cyclist behaviour on roads (except "they all jump red lights"...) - "came out of nowhere" / "never saw them" / " they were down the road, then suddenly they were right there" / wasn't expecting them to"...
chrisonabike 10 hours ago
A key one is "speed" as obviously injury is strongly related to that, and the 20-30mph region is where IIRC "mostly injured" crosses over to "mostly killed". Cars would be expected to be at higher speeds, for more of the time. That may be reduced in some places however eg. congested rush hours, and where "mixing" may be most likely the environment may cue lower speeds (narrow streets).
27 thoughts on “road.cc live blog: BBC guest likens cyclists to Nazis, big Black Friday deals and more”
Given the evils that the
Given the evils that the Nazis actually did in WWII, it’s an insult to the victims that this troll is making such a vapid connection. He should be ashamed. But he probably doesn’t have sufficient intelligence to understand why.
George loves to cause a fuss.
George loves to cause a fuss. If it’s not commenting on a rape victim: “Is there no blame now to the person who puts themselves in danger?” it’s Nazism and cyclists. Fully discredited yet still given airtime
I try to use this word
I try to use this word sparingly, but what a fucktard.
MonkeyPuzzle wrote:
I was thinking more…
CygnusX1 wrote:
Kudos!!
Distasteful and adds more
Distasteful and adds more insult to injury after yesterday’s incident with a cyclist here in NI.
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-northern-ireland-42008898
aries2580 wrote:
Truly shocking, I hope the young man is recovering.
Nolan Live is particularly
Nolan Live is particularly spiteful show. They specialize in bringing experts in to the panel & then ignoring them to give the crazies a run-out. Cannon fodder to make sure that his early morning radio show here in Norn Iron (The biggest show in the country as he likes to remind you every 9 minutes) gets lots of traffic with people ranting about what they saw the night before. Instant switch-off material. His bias makes me sick.
Time to make a complaint to
Time to make a complaint to the BBC I think.
Can’t have dickheads like this being paid out of the license fee.
Comparing cyclists to Nazis
Comparing cyclists to Nazis is somewhat ironic. Hitler hated cyclists with a vengeance and was very much a supporter of cars instead (especially VolksWagen). You can quite easily draw the parallels between Nazi philosophy and the “might is right” philosophy out on the roads.
Is that supposed to be a nazi
Is that supposed to be a nazi salute in the photo?
Just submitted a complaint to
Just submitted a complaint to the BBC about it. Absolutely disgusting that they broadcast that kind of hate speech.
hawkinspeter wrote:
I’m thinking of making a complaint to the police, it is indeed a hate crime and one that was allowed to be aired on a public funded channel, absolutely disgraceful!
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Nice idea, I’ve just filled in a hate-speech crime report.
Why was George given airtime,
Why was George given airtime, and why is he not being arrested for hatecrime?
What a horrible scumbag. He’s
What a horrible scumbag. He’s the type of person you’ll never have a reasoned argument with, it’s his way or the highway.
I always have to think when I
I always have to think when I see/hear people make comments similar to what that old grumpy looking bloke said.
Replace the word cyclist with another minority group (homosexuals, muslims, jews, etc.etc.), if it makes you sound like a right-wing psychopath – probably best not to say it.
It just seems that a lot of the general public deem it acceptable to voice what is essentially hate speech.
The silly old fool (who is I
The silly old fool (who is I suspect younger than me!) Is the very image of the old buffers that hoot at me as they pass after deeming that my failure to ride through the pot holes at the side of road, has impeeded their progress by a few seconds! A blow hard with too little brain and far too much access to the mass media is best ignored.
Getting quite militant here
Getting quite militant here of late!
@ BTBS – you posted an image of a letter from one of the schools implementing the licence plate policy in the comments Are you Road.cc’s source of the story and/or a parent/carer of one of the pupils ?
If so, Sam Jones (Campaigns & Communicaions Coordinator) at Cycling UK would like to hear from you… campaigns [at] cyclinguk [dot] org
CygnusX1 wrote:
Sadly I’m not otherwise I’d be all over it like a rash, it took only a couple of minutes dectective work to find the newsletter in the public domain and that Mr ‘do as i say otherwise you will be punished’ had taken up the headmaster’s position at beacon school from the ‘parent’ Glyn school (of which they are part of group of schools funded together) which had previously enforced the number plate/helmet rules (from at least April) where he was deputy head.
The link between the two schools and the sudden rules change whilst he has come into power is there to see.
You represent the Islamic
You represent the Islamic community, who break every known law of the land, for whom women mean nothing, for whom personal freedom means nothing, for whom pubs mean nothing, for whom religious freedom means nothing. There is an entitlement among the fanatics – and they are, they are fanatics.
OR
You represent the cycling community, who break every known law of the road, for whom red lights mean nothing, for whom pedestrian crossings mean nothing, for whom one-way streets mean nothing, for whom pedestrian ways mean nothing. There is an entitlement among the fanatics – and they are, they are fanatics.
Try posting the first quote on a BBC comments page and if it doesn’t get moderated into outer space I would be amazed AND infuriated. But what’s the difference between quote one and quote two?
If you haven’t already, you
If you haven’t already, you may like to read Peter Walker’s piece in the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2017/nov/17/why-are-cyclists-the-one-minority-group-the-bbc-feels-its-ok-to-demonise
ricardito wrote:
exactly the same comments, on both sides, as you’d get in a DM comments section. Only difference being that the Guardian readers all have a thesaurus, and know how to use it.
Well, they knew what Hook was
Well, they knew what Hook was like before they invited him, so some clown in the Nolan show team really neefs the kicking. George’s brain is probably too mashed to notice any more.
oldstrath wrote:
This.
And take note that the Nolan Show was actively engaging in promoting hatred against cyslists: Hook’s own statement is that he went there under the impression he was to be given airtime as part of an “anti-cycling” viewpoint. What sort of cynical, lazy stupid fucks are the showrunner, host, producer and commissioning editor?
Haters hate; if they aren’t
Haters hate; if they aren’t allowed by law to hate because of sex, religion or skin colour, they’ll just have to hate those it’s legal to hate; cyclists.
He’s just a sad old man who only knows how to hate.
I personally met Mr Hook
I personally met Mr Hook recently, sat him down and had a friendly chat.
It was friendly until I told him I was an avid cyclist and asked if he might tone down his comments as a media voice that had the effect of making it more dangerous for me to ride my bike.
He went a little red in the face but I persevered and invited him to come cycling with me and my fellow club mates so he could get a new perspective and maybe see my point of view. He took my phone number and said he would call to arrange.
I’m still waiting Mr Hook, when you have the guts, you have my number.