BS: Bleeping Cyclist

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 15 Sep 23 - 12:09 PM

Minor problem: the Highway Code was written on the assumption that people behave rationally at all times. That doesn't hold in this post-politeness era, any more than the premise which underlies most economic theories that everybody behaves as a Rational Actor.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 15 Sep 23 - 05:50 AM

OK, folks, you provoked me into it:

Herself's cousin was in the Belgian police force. He was brought in on a case where a coloured cyclist, wearing black at night, and cycling without lights along (I *think*) the English side of the road, was hit by a vehicle and put in hospital. As the cyclist could speak neither Flemish nor French, Herself's cousin was brought in as interpreter. He reported to us that the cyclist kept saying: "But I put out my hand to turn right ...."

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 11:33 AM

Sounds to me, Raggytash, like the offenders were going for a Darwin Award. At least they weren't riding on the left along a Belgian road [full story available on request].

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 08:06 AM

> it's amazing how many cyclists choose to ride on the pavement along
> the quietest roads imaginable.

The roads with the rim-chewing potholes? I used to have decently wide rims and well-inflated fat tyres in self-defence; even so, when I had to replace one wheel, then happened to cycle on a bit of flat pavement, I was surprised how un-lumpy the ride was, thence how bad my rims had got without me noticing.

The youngsters these days have racing rims with next to no metal in them, then wonder why half a hiccup in the road surface totals the wheels.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 12:23 PM

Meanwhile, back at the subject:

Wrath at two-abreast slowcoaches: In such situations, the driver's temper was lost the previous N times it happened, and is now pre-lost and ready to go *sproing* with zero notice. (Herself's usually a gentle soul, but I've seen her catch fire from a standing start at two old biddies gossiping as they cycle along a narrow winding country road. Happily, she doesn't use her car as an offensive weapon.) Hearing a phone-answering robot produces similar hair-trigger nonlinearities in most people.

"Otherisation": a good word. I'll see you that, and raise you "particularism" (identifying oneself with a subgroup, rather than all of society) as its flip side. Mayhap it's all due to the shock of finding that other people don't have identical viewpoints to oneself.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 11:42 AM

> Never heard that theory but it's a good one. Which Heinlein story?

Friday, towards the end of Chapter 23. The section thereof (pp 291--293 in my paperback edition) where Friday and Boss are discussing the symptoms of a sick culture .... chillingly prophetic, given that the book was published in 1983.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 07:03 PM

> Where did this nasty enmity come from?

Heinlein's Theory of Personal Rudeness: people being aggressive to one another is a symptom of a dying culture. All the more worrying, as the person being aggressive sees it, not as a sign of weakness, but of strength.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: BobL
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 02:55 AM

If I were still cycling, I think I'd wear a black leather motorcycling jacket. One with metal studs down the outside of each arm.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: BobL
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 04:07 AM

Too many points for comfort are a good incentive to self-train in speedo watching...

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 16 Sep 23 - 06:57 AM

Legislation is pointless unless it is rigidly and robustly enforced, and sufficient enforcement officers are employed to make this happen on every street 24 hours/day. The only way that would happen would be for the Home Secretary/Treasury to at least double the staffing budget for every police force - which would in reality have to increase taxes, cut services, or but the burden on local authorities/metropolitan mayors. I wouldn't put it past the government, however to churn out anti-cyclist hate propaganda blaming cyclists for the lac of effective policing, or even direct blame to people coming to this country some way or other.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 15 Sep 23 - 06:09 PM

MtF simple answer rewrite the Highway Code to encompass every possible 'what if' scenario which includes guidance for all road/pavement/ crossing users in the event of every possible infringement. No problem if it runs to tens of thousands of pages.

BTW in the 20 minutes it took me to get home tonight:
(2

(1) E scooter rider mounted and continued to ride on the pavement.

(2) E bike ride without lights, swerving onto the wrong side of the road to cut off a bend and had to swerve back to avoid a head on collision. If that had been a fatal collision, what is the bet that the police would have victimised bus users by closing off the road?

(3) Another cyclist without lights.

Police need to get off their backsides and ensure that they are working 24 hours a day (collectively)on every street to enforce road regulations. if it takes a million + extra pace, it is worth 90% pay cuts to protect people's lives.

Alternatively cyclist could start behaving responsibly.

Alternatively, if the minority of cylists/scooter riders insist on not giving a toss about anyone but themselves, seize and scrap every scooter in the UK and make Deliveroo rider who seem to be the worst offenders either walk or catch a bus to make their deliveries.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 15 Sep 23 - 09:32 AM

Yep, got disoriented trying to envisage what direction traffic is coming from sitting at a desk (and I'm left handed). I suppose left right left would apply to most of the world except for a few countries where there do not seem to be any rules judging by the way most people drive.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 15 Sep 23 - 07:29 AM

A cyclist riding in dark clothes without lights on the wrong side of the road does have a chance of being seen in oncoming cars headlamps.

However where I live, there are cyclist who find it fun swerving from one side of the road to the other - without notice - or mounting the pavement - without notice.

DoT and Local authorities will not spend money putting up proper signage so pedestrians now where cyclists are going to behave stupidly.

Also, as pedestrians, from our childhood, we are taught road drill which advises looking left and right and left again (ie a final look in the direction traffic should be coming from). We are also taught that it is safer to cross the road at zebra and pelican crossings, but not taught to keep stopping and starting while crossing the road in case a cyclist or driver has no intention of stopping at a red light. Further to that if a car or more particularly a bus, van, people carrier or any other higher sided vehicle stops at a traffic light, it is not always possible to see if a cyclist is about to under/overtake it while stopped, so the highway code should say when crossing the road, stop after crossing the path of each vehicle and check if their are any approaching cyclists or other vehicles, and wait for them to stop or jump the crossing before proceding any further.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 08:51 AM

Just because e-bikes can travel at 17mh that doesn't means that they should be ridden at that speed all the time without due care and attention, even on the pavement. Maybe I am wrong, and it is the legal duty of us pedestrians to make sure that we do not get in the way of our betters, and if we are not able to do so, then we should just sty at home 24 hours/day and wait for our lives to end. I am sure e-bikes and scooters are not cheap, so we are clearly an inferior race.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: SPB-Cooperator
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 09:41 AM

If e-bike riders insist on riding at speed at night with no light, the least car car drivers could do is turn their headlights OFF so that pedestrians have a better chance of seeing the cyclists undertaking them. But then, us pedestrians are inferior to cyclists, and our safety doesn't matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: G-Force
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 03:54 AM

No, Thompson, not entitlement, just a reasonable expectation that a car can drive at the speed of a car unless there's an unavoidable obstruction ahead. Slow cyclists two abreast are not that, they can get out of the way.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: G-Force
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 05:06 PM

Aw shucks guys, I'm not really the angry type at all, but I do like to get a bit sweary when I'm behind the wheel, it helps to get me through the day (I actually dislike driving). I'm also a cyclist, and a pedestrian, and I sometimes tow a caravan, so I'm well aware of the different capabilities of the various users of the bit of road we all have to share. A slow vehicle in front of my car is just one of life's minor passing irritations - you can't do much about it. But two cyclists side by side and not getting out of the way of the queue of cars behind them is an example of the kind of sense of entitlement which just makes the world a less good place. A bit like dog owners, but that's a different thread.

So just pull over into single file, it doesn't hurt.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: G-Force
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 04:32 AM

But if you are two cyclists side by side on a narrow road ...

get out of the %#@&/×+ way!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 03:13 PM

If you were to hit unlit cyclists wearing dark clothes in the dark, I'd say it was very unlikely that you'd be charged with anything. Unless you have an example of this having happened.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 07:35 PM

"Most cyclists"? Don't be daft!

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 04:26 PM

There was a time when a tractor would just be going a short distance before turning in to a neighbouring field. These days, it's all about contractors hired by farms, travelling many a mile at snail's pace. Most of them seem to revel in slowing everyone else down and gleefully missing many an opportunity to pull in to let the convoy pass. B*ast**ards...

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 12:01 PM

Thing is, Doug, the two-abreast ding-dong we've been having started with this:

"But if you are two cyclists side by side on a narrow road ..." That's not quite the same thing as a peloton! Of course I've seen the latter and I've been stuck behind. Two things there: first, it isn't easy, and possibly quite dangerous, for ten or twenty cyclists to be constantly falling into single file. Secondly, look at Thomson's video again. Particularly on narrower roads, it's safer and quicker to overtake a bunch riding two abreast than to squeeze all of them into the gutter to overtake them in single file. On narrow or winding roads round here we have to put up with slow milk tankers, tractors and horse boxes (and 97-year-olds in Honda Jazzes) as well as occasional bunches of cyclists (even a single cyclist can slow you down for hundreds of yards round here). Who's going to say which of those road users, holidaymakers' cars included, have more right to be there...?

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 10:42 AM

Refer to the Highway Code.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 06:42 AM

Yes it is, Doug. But the misfire comes with the extremely arrogant attitude of a bloke in his gas-guzzling tin overcoat screaming swearwords at two people who are just flesh and blood in the open air. I've been driving cars and riding bikes for well over half a century and I can't ever remember encountering two-abreast cyclists who wouldn't give way to a car behind once they'd become aware of it. Seems to me that his anger was somewhat confected. By the way, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with two abreast, when you consider that a car driver is "two abreast" whether he has a passenger or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 06:02 AM

Yeah, bit of a misfire there, G-Force...

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 03:54 AM

If you are a cyclist,

You're quiet

You're non-polluting

You take up very little space on the road

Your machine required far less materials to make

Your machine used far less fossil fuels and water to make

Your machine will last for decades (I have a brilliant bike that I bought in 1989 that I've done tens of thousands of miles on)

Your machine is easy and cheap to maintain, needing only tiny amounts of resources

At the end of its life most of it can be recycled at the local tip, not stacked on top of dozens of others in an ugly scrapyard

The cycling will have kept me fit and saved the NHS a fortune

When I'm not using it, it won't take up space on the street or in vast car parks

I can see over hedges, breathe fresh air, work up a healthy sweat, hear the wind in the trees, get a tan and listen to the birds and bees

I can do 30 miles to the pint of water, two bananas and a Hobnob or two.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Sep 23 - 01:43 PM

We have a lot of old codgers here in Bude and the standard of driving is execrable (I won't dwell on this outburst of whataboutery...) I have an electric Brompton which, if I wanted to, I could hammer along on at at least 20mph, which I don't. The electric assist cuts out at 15mph, after which is goes from being a breeze into being a right heavy bugger. My brommie is for tootling only.

And I've just typed a sentence there, perfectly grammatical, that has "at" twice in a row! In tandem, eh? (see what I did there?)

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 04 Sep 23 - 03:52 AM

My car dashboard shows the speed limit on the road I'm on, except when it's the national 60/70 limit, when it doesn't. .

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 05:28 AM

from the main road. Sheesh!

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 31 Aug 23 - 05:25 AM

Well, long before the era of dashcams, helmet cams or handlebar cams (or whatever cams), I was cycling home from Holsworthy to Bude one afternoon and had just reached Holsworthy golf course when the no 9 bus overtook me so close that I had to tuck my elbows in, ride in the gutter and shut my eyes praying for deliverance until he'd passed. I'd clearly been invisible to him despite my hi-viz Sam Browne belt. My shaking at this near-death encounter turned to rage and I rang the police when I got home, thinking that the bus driver could easily be identified (there were only four buses a day).

Nothing happened for weeks, then one night as I was putting the cat out (it was 11.45 pm!) a police patrol car pulled into our drive. Oh my God, who's dead, have they finally twigged which four-year-old shoplifted that licorice Penny Arrow in 1955...

"Er, everything OK, Chief Inspector...?"

"Yes, I just happened to be passing at the end of me shift so I thought I'd report back on your complaint about the bus driver...." (We are over half a mile down farm lanes from tge

The police had contacted the bus company, who had tracked down the driver and questioned him. He'd said that he had no recollection of the incident and didn't remember seeing a cyclist (!) Unfortunately, as there'd been no witnesses the police were unable to take the matter further.

I was very impressed with the police's response - but a cop car pulling into your drive at quarter to midnight!!

(I made up the Penny Arrow bit, by the way...)

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Sep 23 - 07:40 AM

”Also, as pedestrians, from our childhood, we are taught road drill which advises looking left and right and left again (ie a final look in the direction traffic should be coming from)”

Errrrmm…Right, Left, and Right again, surely? ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 01:25 PM

There is no such offence as ‘Vehicular Homicide’ in the U.K. The nearest we have is ‘Causing Death by Dangerous Driving’.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 03:47 PM

”The latest road rules put pedestrians at the top of the tree”

That was the intention for sure, Dave, but it doesn’t seem to work very well - I don’t recall the last time a road-user gave way for me, a pedestrian, to cross at a road junction. I’d venture to suggest that examples of road-users following the new rules regarding pedestrians are, as me owd mother used to say, “as rare as rocking-hoss shit”! ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 02:17 AM

Surely it's the driver who has the sense of entitlement? Two cyclists are the same width as one car. Drive a little slowly for a short while and you'll find a safe place to pass.
Best driver I ever met was a TV cameraman who had been given a defensive driving course as part of his professional training. I was his passenger, and was giving about about a bad driver ahead, and he remarked calmly that he'd been taught not to attach emotion to other road users.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 12:55 PM

I will never understand why drivers seem to be bouncing with rage so much of the time. They're sitting their in their comfy chair in a climate-protected room, listening to their favourite music as they glide through the roads - and yet they obviously hate the journey if anything that's going to slow it by even a moment causes them to weep and beep and screech.
Odd, too, that someone who will sit patiently for 20 minutes behind a tractor or a flock of sheep turns into a maniac if it's someone on a bicycle that's on the road in front of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 05:44 AM

Reminding me of the Homer Simpson line when a judge asks him "Were you cycling two abreast?" - "I wish! We were cycling to a lake!"
Why cyclists should cycle two abreast.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 05:41 AM

Why, G-Force? How many of you are in the car? And why are you so angry?

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Sep 23 - 02:57 AM

Never heard that theory but it's a good one. Which Heinlein story?

The "otherisation" of cyclists is being fomented by right-wing publications. (By "otherisation" I mean the way that a group is identified with its members. So, my sister's little car was damaged by a big bruiser of a cyclist who scraped along it and didn't stop to apologise or offer compensation. If this had been a driver, she'd have been furious with *that driver*, but, a victim of propaganda, she now sees *all cyclists* as inherently evil. This is, of course, stupid, but it's being really pushed by right-wing newspapers, shock jocks and TV.)

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 05:15 PM

The speed limiter I'd be talking about, on ebikes, would be absolute: maximum 25km/h.
As far as I know, speed limiters for cars are mostly linked to electronics at locations with particular speed limits.
However, I understand that Brooklyn is considering speed-limiting the cars of repeat scofflaws to force them to keep it in their pants.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 04:12 AM

I wear a Sam Browne hi-viz belt, relying on this to trigger memories in older people and nostalgia-fake-memories in the young from watching old shows, and make people go "Eeeek! Cop!" But a friend was puzzled some months ago when on a trip to his son's or daughter's sports field he was close-passed dangerously several times; on the way back, holding the hurley that had been left behind (for Americans, hurling is a traditional Irish game that combines hockey and psychopathy), drivers were meekly mannerly.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 09 Sep 23 - 02:33 AM

Could be. People are indignant about all kinds of surprising things, and they're buying (*where* do they get the money?) giant tank-like cars that can scarcely be possible to drive safely, but must make them feel safe inside in the dark there with only their phone.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 03:17 PM

Incidentally… 
I've been cycling around or about 70 years now. But it's only in the last couple of years that people in cars, and to an extent people walking, have become really horrible to me.
Now, as I cycle along, people in cars jab their fingers to the side of the road, incorrectly telling me that this is where I should be cycling.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phNMzsRrbNU
People drive too close to me if I'm wearing a helmet (unless, oddly, I'm carrying visible greenery or flowers on the back). If I *don't wear a helmet, my grey locks are no impediment to their impertinence in lecturing me about why I should.
Where did this nasty enmity come from?

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Thompson
Date: 08 Sep 23 - 02:56 PM

More or less universally, studies of road law breaking show cyclists break far fewer laws, and break the law fewer times, than motorists.
Virtually all bicycles sold today (apart from folding bikes) have disc brakes, which make it possible to stop not just on a dime but on a nickel.
Most road deaths, by a spectacular level of difference, are caused by four-wheeled motorised vehicles. The same with most life-changing injuries.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Tunesmith
Date: 23 Sep 23 - 07:19 AM

The Highway Code in the UK is joke. It seems to have great concerns about pedestrian safety but the Code doesn't reflect that. There are too many "should" rules which have no teeth; indeed as motorists ignore the "must" rules what chance have "should" rules.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Tunesmith
Date: 14 Sep 23 - 06:40 AM

My observations have more cyclists on pavements than the road; of course, this will probably vary from place to place. ALSO, it's amazing how many cyclists choose to ride on the pavement along the quietest roads imaginable. BTW, I bet most cyclist under say 30, in the UK, don't know that the law forbids bikes on the pavement. Now, how has this situation arisen? Well, ask one of those local police officers. You know, the ones with one blind eye!

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Tunesmith
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 05:43 PM

Well, let's get real! In the UK, most cyclists ignore the Highway Code which clearly states that cyclists must not cycle on the pavement. Of the police have very worryingly decided to change the law and have - again very worryingly - been allowed to get away with it.

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 02:34 PM

... someone who will sit patiently for 20 minutes behind a tractor or a flock of sheep ....

PATIENTLY? I only have to see a tractor in the distance and my hackles start to rise - even before I've worked out if it's ahead of me, on my side of the road, or coming towards me on the other side of the road. We have lots of tractors around here.

Sheep? We don't get many flocks of sheep on the roads around here, so meeting one is something of a novelty. Funnily enough, I actually came upon one on Sunday on the back roads of the Lincolnshire Wolds. I just put on the hand brake, sat in neutral and enjoyed the pleasure of being out in the countryside until they had passed.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 11:20 AM

I'll go along with 'misfire' for the "%#@&/×+" part of G-Force's post.

I've been driving cars and riding bikes for well over half a century and I can't ever remember encountering two-abreast cyclists who wouldn't give way to a car behind once they'd become aware of it.

As DtG pointed out, upthread, there are poor standards in all walks of life and it's the badly behaved ones who get noticed. I am surprised, however, at your claim never to have encountered the problem set out above.

The main road I live on connects the roads coming from the countryside to main roads leading into either side of town. Although we now have a by-pass, it still carries traffic of all sorts and is on a bus route. More than once, I have been in my front garden and seen a group of six or more lycra-clad cyclists go by, two abreast, chatting away, seemingly oblivious to the queue of traffic behind them. I have driven behind such a group as they left the village into the 40mph section of road, still two abreast and ignoring the segregated cycle track.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 13 Sep 23 - 06:21 AM

Why a misfire, Steve? According to you, moving out of the way is the morally correct thing to do if there is an impatient convoy behind you.

DC

Subject: RE: BS: Bleeping Cyclist
From: Doug Chadwick
Date: 06 Sep 23 - 06:21 AM

I arrived home by bus yesterday afternoon and was about to get off on the pedestrian only side of the road. The bus had stopped at the bus stop, the doors were open and I was making my towards the exit, with a guitar case in one hand and a bag in the other, when an electric scooter went wizzing by on the footpath from behind the bus. A few seconds difference and there would have been a serious accident as he couldn't see if passengers were getting off and there was no way he could have stopped in time. He was not wearing a helmet or any other form of protection that I could see.

DC