Cycling UK Forum

Richard D

It’d be nice to think that our politicians were smart enough to close the Barreto loophole. Because drivers and their defence lawyers are certainly smart enough to use it.

But the problem with the detection of a mobile phone in use in a motor car (apart from doing nothing to deal with the Barreto issue) is that it would also detect the phone used by any passenger. Getting the Government - or any manufacturer - to come up with a way to stop passengers using their phones is cloud-cuckoo-lame thinking (I’d say that about two thirds of the car passengers I spot are on their phones these days).

Richard D

Hopefully lots of people caught this morning's interview on BBC Breakfast with Chris Boardman. He made all his points clearly, calmly and coherently, despite one interviewer trying to bait Chris into condemning people who cycle for more than an hour (allowed) or for long distances (also allowed).

Richard D

Navrig wrote:I'm not in the UK just now and not subject to these restrictions but from what I have read on various websites and social media sites the issue not so much the time but the increased risk of having to call on emergency services if you have an accident. Obviously the risk increases with time. The Government is trying to limit the demand on services which are dealing with the CV-19 situation.

If that is the motivation (and noting the absurdity that people staying at home and "having a crack at some DIY" is a major cause of A&E visits, I would say that there is a very simple measure the Government could take to reduce the risk of collisions out on the roads - and recalling that the vast majority of the incidents involving the attendance of emergency services will involve one or more motor vehicles.

That is to temporarily impose lower speed limits in vehicles. Drop motorway speeds to 50, the NSR on other roads to 40, and the speed limit in all built-up areas to 20. That’ll slash the number of collisions.

Whereas in fact there is increasingly compelling evidence that some drivers are using the reduction in traffic to INCREASE their speeds, well above that permitted. A young lad was killed nearby two evenings' ago by a speeding motorist, and the Police have noted some particularly high speeds in several city centres.

Richard D

That Vaaru is what I’m staring at for my 50th birthday present. I’ve been saving for the last two years - although looking down my spec list, I’m not sure that I’ve saved quite enough yet!

Richard D

Velo cancelled, no refunds.

I'm not surprised at the first part; I'm not terribly surprised by the second part either. No option to hold the booking over to another year.

"Put plainly, refunding participant entry fees now is not something our business could absorb."

So they take the money and run. Sure, they'll have had some layout at this stage, but they will be making profit from this no doubt.

Richard D

I use a 592ml Kleen Kanteen insulated bottle. And the non-insulated version when I don’t need to keep something hot/cold.

Richard D

mjr wrote:No-one other than racers need their brake levers to wobble sideways, adding complexity and cost while reducing compatibility and functionality.

That said, hopefully a solution is in sight

You’re 100% correct, save that there is already an answer to this problem. Campagnolo. No sideways motion of the brake levers at all. Love mine.

Richard D

These days many parents ride on the pavement with their children! We have allowed the roads to become an unpleasant, feral space for anyone not in a metal box.

Richard D

LittleGreyCat wrote:(*) Brifters - I am used to mountain bike style trigger shifters which have indicators to show which gear you are in. I find this very useful when I am not sure which combination of gears I am using. Forum response was "You should know which gear you are in without looking.". Umm....yeah? and "Just look down." but I have difficulty seeing if the chain is on smallest or next smallest cog most of the time.

The brifters with the indicators built in tend to be pretty low-end equipment.

The solution is to know which of the chain rings you need to be in for any given speed - and there is a gear calculator on Sheldon Brown's website. I know that at my preferred cadence, if I’m going slower than 14mph I really ought to be on the small chain ring, and at faster than 16mph the big chain ring. Between those figures it really doesn’t matter. Knowing this, I only need to look at my speedo and change if I think I’m in the wrong one.

Richard D

Space blanket. Ibuprofen.

The first is very handy if you have a genuine emergency in the micturating wet. I did, and I didn't have one. I was blue by the time they loaded me into the ambulance.

The second is to stop the first getting lonely.

Richard D

Negligence, giving rise to loss or damage, is a civil tort. The purpose of the civil law is to compensate someone when someone else does something wrong - breaches a contract, trespasses on the victim's land or person, causes them loss or damage though their actions.

There is not a general crime of "negligence". Although some criminal offences import negligence into their essential elements, precisely how is usually a matter for the statute that creates the offence.

All first term of a law degree sort of stuff, which goes into much more detail as to the hows and whys.

Driving is an interesting one. A every road user owes a duty of care to every other road user, negligence is the test for establishing civil liability. But the criminal offence of careless driving looks quite a lot like the same essentials that are required to establish negligence.

As Gaz has already said, we have driving offences layered on top of the civil law because society expects certain standards t be maintained on the road (allegedly; I’m seeing less and less evidence that actually supports this idea).

Richard D

Cunobelin wrote:We could ask about black cars - a bad idea?

We never get hysterical responses about black or dark coloured cars...

"Victim-blaming" is much, much less prevalent when it’s someone in a black car who is hit rather than someone on a bike.

Richard D

atlas_shrugged wrote:Complete madness not to build the parallel maintenance track / Greenway for these reasons:

Rail tracks require maintenance access roads which are often perpendicular to the rail track. Put these roads parallel end-to-end next to the track and you have your Greenway which can also be used by track maintenance vehicles.

Passengers require access to the stations and vulnerable users may not be able to use the roads safely (wheelchairs, kids etc). Many passengers need to avoid rip-off car parking charges at the stations. Providing Greenways solves these access problems.

There is a health payback with Greenways because of active travel, environment improvements, congestion improvements etc. The governments should pass on these savings to the contractors building the Greenway. The UK is after all the fattest EU western nation.

Maintenance contractors can lower carbon footprint vehicles to traverse the Greenway in order to access the track. Currently large vans are used to transport only e.g. two maintenance engineers. Journey times are also long because the route is not direct.

A parallel Greenway actually adds to rail passenger traffic because tourists may use the Greenway and then take a rail journey back.

I had no idea that this was ever considered officially, but as soon as I heard of HS2 I thought that such a (mostly) parallel maintenance road/cycle path would make total sense. Which pretty much guarantees that it’d never get built, of course.

The route for HS2 absolutely blights many of our local lanes, which will require quite a lot of changes to routes that local clubs have been riding for years. They’ve already announced plenty of roads that will be closed - small ones, less used by cars, in other words exactly the sort of lanes we cycle. Same happened when they built the BNRR (M6Toll). Having at least some of HS2 paralleled by cycle path would have made a huge difference to how much of an impact the railway line will make, but no.

Richard D

thirdcrank wrote:I fancy some of this depends on the location. If you stop at a café which is well-known as a place popular with cyclists, then it might attract thieves with a big van who could just lift them in and then away. The only safe bike would be the one that was locked to something substantial.

My solution is to ride a bike that looks worst than everyone else’s, and to use a lock that looks a bit better than theirs.

After all, I don’t have to outrun the bear ...

Richard D

Remind them how much space you’d be taking up if you had a parking space instead of a bicycle?

9494arnold wrote:Hot Desking : I thankfully don't have to do it, but at our Nerve Centre they do, and have done for a couple of years. I believe there are actually less desks than People (which is what Hot Desking is mostly about) which is usually mitigated by Leave/Shift work hours / People going out and about to do their work.
But I did hear stories about folk coming into work earlier by increment to "claim" a desk (we work Flexitime)

Our place has had it "nominally" for about five years, in as much as every team has its usually seating position, and although anyone could sit there in theory, in practice they never did.

Unfortunately someone’s decided to close all the satellite offices AND employ more staff, so now we've been told that we have to hot desk for real. And adopt a "clear desk" policy. To make MOST of the required desks, they’re currently installing loads of new, smaller desks. Won’t work for me or my team; everyone else is pretty much paperless, but on any given day I have about 20 files on my desk and another 800 or so being shuttled back and forwards to the large filing room we use. I’ve already told them where they can stick the idea of hot desking and clear desks! We’re a team of 8-9, and have been allocated 7 desks in the refurb. Unfortunately for the other teams, we're ALWAYS on site, and usually at our desks an hour before most people arrive.

On the plus side, as soon as the refurb is finished I can get my bike back in the bike shed. Right now it’s full of refurb stuff

Cycling UK Forum

Search found 288 matches

Re: Automatic detection of drivers using mobile phones

Superb interview by Chris Boardman on BBC Breakfast

Re: Coronavirus cafes

Re: What endurance road bike would you buy?

Midlands Velo cancelled

Re: Thermos for bidon holder?

Re: Buying a touring bike - things I didn't know

Re: Why do drivers think this acceptable?

Re: Buying a touring bike - things I didn't know

Re: First aid kit?

Re: Negligence history

Re: Black Waterproof jackets - a bad idea?

Re: Scrapped HS2 bike path "5 times better value"

Re: Lightweight bike lock

Re: Cycle2Work and Hot Desking (where do i put my kit)