Search found 1148 matches

by Bez
25 Jun 2019, 5:44pm
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Language pedants
Replies: 56
Views: 2020

Re: Language pedants

hodge wrote:A proofreader would place a plural possessive apostrophe after the s, in folks ie - folks' written language - and suggest the closed spelling 'proofread' rather than 'proof read', as the currently accepted norm. :wink:


Hopefully they'd also sort out the comma in the first sentence, and then come back to fix your placement of dashes and commas. And then a typographer would give you his best Paddington Stare for the use of hyphens instead of dashes.

Can of worms? Don't mind if I do. ;)
by Bez
25 Jun 2019, 4:06pm
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Language pedants
Replies: 56
Views: 2020

Re: Language pedants

pwa wrote:I'm waiting for someone to invent a radio that detects when a song has finished playing and goes straight to another song, cutting out the DJ, the ads and the jingles.


Try Internet radio. Plenty of stations with no DJs, and often minimal ads and jingles.
by Bez
24 Jun 2019, 3:38pm
Forum: The Tea Shop
Topic: Language pedants
Replies: 56
Views: 2020

Re: Language pedants

pwa wrote:I take my car to a garage with a misplaced apostrophe on the sign outside … I don't go to him for good punctuation.


Do you drive one of these? :)

Image

PS: what Mick F said.
by Bez
23 Jun 2019, 8:22am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

Only if there’s acknowledgment that both context and idiom are of fundamental importantance to meaning and therefore it’s naive and wrong to take one narrow definition of a word and apply it indiscriminately.

:)
by Bez
22 Jun 2019, 12:51pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

“Can we stop arguing about helmets?”

:wink:
by Bez
18 Jun 2019, 10:56pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

Tangled Metal wrote:Storm in a teacup? The situation is exactly the same as a car hitting you on public roads as a car hitting you on the docks. If the fault is motorist's their lawyers will try to reduce the insurer's bill by contributory negligence.


Right. So BF's pointers make no difference. So this thread is a storm in a teacup, no? :)
by Bez
18 Jun 2019, 5:25pm
Forum: Campaigning & Public Policy
Topic: Cyclist 50% to blame for hitting pedestrian
Replies: 227
Views: 20053

Re: Cyclist blamed in cyclist-pedestrian collision

If only he were right. From memory of cases that tick a number of those boxes, not only would you not be deemed liable, but the police would make a pretty impressive job of defending you.
by Bez
18 Jun 2019, 5:03pm
Forum: Campaigning & Public Policy
Topic: Cyclist 50% to blame for hitting pedestrian
Replies: 227
Views: 20053

Re: Cyclist blamed in cyclist-pedestrian collision

I think my main objection here is not that someone cycling is liable, but that had this been someone driving it would have been a slam-dunk case of the person on foot being at fault.

In general I subscribe to the principle that the logic of presumed liability should extend below the threshold of motor vehicles vs unmotorised vehicles/individuals (although also to the principle that this is merely a presumption and that each case has its own merits*), and to be honest I'm in favour of people being able to walk around carelessly. To me that seems to go hand in hand with principles of sustainable (and equitable) safety. Protect the rights of someone distracted by a phone and the by-product is that you protect the rights of someone else on foot who legitimately has poor "road sense", or who has significant cognitive or motor disabilities, or who has physiological balance issues, or who is drunk, and so on… basically children, the elderly, the disabled, and you or I late on a Saturday night.

(I recognise the idealism here when viewed from the status quo, but it's better to start from this end of things when applying pragmatism, than to start from the end of defining urban streets as the realm of vehicles with narrow ghettoes for people without vehicles along either side.)

NB none of the above is a comment on the specific circumstances of this case, which I've no desire to go trawling through, and which quite likely aren't apparent in media reports anyway.


* As a selfish example: the only time I've collided with someone on foot was when I was doing maybe 15mph in the middle of the lane, well away from the kerb, and he literally sprinted into the road (one where motor vehicles are almost always absent) from behind a wall that came right up to the pavement. Full-on emergency braking, and I ended up balancing on my front wheel giving him a gentle shoulder check; no harm done, he apologised, I made a mental note to reset my expectations a bit. But a reasonable example of where, had he stumbled and cracked his head, I honestly don't think I'd done anything even slightly unreasonable or irresponsible.
by Bez
18 Jun 2019, 4:21pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

So if you keep your brain switched on you probably won't need to make a claim, same as anywhere else. If you slip over on wet steel then you might get hurt, same as anywhere else.

Basically you're free to apply your own risk assessment, but if it doesn't align with their insurers' view then they'll probably reduce their liability and might not cover you at all. Which, in the context, seems reasonable. To be honest I'm probably conkers-deep in insurance one way or another anyway.

As long as I can get on a ferry without dressing up like Bob The Builder it's fine with me. I'm a big boy, I'm happy to take responsibility for staying on my feet.

We should probably draw a line under the bickering and move on ;)
by Bez
18 Jun 2019, 2:34pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

Tangled Metal wrote:If that's a problem you're a real sight weeny. Also, where backpacking weight is an issue, cycling weight isn't as much of an issue IMHO.


It's not weight, it's faff. It's another thing to buy for no good reason beyond ticking a box, another thing to remember to pack, another thing getting in the way of the stuff I actually want to access in a bag, and so on. At the end of the day I'm a perfectly visible human being, and if some dipstick's going to drive into me in the queue for the ferry it's because they're not looking, not because I'm not wearing a yellow tabard.

Airports can manage just fine with passengers walking across an apron to an aircraft without getting run over by baggage trucks and so on… no need to bring a vest and a helmet for your flight. But walking's what normal people do, so it's safe. Cycling is for terrifying weirdos :)

Tangled Metal wrote:Helmet is personal preference though. I suspect that if you had lights and a hiviz vest on while walking up the ramp helmet issues would not present itself.


Well, as I've said above, I've travelled on the ferries many times with only lights, and issues haven't presented themselves anyway. So, given that the status quo isn't actually bothering me, it's all a bit of a storm in a teacup even from my anti hi-vis/helmet viewpoint :)
by Bez
18 Jun 2019, 9:42am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

Tangled Metal wrote:Lug it around? Hiviz vest bought cheaply from hardware stores weighs little and packs small. Lights? You mean you're not carrying them on tour anyway?


I always have lights. A vest is pretty packable but I like to minimise the kit I need to carry. A helmet is a proper faff.

I get your point, but it's an imposition on an entire trip for the sake of a few hundred yards, when there are plenty of other measures available to minimise risk, a number of which are already in place. Two-wheelers normally get their own lanes for boarding; they're normally loaded when cars/lorries aren't coming on board; there are staff all over the place to signal to people driving cars or riding bikes; the staff enforce the perfectly reasonable policy of dismounting and pushing on the slippery ramps; and so on.

Meanwhile, car passengers are free to leave their cars and wander around in the waiting areas, and have to move around on deck, with no special equipment. They're fundamentally subjected to the same risks but aren't subject to the same policies. As is normally the case, sling your leg over a bike and people think you need to be protected from the things that everyone else doesn't.

There are several small inland ferries in this country and abroad where foot passengers are carried along with motor vehicles in broadly shared space. Those foot passengers aren't expected to carry a helmet and hi-viz clothing around all day just to travel on these ferries, and the sky hasn't fallen in as a result.
by Bez
17 Jun 2019, 11:33pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

To be honest I'd have thought the pragmatic solution would be that if Brittany Ferries feel the need to enforce their guidelines then they could have a stock of hi-viz vests and hard hats (as worn by port/ship staff) available, which could be handed out to anyone passing through without their own and then handed back once on deck. Personally I don't massively object to wearing the stuff to pass through the port and onto the ship (I mean, I do object, but I'll pick my battles and I accept that it's an abnormal environment), but I do object to having to lug that stuff around the whole time I'm on the bike either on the way to Portsmouth or in France.

And, yeah, being an "if it ain't broke don't fix it" kind of guy I'm also wondering whether someone making a song and dance about it will end up creating the opposite effect to what they wanted. Hey ho. If you knacker my trip in a couple of weeks I'll be back here to put a bat up your nightdress ;)
by Bez
17 Jun 2019, 11:07am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights
Replies: 78
Views: 6885

Re: Brittany Ferries Now Require Helmet, High Vis and Lights

I've been on the ferries several times (via Portsmouth, St Malo and Ouistreham) since this advice came in and it's not been an issue for me or anyone else either in daylight or at night; and on some trips there have been quite a lot of people cycling. No-one at check-in, on the loading area or on deck has batted an eyelid. As long as you dismount on the loading ramps and on deck it it's all good, though that's not a cast iron guarantee of what might happen in future.

On a tangent, FWIW, I think the French police also said some time ago they weren't going to enforce the law around hi-viz vests, either.
by Bez
9 Jun 2019, 8:57pm
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Garmin question
Replies: 5
Views: 537

Re: Garmin question

mattsccm wrote:I think thats what I am doing.


As long as you end the previous activity before starting the TT, they should be recorded separately. Is that not what you find?
by Bez
9 Jun 2019, 5:33pm
Forum: Bikes & Bits – Technical section
Topic: Garmin question
Replies: 5
Views: 537

Re: Garmin question

If you have auto start enabled, then when you get to your event, stop the activity, discard it (or save it if you prefer), switch profiles, and then auto start when you start the event.

If you have it disabled, just don’t start the activity until you get to the start line having changed profiles shortly beforehand.