Number plates for cycles ? - Insurance company discussion article

[merseymouth]

Hi Utility cyclist, Sorry to say it but it sounds like you have more Petrol Head genes than this old cloth eared cyclist/pedestrian!
The number of times I've been bashed about by folk who insist on snow-ploughing me aside on a pavement/shared use area outnumbers the hairs on my head!! I may be thinning on top but the number is still way too large.
The abysmal enforcement of rules in this country is heavily slanted in favour of the wrongdoer, time that was addressed.
I'll ask a question of you, if you ride in a pedestrian area how can you tell that all can hear your approach? We H.I. types don't wear a sign signalling our impairment, are we supposed to??? As we are acting lawfully, you being the offender I think not!
Sort out the mess on the roads you are entitled to use and leave the sanctuary areas alone. TTFN MM

* I did my cycle training in 1959, might have been told to keep my head warm, but mainly we where told to avoid hitting hard stuff.
Driver training is worse than ever, lots of aids, reversing sensors et al, no consideration advised, "You the driver have inherited the earth (road)", sod others!

[Cugel]

(snip)

So if we have to have plates for cyclists then we need visible plates for all peds given the harm they do to others and themselves, compulsory helmets and hi-vis for peds and motorists as well, plus also mobile phone and headphone laws for peds .........

(snip)

Face recognition is the begining of a general oversight of all humans at all times, as various nation-states begin to build or extend their panopticon. In CHina all citizens are not only watched but measured i' their behaviours, with points awarded (or not) for various "good" behaviours (or "bad"). Once it was crude Stasi spying; or the equivalent in Northern Ireland by the army and secret service on the "potential dissidents", employing neighbour-spies. Now there is a lot of sophisticated technology gathering enormous amounts of information about all our doings, via on-line, phone, credit-card and other transactions.

How long before Blighty has GCHQ not only compiling the data on all of our behaviours but also awarding the points, Chinese Style? They've already begun! COnsider the latest revelation concerning the Prevent database. The tip of a large panopticon iceberg, one feels.

CCTV is capable of watching and identifying pedestrians, so it'll be used to do so, one way or another, before much longer. Will the motorist remain somehow immune from this oversight, already far easier for a car than a pedestrian or cyclist? Motorists are regarded as fully paid-up consumer-producers and will continue to find favour as such.

One needs to be seemingly "aggressive" because otherwise you'll get squashed and continuously doffing your cap and getting out the way all the time, the usual BS 'better to cede priority than be dead' or any other similar nonsense is just that, there's no evidence for it but all it does do is breed contempt of human beings rights, it breeds people into thinking might is right.
(snip)

A clever twist to justify your desire to be aggressive on each and every occasion .... but no cigar! You are too transparent on this matter.

Mind, if you wish to joust with a car whilst on your bike or merely walking about, who am I to advise agin' it? On the other hand, I consider all that tax money I pay going to fix you as you lie fulminating about your rights in the expensive NHS hospital bed. I might have to send you a bill!

Cugel

[The utility cyclist]

Hi Utility cyclist, Sorry to say it but it sounds like you have more Petrol Head genes than this old cloth eared cyclist/pedestrian!
The number of times I've been bashed about by folk who insist on snow-ploughing me aside on a pavement/shared use area outnumbers the hairs on my head!! I may be thinning on top but the number is still way too large.
The abysmal enforcement of rules in this country is heavily slanted in favour of the wrongdoer, time that was addressed.
I'll ask a question of you, if you ride in a pedestrian area how can you tell that all can hear your approach? We H.I. types don't wear a sign signalling our impairment, are we supposed to??? As we are acting lawfully, you being the offender I think not!
Sort out the mess on the roads you are entitled to use and leave the sanctuary areas alone. TTFN MM

* I did my cycle training in 1959, might have been told to keep my head warm, but mainly we where told to avoid hitting hard stuff.
Driver training is worse than ever, lots of aids, reversing sensors et al, no consideration advised, "You the driver have inherited the earth (road)", sod others!

The facts tell a different story as to where the harm is coming from, petrol head genes, nope, just a handle on the facts and where the harm is actually come from and who needs to be 'trained' the most to stop doing the harm or harm occurring.
If currently there is more harm coming from the two other main road and 'pavement' user types why are we focusing away from those groups and targeting the other main user group to modify their behaviour to take account even more than that group already does, we know this is true because the facts tell us this already, facts put up in a report that was bashing cyclists from page 1 and written by the head of the haulage association no less?

[The utility cyclist]

(snip)

So if we have to have plates for cyclists then we need visible plates for all peds given the harm they do to others and themselves, compulsory helmets and hi-vis for peds and motorists as well, plus also mobile phone and headphone laws for peds .........

(snip)

Face recognition is the begining of a general oversight of all humans at all times, as various nation-states begin to build or extend their panopticon. In CHina all citizens are not only watched but measured i' their behaviours, with points awarded (or not) for various "good" behaviours (or "bad"). Once it was crude Stasi spying; or the equivalent in Northern Ireland by the army and secret service on the "potential dissidents", employing neighbour-spies. Now there is a lot of sophisticated technology gathering enormous amounts of information about all our doings, via on-line, phone, credit-card and other transactions.

How long before Blighty has GCHQ not only compiling the data on all of our behaviours but also awarding the points, Chinese Style? They've already begun! COnsider the latest revelation concerning the Prevent database. The tip of a large panopticon iceberg, one feels.

CCTV is capable of watching and identifying pedestrians, so it'll be used to do so, one way or another, before much longer. Will the motorist remain somehow immune from this oversight, already far easier for a car than a pedestrian or cyclist? Motorists are regarded as fully paid-up consumer-producers and will continue to find favour as such.

One needs to be seemingly "aggressive" because otherwise you'll get squashed and continuously doffing your cap and getting out the way all the time, the usual BS 'better to cede priority than be dead' or any other similar nonsense is just that, there's no evidence for it but all it does do is breed contempt of human beings rights, it breeds people into thinking might is right.
(snip)

A clever twist to justify your desire to be aggressive on each and every occasion .... but no cigar! You are too transparent on this matter.

Mind, if you wish to joust with a car whilst on your bike or merely walking about, who am I to advise agin' it? On the other hand, I consider all that tax money I pay going to fix you as you lie fulminating about your rights in the expensive NHS hospital bed. I might have to send you a bill!

Cugel

too agressive, no, your OPINION only, you don't know me, you don't grasp the scenarios that unfold clearly and how deferring each and every time makes matters worse as it becomes the default that those with the killing machines adjust to. The so called harm you will inflict on yourself is in fact less by being 'aggressive' or assertive if you like (as some people can't differentiate between the two like yourself clearly) than by constantly ceding and moving away from the situation, you essentially ok the actions of others and this modifies their behaviour in a negative way which in turn makes it worse for other road users.

This isn't a competition to win cigars, this is a discussion on whose behaviour needs to be modified and why, and why holding ones stance/position is not just safer but also keeps the group doing most harm to keep thinking that they can't just do what they like and that they will get out the way all the time. People like you slide away and simply allow the same old stuff that is hurting people to carry on and ignore that greater harm comes from that, whatever mr Ostrich
Try again though

[cycle tramp]

Hi Utility cyclist, Sorry to say it but it sounds like you have more Petrol Head genes than this old cloth eared cyclist/pedestrian!
The number of times I've been bashed about by folk who insist on snow-ploughing me aside on a pavement/shared use area outnumbers the hairs on my head!! I may be thinning on top but the number is still way too large.

Firstly as a sometimes pavement cyclist and user of shared paths, I would like to apologise... I try and keep in mind two things when I use either.. that I am a guest when using them, and that other people wish to use them at the same time as me and possibly in the other or same direction and at a different speed...

Mr Wilson, was not treated with respect and as such sought a way to voice his displeasure at being treated in such a way, to the person who had shown him very little respect. As he was unable to identify the person the next idea was to identify their vehicle and to do that it required number plates... and thus the same arguement that Mr Ken Livingston used was reborn.
As I view the situation the question arises, not if we need number plates, but how do we foster genuine respect on footpaths, shared paths, cycle paths and roads and by doing so reduce the call for us to have number plates.

[brooksby]

https://www.parliament.uk/biographies/lords/lord-winston/1770

Gobsmacked that it's this guy... I'd previously thought he was a good egg.

Wot, you believe in the good-guys vs bad-guys theory of anthropology, as portrayed in John Wayne filums or them ones with Bruce the Killer? Alas, the human is a shapeshifting beast - at least in it's mental aspects - so can be anything from very, very bad to very, very good and all things in between, often at the same time! Moreover, the definitions of good and bad vary wildly over time and geography. Lawdy! How's a wee human to cope?

There is the simple explanation for this and the more complex one. Here is the simple one:

We humans are possessed by devils but also by guardian angels. Well, that's what they called them in the days of the witch hunters (still with us but now called "the gutter press"). That Dawkins came up with the modern version: we host memes - metaphysical replicators rather like the physical genes - that compete, interbreed and survive or perish according to various features that fit them to their metaphysical ecologies - our brains and their carrier - or don't.

“People aren't either wicked or noble. They're like chef's salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.” - ― Lemony Snicket, The Grim Grotto

[pwa]

Hi Utility cyclist, Sorry to say it but it sounds like you have more Petrol Head genes than this old cloth eared cyclist/pedestrian!
The number of times I've been bashed about by folk who insist on snow-ploughing me aside on a pavement/shared use area outnumbers the hairs on my head!! I may be thinning on top but the number is still way too large.

Firstly as a sometimes pavement cyclist and user of shared paths, I would like to apologise... I try and keep in mind two things when I use either.. that I am a guest when using them, and that other people wish to use them at the same time as me and possibly in the other or same direction and at a different speed...

Mr Wilson, was not treated with respect and as such sought a way to voice his displeasure at being treated in such a way, to the person who had shown him very little respect. As he was unable to identify the person the next idea was to identify their vehicle and to do that it required number plates... and thus the same arguement that Mr Ken Livingston used was reborn.
As I view the situation the question arises, not if we need number plates, but how do we foster genuine respect on footpaths, shared paths, cycle paths and roads and by doing so reduce the call for us to have number plates.

RW really wanted to be able to identify the individual who assaulted him, not because that person was a cyclist but because they assaulted him. The logical conclusion he could have come to was that everyone outside should have visible ID on the outside of their clothing. It could have been a jogger who barged into him, a skateboarder, a horse rider or whatever. In the real world, if some form of ID were required on a bike I would have it, because I am generally someone who likes to stick more or less to the rules. But I don't cycle on pavements. I suspect a lot of the people who do would not be the sort to comply.

I once took part in an audax ride from Bristol that set off in a northerly direction and soon got onto country lanes. Rounding a corner I was stopped in my tracks by an irate local person who told me that another cyclist (presumably also on the audax) had clipped him as he stepped out of his driveway onto the lane. I pointed out that he had stopped me, an innocent person, to remonstrate with me about the alleged misdeed of someone else who I didn't know. He still seemed angry at me and told me he thought bikes should have registration plates, to which I replied that he would probably not have seen that number quick enough.

[cycle tramp]

I once took part in an audax ride from Bristol that set off in a northerly direction and soon got onto country lanes. Rounding a corner I was stopped in my tracks by an irate local person who told me that another cyclist (presumably also on the audax) had clipped him as he stepped out of his driveway onto the lane. I pointed out that he had stopped me, an innocent person, to remonstrate with me about the alleged misdeed of someone else who I didn't know. He still seemed angry at me and told me he thought bikes should have registration plates, to which I replied that he would probably not have seen that number quick enough.[


...h'mmm ... clearly I may have worked in customer services a bit long... on hearing the above scenario, I would have made a general apology for the situation, asked if he was ok, asked if the cyclist who clipped him (Or though had clipped him) had any thing by which they may be identified, taken the telephone number of the person saying that you would raise this incident with the organisers. It may sound a bit over the top, but on the other hand it may have steadied his nerves and made him feel that he was still a human being, and as such valued and apperciated.......Of course sometimes it doesn't work out like that.... and you may have delayed your journey by 10 minutes, after listening to abuse about cyclists... but the important thing from my point of view was at least to try (far too many school assemblies listening to my teachers telling us that whatever we did we were advocates for it)

[Oldjohnw]

Whilst to do so is quite understandable, immediately going into defensive mode tends not to be the best way of de-escalating situations.

[pwa]

...h'mmm ... clearly I may have worked in customer services a bit long... on hearing the above scenario, I would have made a general apology for the situation, asked if he was ok, asked if the cyclist who clipped him (Or though had clipped him) had any thing by which they may be identified, taken the telephone number of the person saying that you would raise this incident with the organisers. It may sound a bit over the top, but on the other hand it may have steadied his nerves and made him feel that he was still a human being, and as such valued and apperciated.......Of course sometimes it doesn't work out like that.... and you may have delayed your journey by 10 minutes, after listening to abuse about cyclists... but the important thing from my point of view was at least to try (far too many school assemblies listening to my teachers telling us that whatever we did we were advocates for it)

Fear not, I did all the sympathy and regret bit with him. That took the wind out of his sails to some extent. I treated him like a person and I then wanted him to do me the same favour. I think I left him less angry than I found him.