Cycling UK Forum

Lance Dopestrong wrote:I know its verging off topic, but it's an observation worth making. You get these plums who buy a Leaf out of some misguided environmental desire, and then utterly negate the whole point by driving around with 4 empty seats almost all the time.

Towing around over twice as much mass as you require is just ridiculous.

And bringing it neatly back to topic, how long before an electric car model becomes the favoured steed of the worst drivers on the road?

Ours always has 4 in it - me, t'ladywife and two collies. Often there are 6 or even 7, as daughters, grandchildren and friends come aboard to go on the dog walk. Would a bubble car do? No. Well, not for me - but I'm sure there will be electric one-seaters if there are potential buyers for them. The ladywife has an electric bicycle, for example. Myself, I can manage the shopping by myself with an ordinary bike clad with pannier.

As you will know, oil-burning cars are of a simialr configuration and are often driven by one mad thrusting fellow at remarkably inefficient and dangerous speeds. They cannot suck up go from a solar panel, though. They must drink the filthy black liquid and spew the effluent from a pipe at you and me as they pass by! The rascals. (Mind, I was such a rascal myself until recently albeit light of foot and infrequent in the usage).

Now, about this business of the electric car becoming the "favoured steed of the worst drivers on the road".

This will depend on the design of "the steed". The hybrid I have has many configurations and design-aspects that encourage one to be frugal and very anticipatory of what will happen next whilst driving. It somehow encapsulates the request to drive much more carefully, with due care and attention, than does .....

My son-in-law, a City Fellow of vast salary and the associated London lifestyle has a top of the range Tesla thing. It's primarily a status symbol more or less thrust upon him by his firm as a means to impress "clients". It can go from 0-60mph in just over 2 seconds. It's design is that of a stealth fighter jet and generally encourages the sort of behaviour appropriate to the pilot of such.

Personally I would be a draconian Minister of Transport (were there such a post) so would ban anything like the latter as I promoted the former. I would even promote your intimated one-seater electric booble car. Yes I would. Design of the technology is a great influencer of the bahaviour of the user.

Cugel

I can't say that I have noticed drivers of hybrids / electric cars being any different to average non-aggressive drivers of conventional cars. Though I certainly don't see downright nutters driving them.

Lance Dopestrong wrote:They are indeed, all the more reason to not buy one and drive it round half empty.

My old Smart is stubbornly refusing to die. If/when it ever does, and if I still have a use for a car, then it'll be an electric Smart. I would get a Twizy, but the battery lease is a put-off.

Indeed, a recent study from (I think) The States measured emissions from 'whole life' car use, extraction of the rare earth metals, assembly, use, and dismantling and recycling, and it turned out that small, sub 800kg petrol engined cars were responsible for less emissions over their life cycle. I felt very smug with my 720kg tiny petrol engined wee car, and frown at those horribly polluting Leaf's being driven around with 4 empty seats.

All this talk of the Leaf..has anyone come across a Leaf being driven badly yet?

Hardly ever seen a leaf but I did have a 1984 Jetta, 805 kg, compare that to your tiny vehicle
Jetta: 'gobble gobble, sip, sip'
Huge boot, very economical
Not my dream car, mind
Dream car = no car
..
Worst drivers: reverses, many "accidents" happen when going backwards, many are too stupid to reverse in and drive out
Or too lazy and stupid

Blimey, as light as that! But think how even more economical it would have been without having to drag around 4 empty seats and a dirty great empty boot all the time?

Alas, you wont't see many Jettas of that generation, but the powder coated structures and plastic body work of the Smart means you'll be seeing them in good numbers for decades yet. Because of the layout of the car, rear engine, transaxle, slimline fuel tank under the floor, they're quite an easy target for conversion to electric power. Tempting, although I've already forgot enough retirement projects that don't seem to be getting anywhere

I find hesitant, dithery drivers just as bad. I had one recently that wouldn't pass when he had plenty of opportunity to. He just clung on to my backside for far too long, irritating all the drivers behind - no doubt blaming the cyclist. When he did eventually pass he made a right meal of it. Not too close but took way too long to get round me.

robing wrote:I find hesitant, dithery drivers just as bad. I had one recently that wouldn't pass when he had plenty of opportunity to. He just clung on to my backside for far too long, irritating all the drivers behind - no doubt blaming the cyclist. When he did eventually pass he made a right meal of it. Not too close but took way too long to get round me.

There's a large variety of poor overtakers, ranging from madly dangerous vroomers going 'round you on blind-bend narrow roads to the terrible ditherers you mention. Does no one teach new drivers (or the older ones, for that matter) how to overtake? I vaguely recall government education films long ago that did so.....

On a bike, he biggest error is to try to help the inept overtaker by waving them on. Your wave assumes they know how to overtake, see? But they don't and will take three times as long as you thought they would, pulling out just in time for the blind bend.

The most amusing are the sort that pull up alongside when you're riding two-abreast with a mate. "You should ride single file as no one can overtake you!", they shout as they overtake you whilst not looking where they're going and going all red-face.

Cugel

robing wrote:I find hesitant, dithery drivers just as bad. I had one recently that wouldn't pass when he had plenty of opportunity to.

That's a good one. Safety during your interaction with other road users comes from confident, predictable behaviour and adherence to the rules of the road. People dithering can be just as dangerous as people hooning.

Cugel wrote: Does no one teach new drivers (or the older ones, for that matter) how to overtake? I vaguely recall government education films long ago that did so.....

Simply, no. The standard is awful in terms of this particular skill. Indeed this particular skill is increasingly being frowned on, being regarded as queue-jumping, so something as simple as overtaking a slow-moving object like a cyclist seems to present more of a challenge than entirely necessary.

robing wrote:I find hesitant, dithery drivers just as bad. I had one recently that wouldn't pass when he had plenty of opportunity to. He just clung on to my backside for far too long, irritating all the drivers behind - no doubt blaming the cyclist. When he did eventually pass he made a right meal of it. Not too close but took way too long to get round me.

You might be describing me, although I'd give a different analysis of the reasons for my cautious driving style - much of it to do with my life-long inability to see around corners or over blind summits.

Most drivers have an inability to see through the car in front, but it doesn't stop them sitting right up it's arriss before pulling out to overtake, more often than not in the wrong gear.

Lance Dopestrong wrote:Most drivers have an inability to see through the car in front, but it doesn't stop them sitting right up it's arriss before pulling out to overtake, more often than not in the wrong gear.

The ones that are most frightening are the ancient lads who first attach to your back wheel as you go up a hill at, say, 8mph. They are still in fourth gear, or it sounds like it - on the point of stall.

After an indetrminate period of time, they decide to attempt an overtake. Often they wait for the bend or the road narrows. This may or may not be a co-incidence; like much of their behaviour, the "decisions" seem random and sporadic.

They pass you with a differential of about 1mph. They sometimes try to give you space, nearly drive into the hedge or ditch on the other side of the road, have a near stall then drop back again. At other times, they pass within one inch whilst staring straight ahead and ignoring your expostulations and cries of dismay.

When they do get past - eventually - they choke you with unburnt fuel fumes, smoke and all the other results of foot-to-the floor when the engine is revving at only 800rpm.

Sometimes it is an ancient lady, so I reduce the swear-word count.

Cugel

Just on the theme of overtaking, we rode part of the Camel Trail as a family last weekend. The standard of cycling, and in particular overtaking on a shared use path was parlous. Those people likely all got in cars and behaved similarly

Lance Dopestrong wrote:

robing wrote:I find hesitant, dithery drivers just as bad. I had one recently that wouldn't pass when he had plenty of opportunity to.

That's a good one. Safety during your interaction with other road users comes from confident, predictable behaviour and adherence to the rules of the road. People dithering can be just as dangerous as people hooning.

Disagree
You cannae change the laws of physics
Slow is always better

Slow isn't automatically better in terms of the dissipation if kinetic energy, and thus karking it.

Relative velocity, ie, the velocity of each involved vehicle relative to each other, is the evil reaper of lives where multiple vehicle collisions offer. For example, a car travelling at 51 MPH driving into the rear of a car travelling at only 50 MPH is liable to be eminently survivable. Conversely, if our 51 MPH pilot drivers into the back of a car travelling at 10 MPH then that is likely to very bad ju ju indeed. Driving slowly wont have made the occupants of our hypothetical car 2 any safer at all.

Adjust the scenario so the cars are travelling towards each other instead, the the lower relative velocity is liable to be safer. So its scenario dependent.

However, in a single vehicle whoopsie then slow may indeed be safer in that regard., but mich harder on the ego when theres no one else to blame.

Cyril Haearn wrote:

Lance Dopestrong wrote:

robing wrote:I find hesitant, dithery drivers just as bad. I had one recently that wouldn't pass when he had plenty of opportunity to.

That's a good one. Safety during your interaction with other road users comes from confident, predictable behaviour and adherence to the rules of the road. People dithering can be just as dangerous as people hooning.

Disagree
You cannae change the laws of physics
Slow is always better

Disagree. It's safest for someone to pass you quickly so long as they give you enough room. The danger period is the time in which they are actually passing you. So I don't want them lingering. Same as any overtake - while they are passing you they will be on the other side of the road if executing the manoeuvre properly so they need to get past you asap to avoid a collision.