They found someone else to badly represent another ‘tribe’ - the cycle courier mentioned in an earlier post (imagine the ribbing he’d get from his pedal pushing chums if he had gone quietly, although that wouldn’t have made for good TV in a program called ‘Road Rage’).
If bikers were given a say in the program, we would doubtless have come off as negatively as the cycle courier.
I live opposite a school to which, pardon me while I make an assumption, affluent parents bring their children in SUVs/ MPVs etc. These cars are different, in a negative way, from ’ a car for the same purpose '.
The attitude of any parent is naturally to be protective of their child(ren); the problem begins with what they see as driving defensively which can so easily be interpreted as showing little regard for other road users, especially when their vehicles are as intimidating as they are (irrespective of wheelbase, ‘mode’ etc).
I don’t really want to bring up the whole ‘woman driver’ argument, but I’m sure that minding kids and concentrating on the road can make driving harder. Of course, when you make a mistake in a tank, you won’t be the one coming off worse from the encounter.
No, I’m not a father, but suppose if I was and could afford it I would put that amount of ‘armour’ around my loved ones as well.
They’re a really simple solution to the School Run issue… and it’s called school buses! They have them in the US even in the congested cities of NY etc. But that costs government money, parents driving does not… call it a form of taxation!
All in all however I dont really see the problem, I used to walk to school and it wasn’t that long ago!! There’s so much unfounded paranoia about child safety… When you’re 11 you should know how to cross the road and that it’s a duff idea to bugger off with strangers!
I wonder how many pedestrians know that there are FIVE pages in the Highway Code devoted specifically to them/us.
When I was at Primary school, before the days of anything other than Zebra Crossings, the Road-Safety policemen who visited every year impressed on us that the said crossings were not magic carpets and that we should keep looking and listening as we crossed the road on them.
The same must apply, even when the Green Man invites us to cross.
How outrageous it was that the cement lorry driver got away with the murder of the cyclist. And that thank god I ride a motorbike to the right of lorries & not a bicycle to the left of them.
They said he did not see the cycle in his mirrors, but the CCTV looked to me that the lorry overtook the bicycle & then turned left (Am I wrong?) (Surely if that was the case it would have been Death by Dangerous Driving, and not even the mother put forward that argument).
Other points are, I have no problem with cyclists going through red lights etc. if they are prepared to be responsible for their actions (not knock down pedestrians etc.) I would say you have pretty good vision on a bicycle and they are almost as vulnerable as you can be so why not let them turn left on red for example.
The guy that set up saferdrivingplease.com was pretty decent, he just set up a forum where people can air their views, he is obviously putting his preference forward it the name though. But that Road warrior??? that does nothing but drive around looking for bad driving to post on the internet, what a wan*er why not join the police & do it properly & then he might get it right (as noted above)
I have a problem with cycles going through lights if it means I have to look out for them when I have the right of way at complex busy junctions - especially as it leads to other vehicles also tending to more and more ignore red lights. For example, the five way junction under the north end of Waterloo Bridge - taxis and white vans often move off before the lights change because the cycles do and neither the motor vehicles or the cyclists realise the lights have to sequence through four sets of changes and not three like a normal T junction. That leaves the traffic coming out of Savoy Place, which is obscured to, and blind to, the traffic on the Embankment, very vulnerable. I have also had narrow misses to cycles coming through the red light onto Westminster Bridge - often travelling at speed and invisible to legitimate traffic due to pedestrians on the island by Big Ben.
If cyclists have such good visibility, why have I witnessed several incidents where they ignored traffic laws and then been hit by the vehicle they didn’t see? Fortunately they have not been seriously injured but each time the accident would not have happened if they had stopped at the red light.
Finally, I was not sure what happened with the cement lorry. At first it looked like it had overtaken her, but on further viewing of the CCTV it looked like she may have been alongside the lorry all along the approach, in which case it may not be clear whether she was passing the lorry or vice versa. As they appeared to be going a similar speed, the start of the manoeuvre was vital in determining if the lorry driver was at any fault and there may be no CCTV footage of that.
Intersting that is doesnt seem to be on iPlayer! - I dodnt catch the show, but my colleague who cycles too and from work daily got a tug from the fuzz today! He and two other guys were ‘advancing’ from the green cyclist box at Ludgate circus as the lights were still red - Cycle Police man swings out across all 3 and says in No uncertain terms that “they are lucky we’re warning you this time, but we are cracking down on cyclists jumping lights… Next time its a £30 fine”
My mate seemed to take offence to this when he got to the office, but was shocked when most people called him a T*at for jumping the lights anyway! bloomin’ cyclists…
I’m glad we did not appear on this show, it did nobody any favors.
But it is surprising the lack of coverage the bikes got, just like that episode of Top Gear when they were racing through London. Richard won on his pushbike but who was filming him… It was a guy on the back of a GS1200
but the x5 has been designed specifically to drive like a car? - i’ve seen it do the roll tests with cones and it handles well? in fact, i think the x5 is supposed to be pretty much the most car-like of the lot?i think the argument about inexperienced drives in powerful machines covers everything, not just 4x4s? same as someone passing their bike test and buying an r1. its not bright, and it might end in tears.same goes for occupancy, most cars have only one or two people in them? if the 4x4 takes up the same floor space then what difference does it make? having proper space for adults to sit in the back properly again would increase the odds it would be used to take more passengers, not reduce it?even my pickup handles amazingly well - i was expecting it to be a bit of a barge but was genuinely surprised:cool:also if anything, i find driving the truck has slowed me down, and i’m more inclined to stick closer to the speed limit (this is only in the truck of course… )
One thing that was really important in the programme, and I think gets easily lost, is what a raw deal pedestrians get. I have often thought, as highlighted in the programme, how some junctions are designed to make it impossible for pedestrians to cross. Personally, i think better design for pedestrians wil lalmsot always mean better design for other vulnerabel road users like cyclists and motorcyclists, mainly because there will be more space, better sight lines, fewer lemmings running across the road unnecessarily etc.
was going to wait til you get some more track practice so that you dont get embarrassed by a truck turning a better lap :Dmight need to tune it a little to get it into the Nascar truck series tho
didnt see program,i live nr oxford and have to say even riding up to the ace frightens the crap out of me, you lot have balls of steel riding in london i reakon:)
That turning on London Wall is between two sets of lights… she was on the inside of the cement truck as it headed towards Moorgate, unfortunately for her it turned left in to Copthall Ave. It’s horrid that she was killed and the manner of her death is also terrible, but I personally wouldn’t want to be undertaking a cement lorry… especially on a pedal cycle.
Another argument I remember that struck a chord, was the school run mum saying that they are being targetted by the council because they make up 50% of the rush hour traffic.
I would agree with her that they have just as much right to be on the road as the businessman commuter who doesn’t want to take the train (for example). As long as you’re legal, everyone has just as much right to use the road.
It was a crying shame to see Ubby having to catch a bus just to cross the road.
Also the widower showing the National Express coach that had stopped before the yellow box junction, but they didn’t show the coach going through the stop line on a green light (possibly?) - sensational TV, just never mind the facts.
(My views on cycles going through red lights are strictly at cyclists risk & not inconveniencing others, eg going straight through when there is no road to the left & they are willing to keep out of the way of vehicles coming from their right turning right)
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