Piece on Cyclists on Prime Time RTE 1 9.35PM - Mod warning see OP/post 102

Tenzor07

sarkozy wrote: »

If Prime Time spent just a little more time training their cameras on the cars ploughing through red lights and pedestrian crossings, they'd see the real problem is drivers breaking the rules of the road. I mean, their cameras were in those locations.

Where's the enforcement? Where's the balance in Prime Time's reporting the other night?

Definitely no balance in the report, they could have quite easily shown some of this video...

check_six

Got stuck waiting to turn right at a junction this morning. I had shuffled into the middle of the junction to wait for the opportunity to go and there was a car trying the same thing from the opposite direction. Best practice is to wait for a gap, or wait till the lights change and then clear the junction. This morning I had to wait all the way to the red (as did the car). The lights went red and I prepared to clear the junction, but a car was accelerating through the red, followed by another, and another, and finally a fourth car burst through the junction to block me on my bike from clearing it.

Would be a bit alarming if something similar didn't happen every morning. Although I will admit that four cars is more than the usual three.

Remember that all the while I'm dangling in the junction waiting to turn right, I'm directly in their line of sight, and I'm about to get stranded in the middle of the traffic coming from the other edge of the junction. It's not a great advertisement for considerate road use.

CramCycle

magicbastarder wrote: »

one response to the argument that cyclists should be licenced - i wonder how many drivers out there are driving on full licences without having passed the test, because of the amnesty in 1979. over 60,000 licences were handed out.
my mother has a full licence and never passed a test.

My mother in law has that, her poor clutch. My own mother failed her first, was told by my aunt to glam up a bit and put on a nice skirt, passed handy enough the second time.

JamJamJamJam wrote: »

I read somewhere that the thinking is that everybody thought they were suddenly invincible and became careless on the roads, as we've mentioned. However after a couple of years, the 'novelty' of wearing a seatbelt wore off, and as it became the standard, people lost that sense of excessive comfort and careless driving was reduced. And then, the value of seatbelts became clear. Obviously there are other safe driving campaigns, etc that contributed to safer driving, so the overall improvement in safety can't be put down to seatbelts alone, but they have contributed. A short term spike in collisions may have misguided people into thinking that this would continue, however, which it did not.

Kind of my point, people immediately think the danger would disappear, so drove, maybe subconciously, more wrecklessly, they then realigned their views and everything returned to where it should have been heading.

So now, if you take cycling, I wonder would the careful introduction of mandatory (whatever) still result in greater safety in the long run? If it was introduced carefully, gradually at first, and became 'normal' or 'standard' behaviour (be it helmets, high vis, insurance, flashing lights - whatever)

Leaving the helmets and hi vis to their relevant threads (please read the threads for a greater overview on the pluses and minuses), insurance cannot be implemented the way suggested earlier in the thread because a flat fee for riding a bike is a tax, not an insurance, there is no reward for cycling safer but there is less concern with minor accidents. It also may potentially put off people cycling in the first place, imagine a small child being asked to cough up 100euro to ride their bike, or the person who only rides twice a week to his local shop 2 minutes away, these people will just stop cycling, some will walk but the rest will start driving or getting lifts. As for lights, they are a legal requirement, no need for them to be flashing, just have lights on your bike and use them, although as many of who cycle or rode motorbikes know, sometimes you could have fireworks shooting out of your arse and into the air and you still know that person pulling out of the junction, still hasn't noticed you.

I recognise that with cycling part of its safety comes from increasing numbers of people doing it. Then introducing some mandatory thing may be a barrier to that. However, improved safety may add to the appeal for others, and the number of cyclists may not be affected, or could even increase.

You tell people they need insurance, they need the other things, the majority of parents who do not cycle regularly now will not let their kids

Me: Why don't you let your kids cycle to school or to their mates house?
Parent: Too risky
Me: really, we all done it
Parent: but times have changed, traffic is more dangerous etc.
Me: Evidence would indicate that it really isn't
Parent: Don't be stupid, if it wasn't that dangerous, why would they have brought out mandatory insurance (replace with the list of things above)?

tomasrojo wrote: »

Better to take that question to the Helmet thread, I think. (Sorry, mods, if that sounds like back-seat modding.)

It should be, there are enough warnings in the thread already

I think some members of the PACTS committee that pushed the seat belt law did concede in a statistical journal recently (last few years) that there had been a rise in pedestrian and cyclist fatalities immediately after the law. The picture is murky after that anyway, because the rates of walking and cycling starting dropping quite rapidly (probably independently of the law) which brings down total numbers of fatalities for those modes.

That would indicate that seatbelts made it worse for everyone outside a car, correct, would prefer to see the data before making such wild leaps though.

sarkozy wrote: »

The camera does lie, all the time. And editing lies even more.

Indeed, one of the reasons camera footage is not accepted as forensic evidence, in the uK it has to be determined as forensically sound. A camera pointed in one direction can be incredibly misleading.

My take on this Prime Time piece: it was unbalanced and misrepresentative of the cyclists' own experience commuting giving an overall negative view.

I though the fact that they kept reinforcing the "minority" bit was a good start, made it more tolerable, but you are right in that visually, they kept looking for the worst bits they could find.

When did a cyclist kill a driver or pedestrian?

Baggot St. a few years ago, only one on memory.

When has a driver killed a cyclist or pedestrian?

This year, last year, the year before, and so on

Where's the enforcement? Where's the balance in Prime Time's reporting the other night?

I would personally be petitioning for red light cameras, installed over time across the country. Sounds petty of me but the overtime bit is that the fines garnered from those who do not know they are there could pay for the installation, rather than a net loss overall.

magicbastarder

i have twice recently (out of three trips) while waiting to turn right off griffith avenue onto the malahide road (i.e. down into fairview) been beeped at by drivers behind me. i can only assume i was being beeped at for 'failure to make adequate progress' but adequate progress in this instance would have had me under the wheels of oncoming traffic.

Carawaystick

CramCycle wrote: »

Baggot St. a few years ago, only one on memory.

A driver or a pedestrian?

CramCycle

Carawaystick wrote: »

A driver or a pedestrian?

A pedestrian, courier on a one way street, pedestrian didn't look to his right, got clipped, hit his head of the pavement, died from the head injury.

magicbastarder

worth noting that the courier was going the wrong way up the street, so the pedestrian looked the 'wrong' way - i.e. the way he was expecting traffic to come from.

CramCycle

magicbastarder wrote: »

worth noting that the courier was going the wrong way up the street, so the pedestrian looked the 'wrong' way - i.e. the way he was expecting traffic to come from.

Sorry, I meant to include that, I realise I haven't pointed that out clearly at all.

magicbastarder

the courier ended up with a bad drug habit and ended up in a downward spiral of addiction and crime:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/cracking-up-25956300.html

nak

I remember other couriers who were on the road at the time said that people were shouting murderer etc at them.

Would they shout that at say every taxi driver if one of them had hit someone?

CramCycle

CramCycle wrote: »

,

Parent: Don't be stupid, if it wasn't that dangerous, why would they have brought out mandatory insurance (replace with the list of things above)?


.

So that when I take a wing mirror or damage the side of a car or hit a person I have coverage to repair?

I do not have insurance for my moto cycle because it is dangerous. I have it so I can pay any damage that might happen

mcgratheoin

Deleted User wrote: »

So that when I take a wing mirror or damage the side of a car or hit a person I have coverage to repair?

Why do you need coverage to pay these amounts? If you are liable then you are liable regardless of whether you have insurance or not and will have to pay for the repair.

I do not have insurance for my moto cycle because it is dangerous. I have it so I can pay any damage that might happen

Insurance is not primarily for damage that might be caused to property (although it is often used for this), it is for damages and potential medical bills which are far more likely to mount in costs. The probability of a motorbike crash causing serious injury to a third party is far higher than a bicycle crash, hence there has never been a serious suggestion to introduce compulsory insurance for cyclists.

For what it's worth (and has been already pointed out with the correct numbers by Morana), there are about 20000 cyclists in Ireland who do have cycling insurance through Cycling Ireland's scheme, and all participants in sportives are required to be insured for those events as well.

whupdedo

CramCycle wrote: »

Sorry, I meant to include that, I realise I haven't pointed that out clearly at all.

Methinks you would have left it out entirely but for it was pointed out to you

CramCycle

whupdedo wrote: »

Methinks you would have left it out entirely but for it was pointed out to you

Well yes, I thought it was implied but on re reading it I can see how it might not have been. If no one had pointed it out, I would have presumed that everyone got it, well actually, I wouldn't have, I just would not have though about it ever again. Was that what you meant?

tomasrojo

CramCycle wrote: »

A pedestrian, courier on a one way street, pedestrian didn't look to his right, got clipped, hit his head of the pavement, died from the head injury.

Somebody who knew the courier posted here ages ago. Tragic story all round, if what he said was accurate. The pedestrian wasn't clipped, IIRC; he was startled and walked back abruptly, tripped on the kerb and hit his head.

seamus

I think in any case, what we can take from it is that pedestrian deaths due to cyclists are so rare that they border on being freak accidents. That's the only known one in about 30 years IIRC.

radia

CramCycle wrote: »

There was a spike in accidents after seat belts were made mandatory in the UK if I remember right, don't be shocked at some of the counter intuitive things that happen when changes are made.

Here's how to use a spike:

el tel

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Definitely no balance in the report, they could have quite easily shown some of this video...

Did you see that at 2min36secs? A car running a red light! With a bike on the back...typical cyclist bastard! :P



It always makes me laugh when people bang on about cyclists running red lights. Almost without fail, at practically every single traffic light I encounter there is a car who disobeys amber or red lights.

Jawgap

Deleted User wrote: »

So that when I take a wing mirror or damage the side of a car or hit a person I have coverage to repair?

I do not have insurance for my moto cycle because it is dangerous. I have it so I can pay any damage that might happen

....but you're not compelled to use your insurance only to have it.

Motor vehicles have to have insurance because of the potential for catastrophic damage rather than just any damage. A car on its best day has a much greater potential to wreck lives and property than a bike on its worst.

dinneenp

link to RTE player, begins at 23:50.

CramCycle

tomasrojo wrote: »

Somebody who knew the courier posted here ages ago. Tragic story all round, if what he said was accurate. The pedestrian wasn't clipped, IIRC; he was startled and walked back abruptly, tripped on the kerb and hit his head.

correct and slipped, amazing how the memory of it fades over time, I was only working about 20metres down the street.

Deleted User wrote: »

So that when I take a wing mirror or damage the side of a car or hit a person I have coverage to repair?

If you are that concerned you should get insurance, the one time it has happened to me,I just paid for it. It wasn't my fault but the party that hit me, the car with insurance etc., drove off so I was left footing the bill for the wing mirror I took off.

I do not have insurance for my moto cycle because it is dangerous. I have it so I can pay any damage that might happen

I have insurance on my car for two reasons, one its the law but more importantly, if I ever did cause any serious accident, the potential for damage would most likely be outside of my capabilities, on the bike, statistically, I am unlikely to be in an accident at all, and if I was the cause, it would be unlikely that the cost would be astronomical.

RainyDay

CramCycle wrote: »

correct and slipped, amazing how the memory of it fades over time, I was only working about 20metres down the street.

Which street did it happen on? Somebody mentioned Baggot St, but that's not one-way.

schemingbohemia

RainyDay wrote: »

Which street did it happen on? Somebody mentioned Baggot St, but that's not one-way.

It is, between Merrion Row and Pembroke Street.

CramCycle

schemingbohemia wrote: »

It is, between Merrion Row and Pembroke Street.

Exactly, very near Toners pub

roverrules

May not happen often, but often enough for this little girl
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/threeyearold-girl-hit-by-cyclist-and-dragged-for-12ft-along-the-pavement--video-10267739.html

UDP

roverrules wrote: »

May not happen often, but often enough for this little girl
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/threeyearold-girl-hit-by-cyclist-and-dragged-for-12ft-along-the-pavement--video-10267739.html

But she wasn't killed or even seriously injured which kind of proves the point (of course the cyclist was an idiot and deserves punishment under law). If it had been a motorbike or car the outcome would have been much different and medical costs astronomically higher etc.

CramCycle

roverrules wrote: »

May not happen often, but often enough for this little girl
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/threeyearold-girl-hit-by-cyclist-and-dragged-for-12ft-along-the-pavement--video-10267739.html

Both examples were insurance would have not made a jot of difference, both cyclists were breaking the law, no insurance company would stand over them.

The guy in the orange should be facing jail time, not only for the accident but fleeing a scene (essentially a hit and run), a complete lack of humanity no matter how he gets around.

L'Enfer du Nord

[not asking this in relation to the specific tragedy on Baggot street]

Is it possible to work as a bicycle courier without routinely breaking traffic laws? From casual observation it looks like par for the course. If you don't do it can you compete in terms of delivery times.

JBokeh

Could you imagine fully comp cycle insurance?! The amount of lads that would milk that system for all it's worth would probably make the second years insurance for everyone more than the car insurance costs!

3rd party insurance would be pretty useless, what good would that be to your average weekend warrior that hits the roads for a bit of exercise in the evenings and weekends, his/her risk of hitting a car or pedestrian would be virtually nothing, closest I've come was cycling into my own car on the driveway, and one incident with tourists wandering about a village without looking.

Commuting is a completely different ball game, cyclists in closet proximity to each other could end up in a tip, though I've never seen it. If things do end up going in the way of America and people start suing each other maybe something on the health insurance that would cover a 3rd parties medical costs, or busted smartphone,However not everyone has health insurance, so they're likely to get sued :eek:

roverrules

UDP wrote: »

But she wasn't killed or even seriously injured which kind of proves the point (of course the cyclist was an idiot and deserves punishment under law). If it had been a motorbike or car the outcome would have been much different and medical costs astronomically higher etc.

She was blasted along the pavement, she was LUCKY that she wasn't seriously hurt and you don't know if she would have been as lucky with a car/motorbike.

How many one punch incidents do you read about, a punch isn't likely to be as strong a force as a cyclist running into someone

CatFromHue

Just watched it back on the player and it kinda just seemed a bit of a pointless segment.

There was no real conclusion or point made, well other than more people cycle nowadays.

CramCycle

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

[not asking this in relation to the specific tragedy on Baggot street]

Is it possible to work as a bicycle courier without routinely breaking traffic laws? From casual observation it looks like par for the course. If you don't do it can you compete in terms of delivery times.

Unless they are all on break when I pass them it should not be that hard, most tend not to hammer it, if you can ramp speed between lights, you will fine.

And I am far from the fastest guy on the road.

RainyDay

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

Is it possible to work as a bicycle courier without routinely breaking traffic laws? From casual observation it looks like par for the course. If you don't do it can you compete in terms of delivery times.

Just like the way many taxis routinely break traffic laws, and many truck drivers, and some coach drivers...

Aard

^ It's much easier for people to notice errant cyclists and take exception to them because they are "other" while taxis, vans, trucks etc are closer to being "one of us" and go comparatively unnoticed.

Pinch Flat

Aard wrote: »

^ It's much easier for people to notice errant cyclists and take exception to them because they are "other" while taxis, vans, trucks etc are closer to being "one of us" and go comparatively unnoticed.

This is one of the points that puzzles me. Sure, plenty of cyclists break reds and go up one way streets - both these could be dealt with by simple amendments to traffic laws - so break a red turning left of use the Lhs of a one way street as a contra flow - no big deal.

But the overwhelming amount of kn0bish behavior is still by motorists - breaking reds, parking on double yellows, stopping while straddling pedestrian crossings, occupying yellow boxes, parking / stopping inconsideratly etc.

This is so common place now that it's almost tolerated or expected. A lot of the animosity towards cyclists can be along the lines of "damn I'm stick in a traffic jam, spent 30 minutes covering a kilometre - who can I blame? Oh look a cyclist breaking a red"

nak

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

[not asking this in relation to the specific tragedy on Baggot street]

Is it possible to work as a bicycle courier without routinely breaking traffic laws? From casual observation it looks like par for the course. If you don't do it can you compete in terms of delivery times.

Depends how much money you want to make. It is possible and not everyone riding around town with a bag on is a courier. I got the stinkeye from a motorbike courier on the way home from work recently as he thought I was outside the pushbike boundary taking work from him.

Tenzor07

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

Is it possible to work as a bicycle courier without routinely breaking traffic laws? From casual observation it looks like par for the course. If you don't do it can you compete in terms of delivery times.

Like another poster already said, it depends on how much money the courier wants to make.. I see couriers now with cargo style bikes so pretty much impossible to zip around town as quickly as on a regular bike....

tomasrojo

roverrules wrote: »

She was blasted along the pavement, she was LUCKY that she wasn't seriously hurt and you don't know if she would have been as lucky with a car/motorbike.

Well, let's treat a bicycle as one unit of kinetic energy. How much more energy can a car impart if it hits a pedestrian? At the same speed, it's propotional to the mass. So say a bike plus rider is 100kg, an average car these days is about 1500kg, so fifteen times the kinetic energy. Much less likely to have a benign outcome.

But when you look at a likely disparity in speed, you get much worse outcomes. If the bike is travelling quite fast (30km/h) and a car is travelling at quite a usual speed, unfortunately, in suburban areas in Ireland (50km/h), the car has forty-two times the kinetic energy (kinetic energy rises as a square of velocity).

So while we can't comment on any individual case with certainty, we can say with absolute certainty that on average a car is much more likely to kill a pedestrian. And since cyclists killing pedestrians is close to a freak occurrence, real-world statistics bear this out too.

roverrules wrote: »

How many one punch incidents do you read about, a punch isn't likely to be as strong a force as a cyclist running into someone

People being killed by punches is more common than people being killed by bikes. It's a targeted application of force to a vulnerable part of the body. In any case, to use your analogy again, how does a punch compare to being hit by a car?

niceonetom

Mandatory fist insurance? Or mandatory styrofoam gloves?

CramCycle

niceonetom wrote: »

Mandatory fist insurance? Or mandatory styrofoam gloves?

Bubble wrap everyone or bring in those "surrogates" from comics. Mandatory sumo suits might do the job as well.

magicbastarder

niceonetom wrote: »

Or mandatory styrofoam gloves?

there's an article i once read which i should dig out about how bare knuckle boxing is safer than boxing with padded boxing gloves.

JMcL

Grandpa Hassan wrote: »

Well, this just shows how ignorant you are about cycling. That courier with 'no brakes' would have been riding a fixie. They can stop on a dime.

CramCycle wrote: »

No, they can't, only if going reasonably slowly. Your front brake is what gives you decent stopping power. The rear one, at speed, will just skid and slow you if travelling at speed.

And a lad in Manchester has been kind enough to illustrate exactly this point (accompanying road.cc article with background)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Q5ldUE-u8

Tenzor07

JMcL wrote: »

And a lad in Manchester has been kind enough to illustrate exactly this point (accompanying road.cc article with background)

Snapped cable

The driver of a Manchester bus that a cyclist ran into the side of after going through a red light has defended the rider’s actions after the latter said that his brake cable had snapped.

Beasty

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Snapped cable

Maybe that's what happened with the taxi also?

Tenzor07

Well spotted!

Beasty

It actually turns to amber (which means stop) 8 seconds before that frame freeze

Tenzor07

And looking at the youtube comments, most of them seem not to have noticed the Taxi breaking the lights and instead pick on the bicyclist.. :rolleyes:

Grandpa Hassan

Beasty wrote: »

It actually turns to amber (which means stop) 8 seconds before that frame freeze

Amber doesn't mean stop. It means accelerate, in order to minimize how blatantly you break the red

seamus

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

Is it possible to work as a bicycle courier without routinely breaking traffic laws? From casual observation it looks like par for the course. If you don't do it can you compete in terms of delivery times.

Hah, I've always asked myself that question. Be interesting to hear from people who've worked as a courier and made an effort to be lawful.

Though I suspect after a while you could learn to be nimble enough to perform cyclocross-esque dismounts and mounts to get you through practically any junction, so you'll be a law-breaking ped rather than cyclist

Chips Lovell

L'Enfer du Nord wrote: »

Is it possible to work as a bicycle courier without routinely breaking traffic laws? From casual observation it looks like par for the course. If you don't do it can you compete in terms of delivery times.

I think it's less about delivery times and more about aesthetics. You don't look terribly hipsterish if you aren't insouciantly blowing through red lights.