Journalism and cycling

magicbastarder

Moflojo wrote: »

This is exactly why Red Herrings are a logical fallacy. You're now discussing the emissions of people versus cars, when it really has no true relevance whatsoever to the original debate about 30kph zones. Are people allowed inside 30kph zones if they're not inside cars? If yes, this is a red herring.

of course it's a red herring. doesn't mean it's A Bad Thing to debunk it.

check_six

HivemindXX wrote: »

I'm not at all surprised that this was a mess. Unless you drift in to irrelevancies or inaccuracies (we used to call them lies) it is hard to really argue against the 30kph limit.

The main arguments against were that it would potentially delay midnight prowlers (I presume they are imagining that the traffic lights don't change at night), and that no one would stick to the limit anyway. They don't cut the mustard for me.

HivemindXX wrote: »

I'm very interested in this theory that a family gives out more pollutants than a car. You point out that this is going to happen anyway but I still think there is something very fishy there. Does anyone know where Faughnan got this information from?

I was in full on cranky-old-man-shouting-at-the-radio mode when I heard him blurt that factoid out. It is a nonsense comparison.

HivemindXX wrote: »

Was there even any mention of the difference in mortality for a pedestrian struck at 50kph versus one struck at 30kph?

Yes there was. It was mentioned. The Love30 (?) lady was coherent when discussing this topic. It quickly slid into a much longer and more in depth nonsense-fest about the lethality of a bicycle.

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Seriously? I broadly like Conor Faughnan, but that is one of the dumbest things I've heard anyone in his position say in a long time. :mad:

Yep. He'd been very knowledgeable about the dangers of bike lanes, but this emissions bit was total guff.

Chuchote

check_six wrote: »

So far so good, but then it veered off towards a single person driving around town at the dead of night and how they might be delayed rather than talking about when the majority of people are actually on the roads.

The idea that a 30km/h limit is going to "slow drivers down" is a fallacy, as far as I know. 30km/h will mean that there is a steady flow of traffic, rather than drivers racing from red light to red light, gunning engines and stepping on brakes.

With some luck it may help Irish - or at least Dublin - residents to start driving like grownups again.

tomasrojo

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Human emissions are part of the carbon cycle - atmospheric carbon is captured by plants, which are eaten by animals, which release the carbon back into the atmosphere. Comparing the two is completely disingenuous and misleading.

Also, if he did use the phrase "harmful emissions" or the like, NOx emissions are not emitted by humans, and they are by fossil-fuel-burning vehicles, and they're extremely harmful. Similarly, PM10 particulates, and others.

Just total nonsense.

EDIT: just catching up on what was said. My point already made; sorry for the repetition.

tomasrojo

Incidentally, CO2 is frequently classified as a pollutant, because it's likely to cause harm or disruption in the quantities in which it's typically emitted. It's not a localised pollutant though.

tomasrojo

check_six wrote: »

Pat upset about people being caught for speeding when arriving at a roundabout.

The angriest I ever heard him on his RTÉ radio show was about the speed limits on the Stillorgan dual carriageway. Suspect his trip to work that morning was interrupted for some reason.

check_six

tomasrojo wrote: »

The angriest I ever heard him on his RTÉ radio show was about the speed limits on the Stillorgan dual carriageway. Suspect his trip to work that morning was interrupted for some reason.

I actually heard that rant. Think there may have been more than one outburst on that particular topic. Furious he was.

Doc07

Has no journalist thought to point out that you can't average over 20km/hr never mind 30km on many city centre journeys during the major commuting/rush hour times.
I commute by car almost everyday between Tallaght and Harold's Cross.( I would love to cycle instead but need the car for certain things)
If I drive between 8-10am or between 5-7pm I never average above 20km/hr and that's including the short bursts of 80+km/hr I manage on the N81 part.

On one of the rare occasions I got to cycle commute, a car objected to me 'taking the lane' in Kimmage.
I offered the driver a €50 bet that he couldn't beat me on the journey in his car, such is my confidence that you can't average over 20km during rush hour in that part of the city.

Chuchote

This is exactly it! Drivers have the illusion that they're speeding through the city (except when stopped by those nasty cyclists taking up their lane), when in fact they're sitting in queues of traffic, stopping and starting and stopping and stopping and starting and stopping then ZOOMMM-sssstop and stopping…

Grassey

Doc07 wrote:

Has no journalist thought to point out that you can't average over 20km/hr never mind 30km on many city centre journeys during the major commuting/rush hour times

Exactly this! If I drive during school drop off times my avg driving speed is <9kmh. Cycling it's about 20kmh.

Of course during the summer/holidays driving goes to about 36kmh, and cycling 22kmh.

Clearly the only solution is to tax these road hogs dropping kids to school with no consideration to poor commuters!

coolbeans

mcgratheoin wrote: »

Seriously? I broadly like Conor Faughnan, but that is one of the dumbest things I've heard anyone in his position say in a long time. :mad:
Emissions from cars are ultimately the result of taking sequestered carbon (i.e. fossil fuels) and releasing that carbon into the atmosphere as CO2. The whole point of these emissions is that we're shoving tonnes of carbon back into the atmosphere that had been taken out of the system millions of years ago.
Human emissions are part of the carbon cycle - atmospheric carbon is captured by plants, which are eaten by animals, which release the carbon back into the atmosphere. Comparing the two is completely disingenuous and misleading.

You sound like you know what you're talking about. Not too sure you're aware of this but knowing what you're talking about seems to be no advantage on issues like these. I'd even say it's a disadvantage. What you wanna do is go on a ranting diatribe, without touching on any specifics whatsoever (there be dragons). Also make sure you're loud and angry while focusing on isolated generalisations. Finally, appeal to 'common sense' (whatever that is) while demonstrating none yourself. Bingo!

You're welcome. 😊

Chuchote

Grassey wrote: »

Exactly this! If I drive during school drop off times my avg driving speed is <9kmh. Cycling it's about 20kmh.

Of course during the summer/holidays driving goes to about 36kmh, and cycling 22kmh.

Clearly the only solution is to tax these road hogs dropping kids to school with no consideration to poor commuters!

Or just build protected cycle lanes along every road with a school on it.

NiallBoo

CO2 is made a big deal of because it's a simple yard-stick to use for how much effect different substances have on global warming.

It's hard to grasp what effect so many tonnes of 50 different substances have, but if you can put them all in terms of CO2 then you have a single currency that you can compare things in and add up.

This doesn't attempt to quantify things like how toxic or carcinogenic something is and shouldn't be thought of as the complete measure of pollution - only the effect on global warming.

NiallBoo

Chuchote wrote: »

Or just build protected cycle lanes along every road with a school on it.

You mean parking spaces?

Grassey

Chuchote wrote:

Or just build protected cycle lanes along every road with a school on it.

Having seen regular occurrences of cars using the segregated lane from Churchtown to Dundrum, driving at speed in the new lanes in Blackrock (thinking it's a 3rd driving lane...), plastic lane divider poles bent and broken hours after being installed, I think full on metal walls and lanes too narrow for cars is the only thing that would work at the expense of making the cycle less appealing

Chuchote

If a driver has an accident while driving in a cycle lane, where his car is not supposed to be, is it covered by insurance, or will he end up losing the house to cover the costs?

Chips Lovell

Grassey wrote: »

...I think full on metal walls and lanes too narrow for cars is the only thing that would work at the expense of making the cycle less appealing

Throwing good money after bad.

average_runner

Chuchote wrote: »

If a driver has an accident while driving in a cycle lane, where his car is not supposed to be, is it covered by insurance, or will he end up losing the house to cover the costs?

Yes they are covered as its a public road but their costs will fly up the next year

Chuchote

average_runner wrote: »

Yes they are covered as its a public road but their costs will fly up the next year

Odd; it's a public road, but not for that part of the public?

Simple solution to cars in cycle lanes? Metal bollards in centre, which cyclists can steer around but cars can't. They could be removed once drivers have been trained to ignore the lane.

average_runner

Chuchote wrote: »

Odd; it's a public road, but not for that part of the public?

Simple solution to cars in cycle lanes? Metal bollards in centre, which cyclists can steer around but cars can't. They could be removed once drivers have been trained to ignore the lane.

You will find some cyclists will crash into them and then make a claim.

I agree with keeping them away from each other, but I would use the kerb solution.

Anyhow nothing is going to happen for a long time, more serious issues out there at the moment with homeless, health and education a mess.

And the government is useless, every single party.

CramCycle

NiallBoo wrote: »

CO2 is made a big deal of because it's a simple yard-stick to use for how much effect different substances have on global warming.

It's hard to grasp what effect so many tonnes of 50 different substances have, but if you can put them all in terms of CO2 then you have a single currency that you can compare things in and add up.

This doesn't attempt to quantify things like how toxic or carcinogenic something is and shouldn't be thought of as the complete measure of pollution - only the effect on global warming.

It is a terrible yardstick though as unless the AA plan to cull nuclear families to make it more acceptable that cars produce as much CO2 on average, then it is just a nonsense statement. Might be interesting at best. It also is more nonsense in that he was trying to compare the two as being equivalent which is just BS.

Chuchote

average_runner wrote: »

You will find some cyclists will crash into them and then make a claim.

What is this paranoia about "X will happen and someone will make a claim"? People really don't make a lot of claims for things that are their own fault.

(If you're old enough to remember the first parking meters on Dublin streets, you may remember that for a few weeks after they were installed, the heads hadn't been put on yet, and they were just the right height to cause future fertility problems to any man who crashed unwarily into them…)

tomasrojo

NiallBoo wrote: »

CO2 is made a big deal of because it's a simple yard-stick to use for how much effect different substances have on global warming.

It's hard to grasp what effect so many tonnes of 50 different substances have, but if you can put them all in terms of CO2 then you have a single currency that you can compare things in and add up.

Yes, greenhouse gases are often expressed as CO2-equivalent. But CO2 is in and of itself the greenhouse gas that's driving most climate change, because of its high-ish potential to trap heat, its fairly high concentration and its long atmospheric residency time (it's much less reactive than, say, methane or nitrous oxide). Water vapour traps the most heat, but it cycles in and out of the atmosphere rapidly, and its atmospheric concentration isn't rising rapidly year on year.

The greenhouse gas that might really turn this into a nightmare is methane though, as its sources aren't that well understood, it traps more heat, and there are huge store of it in permafrost, waiting to be released. But it's largely the CO2 that will cause the tipping point to release all that methane, if it does happen.

(As already pointed out, CO2 produced by biological processes isn't increasing atmospheric CO2; it's just returning CO2 that was recently captured from the atmosphere by photosynthesis. So who cares how much CO2 a family of four breathes out. They're just repaying a short-term loan. The car is putting carbon back into the air that left it millions of years ago.)

Chuchote

And the melting of the Greenland ice cap is set to release an unprecedented amount of methane into the atmosphere. End of days…

average_runner

Chuchote wrote: »

What is this paranoia about "X will happen and someone will make a claim"? People really don't make a lot of claims for things that are their own fault.

(If you're old enough to remember the first parking meters on Dublin streets, you may remember that for a few weeks after they were installed, the heads hadn't been put on yet, and they were just the right height to cause future fertility problems to any man who crashed unwarily into them…)

Chuchote wrote: »

What is this paranoia about "X will happen and someone will make a claim"? People really don't make a lot of claims for things that are their own fault."

There has been loads of them this year, the one in the wicklow way, the one in the take-away, the hockey field one where she lost in court and loads of others.

Thats just a few.

tomasrojo

Chuchote wrote: »

And the melting of the Greenland ice cap is set to release an unprecedented amount of methane into the atmosphere. End of days…

It's very troubling, yes. And the potential release of methane from methane hydrates/clathrates in colder regions was known about decades ago. But, hey, hippies, amirite?

average_runner

Chuchote wrote: »

And the melting of the Greenland ice cap is set to release an unprecedented amount of methane into the atmosphere. End of days…

And those cows!!!!!!

tomasrojo

average_runner wrote: »

And those cows!!!!!!

At least in a matter of years we could stop cows releasing methane. If a vast store of bound methane is released due to higher temperatures, which in turn releases more methane, we can't do anything about it. At least, I haven't heard anyone come up with any ideas.

Chuchote

average_runner wrote: »

Chuchote wrote: »

What is this paranoia about "X will happen and someone will make a claim"? People really don't make a lot of claims for things that are their own fault."

There has been loads of them this year, the one in the wicklow way, the one in the take-away, the hockey field one where she lost in court and loads of others.

Thats just a few.

Wicklow Way - what's wrong with suing when a badly-maintained walkway injures you? I've been reporting several streets local to me for dangerously badly mended and maintained potholed roads, without any action by the council. If (God forbid) I come off my bike some dark night on one of these and break my wrist, I will claim for damages.

This does not mean that people are rushing out to make unjustified claims. There are always some criminals who will do so, but they're not the general population.

I don't know what the one in the takeaway was, or the hockey field one where she lost in court, or the loads of others.

average_runner

Chuchote wrote: »

average_runner wrote: »

Wicklow Way - what's wrong with suing when a badly-maintained walkway injures you? I've been reporting several streets local to me for dangerously badly mended and maintained potholed roads, without any action by the council. If (God forbid) I come off my bike some dark night on one of these and break my wrist, I will claim for damages.

This does not mean that people are rushing out to make unjustified claims. There are always some criminals who will do so, but they're not the general population.

I don't know what the one in the takeaway was, or the hockey field one where she lost in court, or the loads of others.

Because she claimed she couldn't run marathons when in fact she never ran a marathon.

Bridges in a forest will always have rusty nails and holes in them, its up to the walker to watch where they are going which clearly didn't. Knock on effect to this will be massive.

So if you want the bollards, they better make sure there is signs all over the place about them and are painted a very bright color.

Anyhow it won't happen because nothing happens in Ireland.