Journalism and cycling

Pinch Flat

RobertFoster wrote: »

Bike lanes need physical protection from car traffic, study shows (AU study on a US site, so a mix of metric and imperial stats)

So white lines aren't magic and can actually result in closer passes.

I was in a taxi going to a meeting the other morning. Traffic outside the Sugar Club in Lesson Street was stationary.

"It's all the fault of those yokes they put in for the cyclists" says to cabby, gesturing to the protective armadillos DCC recently installed. "caused all the traffic to bunch up. Really dangerous".The lane was busy with cyclists heading into Dublin city center, blissfully unaware of the traffic carnage around them.

"SO where are the cyclists meant to go if there not there" says I. Cue puzzled look from cabby.

https://tenor.com/view/mind-blown-explosion-mind-gif-4572252

Duckjob

Pinch Flat wrote: »

I was in a taxi going to a meeting the other morning. Traffic outside the Sugar Club in Lesson Street was stationary.

"It's all the fault of those yokes they put in for the cyclists" says to cabby, gesturing to the protective armadillos DCC recently installed. "caused all the traffic to bunch up. Really dangerous".The lane was busy with cyclists heading into Dublin city center, blissfully unaware of the traffic carnage around them.

"SO where are the cyclists meant to go if there not there" says I. Cue puzzled look from cabby.

https://tenor.com/view/mind-blown-explosion-mind-gif-4572252

I love how measures that don't suit car-centric agendas as labelled as "dangerous" by those promoting such agendas.

There's nothing inherently dangerous about a car until you allow someone with a selfish, arrogant and entitled mindset to drive it.

tomasrojo

I had a taxi driver say something out his window at me one morning, but I was going the other way, and I'm disinclined to talk to drivers anyway, unless they're telling me I'm awesome, or some such. The little I heard was him opining that my cargo bike was "dangerous" in some way. Wait till he finds out the effect of sitting down inhaling NOx all day.

rubadub

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/e-scooter-business-says-sales-down-over-50-due-to-confusion-over-legality-1.3875124

E-scooter business says sales down ‘over 50%’ due to confusion over legality
Department of Transport says e-scooters not allowed on public roads, fines may be issued

...When asked about the legality of e-scooters that require a degree of physical propulsion before a motor can start, a spokesman for the Department of Transport compared e-scooters to a certain category of e-bicycles.

The spokesman said some e-bikes “require continuous effort on the part of the cyclist [and] are considered to be pedal cycles” because “the engine is not the means of propulsion, but an aid to the user”.

Other e-bicycles “that can be exclusively propelled by the motor are classified in EU law as low-performance mopeds” and are subject to Road Traffic legislation, with the user obliged to have tax, insurance and an appropriate driving licence where the vehicle is to be used in a public place.

He said e-scooters, similar to pedal-assisted cycles, “do not require continuous effort on the part of the user, and are therefore considered to be mechanically propelled vehicles”.

The "continuous effort" is key, as many unscrupulous sellers have been been making laughably disingenuous claims that the gardai & RSA have made it absolutely clear that they are legal if they need a push start.

I am surprised sales have not dropped more, at least some customers are not being duped/conned by any dodgy sellers telling them there is no potential issue at all.

tomasrojo

Yeah, somebody at work told me he'd heard on the radio that they were legal provided they were speed-limited to 25km/h. Basically, the pedelec legislation, but they're definitely not pedelecs, so it's not true.

coco0981

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

35-40 minutes from Dalkey into RTE? He certainly used to talk about cycling in.

He definitely used to use a BMW C1, it's a type of scooter with a roof

Chapeau to this fella.

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2019/0504/1047482-shane-finn-athlete-america-trek/

Cetyl Palmitate

Duckjob wrote: »

Someone should really do something about all these driverless cars and buses, going off on their own and getting themselves into accidents.

In this case it's also a riderless bike.

magicbastarder

rubadub wrote: »

many unscrupulous sellers have been been making laughably disingenuous claims that the gardai & RSA have made it absolutely clear that they are legal if they need a push start.

i actually had an argument with a guy in work about this, he was swearing blind that if the motor kicks in only when the scooter is going above 5km/h, it's legal.

i think it's partly due to this being one test the gardai can do; if it takes off under its own power, the test fails. but people have assumed that if it passes this first test, it's legal.

Rechuchote

tomasrojo wrote: »

To be fair, the Seville level of cycling went from 0.5% of journeys to about 6%, so Dublin city centre's response, for example, might not be as strong, because it's already higher than that, but I'm willing to bet a largish network (continuous) would show an elastic response in Dublin.

Considering the number of people - especially women - who say to me "I'd love to ride my bike to work, but I'd be afraid", I strongly suspect that if the Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network were built, enormous numbers of people would take to the bike. At first in summer only, but increasingly in all but the nastiest weather.

magicbastarder wrote: »

some hailstones were involved in a collision with some motorised vehicles causing the vehicles to lose control. gardai are investigating the source of the hailstones.

(The hailstones were uninjured in the collision.)

Someone was mentioning that most of the radio jocks gurning against 'cyclists' are male and over 50. I'd suggest that they're mostly male and over 70. Those women who carry on like this, it's only their IQ that's over 70 (just about).

But this problem is a factor of the fact that Ireland tends to hire a rake of great young DJs just after people rise in a chorus and complain that they never hear the new music on these station, they never hear Irish bands, etc. I remember a similar chorus preceding the hiring of people like Pat Kenny, Dave Fanning et al - the ones who are old codgers now. Same with the papers.

tuxy

rubadub wrote: »

The "continuous effort" is key, as many unscrupulous sellers have been been making laughably disingenuous claims that the gardai & RSA have made it absolutely clear that they are legal if they need a push start.

I just did a google search for "law on e bikes Ireland" and the top result was this crap and yes of course they are trying to sell all kinds of things that are illegal on Irish roads.

https://gyrowheel.ie/faq/

Electric vehicles or any other Mechanically Propelled Vehicles (MPV) do not need to be taxed or insured in Ireland as long as they don’t go over 45 mph. All our products travel below 45 mph. However, if any electric vehicles go over 45 mph, then those would need to get tax and insurance like a regular car or motorbike.

45mph(72kmh) :rolleyes:

Rechuchote

tuxy wrote: »

I just did a google search for "law on e bikes Ireland" and the top result was this crap and yes of course they are trying to sell all kinds of things that are illegal on Irish roads.

#cough Bull bars

neris

Itv news. Pretty sickening and disgusting

https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1124724042248880128?s=19

tomasrojo

From what I've heard, the police responded to the CCTV footage that the cyclist had to find himself by writing a letter to the person the car was registered to. Not even turning up on the door step.

meeeeh

Unfortunately I'm not surprised. We had similar response from Guards twice (theft and break in). I suspect it happens a lot more than people realise.

AndrewJRenko

https://twitter.com/todgerman/status/1124312220266127360

tomasrojo

The second driver is especially in the wrong, obviously, but I personally wouldn't have proceeded at any decent speed into the potential path of turning cars when the first driver has already committed to the turn. The drivers behind are always following the first blindly, in my experience.

Actually, maybe the distances involved are distorted by the lens, and the cyclist was braking but couldn't slow down enough in time. I'm also only going on the visuals. The sound on this computer is on the fritz again.

Looking at the comments under, he says he was braking, but if he'd slammed on the brakes he would have ended up under the car (he was doing about 40km/h he says).

The point that it's a terrible road layout is also made, which is maybe the most important point, I think. Road designers have to stop making urban roads with allowing drivers to keep up their speed in mind. They should be using right angles over arcing designs to slow drivers down, and that junction looks as if it needs a traffic light or something similar.

magicbastarder

Interview with Orla Walsh:

https://www.the42.ie/orla-walsh-2-4620725-May2019/

tomasrojo

This is breathtakingly mendacious or breathtakingly dim:
https://twitter.com/AsEasyAsRiding/status/1124998548452519936

Eamonnator

tomasrojo wrote: »

This is breathtakingly mendacious or breathtakingly dim:
https://twitter.com/AsEasyAsRiding/status/1124998548452519936

Tomasrojo,
It' the Daily Mail.
you've posted it in the the wrong thread. This is the Journalism thread, not the Comic section.

zurbfoundation

http://www.stickybottle.com/latest-news/bora-hansgrohe-giro-team-2019/

Here is a story about a racer who is NOT riding an upcoming bicycle race.

Tombo2001

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

35-40 minutes from Dalkey into RTE? He certainly used to talk about cycling in.

I'd say what you heard was

"I'm a cyclist myself but......" as an intro to some anti-cycling diatribe.

Usually what this means is that Santa brought them a bike when they were 7, and they never used it.

JMcL

magicbastarder wrote: »

i do have one major issue with the 'research' done about the prevalence of red light breaking:

there's no indication of why they chose those two junctions, but that's a massive missing piece of the puzzle. an average of two - when one of the two values is a claimed 98% - is just a bizarre thing to publicise.

Playing catch up here - it's the grand canal junctions at Charlemont bridge and Baggot St bridge, and they were chosen to:

Due to the close proximity of the cycle lane and cycle track along either side of the Grand Canal (a canal route that traverses Dublin City), it was decided to survey cyclists on each infrastructure type at several different junctions/bridges along the Canal.

The aim being to see compare dedicated infrastructure (bike track/bike lights) vs bike lane/regular traffic lights. Study was through DCCs traffic cams on 8 non-consecutive days (in 2014). I've only skimmed the paper but seems reasonable enough in terms of methodology

AndrewJRenko

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I'd say what you heard was

"I'm a cyclist myself but......" as an intro to some anti-cycling diatribe.

Usually what this means is that Santa brought them a bike when they were 7, and they never used it.

He looks older than 7 here;







Undoubtedly the 'I'm a cyclist myself' phenomenon exists, but there is something more substantial with Pat. I can't tell you exactly where/when I heard it, but it was one of those things that I was definitely aware of - that he used to frequently travel to work in RTE by bike, at a time when that was fairly unusual choice of transport for (frankly) rich and famous people.


Source: https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/the-great-summer-switchoff-at-rte-26438470.html

tomasrojo

This is about the Evening Standard, but I'm sure the various outlets here have a similar "grid".

https://twitter.com/AsEasyAsRiding/status/1125777701778927616

hesker

I’ve suspected for a while now that some of the people adding the most inflammatory anti-cycling comments actually work for the newspapers if not the actual authors of the articles

Utter Consternation

hesker wrote: »

I’ve suspected for a while now that some of the people adding the most inflammatory anti-cycling comments actually work for the newspapers if not the actual authors of the articles

One could don their tin foil hat and say that the whole drivers vs cyclists scenario suits policy makers because they can let that roll on while doing fcuk all to improve the infrastructure which would make it safer for everyone on the roads.

jjpep

Utter Consternation wrote: »

One could don their tin foil hat and say that the whole drivers vs cyclists scenario suits policy makers because they can let that roll on while doing fcuk all to improve the infrastructure which would make it safer for everyone on the roads.

In the spirit of tin foil hat wearing, I find it interesting that all media outlets are essentially funded by the motor industry. Motor industry is the 2nd biggest spender in terms of advertising in this country. Biggest spender is financial services, which would of course include insurance companies and companies that provide finance for people to buy cars.

Tombo2001

Thats comedy gold, that ES sheet.

Kate.....if she gets her heel stuck in a drain......

magicbastarder

jjpep wrote: »

In the spirit of tin foil hat wearing, I find it interesting that all media outlets are essentially funded by the motor industry. Motor industry is the 2nd biggest spender in terms of advertising in this country.

to be fair, they *are* selling nothing but hopes and dreams to the public. dreams of fording streams, climbing mountains, and pulling angry bullocks of of drains, in their SUVs.
you have to give someone something to dream about when they're stuck on the N7 again because someone up ahead has driven into the side of another car.