Journalism and cycling

Chips Lovell

RayCun wrote: »

People don't like to think that they're in the wrong.
Was there nearly a collision?
Maybe it was someone's fault.

Was the cyclist not wearing high-vis/a helmet/breaking a light/going too fast/too slow/too far out/in lycra/wearing earphones/on the road when there's a bike lane? Then it was their fault.

Last time this happened to me was a chap who drove out into a roundabout in front of me in the Phoenix Park.

He pulled up alongside me after the roundabout to roar "where's your high viz". If I'd been inclined to argue the toss, I would have pointed out that if he'd failed to notice a startlingly handsome, 6ft 2in man, dressed in a fetching lime green and white ensemble, in broad daylight; the addition of a high-viz vest is unlikely to have helped.

Not to mention the fact that the size of the joint he appeared to be smoking may have had more of an influence on his judgement than my attire.

tomasrojo

Bit of an aside, but anyone who ever gives me the "Where's your ...?" speech out of a car window I also have to ignore, because my decisions are based on interconnecting issues, and would possibly require graphs to fully do justice to how I arrived at my decision.

I'm reminded of the bumper sticker "I ♥ nuance".

CramCycle

plodder wrote: »

I'd be surprised as well if track bikes are sold without some kind of warning that they can't be used on the roads without brakes being added.

Anyone I ever got from the Uk had a sticker on it saying as much,. They were both Fuji and from Evans so maybe it was them.

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

I would have pointed out that if he'd failed to notice a startlingly handsome, 6ft 2in man, dressed in a fetching lime green and white ensemble, in broad daylight; the addition of a high-viz vest is unlikely to have helped.

You would want to get your eyes checked, I was in red, purple and white :pac:

magicbastarder

tomasrojo wrote: »

Bit of an aside, but anyone who ever gives me the "Where's your ...?" speech out of a car window

though i do like the 'what's wrong with the bike lane!?' approach. last time i was able to get in an 'everything. everything is wrong with that bike lane' and you could tell by his expression that he was not actually expecting a direct answer.

Pinch Flat

magicbastarder wrote: »

though i do like the 'what's wrong with the bike lane!?' approach. last time i was able to get in an 'everything. everything is wrong with that bike lane' and you could tell by his expression that he was not actually expecting a direct answer.

I've had the "why don't you use the bike lane" a few times. When I point out the reason is because I'm turning right and there's no bike lane, I get a genuine look ofpuzzlement.

Chuchote

Borderfox wrote: »

A piece on Pat Kenny on Newstalk shortly about the driver that collided with the pedestrian in Meath that wasn't wearing hi viz

The correct solutions to people being hit by drivers when they're walking is to build well-lit pavements where they can walk safely, not to expect the people walking to dress in a particular way.

Moflojo

check_six wrote: »

The piece on the radio added up to "wear hi-vis". I missed a bit of it, but as far as I could tell there was no mention of lights on the car at all. If you can't see where you are going, surely you should proceed with high caution, not just plough on because you "know the road"?

"I have automatic headlights, so they were on full lights when I was travelling on this part of the road, but they never picked up that gentleman..."

There were lights on the car but they, the lights, didn't "pick up" the victim, therefore the driver is blameless. The suggestion here is that the duty to see is on the lights of the sentient car, and the duty to be seen is on the people walking or cycling the roads. The person driving the car plays no active role in seeing other road users.

Drivers, when behind the wheel of their sentient cars, are simply victims of circumstance whenever their car drives into another road user.

meeeeh

Moflojo wrote: »

Drivers, when behind the wheel of their sentient cars, are simply victims of circumstance whenever their car drives into another road user.

That's nonsense. On a dark road you won't notice someone wearing dark clothes till the last moment. It's fine in countries where you have half decent pedestrian paths besides the roads but in Ireland it's it's lunacy to walk on dark roads without some sort of a torch, reflective clothing or similar. I say that as someone who never wore any reflective clothing until moving to Ireland.

Moflojo

meeeeh wrote: »

On a dark road you won't notice someone wearing dark clothes till the last moment.

Should there be a different, lower speed limit during night hours then?

meeeeh wrote: »

It's fine in countries where you have half decent pedestrian paths besides the roads but in Ireland it's lunacy to walk on dark roads.

Is it not lunacy that we don't provide safe paths alongside our country roads?

rubadub

Jep Gambardella wrote: »

He pulled up alongside me after the roundabout to roar "where's your high viz".

"same place as your helmet you reckless cnut" if they have a dark car there must be some reference to that too.

magicbastarder wrote: »

though i do like the 'what's wrong with the bike lane!?' approach. last time i was able to get in an 'everything. everything is wrong with that bike lane'

"it's not a bike lane, it's a footpath, gardai cautioned for being on it before, read the fcuking rules of the road" now this might not be true, but loads are technically footpaths due to incorrect signage or worn out paint etc, so it might at least get them to look it up later. Also you often will be able to point out people walking on it.

meeeeh wrote: »

It's fine in countries where you have half decent pedestrian paths besides the roads

Moflojo wrote: »

Is it not lunacy that we don't provide safe paths alongside our country roads?

I think it would be lunacy to put adequate/safe paths beside every single road in ireland. Is there any country that actually does? if there is I expect it is a very densely populated one with few roads or some other very unusual reason.

Chuchote

rubadub wrote: »

I think it would be lunacy to put adequate/safe paths beside every single road in ireland.

:eek:

rubadub

Chuchote wrote: »

:eek:

what is the surprise about? Can you point to any country that does? or do you consider them all lunatics for not doing it. The cost would be astronomical here. Unless you just suggest shutting down all roads without them, which again would be lunacy in my mind.

Chuchote

rubadub wrote: »

what is the surprise about? Can you point to any country that does? or do you consider them all lunatics for not doing it. The cost would be astronomical here. Unless you just suggest shutting down all roads without them, which again would be lunacy in my mind.

a) Why do Irish people always start any discussion of infrastructure with "Let's lookit what the neighbours do and copy it"?

b) It wouldn't have to be costly; planters along the side of the roads leaving a safe space behind them would be beautiful, easy and affordable… if we care about people's lives.

Otherwise, hell, tell them to buy "hi-viz" and reflective stuff and walk with a torch so drivers will do them the favour of not running them down and killing them.

magicbastarder

if you're walking on a dark country road, surely a torch is sensible? we don't have much time round these parts for cyclists who cycle at night without lights.

DeepBlue

Tbh at night on country roads which are usually narrow (even main roads) then either a torch or high-viz (or both) is a no brainer.

It's not helpful to use terms like "victim blaming" in the discussion as then we're just into idealogical viewpoints and both sides get entrenched in whatever agenda they are trying to advance.

We're trying to avoid collisions and casualties. The best way to do that is to analyse why the incidents happened, what contributed to it and what can prevent that type of incident happening again.

Too often I see pedestrians crossing roads, taking all the time in the world, with their back to oncoming traffic. They are totally relying on the driver to see them and the driver could be distracted, his vision could be obscured e.g. in poor lighting with rain or whatever. Both driver and pedestrian or cyclist have to take responsibility for doing their utmost to improve safety on the roads especially at night. They all have contributions to make. It's not enough to offload the responsibility for your safety onto someone else.

Let's face facts - I don't care how good your headlights are your vision at night is never going to be as good as during daylight hours and this is made many factors worse if it's raining or if a car is passing you from the opposite direction. Putting the responsibility only on the driver to avoid an incident defies simple common sense.

rubadub

Chuchote wrote: »

a) Why do Irish people always start any discussion of infrastructure with "Let's lookit what the neighbours do and copy it"?

I very much doubt this is just an "irish thing" (never stated my nationality in this thread either), it makes sense to question it, and you seemingly cannot point to a country with similar mileage of roads per capita which does have paths on every single road, or can you?

If you think all countries not doing so are lunatics then please say so, answer the question.

If your question is really "Why do Irish people always start any discussion of infrastructure with "Let's lookit what the neighbours do and copy it"
It is because it is a extremely reasonable thing to do, not to just blindly copy it but at least think about it, at least for several seconds.

Remember "lunatics" was the word used, not just unwise or ill informed etc. LUNATICS.

I expect this pathetic ":rolleyes: only in *insert country* stuff" goes on in most countries, I do not think it is particular to here. I expect many examine what others have done, and see the impact etc.

The likes of Varadkar would have done well to look at what happened in our close neighbour Scotland before squandering presumably millions or at least hundreds of thousands in trying to introduce plans for a minimum price on alcohol here.

Chuchote wrote: »

Otherwise, hell, tell them to buy "hi-viz" and reflective stuff and walk with a torch so drivers will do them the favour of not running them down and killing them.

This is already in the ROTR, which I know is NOT law, but it is in the ROTR which are often trotted out to cyclists by people who themselves are ignorant of the ROTR. One upside of this media thing of telling pedestirans to wear high viz is that I expect many will have a backlash against it and say it is not acceptable to insist they wear high viz, and therefore indirectly are saying people should not be expected them to follow the ROTR (those which are not actually law.) It could bring awareness to it.

meeeeh

rubadub wrote: »

what is the surprise about? Can you point to any country that does? or do you consider them all lunatics for not doing it. The cost would be astronomical here. Unless you just suggest shutting down all roads without them, which again would be lunacy in my mind.

You don't have tarmack all the way to the hedge or ditch. Most roads that don't have sidewalks would space for sand footpath and reflective markers/lines at the edge of the road. It doesn't prevent drunk people staggering all over the place getting killed or drunk drivers driving of the road but it is safer. Hedges are extremely dangerous and they seriously affect visibility. A lot of differences have very little to do with extra cost but just how stuff developed through history in different countries.

HivemindXX

DeepBlue wrote: »

Putting the responsibility only on the driver to avoid an incident defies simple common sense.

Absolving the driver of all responsibility is nonsense too. A lot of drivers don't seem to pay enough attention. Every single one who claims that cyclists are hard to see in broad daylight should have their licence pulled for example. This particular guy seems to have never seen the person he killed. How is that possible? "I was going under the speed limit and had my lights on" doesn't absolve you of responsibility to concentrate on the road.

A lot of our rural roads are incredibly bad for pedestrians. The hedge is right up to the edge of the road and any pedestrian has no choice but to walk on the road in the way of any cars that might be approaching at 80+. Other countries may not have footpaths on every road but as Meeeeh says, there is a large range of possibilities between a full foot path and being forced to walk right on the road. We are in a worse situation than other countries because we have a stupidly large amount of rural roads so it's easier just to blame the pedestrian for their own death. If this guy had been wearing high viz I'm sure the driver would be saying he should have had a torch, if the pedestrian had had a torch the driver would be saying he shouldn't have been on foot at all.

Chuchote

Better infrastructure = fewer accidents

If it's necessary to compulsorily purchase land alongside roads to build paths, it should be possible to do it without fuss.

CramCycle

meeeeh wrote: »

That's nonsense. On a dark road you won't notice someone wearing dark clothes till the last moment. It's fine in countries where you have half decent pedestrian paths besides the roads but in Ireland it's it's lunacy to walk on dark roads without some sort of a torch, reflective clothing or similar. I say that as someone who never wore any reflective clothing until moving to Ireland.

Only true if going at high speed. I grew up in Longford. I found that not speeding and being sober made it really easy to see people in time on rural roads. I say this as someone who wouldn't go walking or cycling without decent lights at night but lets not BS anyone. We are used to driving fast on rural roads and we don't want to slow down for the one or two people we might meet every 10 years who don't have a light on, sure we will probably miss them anyway.

Chuchote wrote: »

a) Why do Irish people always start any discussion of infrastructure with "Let's lookit what the neighbours do and copy it"?

Its a reasonable starting point for discussion.

b) It wouldn't have to be costly; planters along the side of the roads leaving a safe space behind them would be beautiful, easy and affordable… if we care about people's lives.

It is not affordable and lets not lie, at the back of it all, alot of people don't give a sh1t about anyone else.

Otherwise, hell, tell them to buy "hi-viz" and reflective stuff and walk with a torch so drivers will do them the favour of not running them down and killing them.

I suspect that in a high number of cases, they would run them down regardless

Chuchote wrote: »

Better infrastructure = fewer accidents

If it's necessary to compulsorily purchase land alongside roads to build paths, it should be possible to do it without fuss.

We can barely maintain the ****ty standard of roads we expect in this country at the minute. It would literally destroy the country. It would be far cheaper to just severely restrict motor vehicle speeds in unlit areas.

magicbastarder

It'd be a colossal undertaking though. The cost of the land itself is minimal compared to the construction costs and other costs such as relocating drains and ditches. Not to mention the environmental costs of grubbing up all the hedges.

buffalo

Chuchote wrote: »

b) It wouldn't have to be costly; planters along the side of the roads leaving a safe space behind them would be beautiful, easy and affordable… if we care about people's lives.

Are you suggesting that expanding every single boreen and road to include a hard shoulder - presumably using CPOs where necessary - and also lining every kilometre of that with planters, that that would be not 'costly'? Or am I misunderstanding something?

meeeeh

I'm well aware that it's not feasible to get rid of ditches and hedges, there is also certain beauty to them. But that also means anyone walking/cycling/running without high viz or lights on country roads is suicidal moron. There are way too many blind turns to blame everything on cars. Visibility is vital and btw there are plenty of countries where car lights have to be on during day. Anyone looking at a grey car on the road on a rainy day will know why.

ThisRegard

Presumably you mean at night with regard to your moron comment?

Chuchote

Calm piece from the Guardian on the reality of cycling compared to media hysteria (I particularly like the comparison to the Cats Protection League):

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2017/aug/29/is-the-uk-really-menaced-by-reckless-cyclists?CMP=share_btn_tw

When cycling reaches newspaper front pages it’s usually the sporting kind. The last couple of weeks have been an exception, with blanket coverage of the trial of Charlie Alliston, convicted last week over the death of Kim Briggs after he struck her on his bike.

This piece isn’t about the facts of this very tragic case. It’s about the aftermath, more specifically the repeated call in some part of the media for something to be done about what these articles believe is a particular problem of reckless and law-flouting cyclists.

Much of this is perhaps predictable – I’ve written previously on the particular way cycling and cyclists are often dealt with in the media and public debate – but it’s worth pointing out the peculiarly one-sided and fact-avoidant tone of much of the recent discussion.

It’s also worth countering some of the myths again propagated about cycling, because it’s not just pundits who have been making themselves look silly; a few politicians who should have known much better have also got involved.

(snip)

Also: when I refer to a cyclist, I mean someone who happens to be riding a bike at that moment. They are not different, or apart, or special. The great majority of regular adult cyclists in the UK also drive cars. Like me, they’re also very likely to use trains, buses, planes, all the rest of it. This is a debate about modes of transport, not tribes.

(snip)

The anti-cycling backlash is disproportionate and ill-informed.

As an experiment I looked through the news feeds of all UK police forces for the fortnight following the first day of the Alliston trial, and compiled details of the serious road incidents they cited.

It found that over the period, eight pedestrians had been killed after being hit by car drivers, and 27 were seriously injured, in five of these cases the motorist fleeing the scene. Two cyclists were killed (one in a hit and run) and four badly hurt, two again by drivers who did not stop.

Three motorcyclists died after colliding with cars, and 26 people in motor vehicles died in various other collisions (I excluded single-vehicle crashes).

Other incidents included a 12-year-old girl pushed off her bike by a man, after which she was almost hit and killed by a car, and a six-year-old boy run over and trapped under a mobility scooter, the driver of which then left the scene (at a presumably sedate pace).

Beyond the horrible crash on the M1 which killed eight people, none of these, that I saw, made the front pages – or any pages – of the national newspapers.

(snip)

Even some of the more sensible post-trial commenters felt obliged to note, with a weary sigh, that cyclists can be a particularly lawless bunch overall. My esteemed and wise colleague, David Shariatmadari, contrasted the anarchic world of bikes with the “rigorously tested and policed” arena of driving.

There’s a flaw with this argument: there’s no evidence it’s true.

(snip)

Those who think licensing cars and testing drivers curbs lawlessness should follow the Twitter feed of the joint Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire roads policing unit, an endless daily list of uninsured, illegally-modified or otherwise dangerous vehicles.

For more context, consider this. Earlier this month Essex police had a single day of action in Clacton – a town of about 20,000 people – connected to poor driving. It found 116 speeding offences, 12 drivers with no insurance, 18 with no MOT, seven using phones, and 11 cars seized for faults or illegal modifications.

(snip)

A BBC study found that fewer than half of driver convicted of offences in which a cyclist died went to jail. Other research has found large numbers of drivers keep their licences even after being repeatedly convicted of law-breaking. In 2015 a van driver, Christopher Gard, killed a cyclist as he sent a text at the wheel. It emerged in court Gard had six previous convictions for using a phone as he drove.

If you want to use law to make the roads safer, this might seem a better place to begin.

(snip)

There is no powerful cycling lobby, or even many cyclists.

This is one of the more curious arguments from the cycle sceptics, and again it’s nonsense. Cycling UK (formerly the CTC), named by the usually sensible Boulton as “a well-resourced lobbying organisation”, has an annual income of about £5m, precisely 10% that of the powerful Cats Protection League.

(snip)

It’s missing the point on an industrial scale.

Last week, figures from Public Health England showed 6 million middle-aged people in England are currently getting more or less no exercise, at massive risk to their health.

If you talk to just about any public health expert they will tell you two things. First, the pandemic of avoidable ill-health caused by sedentary lifestyles will, if unchecked, pretty soon bankrupt the NHS and social care systems.

They will also tell you that the best way to get people active is exercise which forms part of their everyday life, such as active travel, and that cycling is ideal for this.

About 85,000 people in England and Wales die each year from illness connected to inactive living. Obsessing about the supposed dangers caused by cycling, rather than the many, provable benefits it brings, strikes me as extremely odd.

RayCun

On Sunday I drove along this road
https://www.google.ie/maps/dir/53.2446286,-6.3897835/53.1699873,-6.3883244/@53.2397875,-6.3947188,15z
(Ballinascorney to Kippure)

10 kilometres, one lane road all the way.

To put a path (or a row of planters!) along the side of this road, would mean widening the road along the whole length, at enormous cost, making the road unusable while the works are going on, and spoiling more of the countryside.

And that's a road in Dublin (half of it). How many more like it are there in the country?

tomasrojo

physics rather than morals

This might be my family motto.

tomasrojo

I see a few of the comments under that Peter Walker article are along the lines of: "I once chastised a random stranger and they didn't appreciate it! Typical cyclist!" These people have insufficient experience of chastising random strangers if they think this reaction is atypical.

Macy0161

DeepBlue wrote: »

Let's face facts - I don't care how good your headlights are your vision at night is never going to be as good as during daylight hours and this is made many factors worse if it's raining or if a car is passing you from the opposite direction. Putting the responsibility only on the driver to avoid an incident defies simple common sense.

Not always only on the driver. However, many motorists don't take account of conditions, don't only drive as fast as they can see to safely break, just aren't paying attention.

Walking the children home from bogball last week we were close passed despite all three of us (coincidentally) wearing gawdy running tops (two of us in orange, one in bright yellow). The close passer was messing with his phone or radio of something. I'm sure if he'd hit us he would've gone with "didn't see them, weren't wearing hi-viz" bullsh!t excuse too.

magicbastarder

i have heard my father in law complaining that it's not safe to walk on the narrow roads around his house; and i am terrified of getting into the car with him because he's your stereotypical angry driver with a sense of entitlement, on those same roads.