Last Word - Cyclist Debate.

greenspurs

Chuchote wrote: »

Let's hope they stop talking about cyclists/drivers and start talking about people - some of whom ride bicycles and others drive cars - and some who do both - and how they can be neighbourly and caring to each other.

Yes,
We have Motorists V Cyclists, and now Urban Cyclists..
Id say Mountain bikers feel left out!! :rolleyes:

07Lapierre

Just listened to the Podcast. As discussions about cycling go, I thought it was very balanced. The numpty on the phone came across as totally ignorant of cycling and cyclists in general. I mean when he sees a cyclist his first thought is fear! Wtf?

Lemming

greenspurs wrote: »

Id say Mountain bikers feel left out!!

No thanks; "we" get plenty of hoof-w@nking bungle cvnts tying barb wire across trails at neck-height, punji stake traps and logs after jumps or drops. Included in the b0lloxology of irattional motorist hate we do not need.

And we still get to deal with all the irattional road-hate because we have to cycle on roads to get to the trails at some point ... Just can't win.


Edit: just to be clear, trail sabotage, whilst a danger is a bit of a bogey man for most mountain-bikers. The worst that I have personally encountered is logs dragged across trails, but I have friends who have been pulled off their bikes by wire across trails.

Annie get your Run

Chuchote wrote: »

Let's hope they stop talking about cyclists/drivers and start talking about people - some of whom ride bicycles and others drive cars - and some who do both - and how they can be neighbourly and caring to each other.

In fairness to Conor Faughnan he did say this, I'm not a fan of his normally but I actually thought he spoke very well and he wasn't all 'the car is king' as I thought he might be. Someone mentioned the person on the bike is your brother, sister, mother etc.

I think we're all agreed the gobs*ite on the phone was, well, a gobs*ite!

I heard it mentioned several times by the others about giving 1.5m space.

Unfortunately none of the drivers on my commute seem to listen to the Matt Cooper show :rolleyes:

07Lapierre

I also agree that "Club Cyclists" have an obligation to act appropriately while out cycling.

Last week while climbing the Wicklow gap, I came across a very well known south Dublin Cycling club. The whole group had stopped and were urinating by the side of the road!! There was about 10 of them!

i was tempted to take a photo and send it along with a strong email to the club secretary!

jon1981

07Lapierre wrote: »

I also agree that "Club Cyclists" have an obligation to act appropriately will out cycling.

Last week while climbing the Wicklow gap, I came across a very well known south Dublin Cycling club. The whole group had stopped and were urinating by the side of the road!! There about 10 of them!

i was tempted to take a photo and send it along with a strong email to the club secretary!

You should have, that's not on. No harm sending them an email anyway, if they are a decent club they'll accept the criticism and let the members know to be more respectful.

Not hard to find a ditch or tree to hide behind in Wicklow!!

07Lapierre

My other pet hate is riders in races throwing gel wrappers!

I consider littering a bigger offence than RL jumping! I Hate litter louts!

Trekker09

07Lapierre wrote: »

My other pet hate is riders in races throwing gel wrappers!

I consider littering a bigger offence than RL jumping! I Hate litter louts!

Most of the littering I see out on the bike is fast food/forecourt wrappers thrown from vehicles.

For me, cycling on country roads 99% of the time, it'a a given that every ride is guaranteed to involve a 'near miss' with a passing vehicle, usually overtaking me on a bad bend. 99% of drivers are courteous, patient and safe, but that still leaves the 1% (I'm being conservative here) that just don't give a sh1te!!

terrydel

07Lapierre wrote: »

Just listened to the Podcast. As discussions about cycling go, I thought it was very balanced. The numpty on the phone came across as totally ignorant of cycling and cyclists in general. I mean when he sees a cyclist his first thought is fear! Wtf?

If you're not aware of John McGuirk, let it remian so. Hes a professional oxygen thief.

Tenzor07

greenspurs wrote: »

Id say Mountain bikers feel left out!! :rolleyes:

Never! Those people who complain about road cycling, park the car up the side of the hill, get out to walk and then complain about the bicyclists on the mountains... can't win! :rolleyes:

Tenzor07

07Lapierre wrote: »

Last week while climbing the Wicklow gap, I came across a very well known south Dublin Cycling club. The whole group had stopped and were urinating by the side of the road!! There about 10 of them!

i was tempted to take a photo and send it along with a strong email to the club secretary!

Perhaps they were trying to collectively extinguish a gorse fire and save the natural environment?

Besides I think there's laws against photographing people whilst urinating?

07Lapierre

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Perhaps they were trying to collectively extinguish a gorse fire and save the natural environment?

Besides I think there's laws against photographing people whilst urinating?

Are you takin the piss? :P

magicbastarder

Tenzor07 wrote: »

Besides I think there's laws against photographing people whilst urinating?

kinda - if you're urinating while taking a photo of a person, you *could* be done for indecency.

Tenzor07

magicbastarder wrote: »

kinda - if you're urinating while taking a photo of a person, you *could* be done for indecency.

Whilst *they are

ThisRegard

Niall Ring, god help us all, was todays contrarian.

monument

seamus wrote: »

He made the point in response to Matt saying that people were getting off their bikes because they no longer felt safe.

Faughnan's response was that in an overall context cycling is still incredibly safe and 8 deaths in the first half of a year doesn't prove otherwise. Which is completely correct.

Here you had the representative of a motoring association telling people to stay on their bikes and encouraging more people to get on their bikes.

If you can't see that as a major step forward in the discussion, I fear you're too far embedded in your adversarial view.

I'm a person that cycles regularly. It's not dangerous. Not by a long shot.

Conor Faughnan is spin master who plays the long game.

He always says reasonable things, and sometimes he says reasonable things while also saying daft things or arguing against safety measures or harmless things like bicycle Hangers.

You can't see that because he's doing a good job.

Chuchote

ThisRegard wrote: »

Niall Ring, god help us all, was todays contrarian.

Poor little love really hates bicycles.

Moflojo

Cllr Ring bemoaning the "purge of private motorists" from the city centre. His own uncle, a man in his eighties, was knocked down while walking home from his local pub last month.

Chuchote

Moflojo wrote: »

Cllr Ring bemoaning the "purge of private motorists" from the city centre. His own uncle, a man in his eighties, was knocked down while walking home from his local pub last month.

Separated, protected cycleways ftw.

Poor old man, was he knocked down by a bike or a car?

Rezident

seamus wrote: »

He made the point in response to Matt saying that people were getting off their bikes because they no longer felt safe.

Faughnan's response was that in an overall context cycling is still incredibly safe and 8 deaths in the first half of a year doesn't prove otherwise. Which is completely correct.

Here you had the representative of a motoring association telling people to stay on their bikes and encouraging more people to get on their bikes.

If you can't see that as a major step forward in the discussion, I fear you're too far embedded in your adversarial view.

I'm a person that cycles regularly. It's not dangerous. Not by a long shot.

Agree with a lot of what you said but I cycle every day and cycling in Dublin certainly is dangerous - even if you never make a mistake. There is a percentage of Irish drivers (not all dubs it was a KY reg that nearly killed me recently) that will risk hitting a cyclist (or not even see them) just to get there 5 seconds quicker. And to save 10 seconds they will definitely risk your life, sure they're in a car, they're grand.

And I'm talking about cycling straight, in the cycle lane, not even including taking turns. Cars regularly accelerate past cyclists and then cut them off risking you smashing into the back of them. I see it every week. I confidently predict it will happen at Foxrock Church again, it is only a matter of time.

Because they won't even wait 5 seconds for you - that's what your life is worth to them.

8 deaths in half a year is too many for me.

Moflojo

Chuchote wrote: »

Separated, protected cycleways ftw.

Poor old man, was he knocked down by a bike or a car?

A car!

HivemindXX

seamus wrote: »

He made the point in response to Matt saying that people were getting off their bikes because they no longer felt safe.

Faughnan's response was that in an overall context cycling is still incredibly safe and 8 deaths in the first half of a year doesn't prove otherwise. Which is completely correct.

Here you had the representative of a motoring association telling people to stay on their bikes and encouraging more people to get on their bikes.

If you can't see that as a major step forward in the discussion, I fear you're too far embedded in your adversarial view.

I'm a person that cycles regularly. It's not dangerous. Not by a long shot.

I agree that cycling is not inherently dangerous. I do think there are certain roads, and road designs, that are more dangerous than they should be and these should be improved as a priority. I do think that there are certain drivers who are dangerous, either due to their lack of emotional stability or their lack of skills and these should be taken off the road, not excused.

I don't see how comparisons to the 80s are relevant. I don't expect to see the AA coming out and telling people that want the M20, or any other road improvement, how much better the road network is than it was in the 80s and implying they should be happy with what they've got.

I think Conor Faughnan is very deceptive. He talks a good game of supporting cyclists but when it comes down to it this is just lip service, the AA will be against anything that hampers motorists ability to drive anywhere they like, at any time they like, and park their car when they get there. This rules out virtually every bit of decent cycle infrastructure, leaving us with the usual solution of sticking us up on the footpath out of the way of the real road users.

I think the perception of the danger of cycling is very important. Whenever I suggest cycling to people they tend to go through a series of excuses until they hit on one that sticks. Very often the first excuse, or the one that cannot be worked around, is that it is "just too dangerous". They live on a busy road or they work in the city centre and they just can't see cycling in that environment as anything other than extremely dangerous. No amount of statistics will convince them otherwise.

Also, for anyone that hasn't already read it, have a look at the post by kerplun_k over in the "Is it worth it anymore" thread, which details their reasons for quitting cycling after only a month. That makes pretty grim reading.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=103515665&postcount=216

Have a look in the near misses thread and see a litany of dangerous actions by drivers that either don't know what they are doing is dangerous or simply don't care.

Cycling may not be objectively dangerous but it feels far more dangerous than it should. Motorists should be careful around cyclists and for some of them the only way to do this is to make them afraid of being punished and punished severely. There is a shockingly relaxed attitude to driving. Some people seem to feel this is an activity they can devote 70 or maybe 80% of their attention to and still be fine. Some people have the massively mistaken idea that they own the road and cyclists shouldn't be on it and the, frankly psychotic, attitude that they should do something about it but using their vehicle as a weapon to threaten the vulnerable cyclist. Some guards seem to think that this sort of behaviour is just "a bit cheeky" and no big deal.

When they do kill or maim someone due to their carelessness then the general attitude is that people make mistakes, there might be massive amounts of harm, but still no foul. The assumption is that this was just an incident of bad luck where "a moment's inattention" had terrible consequences and nobody every seems to think that it is far more likely that this driver habitually drives carelessly and someone finally suffered the consequences.

magicbastarder

just started listening to today's show now; https://www.todayfm.com/The-Last-Word-with-Matt-Cooper/listen-back
starts just over 1h3m in.

magicbastarder

ThisRegard wrote: »

Niall Ring, god help us all, was todays contrarian.

'you know, statistics, eh?'

ThisRegard

magicbastarder wrote: »

'you know, statistics, eh?'

At least 600 cyclists can be viewed from Dublin City Council's headquarters breaking red lights don't you know.

greenspurs

magicbastarder wrote: »

'you know, statistics, eh?'

His stats were legit , The Luas didnt count ! Gobs***e

greenspurs

HivemindXX wrote: »

I agree that cycling is not inherently dangerous. I do think there are certain roads, and road designs, that are more dangerous than they should be and these should be improved as a priority. I do think that there are certain drivers who are dangerous, either due to their lack of emotional stability or their lack of skills and these should be taken off the road, not excused.

I don't see how comparisons to the 80s are relevant. I don't expect to see the AA coming out and telling people that want the M20, or any other road improvement, how much better the road network is than it was in the 80s and implying they should be happy with what they've got.

I think Conor Faughnan is very deceptive. He talks a good game of supporting cyclists but when it comes down to it this is just lip service, the AA will be against anything that hampers motorists ability to drive anywhere they like, at any time they like, and park their car when they get there. This rules out virtually every bit of decent cycle infrastructure, leaving us with the usual solution of sticking us up on the footpath out of the way of the real road users.

I think the perception of the danger of cycling is very important. Whenever I suggest cycling to people they tend to go through a series of excuses until they hit on one that sticks. Very often the first excuse, or the one that cannot be worked around, is that it is "just too dangerous". They live on a busy road or they work in the city centre and they just can't see cycling in that environment as anything other than extremely dangerous. No amount of statistics will convince them otherwise.

Also, for anyone that hasn't already read it, have a look at the post by kerplun_k over in the "Is it worth it anymore" thread, which details their reasons for quitting cycling after only a month. That makes pretty grim reading.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=103515665&postcount=216

Have a look in the near misses thread and see a litany of dangerous actions by drivers that either don't know what they are doing is dangerous or simply don't care.

Cycling may not be objectively dangerous but it feels far more dangerous than it should. Motorists should be careful around cyclists and for some of them the only way to do this is to make them afraid of being punished and punished severely. There is a shockingly relaxed attitude to driving. Some people seem to feel this is an activity they can devote 70 or maybe 80% of their attention to and still be fine. Some people have the massively mistaken idea that they own the road and cyclists shouldn't be on it and the, frankly psychotic, attitude that they should do something about it but using their vehicle as a weapon to threaten the vulnerable cyclist. Some guards seem to think that this sort of behaviour is just "a bit cheeky" and no big deal.

When they do kill or maim someone due to their carelessness then the general attitude is that people make mistakes, there might be massive amounts of harm, but still no foul. The assumption is that this was just an incident of bad luck where "a moment's inattention" had terrible consequences and nobody every seems to think that it is far more likely that this driver habitually drives carelessly and someone finally suffered the consequences.

This is the post that probably nails it for me.
Absolutley gets it spot. Chapeau.

Leroy42

The fact that there is even a 'debate' about cycling sums up the attitude.

Why do cyclists need to 'debate' their right to be safe on the road and for other road users give them adequate space and consideration?

As long as motorists feel that they have even the right to debate this the problem is not going to solved

Chuchote

Leroy42 wrote: »

The fact that there is even a 'debate' about cycling sums up the sttitude.

Why do cyclists need to 'debate' their right to be safe on the road and for other road users give them adequate space and consideration?

As long as motorists feel that they have even the right to debate this the problem is not going to solved

The RSA has actually come out to say just that!

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/drivers-do-not-own-the-road-450174.html

Finnrocco

07Lapierre wrote: »

My other pet hate is riders in races throwing gel wrappers!

I consider littering a bigger offence than RL jumping! I Hate litter louts!

Commissars are under orders to report and fine people who litter, although its difficult when a wrapper comes flying out of the middle of the bunch.