Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

I pass this daily on my commute (on the bike) and there is rarely any cars there mid week. If there is its not that risky to pass them safely in my opinion. No skin in the game here, in fact I'm no great fan of some of the individuals quoted in the article, but I'm not sure there really is an issue here. The fact is that a large percentage of the congregation to that church are old and maybe infirm - the reality is that they have to park close to the church or don't go at all - I'm not religious but every person in this state has a right to worship, albeit parking illegally. Ideally there would be no cars parking in the cycle lane but I'll bet that this situation will resolve itself in the fullness of time.

Far worse is the parent parking situation at the Boro school down the road as this is at times when children might cycle to school and it really is a free for all at these times. This is a far more pertinent example of the shift that's required in peoples behavior but the school are keeping quiet and doing sweet FA about it despite the fact that nothing will change as time goes on.

One thing I dislike about driving past cars parked along the side of the road is the possibility of a child or animal darting out from behind a car a unseen until the last moment. The concealment from view of the footpath in these circumstances is hazardous particularly in housing estates and outside shops.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's bike" — ogling permitted of a Sunday.

If they were truly observant Presbyterians, they wouldn't be driving on the sabbath at all.

My brother designed apartments for Jewish residents in London; the Presbyterians would want to take lessons for the Old Book folk.

The question really is do we want to be Germanic with a strict interpretation of ALL the rules or a bit more southern European in how we apply or roll with them

That depends LBSG, do you want cycle lanes less or more observed and respected in Ireland than they currently are / aren't.

Germanic attitude means yes, southern European is no.

I have cycled a lot in Spain, motorists are so respectful of cyclists there, they overtake bikes like they'd overtake a car, every single time, indicators and everything. When they do have bike lanes they tend to be segregated so there are no problems.

Only Tommy Tiernan can explain adequately how unlikely that will ever be.

As was discussed last week looks like Cycling Mikey has finally had somebody attack him. Probably not the smartest idea when on camera.

I'd actually say any Road Traffic Offences for the most part. The worst place for parking on the pavement in my local village is right outside and the 100m either direction of the Garda station. Over the years commuting I've watched them push broken down cars into grade separated cycle lanes, sweep the broken glass from collisions into cycle lanes, and enforce the bus lanes while parked in the grade separated cycle lane (and then pull the cars into it too).

Until they get behind a portal for logging video and photo evidence for road traffic offences, and hearing the treatment that some have got trying to pursue incidents, I don't really have that much sympathy tbh. But admittedly its a bigger RSA/ Political issue that footage is hard to use, no drive to use more cameras, no switch to APRN etc.