Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

The legal industry does not exist in a vacuum. It is a tool of the population. There's no obligation to engage a lawyer. And when you do engage a lawyer, you instruct them not vice versa. A bit like the report in the paper today about the woman who rolled her car into a ditch with her child in it, smelled of alcohol when pulled out by the Gardai/ emergency services, failed a blood sample test but still decided that she should explore every loophole to avoid being punished. The Gardai it seems didn't prosecute her case properly (failed to serve a certain form) and she got off after getting her lawyer to plead that 'defence'. You can't pick and chose what laws are important and which aren't. A criminal conviction is a serious matter and the legislation should reflect that. Its a very prescribed system for good reason. Again, my point is simply that when I read a report like that (and as for court reports - its not like they report the multiples of convictions that are secured, half the time just the headline grabbing ones that aren't) my reaction isn't "this is the fault of lawyers" its "what sort of person choses not to accept their punishment when they know that they're guilty of an offence which could have had much more tragic consequences".

I would say it's getting near time that everyone who takes to the roads on a bicycle should have one of these:

https://cycliq.com/bike-cameras/

All new cars introduced in the EU since last July are meant to have Intelligent Speed Assist installed but I've heard so little about it I'm going to assume the systems are so soft touch as to be almost unnoticeable and therefore almost pointless. https://road-safety-charter.ec.europa.eu/resources-knowledge/media-and-press/intelligent-speed-assistance-isa-set-become-mandatory-across

Working as designed. From the commission's adoption doc:

Car manufacturers don't want to annoy speeding/dangerous drivers.

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12222-Vehicle-safety-technical-rules-test-procedures-for-intelligent-speed-assistance_en

I use Waze via Apple Carplay - has all speed limits programmed into the maps, and gives an alert if you break the limit.

I just don't get this "state bad but ah sure it's big tech so what do you expect" idea. The amount of spying carried out by Google and their bedfellows is utterly shocking, and you might think you're aware of it, but I doubt it. I highly recommend Shoshana Zuboff’s book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism" which is a shocking and depressing read. My day-to-day involves being very aware of GDPR, moving data around and processing it etc., so I try to keep on top of it, but the lengths they go to glean information is staggering.

Now as to remits. Big tech is beholden only to their shareholders, and will constantly push at the boundaries of what is legal and frequently overstep that - making for frequent nice little earners for the Office of Data Protection. Were the state collecting this data on the other hand they'd be bound by the statute book (yes, I know they could overstep that, but if they're prone to that, then there are going to be worse problems in the land).

The goal here is to change driver behaviour, and it's not clear to me what could constitute a carrot, but a stick in the form of fear of punishment is obvious. TBH, as others have suggested storing this on a black box on the vehicle is probably preferable as it it's aggregated centrally, there's a cost to installing and maintaining that infrastructure, not to mention keeping it secure (I'd be much more worried about Russian/Chinese/Nork/whatever bad guys that the State). There could then be random breathalyser style spot checks to see if somebody has been naughty in the past hour. This could include detection of close passes since a lot of newer cars will be fitted with lidar - especially the more expensive variety that are frequently the culprits. Then if there's a complaint, a Guard can go out during their 30 minute road policing section of their shift and ask to see the evidence. This I think would be a game changer, and not expensive to implement moving forward.

That is so tragic, her whole life ahead of her and just started in film production. Ugh.

I think you misunderstood the post you were replying to. They were effectively saying "everyone heckles cyclists to wear PPE using the logic that it might save one life" so why not apply that same logic to the car technology.

We really need to start calling out the residents and politicians that oppose every attempt at safe infrastructure. They have blood on their hands.

Yes.

Well there is an election coming up so they will be at the doorstep.

Shane Ross was on the radio yesterday, not talking about cyclists but about motorists - his three principal messages were (i) its mostly down to excessive speed (which I'd be broadly agree with, though 'speed' goes hand in hand with 'entitlement', cant address one without touching the other) (ii) everyone is passing the buck on it, RSA saying its enforecement, gardai saying its the laws etc and (iii) that Fianna Fail and Fine Gael backbenchers are a big part of the problem, they wont do anything to antagonise their motorist electorate.

He's right, but if only he had been Minister of Transport for over 4 years… iirc his big thing was reduce the Blood Alcohol limit, when most people caught are multiples of the 80mg limit.

no