Meanwhile on the Roads...

Had it couple of weeks ago on a solo spin drizzly day. Had pulsing rear light and jacket on that has a yellow back and loads of reflective strips. 80k R road but wide, coming up to a slight bend with a dip in the road.

Car coming from behind and I could hear he wasn't slowing. Just caught site of an oncoming car and stuck out my arm. Could hear him locking up and ABS chirping. Was full sure he was going into the back of me. In fairness they did stop well short but if they had gone for it he was definitely hitting the oncoming car or pulling back into me.

Two other needlessly close passes on straight sections that day and another overtake with an oncoming motorcyclist where the pulled back in front of me with 2 foot to spare. Start of a 50 zone and just before a bend. I really should invest in a Varia Radar and camera. Was really hoping the new Cycliq would have radar, hopefully the new varia with camera isn't too far off release.

Unfortunatly yes as I have heard from someone that was in traffic and first on the scene. He isn't the better of it.

RIP to the remaining family and also tragic for others involved. I won't comment on the details as I am sure there will be an investigation to clarify exactly what happened.

Google maps says from Rathfarnham it is a 1 hour 35 minute drive to Dublin airport, too cycle it's 1 hour 8 minutes.

Agreed!

It is twitter so hardly a good snapshot of society as a whole. A platform for venting etc.

90 mins if you're lucky.

The problem is not that it took that amount of time, it's that road traffic management has been so poorly managed and changed in Dublin in the last 5 years that people are going nuts. Everyone's noticed it. I avoid driving my car now where ever possible as it's just gone beyond appalling.

Obviously they want dissuade cars from going into the city centre and have put controls in place to try and make this happen. But the issue now is that the busiest Road in the country is now a SPOF. If anything happens it at all, the city grinds to a halt. And it's not just cars that are affected, It's buses, cyclists, taxis, pedestrians, commercial vehicles etc which all have fair reason to be in the city centre.

What irritates people more is that no politician cares about the motorist, so people feel they're not being listened to and hence you get all this sh!te on social media.

My condolences to the family of that person.

How may of them commute themselves though during rush hour in a car? probably very little.

No one cares, like I am technically a motorist, and it bugs me the traffic is so bad, but I've just learned to accept the roads are always gonna be crap so just don't bother going anywhere unless you're leaving at 6am

Traffic in Dublin was atrocious this morning. I think it's now worse than pre-Covid so all the benefit from having lots of people WFH has been wiped out. I think that this is partially because some people who might previously commuted by public transport have though "I'm only in 2 days a week, **** it, I'll drive". The lack of a part-time taxsaver ticket encourages this.

It's depressing to look at all the buses full of people stuck in lines of traffic and 90% of the cars have one person in them. In the past I've been sceptical of car pooling as an idea but maybe it's time to ban cars with less than 2 people in them from crossing the canals? Bit of high profile random enforcement at entry points to the city centre. Or maybe only odd numbered plates allowed in one week and even numbered the next, enforced by camera?

IBEC were in the news yesterday asking for the relatively minor traffic changes proposed for August to be postponed - they have no alternative suggestions, just leave things as they are. Muppets. We need radical change, and proper enforcement.

true, I think it's probably people outside the pale who may find it cheaper to drive into the city (assuming you already have a car, which in the commuter belt, you generally would)

Lovely morning for a spin. Approaching the Phoenix monument roundabout in the Park. Cycle lane merges with road so checking over my shoulder and signalling I'll be moving out. Car arrives beside me and I can see both hands holding the phone at the bottom of the steering wheel, txting away. I wave my hand to get her attention, she looks up and immediately brakes and drops the phone into her lap. Pauses for .5 of a second and then looses her ****, sticking up the fingers, screaming and beeping the horn. Follows me through the roundabout and out the other side shouting away. I lied and told her she was on camera at which point she moved off.

Let myself down by returning the hand gesture and never thought to get the plate number. Probably wouldn't have mattered without video evidence of her txting anyway. Was being passed by Garda traffic cars / bikes all morning. Typical luck that there wasn't one handy that I could have flagged down :)

Every week some road user manages to give me a scare. I wasn't in any danger here because I was watching out for poor driving, but the Park is full of tourists / school trips on bikes at this time of year and their road sense is poor at the best of times. I just can't get my head around why people don't think of others safety.