Author Topic: On the commute today  (Read 2461925 times)

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20725 on: 24 May, 2019, 10:15:36 am »

You know what's worse than pedestrian refuges?  :  https://goo.gl/maps/bufXcBfYbYEvUcz16 

What is it even for? Someone, somewhere wrote a document justifying it.

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20726 on: 24 May, 2019, 10:17:35 am »

You know what's worse than pedestrian refuges?  :  https://goo.gl/maps/bufXcBfYbYEvUcz16 

What is it even for? Someone, somewhere wrote a document justifying it.
Having an obsticle in the middle of road may force a motorist to concentrate and slow down?

Yuegh. Did I just attempt to justify the stupid thing?

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Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20727 on: 24 May, 2019, 10:18:42 am »
There's still a large proportion of drivers that simply still haven't got the message. Probably best we don't text it to them.

I think everyone knows by now, knows it's dangerous, but also knows the chance of getting punished is virtually nil.

"But...but If I just check quickly, what harm can it do? Ooh, I got some likes on my last post! *gasp* And someone commented! My life is validated! What does it say? Hmm, is he being sarcastic, I can't tell *BANG* What was that? Why is that cyclist swearing at me? Oh my god, he's not wearing a helmet! What an idiot!"

Kim

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Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20728 on: 24 May, 2019, 12:13:26 pm »

You know what's worse than pedestrian refuges?  :  https://goo.gl/maps/bufXcBfYbYEvUcz16 

What is it even for? Someone, somewhere wrote a document justifying it.
Having an obsticle in the middle of road may force a motorist to concentrate and slow down?

Yuegh. Did I just attempt to justify the stupid thing?

I believe the official verdict is to calm traffic by preventing overtaking.  What it actually does - as any cyclist familiar with British roads knows - is enrage traffic by preventing overtaking *here*, so they either rush to get the overtaking done before they get to the next one, bullying vulnerable road users as necessary to complete the manoeuvre, or drive around the obstacle at speed on the wrong side of the road.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20729 on: 24 May, 2019, 05:13:01 pm »

You know what's worse than pedestrian refuges?  :  https://goo.gl/maps/bufXcBfYbYEvUcz16 

What is it even for? Someone, somewhere wrote a document justifying it.
Having an obsticle in the middle of road may force a motorist to concentrate and slow down?

Yuegh. Did I just attempt to justify the stupid thing?

I believe the official verdict is to calm traffic by preventing overtaking.  What it actually does - as any cyclist familiar with British roads knows - is enrage traffic by preventing overtaking *here*, so they either rush to get the overtaking done before they get to the next one, bullying vulnerable road users as necessary to complete the manoeuvre, or drive around the obstacle at speed on the wrong side of the road.
Relevantly, I've just been removing about centre-line removal and its possible effects on reducing traffic speeds and increasing overtaking distances. There's a quote from an unnamed local highway authority about that hatching:
Quote
“Our thinking on carriageway lining has changed a little bit because, going back quite a few
years, what we’ve tended to do quite a lot of, was putting in central carriageway hatching
because our thinking was it would make it safer if you separate the traffic, so you have this
hatched area in the middle. But, as time has gone on, we tend to have moved away from that
and have gone with this approach [CLR] of it’s better to squeeze traffic together to be more
effective.”
http://www.roadsafetyknowledgecentre.org.uk/misc/userDownloadProtected.php?context=attachedFile&zone=knowledgeItem&file=246&filenameOverride=Briefing+Note+0519+UWE+FINAL.pdf
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

ian

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20730 on: 24 May, 2019, 05:25:16 pm »
There's a broad bend on my route home where the middle of the road is hatched lines (but less than the width of the average car) – https://goo.gl/maps/PRe4Copi5FV1JJmU8 – it pretty much screams overtake to the tiny mind of a driver even though there's quite obviously no room. Oh, and this bit is interspersed with those traffic islands. The signs/bollards on those islands have a short half-life. Few survive a weekend.

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20731 on: 24 May, 2019, 09:31:13 pm »
Someone needs to start parking on the other side of that road. There's nothing prevent it. Cause a real snarl up!

Mr Larrington

  • A bit ov a lyv wyr by slof standirds
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Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20732 on: 25 May, 2019, 10:13:45 am »
My grate frend Uncle Marvo, the notorious Aqua-Pikey, once got taken to court for overtaking a dawdling police car on a hatched line thingies while aboard The Mighty KAWASAKI.  He got off on the grounds that he hadn't broken the law.
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Satisfying the Bloodlust of the Masses in Peacetime

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20733 on: 30 May, 2019, 08:29:18 am »
Saw an MTB tyre around a lamppost.  A proper one 30 feet high, not some little ornamental thing.  That must have taken a lot of practice.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

ian

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20734 on: 30 May, 2019, 11:58:20 am »
Salut to the usual tinted window, low slung Audi-driving twat who arranged for the CBT (Croydon Brake Test) on the Lombard Circus of Death yesterday. Brakes work, thanks. Unlike his indicators or brain (the usual dart around the inside and cut across to take an exit). I should know better than to take that route, it's called the Circus of Death for a reason. He did pause to shout some random abuse because, oh just because.

After a couple of months of fairly innocuous commutes unenlivened with actual attempts to kill me, the last two have been awful examples of why no one really cycles in this country. Sigh.

In other news, fellow cyclists, please do a bit of PR for the team and stop fucking cycling through the green phase of a pedestrian crossing. Because you know, every single person who sees you doing that will think you're a cunt and then apply that label to all cyclists.


Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20735 on: 30 May, 2019, 12:01:56 pm »
I've half considered trying to persuade fellow red light stoppers to loudly chorus 'TWAT' at anyone who doesn't stop, but I fear I might be labelled as eccentric.

(And, being one of the few unhelmeted riders on my route I perceive that I'm a) already recognised and b) considered an outlier.)
Rust never sleeps

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20736 on: 30 May, 2019, 12:04:36 pm »
I skip lights all the time. I'm not hurting anyone - in fact it's safer as I'm less likely to be flattened by some van driver on his phone clocking the lights changing and accelerating blindly. My life is more valuable than the precious feelings of a motorist upset that I'm not obeying the signals that were only put up to stop them killing each other in the first place. Motorists hate you anyway, thinking you're going to get in their good books by observing lights when no one is crossing is fanciful.
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Ban cars.

ian

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20737 on: 30 May, 2019, 12:52:19 pm »
Sorry, but that's a pretty poor excuse. Motorists, after all, use their own exceptionalism to justify the same light jumping, ignorance of speed limits, and need to take that important phone call.

But anyway, my big gripe is pedestrian crossings (and with people crossing). I see it every day and you see from the looks on people's faces, it doesn't do us cyclists any favours. And as a pedestrian, I fucking hate it when I have to make way for a cyclist when crossing.

Kim

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Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20738 on: 30 May, 2019, 01:17:38 pm »
But anyway, my big gripe is pedestrian crossings (and with people crossing). I see it every day and you see from the looks on people's faces, it doesn't do us cyclists any favours. And as a pedestrian, I fucking hate it when I have to make way for a cyclist when crossing.

I don't really buy the PR angle - cyclists are an outgroup and will continue to be hated until such a time as cycling is normal and ordinary, and some new transportational outgroup (scooterists, hoverboardists, whatever) will take our place.

But being a dick at pedestrian crossings is both dickish and dangerous.  Sure, you're statistically unlikely to kill anyone, but you might make a disabled person think twice about leaving the house in future.

(I accept that sometimes you're descending at speeds in excess of R17 with a WVM up your arse, and rolling through a yellow light or not stopping for that pedestrian approaching the zebra crossing might be prudent.  But that's the edge case.)

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20739 on: 30 May, 2019, 03:06:38 pm »
Sorry, but that's a pretty poor excuse. Motorists, after all, use their own exceptionalism to justify the same light jumping, ignorance of speed limits, and need to take that important phone call.

Sure, and they kill thousands and thousands of people a year doing it. How many people do cyclists kill or maim? There's no comparison.
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Ban cars.

ian

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20740 on: 30 May, 2019, 03:52:14 pm »
While that is true, but it doesn't excuse people on bikes ignoring laws or, tbh (and more importantly), acting like dicks. I'm not responsible for their behaviour, but it's nature of being an outgroup that what they do will also be stuck to me. I once got a lecture from a bloke about people on bikes jumping red lights while I was waiting at the bloody lights.

I'm a pragmatist, if I think I'm in danger I'm not to sit around at the lights and wait to be squooshed. But I'm also not going to routinely slalom through a crowd of crossing pedestrians because, hey, I'm not going to kill them and really my journey is so important that I can't wait a few seconds for the lights to change.

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20741 on: 30 May, 2019, 04:50:39 pm »
I don't think it's all that helpful to conflate illegality and dickishness; I'll jump red lights unrepentantly if I think it'll be safer (or if it's 3am and there's no traffic about), but won't blow through pedestrian crossings if there's people waiting to cross. And sure, there are arseholes on bikes and in cars, but the risks involved with someone being a dick on a bike are many orders of magnitude less.

rogerzilla

  • When n+1 gets out of hand
Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20742 on: 30 May, 2019, 05:22:38 pm »
Got overtaken by a works van stinking of best Amsterdam skunk.
Hard work sometimes pays off in the end, but laziness ALWAYS pays off NOW.

bludger

  • Randonneur and bargain hunter
Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20743 on: 30 May, 2019, 05:36:53 pm »
It was only when I started cycling that I found out how many users of the devil's lettuce there driving their cars at the same time. It's frightening. Often it's at 8 in the morning and it's not even Christmas.
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Ban cars.

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20744 on: 30 May, 2019, 05:48:53 pm »
Got overtaken by a works van stinking of best Amsterdam skunk.
It's a regular occurrence on Chatsworth Road, Lower Clapton and Wickham Road, Brockley.
I guess it is the single occupancy vehicles which bother me the most.

EDIT: Who's works? Name and shame.

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20745 on: 30 May, 2019, 06:00:27 pm »
Maybe I'm just a square but it is a crime to barrel through a red light.

So I don't do it, and I don't think any of you should be either.

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Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20746 on: 30 May, 2019, 06:08:27 pm »
Maybe I'm just a square but it is a crime to barrel through a red light.

So I don't do it, and I don't think any of you should be either.

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Umm... I think it is a civil offence, rather than a criminal one [/pedant]
Also/and I'm guessing that you don't cycle through some of the less salubrious/keep moving parts of London.

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20747 on: 30 May, 2019, 06:11:58 pm »
Maybe I'm just a square but it is a crime to barrel through a red light.

So I don't do it, and I don't think any of you should be either.

Sent from my COL-L29 using Tapatalk
Umm... I think it is a civil offence, rather than a criminal one [/pedant]
Also/and I'm guessing that you don't cycle through some of the less salubrious/keep moving parts of London.
I do actually.

Not that it really matters, several commenters keep saying how their bike is less dangerous than a car and I don't think that matters either.

All the rules put in place on the road - and elsewhere, really - only work is everyone follows them. Otherwise the system quickly breaks down.

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Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20748 on: 30 May, 2019, 06:17:46 pm »
Maybe I'm just a square but it is a crime to barrel through a red light.

So I don't do it, and I don't think any of you should be either.

Sent from my COL-L29 using Tapatalk
Umm... I think it is a civil offence, rather than a criminal one [/pedant]
Also/and I'm guessing that you don't cycle through some of the less salubrious/keep moving parts of London.
I do actually.

Not that it really matters, several commenters keep saying how their bike is less dangerous than a car and I don't think that matters either.

All the rules put in place on the road - and elsewhere, really - only work is everyone follows them. Otherwise the system quickly breaks down.

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My bad with the guesswork.

ian

Re: On the commute today
« Reply #20749 on: 30 May, 2019, 06:20:00 pm »
To be honest, while I accept the safety argument in principle – if there's someone revving hard behind me and I pretty much know it's an aggressive twunt in Audi or a lorry driver on the phone telling his mate about the epic hangover he has, yeah, I'm gone. But the majority of lights I see jumped aren't because of safety, it's impatience because the person on a bike can't be bothered waiting a minute or so. Which is same reason drivers do it, of course.

The smell of sweet Mary J is strong the Mad Max re-enactment zone that is Croydon. I suppose it takes the sting out of living there.