Just ride on the hoods, not the tops…

mcnik nails it with the first sentence though – casual cyclists use the tops because they really want a flat bar position.

IMHO city commuting on a ‘racing’ bike is like commuting in a Porche 911. Looks cool, but is stupidly impractical and potentially dangerous (for most people that aren’t actual rodies).

One word for this: Bollox.
The rider is an idiot, not helped by the lorry pushing the limits of acceptability.

aP, you made such a great counter argument there, with such incisive command of the English language. We are all truly graced with your presence and intellectual capacity.

:swoon:

😆

mcnik nails it with the first sentence though – casual cyclists use the tops because they really want a flat bar position.

Yep, fair point.

commuting on a “racing” bike is Ace.
Faster than any other bike and in built up areas and busy traffic faster than any other form of transport and not laden with ten tons of shit they handle superbly.

I also run every red that I deem safe to, always have, always will.

I haven’t watched the video or read any comments here other than the last few. Truth is I just don’t care about debating decisions made by other cyclists I have no connection to.

After reading Mcnik’s post I have to retract my previous post on the matter.*

Don’t know how I missed his hands on the hoods…

*Apart from the shoe bit, of course.

I haven’t watched the video or read any comments here other than the last few. Truth is I just don’t care about debating decisions made by other cyclists I have no connection to.

And yet you post on here Gary, doing just that. Then you get banned. Then you come back to do it again. Quite funny really.

Another classic idiotic london cyclist.

“But but, it was yellow/almost green so that means I can go regardless”

A green light simply means “proceed, if it is safe to do so” – and the cyclists made no attempt to determine if it was safe.

True and that will be why no one has defended the cyclists complete lack of observational skills. However the reason it was not safe was because a lorry did not stop at red and we cannot overlook this fact either.

We all agree its both their faults really except for those who want a “debate”.

Rider is a complete pillock for a) going too early (red+amber = stop) and b) not being aware of his surroundings.

Lorry driver equally retarded for going through a red light.

It’s 100% the lorry drivers fault for jumping the light.

It’s 100% the cyclist’s fault for riding into the side of him.

Both were avoidable, and IMHO these two incidents are discrete, hence both parties can carry all the blame for their own part.

Inattentive observational cycling caused the cyclist to end up on his arse, he deserves to be ridiculed on such forums as this – especially for such an ungraceful dismount in front of patiently waiting cyclists.

In a perfect world every road user would fully observe the rules of the highway code and such encounters would be zero, until then i will continue to view every parked car, every pedestrian, every vehicle on the road as a threat to my continued existence. If i rode expecting others to always pay heed to my position on the road and whether or not i had right of way then i imagine i’d have at least one incident/collision a week with a vehicle.

You are responsible for your own safety on the road, don’t pass the onus of care onto others and then bleat/whine about it when you come off worse.

This

Larry_Lamb – Member

Another classic idiotic london cyclist.

“But but, it was yellow/almost green so that means I can go regardless”

No way?! At most they go amber the instant the others go to red. I can’t believe any lights at a crossroads would show Amber to both directions at the same time, that would be carnage!

Yip. Amber both ways here, and very quick to change at that.

IMHO city commuting on a ‘racing’ bike is like commuting in a Porche 911. Looks cool, but is stupidly impractical and potentially dangerous (for most people that aren’t actual rodies).

I ride drops for all my road riding. Last year I did 5k miles and not knocked off once. I think you’ll find it’s the lousy law-breaking driving of the lorry and failure of the cyclist to ride according to the risk presented to him from the law-breaking lorry driver that are more at fault here.

Or are we all to have to buy new bikes/ditch a handlebar design which has been perfectly fit for purpose for decades just because red light jumping in a lorry in the middle of densely city streets is now culturally acceptable?

It’s scary that the population at large seem to have come to the collective belief that driving dangerously is acceptable. I suspect it’s because we all drive dangerously at least some of the time, so failing to criticise dangerous driving as a population is a form of guilt and self-defence from our own actions…

Meanwhile, 30k+ die of obesity-related diseases each year and we all continue to get fat…

I ride drops for all my road riding. Last year I did 5k miles and not knocked off once. I think you’ll find it’s the lousy law-breaking driving of the lorry and failure of the cyclist to ride according to the risk presented to him from the law-breaking lorry driver that are more at fault here.

Make no mistake, the man on the bicycle is breaking the law.
Had he simply obeyed the law, irrespective of his crap riding ability he wouldn’t have hit the lorry.
29 years of cycling every day to work and not knocked off once. Probably cursed myself now. 🙂

For sure, but not having proper control in an emergency situation = worse outcome.

Yes, they both jumped a red light. Yes, stupid move for sure. There but for the grace of god go we…

You are putting words in my mouth. Please check what I said:

Think you may qualify as a roadie, yeh?

My point is, drops are stupid bars for the gen pop to use for commuting. Seriously, how many people (who are not roadies) are ‘tucking’ on their way to work? Drops are a bad design for city riding for the average commuter, as they put the brakes away from the primary hand position, which is awful design. They are built for racing and general controlled road riding, not riding through traffic.

brooess

No ones saying the lorry driver isn’t at partial fault, that’s a given, but the fact the cyclist is just as bad for also going through what was pretty much a red light.

You also have to remember sometimes its dangerous for a lorry driver to whack his anchors on, cars can’t see past/through lorries like you can another car so its easier to see whats coming up ahead. A driver behind most likely wouldn’t have stopped because of the unexpected emergency stop to not go through a red light so sometimes its safer to go through a amber/almost red light once the heavy old unit is in motion.

I’ve been in a lorry on a delivery run and that’s happened, so because we can’t see the lights and where the lorry was from the other angle its hard to judge 100% the lorry driver was an idiot too.

What we can judge is the idiotic cyclist and bear in mind he was the ONLY one to do it, riding into the side of passing traffic.

The other 10 odd cyclists that were waiting there managed not to ride into it, how did they manage that eh?

Yip. Amber both ways here, and very quick to change at that.

Ooh! Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. Some of the phases are quick, but I can’t think of any which are Amber/Amber. I demand video evidence.

You also have to remember sometimes its dangerous for a lorry driver to whack his anchors on, cars can’t see past/through lorries like you can another car so its easier to see whats coming up ahead. A driver behind most likely wouldn’t have stopped because of the unexpected emergency stop to not go through a red light so sometimes its safer to go through a amber/almost red light once the heavy old unit is in motion.

Yeah, they should think about having some sort of warning that the lights are about to go red

😯

I get the resistance to my comments – but there’s way more criticism on this thread of the cyclist which IMO totally misses the point of the fact the lorry driver was 100% breaking the law, whilst the cyclist was mainly riding with poor skill and observation.
That’s a very clear line in terms of who was in the wrong – the driver broke the law, the cyclist was mainly misjudging the situation.

This is important because the level of confidence and skill required to ride safely in the UK is putting off loads of people who’d like to ride – they think it’s too dangerous and they lack the confidence to be able to deal with this danger. The health impact of this is massive – c 30k people dead of obesity-related diseases and c 30k of pollution-related diseases -and £bns of our money spent on the NHS as a result….

My granddad gave my mum some advice in the 50’s when she was learning to drive – assume everyone else is an idiot. That’s the best advice to cyclists IMO – learn to deal with other people’s poor skill and aggression if you want to survive.

It’s really really sad it’s come to that IMO. Accepting poor standards of driving and saying ‘it’s down to you as a cyclist to deal with the problem’ isn’t sorting the problem… it’s kicking the can down the road. Meanwhile the costs of too few people cycling mounts up…

That’s a very clear line in terms of who was in the wrong – the driver broke the law, the cyclist was mainly misjudging the situation.

Again, the cyclist is 100% breaking the law.

I don’t think anyone here is absolving the lorry driver of fault, but this is not the video to use to highlight the appalling driving standards the cyclists have to deal with.

I feel the need to point out that whilst I agree with your sentiment (I’ve already pointed out that there is a greater requirement for the lorry driver to obey the rules, because he’s the one introducing the danger to the roads, not the cyclist), the cyclist very definitely also broke the law.

Ooh! Lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. Some of the phases are quick, but I can’t think of any which are Amber/Amber. I demand video evidence.

All of the ones in the city centre for a start.

Video evidence:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4TDEPP1R9Q[/video]

I must say I struggle to believe that. From the perspective of junction design, having two conflicting streams of traffic shown an amber at the same time is utterly horrific.

I agree 100% that it is totally stupid. You do however need to remember that it is Edinburgh roads people we are talking about here and they have history on this.

I completley with mcnik on this.

London is full of people on road bikes with 23mm tyres and no mudguards with no idea what they are doing. Braking from the hoods is terrible, from a mechnical point of view you just don’t have much leverage.

90% of them would be better off on a fast hybrid.

I agree 100% that it is totally stupid. You do however need to remember that it is Edinburgh roads people we are talking about here and they have history on this.

I will have a look next week when I am in the centre of town. I remain a sceptic.

Personally, I think cyclists should be allowed to proceed as long as it is safe to do so, irrespective of traffic lights.

I think that makes you part of ‘the problem’ then……

Rightly so, because unsurprisingly it’s contrary to the guidance
http://tsrgd.co.uk/pdf/tal/2006/tal-1-06_4.pdf

(BTW, thanks for getting me to look that up – useful to have the guidance on traffic light phasing for something I’m doing in the real world).

I disagree. If you let cyclists progress, they are protected from other traffic when the lights go green, they can maintain momentum and other drivers will be aware and not get irratated.

Yes, that’s an interesting idea: let cyclists ride through red lights so that drivers don’t get irritated. I’ll run the idea past the cabbie next time I get a taxi……

why stop with cyclists then? Why not cars?

oh that’s right, because people can’t be trusted to check properly so we would get more accidents. What a silly idea.

Driver’s get irritated that cyclists are breaking the law or doing something stupid/dangerous. I think as bikes are different to pedestrians and four-wheeled vehicles, there should be different rules which accommodate that.

Yeah, and unicycles are different to pedestrians, 4 wheeled vehicles and bicycles – should be different rules to accommodate that. Horses are different to unicycles, pedestrians, 4 wheeled vehicles and bicycles – should be different rules to accommodate that. Hey actually motorcycles are…

Maybe its just guys like you who need special treatment
..

No true he wants to be treated the same and you are the one arguing for special treatment [ for cyclists].
It would make more sense to try and persuade him than insult him IMHO