so why is it acceptable to abuse cyclists?

Matthew Parris advocating decapitation

This was an absolute shocker. Not least because no charges were brought, he kept his job and received no public approbation and the story receives no attention even now… and as far as I know he’s still regarded as a legitimate journalist.

If he’d said the same about black people, women, jews etc the reaction would have been quite different.

Culture change is what’s needed. How you could go about that could be:
1. Make driving like a dick socially unacceptable – like we did with seatbelts and drink driving. No-one likes to be isolated by their peers
2. Better cycling infrastructure – not sure I want full separation so much as infrastructure which gives clear priority to the cyclists
3. Proper enforcement of existing law esp speed limits and overtaking at appropriate points
4. Cycling included in driving lessons and the driving test
5. Re-test every 2 years at driver’s expense
6. Smaller cars, smaller engines – today’s cars have more power than most people have the skill and emotional maturity to handle
7. More tax on car use – not on the car but on use – so people think about it before they go out each time and start to cycle more for shorter journeys
8. Self-driving cars
9. Psychological testing incl as part of the driving assessment – some people are just too angry, too emotional, too impatient to be trusted with a motor vehicle.
10. Make it impossible to use a mobile phone in a moving car. We managed fine until the mid-90’s, I’m sure we can manage again. Who gives a toss about the passenger…
11. Non-compulsory but vastly increased participation in Bikeability – give riders confidence about their rights and to ride in a more assertive way and understand how to own the road and give clear, assertive communication to drivers – I suspect a lot of drivers would back off acting like bullies if they were stood up to more – like most bullying behaviour.
12. Give drivers more training on how to drive around cyclists – I suspect a lot of people have a little panic when they see a vulnerable and slow moving cyclist ahead – it’s why they get angry – they’re dead scared they’ll hurt someone because they’re not confident enough to pass properly. Some of the passes I see are so far off to the other side of the road, unnecessarily, I suspect the driver is so scared of hitting us that they massively overcompensate.

IME, in London and around Kent, more and more drivers are staying back or overtaking properly – we had v little problems on our club run this morning. This has been getting better last year and the year before. I think sheer numbers of cyclists is helping – drivers are getting used to the change and/or they know someone who’s just started riding who points out to them how it feels on a bike…

I was stationary in traffic on the High Street through West Norwood earlier – next to a side road with a driving instructor yacking on the phone and continually edging towards the side of my car as he tried to pull out. I was going nowhere – traffic was solid and one more edging forward move from him and would’ve driven into the side of my car.
I was desperately trying to make eye contact to make sure he realised what he was doing – saw me eventually and stopped but he didn’t look too happy at being stared at. God knows what he teaches his students, I’m not sure he was aware what he was doing

You also see lots of commuters with red lights on seatposts or helmets which are obscured by their panniers or rucksack.
Seems obvious to check this in a mirror or ask someone to check for you.
Doubling up – one flashing and one steady is a sensible strategy IMO

Def get out and good luck. Be glad you’ve some advance notice.
There’s been a lot of redundancies announced since Xmas yet at the same time we keep being told that the economy’s growing, unemployment’s falling and the job market’s picking up.
Something’s not quite adding up 😕

IME best thing to do with lousy drivers like that, whether you’re cycling or driving is to get as much distance from them as you can. Whether that means driving on without a backward glance or staying well behind it dunt matter – they’re going to have a crash sooner or later and best thing to do is be nowhere near them when they do.

Mumsnet makes you realise there’s a lot of stuff that women are fully aware of but refuse to admit to in real life/in front of men 😯

Sugar and spice and all things nice, not so sure 🙂

I like what you did there, but this is trying to come up for a name for a bike and I am not riding Hora.

Ah. You know Dogma’s taken don’t you? 🙂

“Burn it down and weird dinosaurs” are just across the road from me 🙂

You know London property has people with more money than sense running around when you hear rumours that some Chinese ‘investor’ wants to rebuild Crystal Palace…

Dogma.

Have you ever tried using facts to challenge the view of someone dogmatic? ie: your average anti-cycling driver, racist or believer in ever-rising house prices 🙂

“quite a long way inside somewhere less prestigious than Putney, the name of which we would rather not speak”

It always amuses me that people in London so often refuse to admit where they actually live 🙂

Personally I’d walk away. I wouldn’t want someone who did that to me to have any of my money. What else are they being dishonest about?

The fixation of making money on houses seems to bring out the nastiest behaviour in people…

I have a background in direct marketing.
Rule #1 is always know what marketing activities are producing leads and what are not ie: find some concrete way of measuring the effectiveness of your marketing spend
Those that are producing leads – keep doing it, maybe even increase it
Those that aren’t producing leads – you’re throwing the money away on nothing.

I assume that Yell can give you reports of the number of people that look at your listing or the number of calls/emails you’ve had. Maybe try that for a while and see what kind of results you get from it…

I’m assuming you were only happy to live above commercial premises because everywhere else in London you’d thought about living in is out of your budget… well there’s a reason why this flat is cheaper than all the others – it’s because no-one really wants to live there, which will make it a nightmare to sell. Nationwide have effectively told you this already…

London is vastly overpriced right now and there’s plenty of signs it’s beginning to correct if you look at Rightmove using Property Bee (on Mozilla) – plenty of asking prices being dropped. The fact that lenders are tightening their criteria as you’ve found out shows the cheap money taps are being turned off – that’s already been slowing up London prices rises since summer last year.
Most people I know who’d like to buy in London are moving out, having given up in despair at ever being able to afford a place… so it’s hard to see where any further upwards momentum is going to come from.

In your position I would:
a: look away from Putney -there’s plenty of cheaper areas of London.
b: wait until we know who’s governing the UK later this year.

Buying an undesirable property in an overheated market is unlikely to leave you feeling very happy…

BTL will be interesting when the eventual house price crash comes which it will at some point (if it’s not already started in London – yields are on the floor and even vested interest estate agents are forecasting a stagnant market/price drops).

If prices drop and yields are so low that there’s no ‘business’ model then it’s highly likely you’ll see a load of BTLs being sold in a panic – which will change the balance of supply and demand and you’ll see more drops and away we go…

All those people who have used a BTL as a pension will be selling at some point in order to realise the cash they’re going to live off:

a) they’re assuming house prices will continue to rise until that point
b) they’re assuming they won’t be selling in the middle of a bust
c) they’re assuming government can continue to boost the market – if governments were that in control of the market, why did they let the 2008 bust happen?

When ‘investments’ like BTL become fashionable amongst the general public and gain an aura of ‘you can’t lose’, it’s usually the time the wise get out…

On that note it’s worth noting that the Duke of Westminster publicly pulled out of prime London earlier in the year calling the peak, and that couple in Ashford who own 1000 BTL properties are trying to sell their portfolio…

10 years ago I had s/s mtb, hardtail, full suss and one road bike. They were all being ridden regularly.
I now have a hardtail, a s/s road commuter, winter road bike and summer road bike.
I got tired of the expense and time taken to go MTBing but when I do it now I still love it and wish I had more time in my life so I could ride road and MTB.
I’m the unofficial MTB secretary in my road club so likely to be doing more MTB this year.

From a political point of view, more people riding road is good. MTBs are hidden in the woods and for people who don’t mind a bit of risk and danger so it tends to remain a minority sport.
More people riding road puts cycling into the public conciousness, makes it much more visible and makes it much more normal as a form of day to day transport. IMO the increase in people riding road bikes is what is driving the UK cycling revolution. MTB can’t and hasn’t done that.

All bikes are good tho 🙂

I wonder what people who had to work with him before he became a politician thought of him – with that kind of ‘commonsense’ and ability to think his ideas through, he must’ve been an absolute nightmare! Can’t quite imagine how he held any kind of job down…

Scarily, a significant proportion of the British public appear to intend to give their vote for people like him. We get the politician’s we deserve…

Def got his details in case things get worse or you spot something about the bike e.g. forks knackered from the impact, over the next few days.

In terms of avoiding this kind of thing, when I did my Bikeability we discussed keeping an eye out for vehicles coming out of junctions on the left and even if you’ve made eye contact, it makes sense to go into primary position to help make yourself visible and to keep pedalling (the instructor told me if you stop pedalling some drivers will think you’re slowing up to let them in).
Personally I assume any driver in this situation either won’t look properly or is too impatient – never assume they’ll stay put
Glad you’re ok

I’d like to see someone claim a cyclist was at fault for riding on the inside of traffic when that’s where all the cycle lanes are 🙂

Sorry to hear you got hit.
IANAL but I don’t think it’s reasonable (or even legal?) to ask you to sign a letter saying he wasn’t at fault if he drove out into a road in which you had right of way. Personally I think we all (as drivers) need to be reminded that ‘letting people in’ isn’t courteous – it’s risky – as you’ve both found out!

I think it’s fair for you to sign a letter to say you won’t take this to a personal injury claim, if you’re happy to do so.

At risk of being accused of being a self-righteous keyboard warrior, this is why filtering on the outside of static traffic is generally a sensible option. I’m not averse to a bit of inside filtering but I prefer to go down the outside as it’s easier for drivers to see me. There’s too many people ‘letting people in’ thinking they’re doing everyone a favour. And often, the person who’s been let in does it in a hurry so as not to hold up the person who’s done them a favour – so they’re certainly not looking for a cyclist coming up the inside…

STW joke and pun threads 🙂

I think you are bang on the money. Would you have any recommendations in terms of resources, articles, tools?

Cheers,

J

PM me and we can have a chat. Email in profile.

Do you have any friends/trustable colleagues who’ve gone self-employed who can share their experience with you? I can talk you through my experience. IME new business comes less from ‘selling’ and more from leveraging and building on your reputation for being good at your job, being client-focused and being reliable and just good to work with. Personal recommendation goes a very long way as it reduces the risk for a client of ending up with a lousy supplier.

Linked In is the best online network for keeping in touch with people.

There’s plenty of contractor forums where you can get advice from experienced people. There’ll be loads of people willing to offer advice on new business generation.

If you know any friendly accountants, speak to them about the costs you’ll have to pay for and the taxes you’ll pay. Ltd company and you’ll pay less tax for a given income than PAYE which means you don’t need as many days work as you may think to take home the same money.

If you know any friendly HR people (in-house, not recruitment sharks) have a chat with them about likely day rates. Advice from one of my best mates who’s an HR Director was that there’s no rule of thumb, it’s what you can negotiate for yourself and supply/demand. Don’t price too low though, it suggests you lack confidence.

One good client/assignment is all you need to get yourself started…

The future of work – Economist article

I’m not sure the rules are supposed to be taken seriously!

went contracting and am now fully self-employed. The work is hard, you have a load of admin to do re HMRC and there’s no safety net but you’ll be amazed at the kind of day rate you can ask for and still come in cheaper than a perm person.
Did this for twelve months but work seemed to dry up and just gone back to perm.

Not sure the work did just dry up… you say later on you’re not so good at the sales/opportunity management bit. This is probably because if you’ve been perm at high level corporate all your career, you’ve never had to seek out the work – so your skills are undeveloped. The solution is therefore easy, learn how to sell yourself – if your average salesperson can sell, so you can you.
It’s about deciding what your proposition is to potential clients, communicating that clearly to everyone, making sure everyone knows you’re available for work, keeping in touch with people and most of all, creating the opportunities by spotting problems people have that you can solve, and developing the skill of spotting opportunities and turning them into work. This might mean working outside your core skill set and comfort zone at times but these opportunities merely expand your skill set and comfort zone and make you an even better proposition long term.

And remember, most of all, if people like working with you and you’re fundamentally competent, you’ll be ok…

Shimano MTB SPDs. Much better for walking in, much better for getting a quick start off the lights.
I wouldn’t fancy walking like a constipated penguin past work colleagues either 🙂

On the frame? 😯
Rule #30[/url]

Middle management as a function within the corporate environment does not exist to make people happy or to satisfy their desire to make the world a better place!
It’s a graveyard for ambitious people who aren’t good enough to get to the top…
Corporate organisations bring many benefits to society along the lines of providing jobs and providing services that small organisations simply couldn’t but they’re not designed to make their workers happy…

Speaking from bitter experience, do remember that stress is a choice – you choose your reaction to the situation, and you can do an awful lot about that…

Many years ago I noticed that self-employed people never talked about being stressed – busy, but never stressed and I reckon it’s because they feel more in control of the work they do, who they work with and how they go about it.

After being ‘managed out’ of a corporate role in 2011 without actually knowing quite what I’d done wrong (manager telling lies to HR in front of me) I resolved never to go back into a perm role.

I went contracting and am now fully self-employed. The work is hard, you have a load of admin to do re HMRC and there’s no safety net but you’ll be amazed at the kind of day rate you can ask for and still come in cheaper than a perm person.

I also like to make the world a more pleasant place and as a contractor, you’re often helping people out with a problem they can’t resolve with their current resource – so if you choose to you can position it in your head as helping people out.

You have more control over the work you choose to do, who you work with, and how you do your work. You can focus simply on getting the job done, much less politics and admin, if your client is an idiot you just shrug and think of the money, unlike when your boss is an idiot, they have power over you and it often ruins peoples lives.

Jobs for life are over, I think increasingly even perm roles are going to get more and more scarce as companies seek to cut costs in the face of a stagnant global economy and (in the West) the reduced productivity and burden of an ageing population.

Go independent, earn more, have more flexibility, work hard and enjoy it 🙂

<Thread hijack>
Excuse my ignorance and the hijack but how do these kind of things sound like compared to a standard amp and CD player, and as my iTunes is on my iPod and on my PC – how would I play that through this thing? The tracks are saved at AAC 256 I think
Are they really as good as old-fashioned hi-fi?

How are we supposed to assess ‘too bright’ exactly? It’s totally subjective.
And taking feedback from drivers isn’t really that reliable given how many give feedback along the lines of ‘you shouldn’t even be on the road’…

I have a flashing Cateye 3lED thing on my helmet. I took it off a year or so ago on the basis it may be overkill as well as the Joystick on my bars.
Nearly got hit by 3 cars pulling out from the left in one journey so it went straight back on…
You can’t really blame cyclists from putting on powerful lights when a) that’s almost all that’s available and b) there’s so many lousy drivers out there…

Quite likely OP that you’ve missed the market. All the data coming through at the moment suggests prices have gone beyond what people can raise enough money to pay for, or are willing to pay.
More than a few people are calling the top of the market and expecting things to drop this year – especially as the lending figures dropped 2nd half of 2014 and new buyer enquiries have dropped.
I suspect a lot of potential buyers are being cautious about overpaying for something which may well be cheaper in a year’s time

I’ve been renting for 14 years. When I’ve rented direct from the Landlord, repairs etc have been sorted ok. When I’ve rented through an agent there’s been dishonesty and lies all the way through.
Assume as a starting point that everything they tell you is a lie and you’ll not go far wrong!
Good that you’ve been able to expose them this time…

Look at lots of properties to get an idea of the quality in the area before saying yes.
I was told by an ex-estate agent that you’ll be shown the rubbish places first – to get you to think you have to up your budget to get anywhere decent, so be wary of tactics.
If at all possible, avoid letting agents too – they charge a load of fees for very little – drawing up contracts, renewal of contracts etc
I’ve been renting for over 10 years and tbh rental stock in the UK is poor quality but still expensive. My last place had rising damp which I’m pretty sure the landlord knew about from before I moved in…

Def Google the Landlord and/or letting agent too. My last place, it turned out the Landlord had a history of witholding deposits on the basis of false claims about the condition of the property when the tenant left and trying to take tenants to court when they disputed his false claims

To the OP What industry? Oil?

One is a Council Health and Safety Officer, one is Scientific Research/Genetic testing, third one I don’t know…

Just wondering if there’s a wider trend of people being made redundant outside of what we already know about the wider economic news…

Cotic Soul. Fairly springy out back so not missing my Orange Five so much – it was too much bike for Surrey Hills.
I may change my mind when I next go to the Lakes tho!

Well I do think letting the cost of living in London rise so high is a massive mistake. Workers are moving out so they can afford somewhere to live and employers are recruiting in the regions as they can’t afford to pay the salaries London employees need, even to rent…
It’s the beginning of the end of London’s dominance IMO. As a London worker and resident I think that rebalancing is a good thing for UK as a whole

Self employed so looking forward to getting the money back in. tbh being self-employed makes going to work much easier!
May ride in to make the beginning and end of the day more satisfying 🙂

http://www.amazon.co.uk/LEGO-10179-ULTIMATE-COLLECTORS-MILLENNIUM/dp/B0017V21EY

The reviews are good 🙂

One which excites other people more than me is I went to school with Gary Barlow…
More interesting, if a bit tenuous, is the local I drank in from aged 17 until the landlady sold it a couple of years ago was owned by James Bond’s (Daniel Craig) stepmum
When I jumped out of planes I knew the stuntman who played Halle Berry when she got out of the back of a Hercules on those one-man rocket things in Die Another Day. As a middle-aged ex Para he wasn’t a lookalike 🙂

Without googling, which party leader do you reckon said this and how would you describe the comment

…to be poor in India wasn’t so bad as to be on benefits in Britain, XXXXXX suggested, “because at least everyone else there is poor too”.
?

The Scandies offer an interesting current example of mainstream parties coming together to isolate fringe/anti-immigration protest parties

A little bit of research and you’ll find a) comments under the original story are giving the journalist a hard time b) the politician in question is saying their words have not been properly represented by the journalist…

I think the point was that whilst poverty is lousy, being poor in a society which is largely richer than you, whatever your absolute standard of living, isn’t exactly a picnic in the park…. We are social creatures and we judge our wealth as much by relative terms as absolute