The point is that there are risks involved in life and we should not try to legislate the whole nation to protect everything and everyone from every eventuality.

Totally agree with not living in a cotton wool world but as an ex-skydiver and rock climber I firmly believe in being able to choose when and where and why I take a risk with my life – actively choosing that risk is ok.

However, when I cycle, despite wearing hi-vis, helmet, lights, 37 years of experience + recent Bikeability training, I’m struggling to minimise the risk – it’s being inflicted on me by other road users

e.g the guy who tried to hit me on Saturday – then got out of his car to rant at me, and scurrying back into it when a couple of large pedestrians pointed out to him the error of his ways 🙂

Or the Range Rover who came close to riding over me a couple of weeks ago when I stopped at an amber light (check it – amber DOES mean stop) which he thought didn’t apply to him….

Because drivers are inflicting this risk on the general public who didn’t ask for it and aren’t confident with handling it, they’re not letting their kids out to play and they’re not riding or walking themselves. Instead they’re dying of fatness…

So excessive and dangerous driving is imposing risk on the rest of society. Which is not the same as putting people in cotton wool by reducing speed limits is it?

If we continue to pander to the lowest common denominator, we will soon all only be staying in bed all day just in case someone gets hurt somehow…….

well, we’ve got to the sorry situation where people in the UK are now dying of fatness… in part because they drive everywhere and the masses are too scared to cycle… so choose your method of early death!

I’ve not found the source of the figure but Chris Boardman quoted 30,000 a year dying of obesity-related diseases… so people are getting hurt in large numbers from excessive use of cars

OP – read this comment from one of Simon’s links in his post above and please stop being a tit! There’s MASSIVE downsides for everyone from the dominance of cars and the inability of drivers to think outside their tiny boxes…

Precisely why I’m leaving the UK and moving to the Netherlands after years of badgering my local council to think about why 99% of the parents drive everywhere. I’ve said my piece, as have many others in the same position but our local authority, like every other say something like “the numbers of people crossing here don’t even justify a lolly pop lady”.
The flagrant abuse of speed limits and guidelines on driving appropriately to weather conditions is also partly down to cars being more designed to go faster than our roads allow – is there a gear for 20mph? Most drivers say it’s not easy to say around that speed.
In any case, I can’t see it changing, it needs at least 40% to revolt against it and the motor car has been taken into the hearts of pretty much everyone I know as a trusty safe friend, it’s depressingly unlikely that they will try to restrict a trusty safe friend. I feel like I’m in some bad film where almost everyone is brainwashed.
I can’t wait to live back in the Dutch sanity of going out for a drink with my friends…by bike.
The Netherlands is far from perfect (especially if you ask their cycle campaigners) but I will at least get to ride with my kids every day, which is very important to me.
The UK has failed my kids and boy, am I angry!

MC Escher’s stuff – trying to follow the visual logic sends you round in circles and you end up just staring at it

also, this. There was a video version of it in the Tate Modern – spurious but utterly compelling links which ‘show’ that Morrissey predicted the death of Diana.

On the one hand it’s utterly mad and shows how strange conspiracy theorists are, on the other, the sheer amount of detailed research they delivered to put it together deserves respect…

THE DIANA-MORRISSEY PHENOMENON

Diana-Morrissey Phenomenon[/url]

August 31, 1978:
19 year-old Steven Morrissey first meets guitarist Johnny Marr,
the one who will launch Morrissey’s career several years later
by aggressively enlisting him to co-found a band: The Smiths.

August 31, 1997:
19 years to-the-day since Morrissey met guitarist Johnny Marr,
Princess Diana is killed under circumstances foreshadowed
in Morrissey’s work, beginning with an album by The Smiths.

Attempting to walk and text/read a book – and being really bad at it.

Dragging/scuffing your feet noticeably seems to have some effect. Albeit I’ll admit it’s slightly passive-aggressive 😀

a real rider just keeps on going till he falls off

I never realised how conservative and resistant to change the ‘great’ British public were until we started trying to enforce speed limits and safe driving in 1990’s and onwards. The general response to ‘please drive more carefully so you don’t kill other people and their children’ has been “waaah waaah waaah, I want to drive however I like, nasty government telling ME what to do, why should I?”

Honestly, it’s embarrassing seeing the tantrums grown ups get themselves into when driving…

You have to wonder whether we’re just getting to grips with an age-old problem, or whether such activities are proliferating with the internet…

Problem is there’s no way of properly measuring it and the media aren’t likely to report on it responsibly so I don’t think we’ll ever really know

They don’t pay road or pavement tax
The cross on red lights
They get arsey if I nearly kill them if I can’t be bothered driving properly e.g. when I want to run a red light
They make me drive slowly when I want to rag it at any old speed
They don’t have lights or hi-vis or helmets
They slow up traffic
They’re not in cars and therefore are scum who must be exterminated 😀

Seems a shame that 20 and 30mph are treated so often as optional in the first place… ideally you wouldn’t need to enforce them given that they’re obviously there to protect pedestrians in residential areas.

Breaking them gets you absolutely nowhere faster as you’ll be stopping at a junction in short order, from the obvious nature of residential streets…

People assuming that when I’m on my bike I’m somehow a different version of me who is suddenly more like every other human being on a bike than myself…
– and by extension is therefore definitely a law-breaking, angry, road-tax-avoiding, deliberately-getting-in-the-way git who is deserving of every last bit of existential anger, prejudice and passive aggression that can be mustered and flung in my general direction…

ie: people making sweeping, ignorant, tribal generalisations 😀

you can’t really criticise a cyclist for filtering on the left on The Mall – it’s a fast-moving dual carriageway with no lane markings – drivers tend to get over-excited about the fact they’re not stuck in a traffic jam and rag it – so moving round the outside of a taxi is fraught with risk…

[/quote]my advice would be , never put your self in a position where you have to rely on the common sense of the driver, because alot of drivers dont seem to use it that often,

^^ This

John Franklin in Roadcraft says pretty much all cycle lanes are dangerous or useless and you’re better off riding primary in the traffic…

If you can do College Road (Dulwich to Crystal Palace) or Anerley Hill (South side of Crystal Palace) on a Boris bike then you’re a champion 🙂

been there, done that – in advertising agencies in London.

Was recommended this book: How To Find A Job You Love

which takes you through a process of actively looking at your own strengths, preferences and talents and from that, designing the job you really want to do (rather than the more usual passive process of looking through a list of job ads)

For me the process ended up by doing something very similar but as a contractor rather than permanent, and at the thinking/planning stage rather than delivery. The book reassured me that I had been right all along with what I wanted to do and the main enabler was doing this freelance – I let go of a huge amount of stuff and just get on with the work.

The ‘I can do anything’ attitude can stand you in very good stead as a freelancer – the permies all sit around saying ‘not my job’ or worrying about upsetting people and politics/not breaking the ‘company code’ and you can just steam in, get it all done, take the money home while everyone sits around singing your praises 🙂

Held meetings to get us freehold, it started well but ultimately went nowhere, a few other residents want to just pay and be left alone, that and the feud it transpired was going on on the ground floor over plant pots in communal gardens meant people refused to speak to each other about it!

This kind of crap is partly what makes a house in suburbia more attractive… you can’t choose your neighbours but in a flat situation it can have a massive impact on your personal finances… + I’ve read daft stories where if you take the managing agent to court on unfair charges and win, they can add their legal costs to your future fees! Sounds like an extortion racket to me… at least with a house you have the ability to sort stuff out and you choose how to go about it

Hooray for the out of kilter South-East housing market…

. don’t remind me – 3 years ago, £250k would have been enough to make the choice I’m trying to make. I’m struggling to know where people are finding the cash tbh, given even Tesco’s struggling 😯

is it just Bromley

My geographical limiting factor is that the Stiffback Roadie club run starts at 8:30 from Crystal Palace on Sundays. Summer that means a 6:30 alarm, which is going to be ‘fun’ come winter!

Carshalton is the other option which could work but I suspect Bromley’s the better area overall…

Do you want a shed?

My middle name is Arthur Jackson 😉

Budget?

2-bed flats in SE London (Crystal Palace, Dulwich etc are on the market for £350-400k) although IMO this is unsustainably high as few first time buyers (who buy that kind of place) have that kind of money, so it may well change…

A 2-bed terrace in Bromley is on the market for £350k or less. Cheaper if you’re happy with a downstairs bathroom.

On the face of it, the house is a far better bet but I find Bromley really boring…

I love my Condor Tempo but they’re not budget. Beautiful bike to ride.
I will be choosing where to buy my house based on not having to ride up any super steep hills so I can keep the bike and not change it for a geared one 😀

I’m starting to think the protests have paid off

I suspect it’s a combination of the flurry of deaths last November (leaving TfL open to legal charges?) and the increasing population of London needing to get people out of the Tube and buses as much as possible so the main infrastructure doesn’t jam up.

Loads of people riding in today – combination of sunny weather and the Tour I guess, but good to see.

Riding in from Bromley, the treatment from drivers in London is significantly better IME.

I’ve worked with quite a few Germans over the last few years and they’ve all been competent, focussed on doing their job properly and just honest, decent people – willing to admit when there’s a problem which needs fixing rather than trying to bullshit their way through it.
You can see how their economy tends to avoid all the crises of the rest of Europe with that kind of ethic.
I tend to get on with them well, but being an eighth German (great grandfather on my Dad’s side) I’m not surprised.

It’s not a wood wasp. Looks like a real one to me.
One of the black and yellow variety I believe

My line manager struggling with the idea of free will:

“Why have we not kept hold of ‘xxxx’ (our apprentice)?”
“Because when he was told the apprentice scheme was being discontinued and he didn’t like any of the other roles on offer, he found himself a job elsewhere and has resigned- much like all the other people who’ve left recently” (we’re going through a major restructure)
“Oh” <confused silence>

Thing is, I know he had the same conversation with someone else this week so even though the idea of free will has been explained to him once, he’s still not got it 😯

What the anecdotes in this thread, the death and injury stats and general experience on the roads tell you is that the driving test is too easy, penalties for inadequate driving are not high enough, and drivers need re-testing more frequently

What razor were you using?

a £25 mercur thing + feathers blades. I’ve been wet shaving for 20+ years and never had as many cuts for so much effort and cuts… I tried my old gilette for comparison one day last week and my face was like a baby’s bum and I was out the house 5 mins earlier too…

I’m not lost for words that STW has turned the thread into an argument that has nothing to do with the original post 😀

I’m giving up on DE after a couple of months of a sore face, lousy shave and blood, and going back to the 4+1 stupidity of Gillette. yes it costs more, but my face thanks me for it 🙂

Morning shaving here – but always shower beforehand

More importantly, you can play ‘spot the bit of the Surrey Hills’ with every photo on the Genesis Bikes website 🙂 There’s def some BKB and some Yoghurt Pots in there, and some Peaslake Stores just out of shot.

Another driving one I’m afraid:
The driver who overtook our club group into oncoming traffic, paused when he saw the cars coming the other way, and then carried on driving directly at them before standing on his brakes to avoid the obviously impending head-on collision

Or the horse rider, riding her horse in a field, the other side of a 10ft hedge, shouting at the club group to keep the noise down as we road up the country road. The hedge was so high and thick we didn’t even know she was there till she started shouting at us…

You do wonder at what point we’re going to take driving crime seriously – fake plates, driving without due care and attention, rider’s bike totalled and the guy seriously injured. Surely when caught the driver has to do time and never ever be allowed near a car again?

This is why you HAVE to ride assuming that the most moronic move a driver could make is, in fact, the one they will make… I’ve stopped assuming a stationary car will stay stationary after I’ve seen too many daft moves (whether walking, driving or riding)… you can see why people say they’d love to ride but think it’s too dangerous. Meanwhile the UK gets fatter and fatter and fatter…

You missed step 0 : Get on a bicycle.

True that. Day to day the only time I get abused/shouted at by a stranger is when I’m riding… isolating themselves inside a car does funny things to people

Aren’t bikes 99% mechanically efficient? 🙂
Not sure if anyone’s extrapolated that all the way backwards to the energy content of the food that goes in to provide power for the legs though…

Its seems a bit easy to wind people up at the moment,

+

This kind of driver would continue to be a menace to other road users with or without the OP’s intervention.

The anger’s there when these people went to bed last night, got up this morning, and got into their car. I doubt this is the only instance of rage and anger he’s inflicted on someone else – whether driving or not.

What we need is some kind of flag so we know who they are before they’re anywhere near us. Or self-driving cars…

What I’ve learned from dealing with irate drivers, however, is that unless you can get very well clear of them, stay behind them – going back in front puts you back at risk…

This is what’s great about riding bikes – N+1 doesn’t cost a lot 🙂 but it can give you a whole new lease of life.

Why not get a CX bike and combine the MTB with road?

Tragic for Cav. would’ve been magic if he’d taken yellow

If that’s what happens at 30mph then those people who think driving at 30mph is some kind of optional suggestion, might want to take a look at those pics above

😯

Why not just find a job elsewhere? For your own sanity and wellbeing?

I’ve had managers like that – there seems to be more of them than decent ones and IME they only manage like that because they don’t have the emotional intelligence to behave otherwise. If they did have the appropriate amount of emotional intelligence then they’d be managing you properly!

The conclusion I’ve come to is no amount of explaining to them why their management style is ineffective (by you, HR, their boss, anyone) will ever be very effective – they just don’t have the base materials to understand how to communicate properly… (and sometimes it’s just bullying, in which case you’re better off out)

I’m not sure that adding hyphens in is going to help that sentence make sense 🙂

Put them on the Classifieds?