I don’t think it is really recommended, probably something to do with letting you body recover from the infection before putting additional demands on it.

Having typed that, I cycle commute everyday (20 to 50 mile round trip), stinking cold or not. It blows away the cobwebs (and excess mucus!) and makes me feel better, so take the above advice from a hypocrite like me as you would from any other person who says “do as I say, not as I do”!

:lol: I know.

Not getting off topic

Fair enough! I’ll keep schtum.

Good luck with your investigations.

One is a very steep hill down to the river. The other is a narrow winding A road. It deters the amateur/less confident cyclists.

I always tell them when I’m leading that if the hills get too much there’s no problem with getting off and pushing (many haven’t mastered gears yet anyway!).

One of the principles of the Club is that we go at a pace everyone finds comfortable, if that means walking pace up hills, then walking pace it is!

But yes, I understand how hard linking up bike-friendly routes is, sometimes you do have to push them out of their comfort zone if only for a few minutes.

I felt a bit like you petec, thought I should probably give something back to the community in some way or another. Parish Cllr didn’t appeal having worked in local government you tend to see a lot of the issues already aired!

I was contacted by the CTC (now Cycling UK) who where trying to set up a Community Cycle Club, basically a club that tried to attract nervous, inexperienced, unfit folks who thought the normal cycle clubs were a bit too much. We do 5, 10 and 15 mile rides on quiet residential/country roads, off road cycle tracks etc. Stuff to encourage people back on their bikes and give them some local knowledge of where they can go and how they can get there. I find it really rewarding seeing the improvement in participants confidence, fitness and I think it offers a social connection for many of them that otherwise wouldn’t be there.

Could be something to consider?

Reminds of that X-files episode with the elongated fingerprints by the chap who could slide under doors.

The X-files never inspired me with optimism, more a curious sense of a lack of knowledge and being relatively powerless in the grander scheme of things… …surprisingly similar to how I feel as a citizen of Britain now really.

The cyclist is travelling faster than the lorry.

If the lorry is braking to undertake a left turn this is to be expected. If the lorry has previously overtaken the cyclist, then the lorry would be travelling faster. It isn’t a constant speed.

Although to be fair, TfL are at least up for challenging the DfT when it comes to cyclist safety.

Shame I don’t work there!

Not really, I work parallel to this field. There rarely seems to be much point.

At least here I can vent my frustrations without any direct professional/personal comeback!

It’ll make the work of road safety professionals more difficult, maybe not directly, but as another increment in the current band wagon that most media outlets seem to be jumping on.

It will once again reinforce the “fact” that cycling is dangerous and risky putting more people off using bikes, meaning the critical mass of cyclists necessary to improve road safety is farther on from being reached.

Just another in a long line of failures* really.

*Or not depending on your objectives short and long term I suppose.

It’s a bad video, it supports the might-is-right mindset of the majority of people using the roads in this country, all road users included.

It’s use will reinforce the current KSI rate and will do little to improve the lot of cyclists, it will appease the road freight industry and make some folk think that once again the cyclist is always wrong.

It’s depressing that this is how far road safety has come in this country.

Stephen Spielburg – The Duel II

professional outrage gone mad

Is this the new “Pee Cee Gawn Maaad!” thing?! :-)

the message is not aimed at professionally outraged, traffic savvy cyclists FFS!!!

This is the problem, as aracer points out. It is reinforcing the status quo: cyclists are assumed to be responsible for these kind of KSIs.

the people that it’s aimed at are gonna watch it and go ‘ooh, **** hell!! I’m gonna pay a bit more attention around big trucks’

Really? I hope you’re right, but the response from others suggests otherwise.

Regrets, mistakes and all the crap we go through make us who we are (the sum of our experience and a bit of other stuff too). To change any of that would change who we are.

Wouldn’t it?

Come on people, this isn’t difficult!

A lot of people, not just here, think it is!

kids: don’t undertake lorries approaching junctions.
Stay safe.

I’d rather they had just said that. Producing an ambiguous video that suggests something other than what was written seems at best pointless and at worst an attempt to push a different agenda completely.

Edited to add – What Donk said.

How can the lorry be overtaking when it is obviously travelling slower than the cyclist?

Lorries have brakes right? It was braking to turn left after trying to overtake the cyclist. I can’t see any other reason why it would be where it was without having attempted to overtake the cyclist then slowing down to turn left.

Idris has grown up a bit.

Like a cyclist obviously trying to undertake a lorry approaching a junction?
Like in the video you posted?

You watching the same video as the rest of us? It’s a clear road, there doesn’t appear to be any obstruction prior to the lorry carrying out it’s overtaking move before swinging left. Standard left hook surely?

So the best solution involves the cyclist taking no action.

It’s often the case when an vehicle overtakes another, make sure the way is clear. Particularly if you’re going to be making a turn very shortly afterwards. All this irrespective of the vehicles types involved.

The clue is in the video; it’s the bit where that exact message appears on the screen.

Very good. :wink:

Wise words Molgrips.

However alongside lorries is NEVER a good place to be regardless of where it is or what you’re riding/driving.

It is very frustrating when on road cycle lanes encourage this too. Once again a failure of the DfT to standardise cycle infrastructure.

so what!!!?

the message is clear… be aware of vehicles on your right

The message to you may be, to me it is – “It’s your fault if you get caught in this situation”. It carries on reinforcing the vehicular hierarchy we have on the roads that allows the injustices we say daily.

them to scoot up the inside of vehicles without a care in the world..

Except that isn’t what happens in the video. Fair enough if it was slow moving traffic, or the lorry was indicating and it was obvious the cyclist was carrying out an unsafe undertake. The video didn’t show this.

Vehicles overtake me daily on the left, just as aracer says. It is not an inherently unsafe position, unless the overtaking vehicle decides to make a move that puts me in danger.

If this occurs then it is the vehicle driver that is at fault, not me. I am the (theoretical) victim, yet this video and some posters are putting the blame on me – ergo “victim blaming”.

It seems worse from the remix. Assuming the lorry overtakes the cyclist, then slows down to turn left then surely it is the lorry driver who needs to exercise a duty of care? It’s not even as if the cyclist is filtering which I think (assume) is the normal cause of these incidents.

The whole thing just seems to say, if a vehicle wants to turn left you (as a cyclist) should slow down and let them, they don’t have to hang back and wait.

Classic victim blaming, but then it is the DfT…

but there were a few deaths recently in the city from exactly this scenario..

Do we know this for sure? I haven’t seen any discussion on whether it was undertaking while a vehicle was indicating, or whether it was the classic left hook.

Check out Retrobike, there’ll be able to give you an idea of whether they’re worth anything:

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/

I feel that the way forward now for the manufacturers should be to focus on making their cars lighter and more fun to drive at any speed rather than faster.

Lotus and Caterhams all round then!

Actually, thinking about the amount of stuff most folk seem to carry in their cars this may not be such a bad idea. The problem is, people want cars to do everything, carry the family at the weekend, fit in bikes for the holiday to the Alps, be fun to drive on a Sunday mornimg and be the daily commuter. Not sure this is possible in a lightweight, lower power package.

Miaow! :-)

Point is though, an extra burst of speed gives you one more option to get out of trouble, and with the number of nobbers on the road you sometimes need all the options you can get.

Unfortunately, it’s also the nobbers who get to play with cars that have the extra burst of speed. So people like you need even more speed to avoid your red-light-jumping “friend”, but then that would be available to everyone too…

…seems like a bit of a viscous circle to me.

Not if the parents were the ones keying your car in the first place so that the road would be clear enough for little Johnny to play football in the street.
This is just too much for me to take in.

“Should” as in, it’d be good if there was, or there’s likely to be?

Okay, okay. I won’t do the “tongue in cheek” post again. I could see quite a few holes in that particular paragraph!

This playing football in the street is sentimental bollocks! Why would you want to?

True, I don’t like football these days. My kids don’t seem to like playing it either. It was just an easy example to use.

Having to get football-shaped dints pulled out of your car’s bodywork is pretty annoying I expect.

Certainly, I would imagine that would fall under some other legislation that would be easier to use than the Highways Act though.

Besides, in streets where the kids play football there should be sufficient social cohesion that the parents of the kids responsible are known by the vehicle owner so getting some recompense may be easier. Plus if the streets are being used for other stuff too, then there will be multiple witnesses, and low level antisocial behaviour/crime can be dealt with without getting the police involved! (most of that last paragraph was tongue in cheek)

Interesting about the legalities of playing football on the road, I wonder if the “to the annoyance of others” bit has ever been delved into at all? I’m guessing it is those using the highway to travel, rather than any other use e.g. parking their car. Would be a good one for the lawyers anyway.

As it happens when I used to play on the street there was always a shout of “Car!” if a car was coming and someone would grab the ball and we’d get out of the way (I should add this was a kickabout with half a dozen kids, not a proper game of football with thirty odd people). It makes sense if people are using the street to travel on. However, if they are using it to park on then I think there is a stronger argument for both uses to be considered.

a dangerous public space and not one i want to chill out in or use for another purpose.

Except in many cases it isn’t necessarily a dangerous public space, it can be made dangerous by excessive numbers of parked cars and moving vehicles. Maybe others do want to chill out or use it for another purpose, but they can’t because of the aforementioned issues.

I just dont see parked cars as stealing public space anymore than i see a moving one as stealing public space. I see soemting using public space

Fair enough, I’m afraid I disagree, but we’re all free to have an opinion.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this other than, well, I don’t want to trot out “correlation =/= causation” or claim the car is king. But the assertion that you can’t hang out on the streets like you used to because of parked cars doesn’t feel right to me. Rather, if you lived with the sorts of neighbours who would socialise with each other, in the sort of area where popping round to your neighbours for a brew would be considered commonplace, then you’d socialise, cars be damned.

Fair enough, I won’t try and persuade you anymore!

I will say though that I believe that a neighbourhood and the people that live there are not two separate entities, they influence each other, everything from the architecture, the road geometry and layout, the sociodemographics of the folks living there, the car ownership levels etc. All contribute to the greater micro-society. The behaviour of people I think is influenced by their environment and I also think that applies to simple, normal, everyday things as well as the wider ranging larger stuff.

I do wonder if a part of that problem is parents having (relative to the halcyon days of the 70s and 80s) less free time to actually take their kids somewhere?

Could be less free time. Although I didn’t play with my parents on the street as a kid. I was taught to ride by my siblings too. My parents worked longer hours than I do anyway, but I guess that’s not the case across the board.

I tried to explain earlier that it wasn’t about specific reasons for using the street as something other than a means to get from A to B. It was having the opportunity to use it as space for a range of things, everything from kids playing, adults talking, somewhere to share a brew. Just general social life stuff that no longer happens there in many cases, with excess numbers of parked cars seeming to be a strongly related factor.

I’m still not seeing how parked cars are preventing you from doing any of that stuff. How on earth are people parking which prevents you from riding a bike or sitting on a wall?

Parked cars obscure visibility, create additional hazards etc. It makes learning to ride a bike more hazardous. It doesn’t stop me sitting on a wall and I think we’re getting a bit bogged down in the specifics here. It just doesn’t create a conducive atmosphere for stopping to chat and just being round other people.

How much smell, noise and pollution does a parked car make?

Lots when it’s parking and starting off. The slower the vehicle the more concentrated the air pollution is. People who are doing deliveries block the road and leave the engine running because there’s no space to do deliveries. There’s lots of reasons why parked cars generate noise and pollution both directly and indirectly.

It’s seem that the real problem isn’t parked cars, it’s you and your mates not being 14 any more.

Possibly, but I don’t blame parked cars for that! I would like my kids to be able to enjoy the environment outside their home rather than having to walk to the nearest park. Maybe that is asking too much these days. I’m sure quite a few adults would be pleased to be able to do so too though.

Whereas some seem to be objecting about disruption to day-to-day “socialising,” and I’m perplexed as to what impromptu socialising you want to do in the middle of the road which is prevented by parked cars.

Well, and I fully admit it is probably rose tinted nostalgia but I learnt to ride a bike on the street I lived in, I played with my friends in the street as I grew up. I sat on the garden wall and drank cider as a teenager! All this kind of stuff.

It’s not necessarily formal “socialising” per se, I don’t think I’ve ever been to street party for example. It’s the informal everyday social contact that I miss I suppose. The presence of cars parked along the street, on the pavements and everywhere there’s space (grass verges etc.), the associated noise, smell and pollution doesn’t create an atmosphere conducive to this kind of social life.

…and you’ve missed out MfS2, which covers the sort of roads I’m talking about!

Apparently it’s not as good a “policy” document as the previous two, so it doesn’t carry the same weight in planning terms: I understand it didn’t go through the right Government approval process and was never properly rubber stamped.

You’re quite right though, it is a useful .doc and contains some great stuff to bridge the gap.