In message , Neil Williams
writes
Someone who does not drive, and does not intend to drive, is not in any
way punished by having points on a theoretical driving licence, unless
a licence was also issued for cycling and withdrawn when 12 points were
reached as with a car licence.
Sorry, don't buy it, if you can't be legal with a bike why should you be
trusted with a car.

Read my post, as quoted above, again. That comment, while making a
reasonable point, is irrelevant to the point I am making.
I read your point, and I don't buy into it. Otherwise we might as well
have separate licences for mopeds etc. and when you get banned from one
means of transport you just swop to the next. I do agree though that
all cyclists should have licences which when taken away would prohibit
further use until the ban expired. Making a level playing field.
--
Clive

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Sep 2005 22:58:31 +0100, "Martin Underwood" a@b wrote:

I disagree. If you're on the road between one kerb and the other,
drink-drive laws should apply: you don't have to hit someone to cause an
accident. IF you cause another vehicle to go out of countrol (possible
causing much more damage than you yourself could cause) because he was
trying to avoid hitting you, you should bear 100% of the blame.

How on earth would you propose to enforce that?

Think about an extreme (fictitious) example. I'm driving along a
2-lane-in-each-direction single carriageway (i.e. no central
reservation) at 35mph. You're following me in a large articulated
lorry at 40mph, and wish to overtake. You do so, and I decide at the
same second to move to the right lane without looking. There is a car
coming up the right lane of the other side of the road at 60mph, but
for whatever reason (e.g. blind bend or dip) neither of us can see it.

To avoid hitting me, you swerve into the oncoming traffic as it
appears clear (but isn't). You and the car collide at a closing speed
of 100mph, and the car is written off and its driver seriously injured
or killed. I'm not hit at all.

Who bears the blame for that mess? I would argue that one single
person does not. OK, I've triggered the situation by being a prat,
but you have also taken misjudged evasive action which had a worse
consequence than you would have had by hitting me at a closing speed
of 5mph.

It is just not that simple.

Agreed. Instinctively you tend to avoid the accident that you can see right
here and now, only to find that there's another much more serious accident
waiting to happen such as a collision with an oncoming car. I did some
training on a skid pan and the instructor told us that this was a common
occurrence, even with highly-trained police drivers who know that they have
to take the lesser of two evils but still instictively stear away from the
low-speed impact into the path of oncoming traffic. He also said that in an
incident where you are trying to avoid something (child running into the
road) you must fight the tendency to look at the thing you're trying to
avoid and look at the safer place where you want to end up. And that's
bloody difficult!

I'd say that you as the root cause of it bear a lot of the responsibility.
And if your car wasn't hit and incapacitated you'd probably escape without
the police even being aware that you existed unless there were witnesses.

To add to that, what about a heavily-drunken pedestrian stepping into
the road causing the same thing? Just as possible, indeed from my
experience a lot more likely.

Heavily drunk pedestrian bears the blame - especially if witnesses say that
he did so without any warning that would have given driver time to react: he
may have been walking apparently normally and then suddenly stumbled out
into the road. If he was lurching all over the pavement beforehand, it's
more reasonable that the car driver might have had chance to react.


I was once driving down the A34 and I saw a car with his brake lights
permanently on. Several times he had to brake and other cars nearly went
into the back of him.

It's sad the police won't respond to such things - goes with my
statement that more of them are required to allow them to actually do
so.

Agreed - and they need to treat this as being important, rather than
concentrating on catching speeding drivers.

When I reported it, the policeman on the front desk said "Oh, he probably
just had his fog lights on". So I reminded him that this is still illegal
except during fog, and that the high-level brake light was on anyway, so it
wasn;t the fog lights.

However, if anyone was to run into the back of someone with brake
lights permananently *on* (rather than off where you wouldn't know
there was a fault until you'd followed for a while), at least some of
the blame must go to them as well. If I see a car with brake lights
stuck on, I will hold right back, knowing I will get no notification
of what could be an emergency braking. I therefore potentially need
another several seconds of braking time because I'll need to notice
deceleration rather than red lights - and if I hold back I may also be
able to see over[1]/round the car to determine what might cause him to
brake as an assistance to my judgement.

True. I sized up the situation very quickly after I joined the road and he
overtook me. My immediate thought was "no-one's going to be able to tell
when he brakes - I'd better keep a long way back from him; I think I'll stay
in the other lane, right out of his way". Judging by the flurry of brake
lights from other cars behind him every so often, other people hadn't worked
that one out! One of the difficulties with holding too far back is that your
ability to judge whether you are gaining on a car in front increases as you
get closer: the comparative size of a car that's 200 yards away compared
with 150 yards away is much less than between one that's 100 and one that's
50.

Much more dangerous is the car whose brake lights aren't working at all. I
always feel happier when I'm following a car if I occasionally see his brake
lights come on because then I know that his lights are definitely working!
When I was learning to drive, I actually asked my instructor (shows how
naive I was) whether it was legal to slow down simply by lifting your foot
off the accelerator, on the grounds that if I did this, cars behind me
wouldn't have the benefit of my brake lights to tell that I was slowing
down! Nowadays, I use this as much as possible to give a gentle deceleration
and to save wear on the brake pads. When I took my advanced test, my
examiner humorously commented that I was the only driver who just braked
after coming out of the bend - as I came up behind the car in front that
hadn't accelerated out of the bend as quickly as I'd anticipated. As you get
more experience you learn to anticipate this better, but I was younger at
the time.

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 12:46:33 +0100, Clive
wrote:

I read your point, and I don't buy into it.

snip

I do agree though that
all cyclists should have licences which when taken away would prohibit
further use until the ban expired. Making a level playing field.

I think you just did buy into it

The point was that it is useless having points on a *driving* licence
for *cycling* offences unless there is also a cycling licence which
can also be withdrawn. As such, if someone never intended to drive,
points on a theoretical driving licence would be of no effect, unless
said licence also applied to cycling.

I would, however, contend that it would be immensely difficult to
enforce a requirement for a cycling licence without the increase in
police which I have also suggested as necessary as a first step.

Mind you, I might not be in a conventional city, which tends to sway
my view on such things, but I'm also not convinced that poor cycling
is as big a problem as some people think it is - or at least not as
big a problem as poor driving is. I am in favour of enforcing the
rules of the road on cyclists as well as road users, but I think there
are practicality issues involved.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

The point was that it is useless having points on a *driving* licence
for *cycling* offences unless there is also a cycling licence which
can also be withdrawn. As such, if someone never intended to drive,
points on a theoretical driving licence would be of no effect, unless
said licence also applied to cycling.

You don't seem to be aware that you can have endorsements on a licence
you don't have. If and when you get one it comes with the endorsements.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Neil Williams wrote:

It depends what "decent provision" is. On the face of it, Milton
Keynes' Redway system is just what is required, and I do use it
myself. However, there are parts of it that are downright dangerous
and/or impede reasonable progress by bicycle due to blind bends,
excessive rubbish/glass being present and not cleaned up, or due to
repeatedly crossing side roads with poor visibility, or simply
pedestrians who block the way and don't respond to/respond
unpredictably to a bicycle bell or a shout of "Excuse me please"[1].
For that reason, the roads are often a better place to ride even
though these are generally national speed limit dual carriageways.

That was you! I was thinking very brave and very stupid.

My experience in Germany, or Hamburg in particular, is that the cycle
facilities were little better. Indeed, I can recall one very narrow
bit of kerb which was divided into a cycle and pedestrian lane, each
being about 2 feet wide. This was more dangerous than not having it -
and due to German law it is illegal not to use it where provided.

They're generally pretty good in the South. Perhaps it was a bit of
Hamburg that we didn't destroy in the war.

[1] I've taken to ringing my bell and shouting "Coming past on your
right", for example, but it seems that even this is beyond some
pedestrians on the Redway system, usually those with children and/or
dogs, and often leads to them/their dogs/their children moving towards
instead of away from the cyclist.

If a UFO did this to you, you might react in the same way. Motorists
and Pedestrians are not used to cyclists, except in some towns like
Cambridge.

Clive wrote:
In message . com,
writes
It's not ideal, but certainly there are some parts of the road where
it's not safe to cycle on the road, leaving the pavement as the only
safe option. I've cycled slowly on the pavement when carrying a child
on the back. In this instance I'd rather risk a fine than an accident.

Cycling on the path is illegal and should be fined. If you don't think
the road is safe why should pedestrians feel safe with you riding on it?
Ever heard of get off and push until you can rejoin the road?
--
Because when on the pavement I cycle at about 5mph, which is pretty
safe. Pushing a bike with a child on the back is not that safe, as the
bike is not stable.

If the local authority put in some bike paths, there wouldn't be a
problem for cars or pedestrians.

On 11 Sep 2005 08:58:07 -0700, wrote:

That was you! I was thinking very brave and very stupid.



Not really any more dangerous than on a motorcycle. On most of the MK
grid system, it's either dual carriageway with generally good
visibility (straight roads, you see) or single carriageway with the
road effectively being 2.5 lanes wide with a shaded bit in the middle,
meaning there is almost always room to overtake a cyclist safely.

The one major exception to this, Saxon Street, now has a 40mph limit,
which strikes me as an entirely reasonable situation due to not only
this but other things that differ about its layout from the rest of
the grid, it being one of the oldest parts.

They're generally pretty good in the South. Perhaps it was a bit of
Hamburg that we didn't destroy in the war.

Quite possibly. The particular example I gave was near the university
which is surrounded by relatively old buildings.

If a UFO did this to you, you might react in the same way. Motorists
and Pedestrians are not used to cyclists, except in some towns like
Cambridge.

Or Milton Keynes, which does have an unusually high amount of cycling.
People still walk down the Redways (a wide shared cycle/pedestrian
arrangement, and emphatically NOT just a footpath) paying no
attention, however. There really needs to be an advertising campaign
to get pedestrians to treat them as quiet country roads instead, that
is to walk on the right hand side facing oncoming "traffic" and not to
block the entire width. Occasional cyclists, OTOH, need educating to
ride on the left and give way at junctions where appropriate. Both
are as bad - and that drives me onto the roads!

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 16:37 +0100 (BST), (Colin
Rosenstiel) wrote:

You don't seem to be aware that you can have endorsements on a licence
you don't have. If and when you get one it comes with the endorsements.

I'm fully aware of it. It isn't, however, an effective punishment for
cyclists who do not intend to drive, which is what my point was,
unless an attached cycling licence is also introduced.

(A general point- I'd love to know why people tend to get so polarised
in discussions about the merits of various modes of transport, and why
they cannot consider the issues on their own!)

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

In message ,
Martin Underwood writes

It's fairly rare to
see cars etc go through red lights (I've probably seen under ten in the 25
years I've been driving)

That's amazing. I see about 10 motor vehicles going through red lights
every morning on my five mile cycle to work.

--
congokid
Good restaurants in London? Number one on Google
http://congokid.com

congokid wrote:
In message ,
Martin Underwood writes

It's fairly rare to
see cars etc go through red lights (I've probably seen under ten
in the 25 years I've been driving)

That's amazing. I see about 10 motor vehicles going through red
lights every morning on my five mile cycle to work.

The difference is that motor vehicles who go through red lights
generally do so in the first second or two of the red phase, when the
risk of collision is lower because phasing has become more
conservative* (not that I'm trying to condone the practice).

Many of the cyclists who go through red lights seem to do so at any time
in the red phase whatever the collision risk.

* 40-odd years ago I was living in Cambridge near the junction of
Parkside and Clarendon Street, where the buildings came right up to the
footway producing a blind corner, and there were regular accidents
because the lights had coincident ambers, i.e. one direction got
red-and-amber when the other direction got amber. They changed the
phasing to "sequent ambers", but I dare say there's an all-red phase now
(do you know, Colin R?).
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)