On 9 Sep, 11:41, Adrian wrote:
Depends how he left the bus. The doesn't appear to be much of the upper
front window remaining.

Well the bus did have an argument with a tram and lost. Given how
mangled the front of the bus is I'd guess the windows just shattered
and fell out on impact. The tram seems fairly intact in the pictures.
Apart from it having derailed you'd never know it had been in an
accident. Must be built a lot stronger than the bus.

B2003

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008, Boltar wrote:

On 9 Sep, 11:41, Adrian wrote:

Depends how he left the bus. The doesn't appear to be much of the upper
front window remaining.

Well the bus did have an argument with a tram and lost. Given how
mangled the front of the bus is I'd guess the windows just shattered and
fell out on impact. The tram seems fairly intact in the pictures. Apart
from it having derailed you'd never know it had been in an accident.
Must be built a lot stronger than the bus.

Maybe the safety bedwetters in the HMRI have done some good after all!

Seriously, though, is it any secret that rail vehicles are built much
tougher than road vehicles?

In a situation like this, of course, that extra toughness might not have
been an advantage - rather as with giant 4x4s, it may reduce the danger to
occupants at the expense of increasing the danger to those outside it.

tom

--
And dear lord, its like peaches in a lacy napkin. -- James Dearden

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008, Pyromancer wrote:

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Tom Anderson
gently breathed:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twic/2844493252/

You should send that to the Warrington Cycle Campaign for their
"Facility Of The Month" page - top work!

That's on my to-do list, certainly!

tom

--
And dear lord, its like peaches in a lacy napkin. -- James Dearden

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008, wrote:

On Sep 10, 12:29*am, Tom Anderson wrote:

diagonally across). *I just get in the bus lane and behave like a bus...

This is also my strategy. I'm getting very good at brrrmming noises.

I can ride fast enough, and more to the point accelerate rapidly enough,
that I can outperform buses in urban settings. But then I don't need
the bike lanes in the first place --- fit, alert, knows what cars do by
virtue of having driven them for twenty-five years, plus the added je ne
said quoi have having a few years' motorbike experience too. My kids,
however, don't have many of those attributes, and things like National
Cycle Routes _should_ be aimed at them: if not for children / the
nervous / the inexperienced, what's the point of traffic engineering the
roads in city centres?

The actual point has got nothing to do with the needs of any group of
cyclists at all: it's essentially a religion, in which planners, without
any reference to evidence, fervently believe that some white and green
paint will make life better for cyclists, encourage more cycling, etc. In
this, they're supported by their congregation of the equally uninformed
general public, sadly including most cyclists.

Seriously - cycle lanes have been shown time and time again to *increase*
danger to cyclists. They protect them while running alongside the main
lane, but expose them to greater danger at junctions. The way the numbers
pan out for all but the most unbejunctioned roads means that they increase
risk overall. A cavalcade of studies are listed he

http://www.cyclecraft.co.uk/digest/research.html

You say that experienced cyclists like us don't need cycle lanes, but i'd
say that inexperienced cyclists need them *even less*, since they're the
ones who are at most risk to begin with, and so stand to suffer the most
from the increased risk presented by a cycle lane.

Now, where it's possible to build fully segregated routes that have no
interaction with roads at any point, or do so very infrequently, i would
agree that these can be of use to inexperienced cyclists, and even to
experienced cyclists. The trouble is that there are vanishingly few
opportunities for such things. You can build them in to new developments
if you try, but it's generally impossible to fit them into existing street
layouts without either making them useless to cars (which is a good idea,
but not popular) or spending an absurd amount on grade separation or
something. The exceptions are where there's an existing grade-separated
right of way that can be used, such as a canal towpath or a disused
railway, or an area that's already car-free, like a park, or an incredibly
lucky set of circumstances.

Perhaps the thing to do would be to stop building ('building' - can you
build anything with paint?) conventional cycle lanes altogether, and focus
the resources on building a small number of genuinely good routes where
they could do the most good, and be the most use to inexperienced cyclists
- for instance, if there's a large primary school surrounded by busy
roads, then elevating or sinking some of the roads and putting a
grade-separated ground level cycle route in to link to adjacent regions of
quieter roads.

Or to spend the money on extra police or traffic wardens (or cameras) to
enforce traffic laws at key conflict points. And, since a minor but
significant fraction of cyclist casualties stem from cyclist errors, i
mean enforcing them against cyclists as well as motorists!

tom

--
And dear lord, its like peaches in a lacy napkin. -- James Dearden

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008, Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article ,
(Pyromancer) wrote:

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Tom
Anderson gently breathed:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twic/2844493252/

You should send that to the Warrington Cycle Campaign for their
"Facility Of The Month" page - top work!

I use the segregated cycle lane sections to the west of that location
between the Bedford Way/Tavistock Sq junction and Marchmont St on my way
from Westminster to King's Cross station.

I don't use the section between Marchmont St and Judd St illustrated and
have never seen this nonsense.

I turn off at Marchmont Street too, so i rarely have to negotiate the
bloody thing either. The day i took that, i was riding from the west end
to the City, and that seemed like a good route.

I can't for the life of me think why that crossover isn't arranged at
the lights on the Judd St junction

Quite!

but then they wouldn't have the anti-cyclist lights arrangement at the
Marchmont St junction if they were that sensible.

Oh christ! That junction! AAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!! It makes me INSANE WITH
RAGE whenever i see it, or even think about it. It's an affront to common
sense and human dignity. One day, i'm going to burn it down.

tom

--
And dear lord, its like peaches in a lacy napkin. -- James Dearden

In article ,
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 10 Sep 2008, Boltar wrote:

Well the bus did have an argument with a tram and lost. Given how
mangled the front of the bus is I'd guess the windows just shattered and
fell out on impact. The tram seems fairly intact in the pictures. Apart
from it having derailed you'd never know it had been in an accident.
Must be built a lot stronger than the bus.

Maybe the safety bedwetters in the HMRI have done some good after all!

Seriously, though, is it any secret that rail vehicles are built much
tougher than road vehicles?

In a situation like this, of course, that extra toughness might not have
been an advantage - rather as with giant 4x4s, it may reduce the danger to
occupants at the expense of increasing the danger to those outside it.

Like (according to Ian Banks) Land-Rovers, a tram's crumple zone probably
consists of other vehicles.

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 9th August 2008)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

Nick Leverton writes:

Like (according to Ian Banks) Land-Rovers, a tram's crumple zone probably
consists of other vehicles.

So Land-Rover driver will just have to hope that if they do have a
collision that it is not with another Land-Rover.

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008, Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article ,
(Pyromancer) wrote:

Upon the miasma of midnight, a darkling spirit identified as Tom
Anderson gently breathed:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twic/2844493252/

You should send that to the Warrington Cycle Campaign for their
"Facility Of The Month" page - top work!

I use the segregated cycle lane sections to the west of that location
between the Bedford Way/Tavistock Sq junction and Marchmont St on my
way from Westminster to King's Cross station.

I don't use the section between Marchmont St and Judd St
illustrated and have never seen this nonsense.

I turn off at Marchmont Street too, so i rarely have to negotiate
the bloody thing either. The day i took that, i was riding from the
west end to the City, and that seemed like a good route.

I can't for the life of me think why that crossover isn't
arranged at the lights on the Judd St junction

Quite!

but then they wouldn't have the anti-cyclist lights arrangement
at the Marchmont St junction if they were that sensible.

Oh christ! That junction! AAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGHHH!! It makes me
INSANE WITH RAGE whenever i see it, or even think about it. It's an
affront to common sense and human dignity. One day, i'm going to
burn it down.

Indeed so. I've got an email from a Camden cycling officer I keep meaning
to follow up to have a site meeting about those signals (and a more minor
irritation at Tavistock Square). I have a Camden cycling councillor
contact to whom I've talked about it too but it's one of things for which
I need to get a round tuit.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:29:48 +0100 someone who may be Tom Anderson
wrote this:-

Anyway, some more dickery in return - i've been meaning to post this photo
for ages, and you've prompted me to do so:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twic/2844493252/

That is certainly good enough for the Warrington Cycle Campaign
farcility of the month spot.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000/00023--e.htm#54

On Wed, Sep 10, 2008 at 07:15:03PM +0100, Tom Anderson wrote:

In a situation like this, of course, that extra toughness might not have
been an advantage - rather as with giant 4x4s, it may reduce the danger to
occupants at the expense of increasing the danger to those outside it.

If you assume that the tram will be carrying a great many more people
than any other vehicle that it runs into (an assumption which, IME,
would hold pretty much all the time in Croydon) then that's a good
trade-off.

--
David Cantrell | Nth greatest programmer in the world

I remember when computers were frustrating because they did
exactly what you told them to. That seems kinda quaint now.
-- JD Baldwin, in the Monastery