London Fixed-gear and Single-speed

Fucking hipsters.

Those dudes in red were useless.

I mean, what's the point in them? They're carrying swords in an age of blasters, and they're protecting a guy who can use the force.

The Imperial Forces' equivalent of this guy.

I don't think so. I always assumed they were Darth's WAGs.

Loving LFGSS styles. There aren't many places where you can go from the Times Cycling Campaign to Darth Vader's WAGs in a few short steps.

Firstly, ok, I'll admit they were pretty useless. But it looked good to have a posse in those days, everyone had them, Biggie, Tupac, all my mates.
Secondly, they're not "swords" you impudent rebel, they are Force Pikes : http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Force_pike

One of those turned up to 11 and stuck up your junta would make you wish you'd never committed whatever extremely petty mistake I was punishing you for.

Force pike vs blaster.

Seriously, you'd look more awesome walking around on your own. I mean... that's scary and intimidating right? A guy so powerful that he didn't need some dudes with puke sticks to protect him.

But then who's going to do the medial tasks? You've got to have a bunch of people to go to the bar, queue up at McDonald's, get on the phone to call centres etc...

I'm a busy man, and I have a back problem. The answer is delegation and staff, lots of staff.

In the middle of what?

Middle England.

I thought I'd wiped out all the fucking hobbits? Typical. It's so inconvenient when genocide goes bad.

The Emperor may be powerful but he's still brittle.

^This.

Nah, that's where it all started going wrong. Growing the Empire too quickly, taking on too many new staff without proper induction training or procedures (e.g Overlooking the memo to destroy all escape pods, even if there are no life forms on board).

This all results in a loss of focus from the organisational vision and priorities, becoming a self serving business unit, and ultimately leading to the demise of the organisation as shareholder confidence explodes along with the value of prized assets.

[gets coat]

No, it's you being soft if you think I'd blame the victims of bike theft for their loss.

Gooooood. The hate is strong within yooou.

I think Balki could be easily turned to serve the dark side.

I think he already has been turned, if you know what I mean...

wink, wink.

You are Rupert Murdoch, and I claim my five pounds.

Who's he, the mad one out the A-Team?

No, he's the one who had your Force hacked and leaked stuff to George Lucas.

Evans got The Times campaign badge to wear as part of our uniform, huh...

Listen, dimwits: blaming cyclists doesn’t help
Hugo Rifkind
.
.
Today's times 10 2012 12:01AM

The idea is to stop people being killed or injured. We’re talking about compassion here
]What is it with people who prefer cars to bikes, and why are they so angry? Don’t worry, this isn’t a column about Jeremy Clarkson. I understand why he’s angry. It’s because he’s not allowed to joke about having people taken out and shot any more, even when he does genuinely think this is what should happen to them and thus isn’t joking at all, and also because he’s reached the age of 51 without anybody telling him about bootcut jeans. But what about everybody else?
What about, for example, Sir Simon Jenkins? A former editor of this newspaper, and one of the best columnists in the business, he’s someone you only cautiously call wrong about things. He wrote a column about this newspaper’s cycling campaign the other day, though, and it was as if he was referring to a different one altogether. The Times thinks “that cycling in London is dangerous and getting more so”, he began, which was at least half-right. “And that the fault”, he continued, “lies with vehicle drivers.”
We said that? Really? Are you sure? I don’t think so. But Sir Simon was not alone in his interpretation. Support for The Times’s campaign has been overwhelming but not universal. Plenty of comments left by drivers have had the petulant, aggrieved tone of people being told off for something that they don’t think is their fault. Which would have been fair enough if they had been. But they hadn’t. Guys, chill. It’s not about you. There was even a piece in the paper last week about an HGV driver who killed a cyclist through no fault of his own, and didn’t believe he’d ever get over it. Harrowing stuff. So where are you seeing this blame, exactly?
There’s a strange, repressed fury here. “They jump red lights and don’t obey the Highway Code!” some people seem incapable of not shouting, whenever the subject of cyclist safety is raised. Oh fine, so we’ll just mow them down with trucks then, shall we? That seems a fair punishment. Isn’t that what you mean? Then what do you mean? Look, it’s not that I don’t think cyclists sin on the road. It’s just that I don’t see why it’s relevant. Personally I’m in favour of people not dying horribly on the road even if I’m not that fond of them. Woolly liberal that I am.
As I never tire of telling people, you can loathe the whole concept of bicycles, you can think all cyclists are stupid, selfish, Day-Glo bastards who shouldn’t be allowed on the road, and you still ought to be in favour of investment in cycle lanes. In fact, you ought to be more in favour than anybody else. You want them off the road? Well you’ll need somewhere else to put them, then, won’t you, dimwit? Then you can drive while texting and open your doors madly into traffic to your flinty heart’s content. Show me a motorist who is against dedicated cycling lanes and I’ll show you somebody so consumed by hate that their brain has stopped working.
But why? Why? I know some cyclists can be annoying in their own very special way. You could see that with the ludicrous response to Matthew Parris’s joke a few years ago that they should be decapitated with piano wire, as though inner-city yobs were going to find evil inspiration in the downpage musings of the op-ed page. I once wrote a column about cycling and other cyclists sent me actual hate mail after I admitted not cycling much in winter. Maybe it’s the constant fear, maybe it’s the erectile dysfunction; there’s a hardcore here who are no fun at all. They’re a tiny minority, though. They cannot be entirely responsible for the hate. Not all of it.
In general, cyclist behaviour simply isn’t that bad. In a way, it’s fascinating that so many feel the need to pretend it is. The cyclist qua cyclist, as a philosopher would say, represents something. In some minds they occupy a niche similar to vegetarians, or Liberal Democrats. Like people who don’t wear shoes, or have made-up food allergies, or are in Coldplay. You know the sort. It’s not what they do. It’s what they are.
Of course, most cyclists aren’t “cyclists”, just as most drivers aren’t Jeremy Clarkson. I’m as fond of abusive pigeon-holing as the next big-haired posho who has never had a proper job, but it shouldn’t get in the way of reason or compassion.
I don’t know Mary Bowers well. She’s the reporter who was knocked from her bike last year; you might have seen her on the front of the paper last week. We last spoke at Glastonbury, when she and her friend Kaya Burgess told me they didn’t want to come with me to see Suzanne Vega and went off to see Beyoncé instead. So I’m obviously aware she was capable of making mistakes. But when I read comments that responded to Kaya’s beautiful article about her accident by questioning whether she’d put herself in danger, I was even more stunned than I was furious.
What does it matter? What sort of person gives a damn? Why does somebody have to be to blame? I’ve had two cycling accidents in my eight years on London’s roads. Once I slammed stupidly into the back of a stationary taxi, once a taxi slammed stupidly into the back of a stationary me. Personally, I don’t feel I deserved three months in a coma for either. Nobody does. Sign up.

whilst I know nothing about the guy who wrote that letter I would like to be like him if ever I get to that age!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...pitting-public

That's a marvellous article Skydancer, thanks.

Want to tweet that, but it seems to be behind paywall. Am I wrong?

interesting

http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2012/02/...manifesto.html

"I was included in a mailshot and asked to pledge
support for The Times' campaign two days
before it started. I was not told what I would be
supporting, and a flurry of emails revealed
anomalies about what might be part of their
campaign, so I decided to wish them luck, hope
for the best, but not to pledge support to
something which I could not be sure about."

Here are a couple more interesting takes on the times campaign
1. From Bob Davis Chair of the road danger reduction forum
http://rdrf.org.uk/2012/02/campaigns...good-part-one/
http://rdrf.org.uk/2012/02/campaign-...two-the-times/
and 2, the blogger own the road
http://owntheroad.cc/

I really, really hate people spitting on pavements. It's disgusting and there's no reason/excuse for it. But if I saw a runner in a park do it, it wouldn't bother me too much. There's a difference between someone spitting inches from your feet at a bus stop for no reason and someone doing it because they're running their guts out.

The thing that gets me about spitting is that it's so often some kind of contemptuous urban statement. I've lost count of the amount of times I've been walking down a pavement and the guy approaching with an affected swagger from the opposite direction hocks up some great phlegm-ball into your path just before you pass. If you're harbouring contempt of a total stranger based on some sort of twisted class-consciousness, at least say it to my (blatantly middle-class, suburban) face.

Perhaps you could punch some spitters?

F*ckin' club cyclists honking nose spray out of their face and into mine. Go to (or wait until you're at) the back of the pack plz.

Why not start a spitting thread for this random chat.
Any new developments regarding the Times campaign?
Or have they gone quiet, the way of the independent and standards campaigns only quicker?

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public...cle3317831.ece is from todays paper I believe.

"The head of Scotland Yard’s Road Death Investigation Unit has called for the merging of road traffic and homicide laws to impose stronger penalties on those found guilty of killing cyclists or pedestrians."

I have been saying this for years. Manslaughter should be the automatic charge. Killing someone is not a traffic offence.

This is good. A real road danger reduction point is encouraging drivers to drive well because if they dont and they kill someone it's ...

'Murder Where there is evidence the motorist killed another person intending to kill them. Must impose a life sentence

Manslaughter Gross negligence applicable where there is no intent to use the vehicle as a weapon of assault, but driving falls far below the required standard. Up to life imprisonment

Causing death by dangerous driving Maximum jail term 14 years, usually with an eight-year starting point, increased for aggravating factors, which are aggressive driving, driving while using a mobile phone, failing to regard cyclists, driving too close to them and driving into a cycle lane

Causing death by careless driving while under the influence of drink or drugs Maximum 14 years’ imprisonment

Causing death by careless or inconsiderate driving Maximum sentence five years'

Good to see this in the Times

Good piece in The Times by the barrister Clom Nugent. Good that is until he starts to talk about cyclists sharing the pavement where roads are narrow. In my view that fails for two reasons, first it creates tension between cyclists and pedestrians and secondly it encourages motorists to believe that they and they alone own the road.

On the face of it that is one of the most powerful calls for reform of the current system I have heard in a while, coming from the police it is amazing.

I wonder how much momentum that idea will take, and if there is any backlash where it will come from.

Historically, attempts to impose stiff penalties on drivers have been frustrated by "jury equity" where juries will not convict if they think that, in their subjective view, that the potential punishment is draconian.

Kew Bridge has a proposed path sharing scheme coming in.

It appears to mean that cyclists will be on the road in the narrow bottlenecks both sides of the bridge, but then be expected to get off the road and put themselves onto the pavement once the road has become wide (on the bridge itself).

It's bizarre... amounts to "Go on the pavement when there is enough space on the road, but stay on the road when there isn't space".

And because it's such a short distance (100m tops), it's just going to be a pain in the arse for the cyclist.

Is there anywhere that we can put comments about it to the council? If cyclists write in, and propose changes, things might get changed.

As early as the 1990s some drivers were still resisting drink driving laws. It took a lot of campaigning to change that, but it worked - if you get behind the wheel drunk and cause an accident now, you'll find little sympathy from a jury. It might take time, but the perceived social acceptability of killing a cyclist with a car can be changed. It's not going to happen overnight, though.

And an extra pain in the arse when the drivers decide to punish those of us who don't conform to this silly plan and stay on the road. This is going to more and more of an issue if LCC gets any of their go- dutch plan turned into loads more silly fasillities

Enjoy reading tiswas posts.they're what I'd write when energised.
Reading the 7ish letters featured in yesterdays paper the overall tone was one of 'their own worst enemies'
Fairly true on plenty of accounts.
The gap between general opinion and changes in law is interesting.its a slow business this culture change.
More than ever though how you act whilst road riding affects culture-you make it.just watch when riding real perfect like, how behaviour breeds behaviour.
Anyway they're on about lorries and cycling and the law on radio bore at 12

I think it's a done deal... it was a notice of "It's happening" rather than consultation or planning permission.

I suspect it was decided a long time ago and is part of the redevelopment of the buildings on the corner. Councils always try to get developers to pay for things (that the council should cover) as part of the planning permission process.

I'm fairly sure that when these things are written in, they're just being forced through without any real thought attached to it.

Sorry.you're right on development per se. But road schemes are hellishly complex.

Actually councils negotiate a contribution from a developer to fund improvements to the local infrastructure (schools, open spaces, highways, playgrounds and so on) to offset the pressure brought on the existing infrastructure brought about by the increased number of users. They are required to do so and enabled by section 106 of the Town and Country planning act, these are known as s106 funds.

... in related news, there are some encouraging noises from Cemex on Radio 4's You & Yours at the moment.

Is there someting missing in what chief exec of hauliers is saying about on going training of lorry drivers...
Until all firms are even near cemex approach its a long way to go