>>he shouted: 'Move, because I'm not stopping.' Howard admitted he could have avoided Rhiannon if he had slowed right down
That sounds to me like it could have been manslaughter.
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A terrible incident and inexcusable on the pont of the cyclist from the info. in the article - but the reason it's in the news is because it was a cyclist who was involved - which is extremely rare.
A car driver killing a cyclist by dangerous driving and getting the same punishment wouldn't make national news. Why ? Because it happens regularly. Terrible, but true.
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Not in my case it didn't....
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cycling itself is dangerous and cycling should be made equivalent to motoring (thus pay tax/insurance etc.)
Sure, I'd happily pay road tax for my bike the same as car drivers do.
Let's see, emissions are 0 g/km, which I believe makes my bike Band A, and total road tax to pay for Band A equals a big fat zero pounds per annum?
I already pay insurance for my bike (not everyone does, of course), and if it could be proved that bikes contributed to congested roads, I see no problem with paying a congestion charge too.
I'd even pay for MOTs if they were required, after all it would only take 5 minutes and there's so little to go wrong with a bike there would rarely be any failures. So really, no point in doing that I guess.
Which all in all means I would pay exactly nothing more than I do now movilogo... ;)
As for the OPs subject title of "Cycling makes you impotent", well I guess I better get my son DNA tested, because he couldn't possibly be mine by the logic on this thread...
Remember folks, every lunatic, inconsiderate cyclist on the roads is also a lunatic, inconsiderate car driver if given a set of car keys too... Getting on a bike doesn't make you an idiot, you generally have to start off that way, c.f. all the nutters we all see every day on the road driving cars...
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It just occured to me that if one were wishing to contest a paternity suit, you could do worse now than wear a pair of bicycle clips in court. ;-)
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Come to think of it they'd still be quite useful even if you lost...............
;-)
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There's a difference between impotence and infertility. One you know about, the other you don't.
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Impotent cyclists are excellent news. They will be prevented from producing another generation of selfish, law breaking, pavement riding idiots!
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What a shame we couldn't have impotent motorists instead, then the roads would be safe within a generation or two and cyclists wouldn't need to ride on the pavement to avoid being squashed by school run mums in 2 tonne 4x4s!! ;)
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Neither being impotent nor being a poor driver are against the law, yet! Riding on the pavement IS illegal and has been known to kill people, who seem to get off fairly lightly!
info here tinyurl.com/5crjy2
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Yes, pavement riding is illegal. That's why I don't do it myself. However, I can understand why some might do it, especially with some junctions and roundabouts being so lethal to cyclists.
It's very sad though, when through selfishness or stupidity, someone rides so recklessly that another person is killed. I believe pavement riding can be safe, if one is very careful about it. Even so, I don't do it myself, but there is a case for legalising it, in particular circumstances.
I do also believe that poor driving is illegal, only the official term is dangerous driving, is it not?
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The Telegraph item linked by AS gives rather more background than most reports including those on the BBC. I don't think any report says conclusively that Howard was riding on the pavement, though his bike ended up there afterwards while he tried to help the girl. Other members of her group admit they'd been drinking.
The Telegraph piece suggests he met a gaggle of high spirited teenagers who were straddling the pavement and the road. He was an idiot not to slow down and/or move further out into the road to give himself more space - but perhaps he'd been stopped before. A civil case will probably follow and his lawyers will have told him to keep his trap shut - so we're only hearing one side of the case.
A horrible tragic and avoidable loss of a young life, but not simply a maniac on the pavement as suggested.
Edited by Bromptonaut on 09/07/2008 at 20:56
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Neither being impotent nor being a poor driver are against the law yet! Riding on the pavement IS illegal
There's a common mistake here. Are you sure you're not making it?
Riding on the pavement is illegal but so what. I doubt the simple fact that it's illegal is really what annoys you. If you were walking along a (not very busy) pavement and a cyclist came the other way, giving way to pedestrains, and passed you with a cheery hello, would you really have a problem with that? I suggest that it's a very small minded person who would.
Now you may tell me that you've never had that experience. Fine. Treat this as a hypothetical thought exercise instead then.
Cycling on the pavement can be done in a considerate manner or a thoughtless and selfish manner. On busy pavements it may not possible to cycle considerately, but on quieter pavements it may well be, and it may be more convenient for the cyclist's route to do so. As you say, poor driving is not necessarily illegal, but it is still poor. And I've given an example (which I don't actually think is solely hypothetical) where something can be illegal but harmless and considerate.
It's a lot more constructive to divide behaviours into polite and considerate vs thoughtless and selfish than into legal vs illegal.
[All my comments are about road manners generally, not anything to with the specific case that's been mentioned in this thread.]
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No Mistake at all! We can't pick and choose the laws we obey and the ones we don't. My limited experience on this, in a pedestrian precinct, is that cyclists ride around fast and aggressively and don't give much care for the pedestrians. "Out of my way - I'm coming through" attitude. It is against the law and should be not tolerated or allowed. What's next? Burglary is OK if the people who lose stuff have insurance? I don't think so
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But we do pick and choose the laws we obey: the radar detector industry has burgeoned on a desire to speed where the law provides a limit! I have seen cyclists weaving through precincts, most of whom are careful. As for the aggressive, perhaps they are disqualified drivers:)
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No Mistake at all! We can't pick and choose the laws we obey and the ones we don't.
Not even if we use sensible criteria to make our choice? Are you really saying that you would object to meeting a polite and friendly cyclist on the pavement for no other reason than that they are breaking the law? If polite and considerate behaviour is against the law, whether on the roads or anywhere else, it's the law that's wrong, not the behaviour.
My limited experience on this in a pedestrian precinct is that cyclists ride around fast and aggressively and don't give much care for the pedestrians. "Out of my way - I'm coming through" attitude.
Which fails the considerate vs thoughtless test *and* the legal vs illegal test. The question is which test is relevant to making the world a nicer place.
I accepted that you personally may have had little or no experience of considerate cyclists but that doesn't affect my point. I only suggest that considerate pavement cyclists should be left to get on with it. If all the pavement cyclists in your town are inconsiderate then none of them should be left to get on with it. No contradiction there.
It is against the law and should be not tolerated or allowed.
The reason that it should not be tolerated is because it is inconsiderate. The legality or otherwise is irrelevant. If your local council decided to change that area from a pedestrian precinct to a pedestrian and cycling precint, would you suddenly find that behaviour somehow less unacceptable?
What's next? Burglary is OK if the people who lose stuff have insurance? I don't think so
That doesn't follow from what I said at all. Having insurance doesn't turn being burgled into a pleasant non-event. Burglary, like cycling on the pavement, is absolutely fine if it has no negative impact on anyone. However, unlike cycling on the pavement, I can't imagine that actually being possible for burglary.
Honestly, I am staying on topic: closing up on the vehicle ahead in a main road traffic jam to deliberately make sure that the person waiting patiently in the side road can't get out is inconsiderate. Driving at 75mph on an empty motorway in good weather is illegal. Which would you rather not see?
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I think we'll just have to agree to differ! I don't care how considerately people are riding in a pedestrian precinct. They may be causing no offence or danger but they are breaking the law. It isn't a question of what law breaking I dislike and what I find acceptable. The basis of a decent society is sensible laws, fairly applied and the law breakers dealt with. However, I will concede that many laws appear fairly petty (Not sensible) but they are still the law.
Edited by Armitage Shanks {p} on 10/07/2008 at 16:22
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However I will concede that many laws appear fairly petty (Not sensible) but they are still the law.
Conflict and change are permanent features of all human societies, however stable, traditional or unchanging they may seem to ephemeral human individuals. One of the forms this (largely silent) social struggle takes is the selective disrespect given to excessively detailed or restrictive legislation.
What happened to dog licences? People stopped bothering to have them and plod got bored with running them in for it. May be time to bring them back at £2,000 instead of five bob, but that's another matter...
Edited by Lud on 10/07/2008 at 16:38
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What happened to dog licences? May be time to bring them back
I'd prefer to see cat licences. It's not the neighbour's dog that relieves itself in my vegetable patch every night...
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pavement riding idiots!
I don't blame them for pavement riding in this town. Most do it fairly carefully and considerately, but a minority cycle too fast and too close to pedestrians. You can't hear them coming and it's easy for anyone, let alone someone, er, verging on middle age, to totter and meander a bit when walking.
Just yesterday my Trinidadian pal Rocky, who is 80 although more than spry, was complaining about this and saying the authorities should come down heavily on it.
Today when I was out getting the paper I saw two plod from a marked Astra who had just pulled a black cyclist in his late thirties, a louche type, and were questioning him. Two minutes later a van raced up and took him and the bike away. But I don't think it had anything much to do with pavement cycling.
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Impotent cyclists are excellent news. They will be prevented from producing another generation of selfish law breaking pavement riding idiots!
lets not forget the cycle came before the automobile so has seniority over any car, and yes i do ride a bike (raleigh one of the last one's built in nottingham so i was told) before they sold it to the east
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Impotent cyclists are excellent news. They will be prevented from producing another generation of selfish law breaking pavement riding idiots!
It certainly seems to make AS impotent with rage, which has brightened my day considerably given the ill-considered and vindictive twaddle quoted above.
Cyclists using busy pavements are idiots, as are most that run red lights. Occasionally either may be justified, albeit illegal. Real policing should be able to differentiate between the two.
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Remember folks every lunatic inconsiderate cyclist on the roads is also a lunatic inconsiderate car driver if given a set of car keys too... Getting on a bike doesn't make you an idiot you generally have to start off that way c.f. all the nutters we all see every day on the road driving cars...
And vice versa. Hand a bike to someone who doesn't generally bother to use their brain when they're driving and they'll probably show the same trait cycling.
Personally I own two cars, a bike and a number of pairs of shoes. I use all of them at various times as a means of getting from A to B, and with each I can do so considerately or inconsiderately. There is a difference in that as a cyclist or pedestrian, if I cause a road accident through stupidity I am personally more vulnerable, but that's of little consolation to the other innocent road users (whether pedestrian, cyclist or motorist) that I involve in my accident.
What doesn't help is for drivers who don't cycle and cyclists who don't drive to invent a "them and us" attitude and an artificial cyclists vs motorists conflict. That's just not constructive at all. If your mind really needs a bit of "them and us" to feed on, at least consider restricting it to idiots vs non-idiots.
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If your mind really needs a bit of "them and us" to feed on at least consider restricting it to idiots vs non-idiots.
My point in a nutshell. I'm afraid to say that as a car driver I've made mistakes and as a cyclist I've made mistakes too. If we're all honest, we would admit to making mistakes in our chosen forms of transport.
However, somehow, non-cyclists (i.e. people who prefer to only drive in a car from A-B) seem to generalise poor behaviour from specific cyclists to all cyclists, but think that poor car driving isn't representative of the whole...
Some drivers are worse than others, some cyclists are worse than others. I wish that those that can only see from one side of the fence (equally applicable to some bad attitude cyclists) would try the other forms of transport for a while and appreciate how hard it can be to get things right all the time and why drivers sometimes do stupid things (e.g. cut up cyclists) and cyclists sometimes do stupid things (e.g. jump red lights). Because sometimes there are good reasons for these behaviours, or at least understandable reasons for not being the perfect driver or perfect cyclist!!
Sorry...rant over!
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Let's see emissions are 0 g/km which I believe makes my bike Band A and total road tax to pay for Band A equals a big fat zero pounds per annum?
That's interesting... how do you manage to ride a bike without breathing out CO2? ;-)
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How do you manage to drive a car without emitting CO2 from breathing? Oh hang on, that doesn't count towards the total, does it? Fairs fair, if you want to count it for bikes...
Even so, I'm fairly sure even a Tour de France rider at full speed would be under 100g/km!!! :-)
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That's interesting... how do you manage to ride a bike without breathing out CO2? ;-)
Well to be fair, I usually breathe when I'm driving my car too, so the cycle tax should really only be based on the increment in CO2 due to the extra physical exertion.
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Slightly better report on the BBC. Still a shocking case.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/beds/bucks/herts/74967...m
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