This is an old article. The tram still causes problems, but this was related to its construction phase.
I had a lesson with a pupil in Long Eaton yesterday. Getting down there for 1pm was no problem but coming back at 2.30pm was a nightmare. Traffic was solid along Queens Road West heading through Beeston – and this was a good 2 hours before the rush hour. And the reason?
The halfwits responsible for phase II of the tram system – that total waste of money that is currently putting people out of business and ruining lives by over-running and creating constant noise and access problems – have ripped out the roundabout at the end of University Boulevard and replaced it with a traffic light-controlled junction.
I heard on the BBC local traffic news this morning the glib comment:
There is queuing traffic in Beeston because of temporary lights and a new road layout.
That doesn’t tell even half of the story. The reason there is queuing traffic is solely because the Council and NET are a bunch of Neanderthals who are too stupid to even organise a piss up in a brewery. Between them they are destroying Nottingham. The only people who are ever likely to benefit from the tram are those who are either too poor or too old to drive cars – and that’s only in theory, since the tram is too expensive for even poor people to use too often.
The vast majority of the rest of the population – motorists – can go hang, as far as the Council is concerned.
At the time of writing, Aspley Lane has been turned into a nightmare by the removal of a roundabout. All the signs are that the Crown Island is going, too. Three roundabouts have been removed in Clifton because of the tram. The Council has sanctioned traffic light replacement at several sites – most notably in Mapperley, where there are lane restrictions.Also in Mapperley are temporary lights just before the Spring Lane roundabout. Work is on-going on Middleton Boulevard (the shit hasn’t hit the fan yet, but it will). And a big, flashy sign proclaims impending work at the Forest Road roundabout at the junction with Mansfield Road.
Nottingham City Council is trying very hard – and succeeding – in destroying this place.
Oh, yes. And on my way through Beeston I noticed a billboard which carried a big photo of the tram and the banner, declaring “Thanks for bearing with us during the tram works”.
No one had any choice – including those who have gone out of business (or who will do) as a result of the tram.
Last November I mentioned a news item whereby a woman in America – Cecilia Abadie – had been pulled over for speeding, and then cited for wearing Google Glasses behind the wheel. For anyone still living in the Dark Ages when it comes to technology, Google Glass is a wearable computer with a small display in front of your eye. It also has a camera, which – given that Google is involved – has kicked up a stink about privacy from numerous angles At the moment, Google Glass costs around £1,000!
As I mentioned at the time, in her Google+ profile she describes herself thus:
Geek, Google Glass Pioneer, Self-Quantifier, Transhumanist, Blogger, Speaker, currently playing with fun new ways to a better self…
She has profiles on all the social networks, and finds time to post copiously on all of them – and that’s on top of her blogs. She has a full time job, and she’s married. She likes (and uses) phrases like “paradigm shift” alongside words like “evolution” (anyone who has read a little and knows what a “paradigm shift” is might raise an eyebrow at that. Abadie has taken some sort of vow – honestly, she has – to wear Google Glass 24 hours a day. She is evangelising it beyond the point of obsession, arguing that Google Glass should be taken up by doctors and the agricultural industry.
But cutting through all that, she was caught speeding. She was driving at 80mph in a 65mph zone. – and then found to be wearing Google Glass behind the wheel. She absolutely and definitely broke the Law relating to speed. She is arguing that the Laws relating to distracted driving do not apply to Google Glass.
One thing I know from experience – both as a driver, and as a driver trainer – is that when your mind wanders then you cannot control your speed. It’s quite simple: if you are fiddling with your phone, the radio, the satnav, trying to read directions on a sheet of paper, or any number of other things, then you are distracted. Even if you are looking out of the front window you are not actually seeing things properly because your mind is elsewhere. So your speed can either fall or increase – it depends on the driver and the situation. One thing it is unlikely to do is remain fixed.
If you have a computer-cum-smartphone stuck on your face, and one which in Abadie’s case is likely to be incandescent with incoming texts, tweets, and various other inane communications, you WILL be distracted. And then some. And then some more.
At the time of Abadie’s original ticket, no mention was made (including on her Facebook page, which she delighted in keeping up to date) that her Google Glass wasn’t switched on. Her mantra about technology versus the World was all that mattered. However, now her case has come to court it would appear that all the bravado about challenging the Law – one which bans motorists from watching TV behind the wheel, and therefore a law which doesn’t apply to a computer monitor – is being muddied somewhat by her claim that Google Glass wasn’t switched on at the time. One can only wonder why she was wearing the damned thing if it was turned off.
The worrying thing is that there is every possibility that the judge will end up agreeing with Abadie that the Law in question doesn’t apply to Google Glass, even though it is obvious that it should. And that comes on top of the fact that the DfT over here might be “reconsidering” its original prospective ban on using Google Glass behind the wheel. I love the part where the DfT says:
We have met with Google to discuss the implications of the current law for Google Glass. Google are anxious their products do not pose a road safety risk and are currently considering options to allow the technology to be used in accordance with the law.
What they mean is that Google is anxious not to lose any revenue from sales of Glass. When it comes to money versus safety, Google knows where its priorities lie.
Update: As expected, she managed to get off. True to form, the American judge decided that there was no proof she had them switched on, so there was no case to answer. It isn’t clear if she was still prosecuted for the crime she DID commit of speeding. The chances are she wasn’t.
Abadie will no doubt claim this as some sort of “paradigm”. It isn’t. If it COULD be shown she had them switched on, she would still have been in trouble – or at the very least, the judge would have had to engage a couple more brain cells before letting her off. As it is, the issue of wearing them whilst driving has become moot thanks to this particular judge. The matter has not been furthered or resolved one way or another.
And she was pulled over for speeding, remember. The Google Glass thing has become a smokescreen.
This story in the news today suggests that councils are using car park fines as a “cash cow”. Did anyone ever think that they weren’t?
Last year, I parked in one of the West Bridgford car parks. The ticket machines there used to just print out a ticket when you paid your money, and since you got 2 hours for 50p (later, £1) people were passing them on to each other if they had excess time left. The council didn’t like this one bit, and it introduced new machines where you have to type in the numerical digits of your car’s registration plate just to prevent tickets being transferred.
Anyway, on this particular occasion I accidentally typed “61” instead of “62” when buying my ticket. The fact that the warden had actually seen me pay – I even smiled at him as I passed him (but I won’t be doing that again) – meant nothing. Nor did the fact that I was only away from the car at the bank for about 6 minutes. I was slapped with a ticket which the council refused to overturn on appeal, and which they refused to discuss further (i.e. by ignoring me completely). Even the people who you appeal to after that didn’t respond.
More recently I parked in a council car park in Leeds (just before Christmas when I went to see Status Quo). The park was ANPR-controlled, meaning that they scan your registration as you enter, and confirm it in full at the ticket machine when you pay. I paid using my debit card and was charged £8.50 – the only option available. I was there for just over 4 hours. My bank account was debited two days later. You’d think that would have been the end of it, but no.
Just after Christmas I got a letter informing me of a PCN for “insufficient fee paid”. Since I’m not the registered keeper (I lease the car) the lease agent paid the fine immediately. I am now embroiled in trying to appeal against the fine and get a refund.
What makes this recent case all the more interesting is that on the night of the concert – before I knew any of this was happening – my friend in Leeds told me that his wife had had the exact same fraudulent claim made against her a few weeks earlier in the same car park while she was Christmas shopping. She kicked up a stink and they dropped the claim.
I’m not going to say too much while the appeal is on-going, but if you Google for UKCPS (Car Parking Solutions) a very gothic image starts to emerge of them. Suffice it to say, I only know two people who have used that car park in Leeds, and both have had the same scam pulled on them. So it doesn’t take too much imagination to picture a huge cash cow whereby hundreds of these “fines” are made each day on the premise that 1% of recipients won’t challenge them. And at £60 (going up to £100 if you pay late) a time, the titties on that cash cow up in Leeds must be bloody sore!
Is UKCPS a scam parking operator?
Well, me and my mate’s wife have direct experience of the kind of things they get up to. But take a look at these links:
These are a tiny sample. Try Googling for “UKCPS parking scam” or “UKCPS Ltd parking ticket” and see what you get. There are hundreds and hundreds of people like you who these cretins are trying to intimidate (including disabled people parking in disabled bays that these gutter trash operate). That Responsive link sums it up nicely by pointing out that UKCPS usually backs down at the first appeal – and that’s because they know that they can make money from those who don’t appeal. You don’t need to be a genius to work out if it’s a scam or not.
Is UKCPS a legitimate company?
Unfortunately, yes. However, their business practices appear to be far from legitimate, and councils such as Leeds City Council have washed their hands of the affair to the extent that they are sanctioning this dishonest behaviour.
This story on the BBC website reveals that the prats in charge of Nottingham want a Phase 3 tram line to stretch out to Kimberley. And they now have government backing.
Hope and pray that Labour gets back in at the next election. For all our sakes.
Many years ago not far from me there were plans to build a dirt bike track on flood plain land. Residents were against it on the grounds of noise and the unsavoury types it would attract, and they formed a group to oppose it at the council’s subsequent public meeting. However, it became clear that the “chairman” of this informal group had political ambitions, and he effectively hijacked the group in order to further his own interests. The problem was that he was an idiot – well, maybe it wasn’t that much of a problem for him (he got into local government, as I remember), since being an idiot is high on the list or prerequisites for aspiring politicians, but it certainly screwed up the residents’ action group. Since then, though, I’ve noticed that all “action groups” have someone like this.
So it comes as no surprise to hear Andy Cooper – chairman of the Kimberley Eastwood and Nuthall Tram Action Group (a pro-tram sect) – say the following:
…there are quite a few areas in Nottingham hoping for the next phase of the tram…
…This area is crying out for regeneration – it’s a neglected area…
…Not only that it would cut down on traffic congestion – the Nuthall island on the A610 is a nightmare.
People like Cooper take stupidity to a new level. You see, the Nuthall Roundabout is busy because it is a quarter of a mile from Junction 26 of the M1. In fact, for all practical purposes, it IS Junction 26 of the M1, so you will not cut traffic on it by building a bloody tram line out to it.
The tram – phase I, and the current phase II lines – is a complete and utter waste of money. Even if it were full most of the time it would still only service a tiny percentage of the population. As it is, it is usually empty. So it is laughable to see the additional justification for a phase III posited as servicing 116 new homes, which have recently been given the go ahead.
Those 116 homes would maybe house 400 people at most, which would represent about 0.15% of the population of Nottingham. And on the strength of this they argue that it warrants a third tram line, likely to cost in excess of £570m (that’s the price of phase II).
Three years ago, the bunch of vegetables otherwise known as our coalition government were talking about raising the speed limit to 80mph on motorways. Incredibly, they had cited “improved business travel times” as a justification, even though you would only save about 20 minutes if you could travel all the way from London to Liverpool at a steady 80mph.
So it beggars belief that in todays news that they are now talking about reducing motorway speed limits to “cut pollution”. Even more ridiculous is the RAC citing “negative impact on business efficiency” as a downside. The stretch of M1 involved at this stage is 35 miles long, and the reduction would simply mean that it would take 5 minutes longer to travel the distance – even if you could actually do 60mph at all, which during the rush hour you can’t.
I am against such a move on the grounds that it is just an unnecessary change. Pollution is an absolute and direct function of the area in question – since the first time I drove that way aeons ago I have always been struck by the smell drifting across the road as you approach Sheffield. Any pollution is created from within – not by cars on the M1.
It’s also amusing that the report says:
The normal speed limit would still apply to the rest of the M1, which runs from north London to Leeds.
Obviously – and especially combined with the biased attitude of government when it comes to any sort of dealing with Londoners – London doesn’t suffer pollution and so can keep the more sensible 70mph limit. God forbid that we should upset anyone in London, eh?
All of this is a last minute knee-jerk reaction to European legislation which comes into force this year. Instead of dealing with the issue properly, the government has left it to the Highways Agency to pick up the tab (although the Agency is just an extension of the government anyway). I say again, the areas involved – Mansfield, Chesterfield, Sheffield, and Rotherham – are polluted already and always have been. They are polluted because of the industry around them, and not because the M1 passes through.
The same RAC comedian who said it would impact on business significantly is also quoted:
This very powerfully demonstrates the impact that speed has on emissions and many will be surprised to hear that a reduction of just 10mph can have such a significant effect on improving air quality.
Yes, they most certainly would be surprised to hear that. Actually, they’d be surprised to hear that you can go faster than 60mph in the first place, especially during peak hours – where less than 30mph is common. But what about the emissions themselves? Take a look at this document from 2006. On page 2 there is this graph.
The authors of that document (and anyone supporting this change) glibly speak of how many “million tonnes of carbon” will be cut by lopping 10mph of the speed limit. Anything with the word “million” is carefully crafted to sound dramatic. But let’s look a bit closer.
Emissions are calculated from fuel consumption, It’s no more scientific than that, so you can stop imagining a car with lots of wires and special sensors stuck up the tail pipe. A car is at its most efficient when driven at 55mph (published mpg figures always use that speed), and the car is 3% less efficient than this at 60mph and 17% less efficient at 70mph.
Just for the record, it’s 28% less efficient at 80mph – the speed the jackasses were going to up limits to three years ago.
The problem is that mpg figures are always just a starting point. You may well get the published 50mpg (for example) at a steady 55mph, but you are unlikely to be able to maintain a steady 55mph under day-to-day driving conditions. Much of the time you will be stationary – how do you convert that to mpg when your engine is still running? Well, you don’t. You just accept that the average mpg will be less than the theoretical published figure as a result.
Referring back to the graph, above, there is another problem. It’s all very well talking about the emissions per se when the scope is the entire world, but as soon as you cut that scope to a smaller area, such as a county – or a specific 35-mile stretch of road – the transit time becomes significant. In other words, you don’t get the full advantage of the reduced emissions by dropping traffic speed, because said traffic will be there for longer as a result, which pushes the emissions the other way again.
Let me try and illustrate this in a different way, because some people seem unable to grasp the importance of transit time in the proposal.
A car travelling at a fixed speed of 70mph will burn fuel less efficiently than one travelling at a fixed speed of 60mph. If you just talk in terms of overall emissions (i.e. pollution in general) then 60mph is obviously better. However, as soon as you start talking about driving and pollution inside a specific 35-mile long bubble – as the government is doing in order to reduce measured pollution within that bubble – you have to consider the length of time you are in in it.
Imagine that you have a large balloon – one that is 35 miles across – and you are measuring the pollution level inside it. If you have a car on a rolling road driving at 70mph, and you put it inside the balloon for 30 minutes (the length of time it takes to drive 35 miles at 70mph), then it will produce a certain amount of pollution. If you repeat this with another car, but this time driving at 60mph, then you will measure about 12-14% less pollution over 30 minutes. However, if you left the 60mph car inside the balloon for an extra 5 minutes (that’s how much longer it takes to travel 35 miles at 60mph) then it would produce 15% more pollution than it did in just 30 minutes. It’s quite simple: it was inside the balloon for 15% longer.
Relating this back to some real figures, the graph shows that 70mph corresponds to emissions of about 58 gC/km (grammes of carbon per kilometre), and 60mph to 51 gC/km at 60mph. This 12% reduction is equivalent to around 0.4kg less “carbon” emissions per km, and the greenies are obviously all over it.
But using figures from the graph, at 70mph a typical car would produce 3.27kg of “carbon” over that fixed 35-mile range. At 60mph, this would be 2.87kg. But since the 60mph car would be in the range for 5 minutes (15%) longer than the 70mph one, the emissions are emitted for 15% longer – which takes the figure back up to 3.3kg of carbon! It’s a tricky calculation to do, and difficult to get your head around, but it is arguable that a car which is 14% more efficient than another (i.e. the difference between mpg at 60 and 70mph), but which is there for 15% longer than that other (i.e. travelling through a range for which pollution is specifically being monitored) is actually worse than the other as far as emissions are concerned in the enclosed range in question.
In the case of the figures in the above graph, the extra 5 minutes means that the car travelling at 60mph will produce just as much carbon as the one travelling at 70mph within the 35-mile range (technically, slightly more). Of course, stationary traffic would really mess up the figures for you. And the real situation is immeasurably for complicated, with air currents and atmospheric conditions, not to mention volume of traffic, road closures and tail backs, and so on.
I stress that this is very approximate, but it illustrates the point that reducing speed limits to 60mph is a massive red herring – especially when you consider that they wanted to increase it to 80mph three years ago.
I mentioned a couple of months ago that the Clifton Chinese takeaway on Varney Road had gone out of business – in large part due to the loss of business caused by the tram works. Well, it appears that Michael’s Fresh Bake – the best bakery in Nottingham as far as bread goes – at the top end of Southchurch Drive has now gone under for similar reasons.
All those responsible for the tram and the protracted (and delayed) road works are criminals. Ruining livelihoods and ruining neighbourhoods. A drug-dealing hoodie with form for burglary would get put away for less. But who will judge these prats?
Nottingham is experiencing utter chaos on the roads at the moment. I’ve already mentioned the Aspley Lane “improvement” which has created more congestion than was ever there before (unless you’re a bus, on a bike, or live in Broxtowe and want to go into town). The tens of thousands of motorists using the so-called “ring road” have been completely screwed by the Council’s continued pandering to the less glamorous areas in the county.
But all of that is being exacerbated by the on going tram works, which are forcing people to take routes intended to avoid the black spots. Rather than list the numerous articles I’ve written concerning the tram, just type “tram” into the search box on the right and you’ll be able to see them. Back in November 2012, I referred to the works as a case of criminal incompetence on the part of the City Council. Every day that has passed since then has simply reinforced that statement.
The City Council is repeatedly telling the media that the extension lines will open on time, and yet there have seen repeated delays caused by accidents and “unforeseen” problems. For example, back in September a bridge intended to span the Fairham Brook (an expanse of water so wide we used to paddle in it as kids, and in most places you could jump across it if you took a good run up) collapsed. Naturally, absolutely no delay to the estimated completion dates was envisaged at Prat Central. And in this latest episode concerning the Chilwell works, it appears that numerous further delays have occurred.
Let’s just take note that back in November in a separate story some idiot was quoted:
Nottingham’s tram extension will finish on time at the end of 2014 despite recent delays, a tram spokesman said.
But this latest story reports that there have been further delays due to:
“technical difficulties” (current – no timeframe given)
Chilwell works 6-10 weeks behind schedule (September 2013)
Chilwell a “further month” behind (November 2013 – due to ageing pipes)
And yet the same article concludes:
Nottingham City Council said it still plans to see trams running by the end of 2014, despite the delays.
I repeat once more: criminal incompetence. How can these absolute idiots make a statement like that when – on top of already being at least 3 months behind schedule – there are current “technical difficulties” with no resolution time frame given? I mean, if those involved actually knew how long it would take they’d be anxious to publicise it, wouldn’t they? It could take them 6 months or a year to overcome these “difficulties” for all anyone knows, and yet those morons on the Council keep repeating the same mantra.
And if they do manage to get the thing running on time, why did they build in so much slack when they knew what problems it was going to cause to tens of thousands of motorists and retailers while it was taking place?
The damage to businesses anywhere near the tram works – indeed, for most businesses in Nottingham as traffic has either been held up by or attempted to avoid those works – is immense and irreparable. Businesses have already gone under because of it, and more are bound to follow. The Council is directly responsible.
Furthermore, the additional pollution due to congestion and longer transit times – something the Glorious Tram System is supposed to alleviate, and which have since been made permanently worse by the equally incompetent Aspley Lane “improvements” – will take decades to claw back, and that’s even if you believe the misleading hype about how green the tram is in the first place. The trams already run empty most of the day.
And one final little detail. All work has stopped for the Christmas period.
I was going to write this article anyway, but I notice from my logs that someone found the blog on the following search term:
Is traffic worse now on the ring road in Nottingham since the Aspley Lane junction was changed?
The junction was re-opened this week. The clowns responsible have removed the original roundabout and turned it into a light-controlled junction instead. It has been chaos in the several months during which access to Aspley Lane has been for buses only. The council gleefully installed cameras to make absolutely, positively, and definitely certain that it would benefit financially if anyone tried to get down there. Lord knows how much money they’ve ripped out of motorists as a result.
The ironic part is that traffic was at a virtual standstill most of the time during the work, and it wouldn’t have hurt to have allowed access to cars from the Ring Road. In fact, it would have eased congestion dramatically. But the closure was of a punitive nature – it simply satisfied some dickheads in the council, that’s all, and it served no useful or logical purpose otherwise.
Oh, wait. There was one logical reason. Buses.
The temporary lights that were put in at Aspley Lane during the protracted works were set to automatically change to red on the Ring Road if a bus came within half a mile of the junction. Indeed, and for comparison, they were as biased as the lights outside County Hall at Trent Bridge, whereby absolute priority is given to council employees wanting to get into and out of the County Hall car park, and where even a foil sweet wrapper blowing over the road sensors will trigger them to change. And that’s on top of the separate bus lane lights on the opposite side which trigger automatically if anything is in the bus lane (which often includes a car transporter delivering to Sandicliffe or a taxi stopped on them), and which buses skip out of if they’re behind schedule and speeding. It’s always a case of screw the motorist, all hail the bus.
But back to the original question: is the Aspley Lane junction better now?
Well, I’ve noticed a couple of things. First of all, the new permanent lights there are still set to trigger if a bus gets off a ferry anywhere in England. Or if a pedestrian wants to cross the road (and the junction is right next to that bloody school). Or if a cyclist approaches them. Or if anyone is waiting to come out of Aspley Lane (again, it’s right next to that school). To that end, I would say that for 90% of my journeys north along the Ring Road this week I have had to stop because the lights have been on red – and that’s even with me purposely avoiding going anywhere near them after 3pm.
Secondly, I have had time to notice during my frequent stops that the green light doesn’t stay on long. As I say, priority is given to Aspley Lane traffic, which is quite bizarre when you consider the meaning of the term “ring road”. In all honesty, I suspect that some prat somewhere deliberately decided that Broxtowe and Strelley should be favoured – in much the same way that they spent a fortune on “connecting the East Side”, where “east side” means St Ann’s; and in the same way that the tram seems to deliberately go to the same sorts of places, and avoids the posher areas completely. In other words, priority and preferential treatment is doled out in places where you’d think some sort of border control would work better.
Thirdly, every time I have travelled north through the junction, there has been a queue of traffic on the southbound carriageway stopped at the lights and extending back to the A610 junction. And I’m talking about mid-morning and mid-afternoon, here – not the rush hour.
You see, the problems on the Ring Road have always been due to the volume of traffic combined with bottlenecks. The Aspley Lane roundabout was never a significant bottleneck – the main ones were the Crown Island, the A610 junction at Bobbers Mill (which goes to the M1), and Basford. And this is still the case. Why? Because they are light-controlled, and because no matter how many lanes you add the traffic flow is governed by the narrowest point.
And now, Aspley Lane is also light-controlled it has been turned into a bottleneck.
So the answer is yes, the Ring Road is much worse now that they have “improved” the Aspley Lane junction.
b. Characterized by a lack of intelligence or sensitivity
At the moment, all those taking the side of the cyclist appear incapable of using logic and identifying the root cause of the problems which have resulted in a number of rider fatalities over the last couple of months. In this case, a survey has revealed that…
One in three drivers in a new survey have said that among issues outside their control, cyclists are the biggest risk to road safety…
This, of course, means that pro-cycling people like David Williams, the motoring correspondent of the London Evening Standard, conclude…
…[that] cycle awareness training [should] be made part of the driving test.
It reminds me of a Dilbert cartoon, where in response to his obtuse boss using similar warped logic, Dilbert says:
It looks like you’ve gained weight. Would you like me to exercise to take care of that too?
This is exactly the same. The overall problem is with the cyclists, not the drivers. In fact, this is the article where it is mentioned that cycling participation in London has trebled in the last decade, but Boris Johnson wants to at least double it again. And Williams’ naive response to this is that motorists “…will have a lot more adapting to master.”
Williams calls for cycle awareness to be made a compulsory part of the driving test. How does he think they would do this?
Cyclists are a major road hazard that virtually all learner drivers have to deal with on lessons. They KNOW that they have to give them a wide berth – often, the problem is pulling them back so they don’t end up driving into someone’s garden on the opposite side of the road! They KNOW that hitting a cyclist is bad. And there are so many cyclists out there behaving like morons that they get LOTS of practice dealing with them. No driving instructor will be teaching anything that goes against these principles. Therefore, not one learner going to test is under any sort of dangerous delusion concerning cyclists.
Of course, Williams doesn’t explain how his brilliant idea would actually be assessed on test, and I don’t suppose for a second that he has considered how many tests already involve dealing with cyclists – above and beyond the experience they get on lessons.
It’s amusing that the article also goes into detail about drivers using mobile phones and social media while driving. As you might expect from a pro-cycling website, it makes no mention of the number of cyclists who routinely engage in these things, or that there is no Law covering their behaviour.
In the wake of the recent spate of cyclist fatalities the BBC asked its readers if they had any solutions to the problem. You can read the full article for yourself, but here’s a selection of some of the stupidest comments.
I am absolutely shocked that nobody suggested a network of cycle paths with its own traffic lights etc. It is time that some of the UK population drop their ‘island’ mentality and look how other places deal with cyclists e.g. Germany and the Netherlands. I stopped cycling when I moved to the UK 20 years ago because it is just too dangerous. Anjalika Baier, Warminster, UK
Great idea. All we’d need to do is increase the area of the UK by about 10 times and this would work perfectly. But why the hell is it that people see fit to compare us to other countries, when we are NOT other countries? The UK is different from Germany and the Netherlands on about a million different fronts, and it simply isn’t possible to turn the clock back by a century and try to copy them (which goes for trams, incidentally – just because they work in German cities doesn’t mean cramming one into Nottingham’s less salubrious areas is going to work).
What about requiring that in order to get a driving licence, every driver has to cycle for three miles along a dual carriageway. This seems to me the best way to make drivers realise that cyclists have a right to use the road and not to be squeezed into the gutter. Most cyclists are drivers too or have been at one time but most drivers have no experience of what it’s like to cycle in traffic and don’t seem to believe that cyclists have any right to be on the road. Pedal Pusher, London
Yeah, right. No one who drives a car cycles, do they? In this example we see the typical mentality of the average serious cyclist, and the reason why it’s a good job IQ testing isn’t mandatory in order to be a pedal pusher.
Lorries should have “beepers” when turning, like they do when reversing. Chris Hammond, Facebook
Can you imagine the environmental impact of every lorry making that loud, piercing beep-beep-beep sound that they currently have while reversing? Or an annoying voice going “Warning! Vehicle turning” at all hours?
You missed the big one – making lorries and buses install sensors and cams for the sides of the vehicles so drivers can check for cyclists and pedestrians when turning. Also heavier penalties for drivers guilty of death by careless driving or dangerous driving. Maybe a 10-year ban from driving would make them more careful. Phil Furneaux, Brampton, Cumbria
That one is right up there with making lorry cockpits out of transparent material for better all-round vision. To go hand in hand with this one, another jackass comments:
More needs to be done with vehicle design. I have never understood how being in someone’s blind spot is an excuse for being maimed. A vehicle operator who is in effect moving their vehicle into space which they cannot see is clear, is simply not acceptable, especially with all the technology now available. This is where the majority of cyclists get killed and injured by lorries turning left and crushing them. Also, if a lorry driver kills or injures a fellow colleague in the depot, the HSE would be all over it, yet the same lorry driver can kill an individual on a public road (while still carrying out a job) it is no longer an issue for the HSE. It’s an absurd disconnect where we accept death and injury on our roads, yet don’t accept it in the workplace. Rob, Essex
Er, Rob. The cyclist shouldn’t be on the left of a lorry at a junction. Period. It’s like trying to blame the manufacturer of a gun if some prat shoots himself in the foot with it.
A good idea I think is if there were special roads made for cyclists like the Netherlands. Cyclists could have to pay a certain amount to travel on the special cycle roads. The toll could be very cheap. This would make road tax seem fair for cyclist and driver, help keep the bike roads/routes maintained and updated, and would be extremely cheap. Alexander, Birmingham
Oh, God! Again with the Netherlands. And British cyclists wouldn’t stick to those routes anyway for the simple reason that their respective destinations would be OFF those roads. Get real, for crying out loud.
If any collision between a bicycle and a motor vehicle was dealt with by a mandatory prosecution for the motorist, then this would immediately cut accidents between cars and bicycles. Steve Canning, Plymouth, Devon
Obviously, there is a sort of gravity well in Devon when it comes to IQs. And this idea would address the problem of cyclists not following rules how?
Cyclists often won’t use cycle tracks because they are littered with rubbish, making them hazardous. So perhaps the government could think of sweeping them to make them usable. Hilary Tesh, Facebook
I’d lay odds she comes from Devon, too. Could it be that simple? That cyclist fatalities are ultimately caused by litter?
The simple fact is that cyclists and motor vehicles don’t mix. If you have a small number of cyclists doing their level best to keep out of traffic and using cycle paths wherever possible then the situation is tolerable for all parties. Add Spandex or green politics to the mix and you automatically have a major, major problem. Add Boris Johnson, and it is a catastrophe waiting to happen.
The number of cyclists in London alone has tripled in the last decade, and Johnson wants to at least double that if he can.
you got 2 hours for 50p (later, £1) people were passing them on to each other if they had excess time left. The council didn’t like this one bit, and it introduced new machines where you have to type in the numerical digits of your car’s registration plate just to prevent tickets being transferred.