A novel approach to commuting

[Theseus]

<rant> blah blah blah </rant>

Take a chill pill and if you don't like it here, please stay away.

 

[benb]

I guarantee that if we ignore, accept, or excuse bad driving, nothing will ever improve.

 

[mr_hippo]

quote="BentMikey, post: 1687306, member: 692"]I just want to see more videos of you ducking and diving through that Bangkok traffic. [/quote]
Are you still going on about that/ Did you bother to read my previous replies to you?
It is quite warn here, why do I need a coat? Quote me by all means but never try to put words into my mouth.

Take a chill pill and if you don't like it here, please stay away.

Chill pills are not needed. Why should I stay away?

I guarantee that if we ignore, accept, or excuse bad driving, nothing will ever improve.

Are you in a position to guarantee that? There will always be bad cyclists/drivers on the road.

 

[benb]

Are you in a position to guarantee that? There will always be bad cyclists/drivers on the road.

Of course, but by challenging entrenched behaviour and attitudes, we can educate and improve at least some of them.

If you meekly accept the status quo, nothing will ever improve.

 

[fossyant]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Mr H has a point though !

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Of course, but by challenging entrenched behaviour and attitudes, we can educate and improve at least some of them.

If you meekly accept the status quo, nothing will ever improve.

The question for me is not should we challenge the behaviour and assumptions, but how best/most effectively to challenge them. The interesting discussion is to be had in what we thing 'best/most effective' might mean and for whom?

 

[BentMikey]

mr_hippo, that wasn't abuse, but a genuine expression of interest. I enjoyed watching a number of your videos, partly because you ride differently to the way I do, you have many different challenges to deal with, and because it's an exotic and interesting location.

 

[Melonfish]

Mr_Hippo, I appreciate your words and i in some parts agree, however i fear you may have missed the point of this section of the forum, not only is it to post experiences of our commutes but is also a place we can vent our frustrations of the road and have some like minded people sympathise and thus feel less excluded in the grand scheme of the universe.
i understand that whining can get on people's nerves and occasionally we may indeed need to MTFU, but at the end of the day we're british and whining appears to be something we do well if not constantly.
good day sir.
pete

 

[gaz]

Mr H, If you do not like the 'rants' or videos about peoples cycling journeys, then perhaps you shouldn't read/watch them.

 

[wiggydiggy]

<SNIP>

Are you having a laugh? Reading peoples incidents online keeps me going through the day!

(Except where really bad things happen, then I feel sorry for them)

 

[paulw1969]

OK,
i'm new to this forum......although it seems as though i spend every spare minute in here at the moment .
As someone who has not commuted for over 20 years and still waiting for my bike to arrive i find the videos and "rants" etc quite interesting as it is not only educating me how people ride safely its also showing me how many k**bhead drivers there are out there!
The vids etc therefore are preparing me for the reality which is having to share the roads with people who are not cycle aware And you can rest assured i will rant if i have a near miss which could have been serious.......its good to get these things off your chest.......and this is the right place to do so as its full of like minded people.
Oh and as a driver:- since being a member of this forum i have learnt a lot and i do leave more room for cyclists now than i did before, i simply wasn't as aware as i should have been. So a difference can be made .

just my view as a newbie

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Oh and as a driver:- since being a member of this forum i have learnt a lot and i do leave more room for cyclists now than i did before, i simply wasn't as aware as i should have been. So a difference can be made .

Splendid and well done.

Now how do we make compulsory road cycling a mandatory part of driver training?

 

[Bicycle]

Splendid and well done.

Now how do we make compulsory road cycling a mandatory part of driver training?

I'd love to see it, but it will never be. In my (limited) experience, the better road users are often those with experience handling several different vehicle types in traffic.

I've never driven an artic or a PSV, but have experience with motorcycles cars, bicycles, tractors and light lorries. I've found all those experiences invaluable. I dare say I'm still a crap driver/cyclist, but I'd be MUCH worse without the experience of other vehicles.

 

[classic33]

A very small percentage of members here spend more time whinging and wailing about cycling than they do cycling. Cycling is very much like life - full of hazards. You may want to spend your life wrapped in bubble wrap with someone reading stories to you out of the Bible of Political Correctness but face it, it aint going to happen.
Please stop posting the photo out of the Highway Code about overtaking cyclists. How much of you commute is on roads like that? Read the words associated with the photo - I think it advises drivers to give as much room to cyclists as they do to cars. Now look at your videos and see how much room drivers are giving other drivers!
Now, can someone give me a reference that states that cyclists will always have a tailwind, fine weather and ideal roads? You cannot find one - not even in CycleCrap? We do not live in an ideal world, do we? All of us have bad days as well as good; the main difference is that many of us do not let the bad bits spoil our day.
Mobile phone use - yes I have heard the argument that a driver using a mobile phone can be involved in accident and could kill a member of your family. Someone could drop an unfinished bag of chips and your elderly mum or gran could slip on them, crack their head open and die but you do nothing about litter louts, why not? Oh, sorry, pedestrians do not have number plates and there is no way of outing them on youtube and giving you a sense of purpose.
You are noe home from work, family time, but not for you! You have to review your footage to see if there is anything worth a mention on here and an upload to youtube. Congratualtions, you have found something 'worthy', please, please, please spend a few extra minutes putting into Windows Movie Maker (or similar) to enhance the brightness. You know what happened at 01:37 into the clip - others do not because it is too dark.
So either learn to take the rough with the smooth or give up cycling.
If you think this is a rant - it is not. Believe me you do not want to be within 5 miles of me when l am in rant mode!

With regards the Highway Code, bear in mind that much of what we "throw" at others is also used against us a reasons for us not to be on the roads in the first place. Many of the same rules apply to all road users. Failure to follow them can lead to the blame being pinned firmly on your shoulders.
I've used you tube for video footage, however more footage has been supplied to the authorities than has ever been posted online, by myself. I have also caught on camera people just chucking rubbish on the footpaths & been asked if the camera was working at the time & if so would I make a copy available. If there is a possibilty that there may be a prosecution then the footage stays out of show.
Its harder to post photographs on youtube so that they make up the complete story, without mixing any parts up so as to give a false result.

AND as you say learn to take the rough with the smooth, or just give up. You may not like or agree with what someone else has done or said, you have that right. However everyone else has that right as well as yourself.

26th March 2005, approx 1900 hours. Police Log FA/1626/26-03-2005.
Hit by a drunk driver, driving a car that had no VED(Road Tax), MOT or insurance. He, the driver, had no licence. He supplied false details to the police who attended and those "investigating". In the state he was in at the time, he made the statement that he thought I was a bus! so he was safe to do what he did.

Do we allow this sort of thing to go on, with no recourse or penalty for the guilty party? I'd have settled for his head on a paper plate that night. Thoughts were different within a week when the above was found out.

Only by challenging such behaviour can we expect to get things changed.

Laws were made people, we are the people.

 

[Cyclopathic]

Splendid and well done.

Now how do we make compulsory road cycling a mandatory part of driver training?

This would be fantastic. I've ridden a bike on the road since I was about 11 years old to get to school. Since then I have used a bike as my primary mode of transport around town and for short journies.

I am absolutely convinced that my cycling experience made me a much better and safer driver. As soon as I started taking driving lessons I was already well used to being on the road and had 8 years experience of reading various conditions and situations. Lessons like driving defensively and anticipating other road users actions are invaluable elements of road use that I learned from cycling.

Many drivers have never ridden a bike on the road in any meaningful way so even a small element of cycling in the test will give people an idea of what it is like to be in such a vulnerable position and a better understanding of how serious their actions in a car can be to cyclists.