Interesting essay on cycle safety

[Joe]

The reason this country is car-centric is because we have bought into the whole american consumerism bile. Buy this car, and your life will be 'perfect', people will envy you. Feed 'em up on stodge/burgers/shakes etc, get 'em hooked, and coin it in when they need a car to drive everywhere, or a mobility scooter cos they can't walk anymore. Then we can sell them Thigh/Abs/Butt trainers from infomercial sites on a sunday. Or £30.00 a month memberships to poundwatchers to 'help' them lose weight.

Totally insidious.

God it's depressing sometimes. The number of conversations I've heard from people in my class at uni along the lines of "I can't wait until I'm qualified so I can get x car" or stories starting with "So and so, who drives a x...". It's just soooo boring. Is that the extent of your ambition in life?

It's particularly baffling as they do nothing but moan about driving the whole time!! EVERY morning it's a lack of parking/stuck behind a tractor/cyclist/speed limits/congestion blah blah blah. It's a 20-30 minute walk for a bunch of them and they drive in without fail every day.

As soon as any conversation veers towards driving I have to switch off or go crazy listening to such hypocritical shortsited ignorant boring shite!

Ahem...rant over

On topic again - theres a largish summary of Murder Most Foul as a pdf on roadpeace (and you can order the 2007 reprint for £6)
http://www.roadpeace.org/documents/Murder most foul - summary by Howard Peel.pdf

 

[Origamist]

Anyone who wants a historical perspective on road safety would do well to read J S Dean as much of what he says is still pertinent now. What's more, his diagnoses and recommendations were both progressive and asutute, but have been ignored for the last 60 years.

 

[skrx]

God it's depressing sometimes. The number of conversations I've heard from people in my class at uni along the lines of "I can't wait until I'm qualified so I can get x car"

I went to uni in central London, and there was hardly any talk about cars. No one owned one, no one needed one. More people had, or discussed buying, bicycles than cars.

I didn't go in a car for a whole year-and-a-half; until back at my hometown a friend from school offered me a lift to a party in the next city. It took me about 15 minutes to realise the "115" on the display on the dash was his speed, and that cars shouldn't go as fast as trains...
Then when we got there, he said "coke for me, I'm driving".
On the way back to the car someone called shotgun and I had no idea what they were talking about.

I didn't have a bike while I was at university though, but in retrospect it would have been useful. I was worried that it wasn't safe, especially after an experienced cyclist who'd I'd spoken to was killed. It didn't occur to me that I could easily avoid the main roads and feel safer, and I didn't realise how much time I'd save relative to walking or using a bus.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Thread revival time.

Looking for a JS Dean post I made I found this.

Have we progressed in 4 years?

 

[ufkacbln]

Although the text itself dated (1947) "Murder most foul" is worthwhile downloading and reading.

Some questions and points raised are equally valid today

It also has nothing to do with Agatha Christie::