Jeremy Vine's air horn blasts apology from impatient driver; Lachlan Morton's Alt Tour jersey auction hits $3.5k; Who needs tyre levers?; GBDURO & Cape Epic films; Van der Poel's niggly knee; Fancy riding a century this weekend? + more on the live blog

Garage at Large wrote:

Top-rated lawyer and road safety expert Nick Freeman featured on both BBC North West tonight and the general BBC website (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-59649900) discussing his petition for cyclist registrations. Mr Freeman said "While there are many responsible cyclists [like Nige] there are still too many who ride with little respect for the rules of the road." His appearance on BBC TV can be seen on iPlayer at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0012kyk/north-west-tonight-evenin..., around 13 minutes in. The feature, which begins with footage of cyclists breaking the law with impunity, is well worth a watch.

I've not watched the video, but the article seems little more than the BBC publishing a press release from Freeman.  I'm not sure how you can describe a petition that has now closed and barely scraped over the 10,000 as 'gathering momentum'. 

But car numberplates don't identify the driver, just the registered keeper. Maybe they should identify the driver?

When you pass your test you get your personal driver plates and you have to attach/remove them from your car everytime you use it? They could be a nice fluoro high-viz colour too!

HoarseMann wrote:

But car numberplates don't identify the driver, just the registered keeper. Maybe they should identify the driver?

When you pass your test you get your personal driver plates and you have to attach/remove them from your car everytime you use it? They could be a nice fluoro high-viz colour too!

This is an especially relevant point, given that Freeman has used loopholes around identifying who was the driver to get his clients off.

Steve K wrote:

This is an especially relevant point, given that Freeman has used loopholes around identifying who was the driver to get his clients off.

Just think of the amount of bureaucracy it would save the likes of Manchester United. They wouldn't need to keep detailled records of who was driving Sir Alex F.'s car.

Especially as he's very generous with it and lends it out all the time! 

Switzerland manage this fine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicle_registration_plates_of_Switzerland

The vehicle license number plates are assigned to the car owner and not to the vehicle. If the owner changes the vehicle, the same vehicle license number plates are attached to the new vehicle

Although you can still borrow someone else's car. It seems like you're supposed to inform the authorities if someone else is going to drive it, but most people don't bother. The important question, though, is whether they're any better at holding the registered owner responsible for offences, or if you can still get away with saying 'I don't know who was driving it'.

It seems very strange that in a country that has constantly rejected the idea of people carrying identity cards, a press that coined the phrase "nanny state" and a Convervative party where 99 MPs voted against "Covid Passports", anyone would think that any citizen should have to display a number that identified them to the world was a good idea. Worse still this idea appears to come from people that would probably identify as libertarian.

I'll stop there before I invoke Godwin's law......

At least Mussolini made cyclists stop at red lights...! (darn, that's done it now).

Silent (ish) but deadly!

I think he's initially covered the horn because he spotted the dark car 'nosing out' and suspected it might pull out on him. Then before he's removed it after realising it wasn't going to move, he spots the 'developing hazard' of the light car haring round towards him with no intention of stopping.

That's how I read it too. But, even for the dark car, I think I'd have been covering brake rather than horn - especially as I got closer to it.     

quiff wrote:

Suspect this will be unpopular, but here goes anyway... I don't subscribe to the view that Jeremy Vine deliberately cycles into trouble to generate video content, but in that particular video, he did seem quite keen to get footage of him using his new horn. Particularly in the second example, approaching what he has clearly identified as a potential hazard, he takes his right hand off the bar a long time in advance and chooses to cover the horn instead of his front brake. If you can do both at the same time, fine, but if I had to choose, it would be brake every time.     

I can sympathise with your view, based on cycling advice I was given. Right or wrong - if you're around bad drivers no one cares if you were in the right if you're dead. This however, doesn't excuse bad driving and so it's unfair to attack Jeremy in this situation.

This is a serious miscarriage of justice - the driver was charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving, i.e. a driving offence, whereas in any sane world he would have been charged with GBH. 

I note this thug will be free to drive his car, possibly once again deliberately at other road users, after a paltry 3 year ban. Should be a life time ban for using a vehicle as a weapon.

Do all banned drivers have to pass a test to regain their licence? If so he will be 77 by that point so it may have the effect of a lifetime ban. If it isn't automatic to have to pass a test, why not?

the little onion wrote:

This is a serious miscarriage of justice - the driver was charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving, i.e. a driving offence, whereas in any sane world he would have been charged with GBH. 

 

I note this thug will be free to drive his car, possibly once again deliberately at other road users, after a paltry 3 year ban. Should be a life time ban for using a vehicle as a weapon.

I'm not convinced that the sentence would have been any different if he'd been charged with GBH. Compare it with this - https://road.cc/content/news/man-who-punched-cyclist-leaving-him-partial...

28 months for GBH. The victim ended up partially sighted in his left eye and with a metal plate in his jaw. The defendant had previous convictions for robbery and battery.

There should be a difference, it is perhaps unreasonable to consider a punch to the face, though occasionally unfortunately lethal, as an expression of lethal intent, where as deliberately accelerating a nearly 2 tonne motor vehicle into a human being should have no other interpretation.

Accelerating a 1850kg vehicle at a human being in anger with the intention of running them down is fully equivalent to pointing a shot gun at their face in anger and deliberately pulling the trigger. The prosecution should have been for attempted murder.

You beat me to it!

Quote:

... Moult had lost his temper when Cook accidentally collided with his vehicle at a set of traffic lights after a bin lorry stopped suddenly in front of him.

Dashcam footage recorded Moult’s wife, Irene, begging him to avoid the confrontation as Moult sped after the victim, blaming him for damaging the wing mirror on his Freelander.

“It’s not worth it – don’t, love,” she said.

He ignored her and caught up with Cook to argue with him on the roadside. After Cook spat on the Land Rover bonnet, Moult got back in the driver’s seat, put his foot down and crushed the victim under the wheels of the car, Minshull Street crown court in Manchester heard.

As Cook lay seriously injured, Moult called him a “prick”.

The victim was left with his pelvis broken in two places, six broken ribs and a punctured liver. He later lost his job and is now too scared to cycle. He still cannot bend over to tie his shoelaces, the court heard.

Absolutely disguisting.  And, as the Onion has said, this ought to have been treated as a violent act not 'just' (?) as a driving offence.

Funghible tokens are a load of rot...

Cash is a fungible token so as you don't want any I am pleased to take it of your hands. I'll even do it for free. 😉

Fishpastesarnie wrote:

Cash is a fungible token so as you don't want any I am pleased to take it of your hands. I'll even do it for free. 😉

I feel you've missed the joke from the fun guy above.

Or did I miss the news where they are now making cash out of mushrooms?

SimoninSpalding wrote:

Glad to hear that Timothy is on the mend, but I think we should also have a moment of quiet reflection for hawkinspeter's relative, gone too soon.😥

Totally agree. The hedgehogs will avenge though.