Cycle lane hit-and-run; Girls just wanna have fundamentally safe cycling infrastructure; Mechanical ends Cav's sprint hopes; ECHELONS; New kit; Jason Kenny retirement interview; Pog's puncture pain; Number-crunching + more on the live blog

Yeah, interesting one: LJ54OXZ last V5C issued 3 February and MoT expires on Sunday, so I wonder if it's been SORNed?

I tried to look at the reg number but couldn't see it. I'll take your word for it. If the car was untaxed at the time of the incident, then that'd automatically mean it was uninsured too. I hope this has been reported.

Given the list of offences: leaving the scene; no VED; no insurance, then the driver is likely to be looking at a ban, and that's without inclusion of a driving without due care and attention charge, which would seem appropriate.

The police do tend to crack down on untaxed vehicles. It's of note that there is a correlation between untaxed/uninsured vehicles and crashes, and also of other potential criminal offences. This is why the police often target untaxed vehicles, as this will often lead to the people being charged for a much wider range of offences (theft, handling stolen goods and drugs and so on).

I'll not mention the make of car.

The police do tend to crack down on untaxed vehicles. It's of note that there is a correlation between untaxed/uninsured vehicles and crashes, and also of other potential criminal offences. This is why the police often target untaxed vehicles, as this will often lead to the people being charged for a much wider range of offences (theft, handling stolen goods and drugs and so on)
Do they hell! Which Utopia are you inhabiting? It's definitely not the Motorist's Land Free of Traffic Offences: Lancashire. You can inform the police here of vehicles on the road with no VED for 6 months, or no MOT- and they just refuse to reply.

chrisonatrike wrote:

if only the UK would pick a colour, any colour, and consistently use it

Boooooring. I vote for rainbow ones like the one on the blog a couple of days ago.

mdavidford wrote:

chrisonatrike wrote:

if only the UK would pick a colour, any colour, and consistently use it

Boooooring. I vote for rainbow ones like the one on the blog a couple of days ago.

...would be happily accepted as long as you follow all the guidelines (example from Over There here)!  It's public infra so should be boring - safely, predictably standard boring.

On the "but buildings - we can't see past them" this is another part of the bigger picture. Yes - it's history but it's also choices in the now.  We have a finite amount of space between buildings.  Let's say we want these to have some motor vehicle access.  (Note that something's already changed e.g. a cycle path has been added).  If it's "not safe" for drivers to emerge from side roads because of sight lines there are options / choices.  It's not a matter of "shrug and accept it".  For example - are those side roads all needed?  Maybe there's a better place for traffic access to / from properties there (e.g. effectively make a LTN)?  Do we choose to continue to have two way traffic down this street or could it be one-way?

None of this is cheap or easy but we have to get over the "it's always been that way" / "but there's a road there!" mentality when it comes to our public space designs.  We have to for a whole suite of reasons - making transport more efficient, safer, fairer and places more pleasant.

The more recent streetview images show that additional give way markings have been added between the pavement and cycle track, along with a couple of bicycle logos. I suspect this is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.

...and worn away almost immediately.

That image also shows potential on brighter days for cyclists to be shaded by that tree at a critical moment on their approach.   

Those white squares aren't give ways, its the other side of the crossing extent markers that were already on the carriageway side (diagram 1055.3 I think).  Intersting as the block paving is supposed to indicate this is a continuation of the pedestrian area that vehicles can cross, but the cycle lane is now indicated as a crossing of the side road.  Those marks are supposed to be on controlled crossings, which this isn't - probably trying to best fit some awareness of the layout in, because they're not needed in current guidance.

Yep, it's a massive fudge to try and find some road markings that might work!

I think the point chrisonatrike made about the pavement being too wide across the junction is spot on. If it was narrower and they put down a give way marking, visibility would be a lot better.

They've put give way markings down on a junction further up the road, but the paved area is still too wide, so a driver has a limited view to see if it's clear before moving off.

Yes - I'd forgotten some of the good points from Mr. Weetman's excellent series on this. One of them was that you should have a single lane entry to the road - not two. So that needs fixing about the infra.  Proper continous footway is a key and not having fussy painting / signs was a third.  I do agree the sightlines to the right should be better.  I've compiled some images from his collection - the "bad" side looks a lot like the one in the video!

That's a great link. The sightlines are only relevant if there are give way markings, so get rid of those markings and you can have a wide pavement.

The hierachy then comes into play and the driver must go very slowly and cede priority to pedestrians and cyclists, as they are effectively driving on the pavement.

HoarseMann wrote:

That's a great link. The sightlines are only relevant if there are give way markings, so get rid of those markings and you can have a wide pavement.

The hierachy then comes into play and the driver must go very slowly and cede priority to pedestrians and cyclists, as they are effectively driving on the pavement.

Yes - the central point in all designs is that there is no break in the pedestrian or cyclist space.  It's "motorist is permitted to drive (very carefully) across a cycle path and pavement in one go".  Not "this is space for motor vehicles to wait while they're looking for other motor vehicles".

I'm probably slightly more keen on having sight lines rather than not and more rather than less.  I know the argument - and indeed practice - of screening drivers' views at some crossings to force them to stop and check.  From my experiences in the UK I'm leery of this where this may affect me when I'm on a bike e.g. I always want to see motor vehicles (and indeed any other road users) in good time.  Being honest I'm not keen on places where this is done partly for the reasons they're designed to mitigate e.g. I want to able to keep my speed up!  However at lower speeds (bike design speeds) it's still good to have the time to check for others and it allows me to adjust my speed so I don't actually have to stop.

This is a design you see pretty much everywhere here in the Netherlands. Even assuming most Dutch drivers also cycle, I still get twitchy approaching these on my road bike. At 20kph on my city bike, no problem. At +30kph on my road bike it's a different story...

IanMSpencer wrote:

While not excusing the driving, that sort of accident is not surprising on that infrastructure, poor sight line when emerging, driver glances down the road and sees it clear, not perceiving they haven't assessed the bike lane properly, the cyclist is going above the accepted design speeds for those bike lanes (but would be roasted by drivers for not using them) and most drivers perceive bike lanes as an opportunity to pull out from the junction further. The half-hearted non-standard give way markings don't help - why isn't there a standard good solid give way design at the left of bike lane and a lane marking at the right? [...]

I think I've covered all that in my post.  Fundamentally it's faulty driving - there are enough (and clear enough) indications that this is not "business as usual" e.g. ramp up to footway (though as I said the footway should be continuous), markings, coloured bike lane. The driver is totally protected because no-one's turning into this road. So unfamiliarity should have lead to more observation, not less. If anything I suspect overfamiliarity e.g. "I normally roll slowly across the space until I can see if there are any cars coming." The bike could see the car's front windows for at least 3 seconds so they had that time to observe.

The fact that they scarpered suggests to me that being in such a big metal box they simply didn't even detect that they'd driven into someone (having not looked and observed them before). Either that or they don't care about other people in which case the infra is mostly irrelevant. For example didn't disempower the cyclist as they could see the vehicle in time to make their own decisions.

chrisonatrike wrote:

The fact that they scarpered suggests to me that being in such a big metal box they simply didn't even detect that they'd driven into someone (having not looked and observed them before). Either that or they don't care about other people in which case the infra is mostly irrelevant.

I would suspect drink/drugs to be a factor for not hanging around. Would also account for the terrible observations and poor reactions.

HoarseMann wrote:

chrisonatrike wrote:

The fact that they scarpered suggests to me that being in such a big metal box they simply didn't even detect that they'd driven into someone (having not looked and observed them before). Either that or they don't care about other people in which case the infra is mostly irrelevant.

I would suspect drink/drugs to be a factor for not hanging around. Would also account for the terrible observations and poor reactions.

True.

On the whole drug-driving thing...  Is it me or does anyone else notice more and more cars driving past with a waft of weed?  If real life was a cartoon, there'd be a big curling green smoke drifting along behind them.

So what's that about?  Is it that people think that driving while mildly stoned is better/safer than driving while drunk?  And if so, where on earth did they get that impression?

brooksby wrote:

HoarseMann wrote:

I would suspect drink/drugs to be a factor for not hanging around. Would also account for the terrible observations and poor reactions.

True.

On the whole drug-driving thing...  Is it me or does anyone else notice more and more cars driving past with a waft of weed?  If real life was a cartoon, there'd be a big curling green smoke drifting along behind them.

So what's that about?  Is it that people think that driving while mildly stoned is better/safer than driving while drunk?  And if so, where on earth did they get that impression?

It's reefer madness out there. Well, something more recent maybe.

I blame cars. It's sadly becoming socially acceptable - it's too easy to drive a car when stoned *. On a bike you're spending half the time relighting your chalice and I've never been able to roll a spliff on the move. Maybe I should get that velomobile - could combine it with a trip to the 'Dam?

* Apart from the traffic lights that is.

brooksby wrote:

On the whole drug-driving thing...  Is it me or does anyone else notice more and more cars driving past with a waft of weed? 

Definately becoming more common. It used to be only occasionally I would smell it from a passing car. I get at least one car stinking of it every ride now.

brooksby wrote:

On the whole drug-driving thing...  Is it me or does anyone else notice more and more cars driving past with a waft of weed? 

Very definitely, and often on my commute it's coming from work vans with people clearly going in to do a day's work as electricians, plumbers, bricklayers et cetera, so not only worrying for their standards of driving but also the safety of the work they do. I say nothing about weed one way or another, I gave it up myself in my early 20s and never drove or cycled on it*, but it does seem that many younger people, including drivers, now seem to regard it as no more harmful than having a fag on the way to work.

*Excellent gag from the lead singer of Supergrass, Gaz Coombes: "I don't know why anyone has a go at all these cyclists for taking drugs, if anything it makes it harder. I tried riding my bike on drugs once and I went slap into a hedge."

They can also add this to the list of driver misdemeanours and possibly no MOT in a few days too...

They can also add this to the list of driver misdemeanours and possibly no MOT in a few days too...

Pfff! Even if it was untaxed on the day of the serious assault on the cyclist, the driver would have received a commendation in Lancashire for only being a few days late with VED. They're officially completely uninterested in whether cars are taxed or not, here.

LC refuses to reply about what has been done about this one after being informed of the absence of VED on the day of the photo- they also refuse to reply about absence of MOT for months in other vehicles. I think they come to private monetary agreements with offending drivers- it's very wearing living with an unashamedly bent police force

Rendel Harris wrote:

"There is only one thing girls want, and it starts with a P and ends with an S" - Pinarellos?

Respect and equality doesn't start with a P and end with an S...

ktache wrote:

Respect and equality doesn't start with a P and end with an S...

Proper respect and equal rights.