Boy threatened with screwdriver during violent bike robbery; Sainsbury's delivery driver barges into cycle lane; "Backwards" no cycling signs; Quick-Step duo testify against TV presenter; City bikes a long way from home; Cav beaten + more on the live blog

Chris Hayes wrote:

If there are 2,000,000 miles of unused tunnels in London can we put trucks in them please, then cars, then political incompetents of all persuasions. 

Of course!  But you've inverted the entry order.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

I do mean to bad mouth modern teenagers. They need to toughen up - school of the hard knocks never did anyone any harm.

Didn't your poster boys all go to private school? Very 'hard knocks" 

Nigel Garrage wrote:

I do mean to bad mouth modern teenagers. They need to toughen up - school of the hard knocks never did anyone any harm.

'Hard man' blather by an anonymous internet troll.

Pathetic. Were you bullied at school Nige?

I'm sure there are many teenagers far tougher, smarter and wiser than you.

Abuse? Oh dear.

Or did you mean that the road.cc admin would not look kindly on your trash talking all young people?

There are 2 teenagers in my household and you couldn't hold a candle to either of them with regards to integrity, honesty and respect for others. But you would surely win an arm-wrestling or beer-drinking contest as neither is 'tough' if measured by traditional male ideas of 'toughness'.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

No need for abuse, Simon - the road.cc admins take personal abuse very seriously

Isn't it lucky that you attended the "school of hard knocks", and so are hardy in the face of such terrible "abuse"
A lesser man would probably be destroyed by Simon's merciless attack..

The other year, the teenagers round us were popping wheelies and deciding to see if they could "tap" the unsuspecting peds in front of them on the back with the front wheel. Although they were from the same area where they ride mopeds and motor bikes on the pavement or road without helmets and other exciting "harmless" things. 

I told some lad today to stop doing wheelies outside the shops, on the pavement, during lunchtime, on a busy high street. He tried to stare me out for some odd reason.

hirsute wrote:

I told some lad today to stop doing wheelies outside the shops, on the pavement, during lunchtime, on a busy high street. He tried to stare me out for some odd reason.

Only sensible thing to do...

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

The other year, the teenagers round us were popping wheelies and deciding to see if they could "tap" the unsuspecting peds in front of them on the back with the front wheel. Although they were from the same area where they ride mopeds and motor bikes on the pavement or road without helmets and other exciting "harmless" things. 

Correlation causation yada yada.

The real significant factor is that they were cyclists of course

EddyBerckx wrote:

Like us back in the day, they are mostly harmless and having a bit of fun

Fun!?  When I were lad we used to live in shoe box in middle of t'road, etc, etc.

oceandweller wrote:

Gammons: "I want to get London moving again. There are over 2 million miles of unused tunnels, streets, and chambers beneath London"

Wow! 2 million miles, that's incredible! Ummm, let's try & figure this out - if each tunnel, street etc is, on average, 2m wide that means there's 6,440 sq km of unused space beneath London. That nice Mr. Wikepedia says the total area of Greater London is 1,583 sq km, so London is literally floating on air! After 20-odd years living there I'd kind of come to regard London as a hole in ground, but now I discover I was wrong & it's actually a hole in a multidimensional hyperspace. Puts a whole new perspective on things, quite literally.

Or else, & this might perhaps be more likely, maybe Gammons isn't much good with numbers. Or thinking more generally I suspect.

...and with the 100's of billions in tax revenue he'd need to make it work I suspect he wouldn't even get the right wing gammon vote for that plan...

EddyBerckx wrote:

...and with the 100's of billions in tax revenue he'd need to make it work I suspect he wouldn't even get the right wing gammon vote for that plan...

Obviously, as Mayor, he'd just make cyclists pay Road Tax (even if they would be paying to not use the roads). Bosh - job done!

oceandweller wrote:

Gammons: "I want to get London moving again. There are over 2 million miles of unused tunnels, streets, and chambers beneath London"

Wow! 2 million miles, that's incredible! Ummm, let's try & figure this out - if each tunnel, street etc is, on average, 2m wide that means there's 6,440 sq km of unused space beneath London.

6440 square km, equates to a square 80km by 80km, centreing this square on tower bridge mean the extents would be Stevenage, Basildon, Slough and Crawley.

Of course you are not considering that tunnels can exist at different depths, but even then I don't see how 4km2 of buried tunnels, roads and chambers could exist for each square km of space.

UKIP candidate lies before election shocker

Nigel Garrage wrote:

 

 

He didn't say "over 2 million square miles" though did he? That's just a made up quote you've attributed to him (not that I thought his suggestion was any good by the way). Maybe he was thinking of sewage pipes.

I mean there are 22 feet of small intestines in the average human adult.

And Ocean Dweller didn't mention 2m square miles. That's just a quote that you made up isn't it.....

Gammons however did say 2m miles, OD is correct.

I imagine that you are familiar with this website - 

https://www.ukip.org/dr-peter-gammons-is-ukip-s-candidate-for-london-mayor

Here is the quote if you can't find it:

“I want to get London moving again. There are over 2 million miles of unused tunnels, streets, and chambers beneath London. This abandoned network was secretly built by the Ministry of Defence, Post Office, and BT."

I assume he is talking about this http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20201005-the-uks-rumoured-subterranean-n... not that its proven to exist or capable to be a transport network

Nigel Garrage wrote:

The point was he made up an assumption of surface area that doesn't hold true under any measurement (not least because he's comparing the 2d surface area of London to a 3d space, then making up an assumption as to how wide it is without evidence) - it's far simpler to just say it's a crap idea.

I thought the point you were making was that OD fabricated a quote, and attributed it to Gammons. Remember typing that?

Quote:

the Ministry of Defence, Post Office, and BT.

It's not exactly the Illuminati, is it?

brooksby wrote:

Quote:

the Ministry of Defence, Post Office, and BT.

It's not exactly the Illuminati, is it?

That's what they want you to think 🤨

oceandweller wrote:

if each tunnel, street etc is, on average, 2m wide

Why would you assume that though? I'm guessing he's not big on worrying about how much clearance to give cyclists. You should take your 6 inch pipe for cycling down and be grateful for it!

It says no cycling 10-6 at the bottom, so outside of that you can cycle responsibly - although I suspect we are both a bit old to pop a wheelie !

surely that 10-6 sign should have a line through it if cycling is prohibited between those times? so not only are the signs aggressive and unwelcoming they are unclear as well. well done the local authorities.

Don't see why, it just gives a limit to the restriction

It's interesting (well, to me) that traffic signs that prohibit something (no vehicles, no overtaking etc) do not have a diagonal bar, whereas official health&safety signs (no smoking) do have a diagonal bar. Different kinds of regulations.

But, question: Given that the "no cycling" sign in this particular form is an official indicator of the traffic rules that apply at a certain place, can they just include these signs without accompanying traffic regulation orders and all the related paperwork like consultations and opportunity for objections?

The rest of the poster is nonspecific, but including an official traffic sign might be legally very dubious as it suggests to naive bystanders a force of law that doesn't exist.