Cycling lawyer's tongue-in-cheek post suggesting cars should be high-vis goes viral; "Even decent(ish) cycle infrastructure can't protect you fully from lazy, inattentive driving"; Timmy Mallett's cycle travels; Alpe d'Huez rumours + more on the live blog

Ha,ha. I read this and thought exactly the same.  What a great life!

Because if you are unwell enough to need to see the GP, you shouldn't be driving.

I agree that shops for groceries need to be higher on people's priorities

Plenty of reasons to go to the GP that have no effect on driving.

Hirsute wrote:

Plenty of reasons to go to the GP that have no effect on driving.

Or, indeed, on cycling - but see the responses when one car parking space was replaced with parking for 12 bikes.

There has been outrage in my local paper because 6 parking spaces are being removed to put in a segregated bike lane. Apparently the local cafe is going to go out of business because people won't park round the corner and walk 20m.

It's a really busy road that is often congested and one of only four routes across the Itchen river here in Southampton, with at least 2 miles to the next closest crossing, which is again a very busy road with no cycle infrastructure.

Post boxes because the only people still using them are too old to drive.

I suspect that most post boxes are already within a 15 minute walk as most were put in place before the majority of the population had access to a motor vehicle.

... but possibly when they had access to bicycles, and used them?

espressodan wrote:

Why is it always GP surgeries and post boxes? The things people drive to twice a year, or drive past every day they want within 15 minutes but the things they drive to every day (schools and supermarkets), "no thanks". Ending car dependancy isn't going to happen with this sort of survey result guiding policy.

Maybe.  I've been struck recently looking at a lot of the protests about "LTNs" and "down with this cycle path" kind that lots of the people are older (and often not in good health).

I suspect this is "who has the time" but also what is salient to people.  And we are an ageing population.

So I'm not sure that many people younger than me are mad about post boxes and even less about GPs.  But as we age (and also have the time / inclination to fill in surveys / write to our MP / newspaper) these things start to become a point of note.  Pretty sure my parents generation have got them mapped!

Luckily despite the "it never used to be like this", "I've driven all my life" and "one of those cyclists came whizzing right by me!" responses this may bring this is also an opportunity.  Here's what we could be winning:

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/elderly-people-on-a-cycle-...

https://www.aarpinternational.org/the-journal/past-editions/the-senior-c...

https://cyclingfallacies.com/en/5/elderly-people-cant-cycle

chrisonatrike wrote:

espressodan wrote:

Why is it always GP surgeries and post boxes? The things people drive to twice a year, or drive past every day they want within 15 minutes but the things they drive to every day (schools and supermarkets), "no thanks". Ending car dependancy isn't going to happen with this sort of survey result guiding policy.

Maybe.  I've been struck recently looking at a lot of the protests about "LTNs" and "down with this cycle path" kind that lots of the people are older (and often not in good health).

I suspect this is "who has the time" but also what is salient to people.  And we are an ageing population.

So I'm not sure that many people younger than me are mad about post boxes and even less about GPs.  But as we age (and also have the time / inclination to fill in surveys / write to our MP / newspaper) these things start to become a point of note.  Pretty sure my parents generation have got them mapped!

Luckily despite the "it never used to be like this", "I've driven all my life" and "one of those cyclists came whizzing right by me!" responses this may bring this is also an opportunity.  Here's what we could be winning:

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/10/31/elderly-people-on-a-cycle-...

https://www.aarpinternational.org/the-journal/past-editions/the-senior-c...

https://cyclingfallacies.com/en/5/elderly-people-cant-cycle

or even (from the 2023 masters track world championships)

GOLD MEDALLISTS

Men's 45/54 Team Pursuit: IDD Expert (Fra) (Ludovic Montourcy, Jerome Pruvost, Frederic Authouart, Frederic Coste)
Men's 40/44 Points: Chris Kerkdijk, Ned
Men's 65/69 Individual Pursuit: Steve Cronshaw, Gbr
Men's 70/74 Individual Pursuit: Kent Bostick, USA
Men's 75-79 Individual Pursuit: Colin Claxton, NZL
***Men's 80+ Individual Pursuit: Walter Fowler, Gbr***
Women's 44/49 Sprint: Sonja Moi, Norway
Women's 50/54 Sprint: Julie Cooper, Gbr
Women's 55-59 Sprint: Debbie Capewell, Gbr
Women's Sprint 60-64: Julie Barnett, AUS
Women's 65-69 Sprint: Beverley Anderson, AUS
Women's 80+ Sprint: Bonnie Woodbury, USA
Women's 40/44 Sprint: Kristy Howels, Gbr
Women's 35/39 Sprint: Zuzana Rychnovska, Cze

Several riders are currently pushing for an 85+ category as they are no longer competetive in 80+ so who exactly is too old to ride a bike?

Backladder wrote:

chrisonatrike wrote:

Maybe.  I've been struck recently looking at a lot of the protests about "LTNs" and "down with this cycle path" kind that lots of the people are older (and often not in good health).

(from the 2023 masters track world championships)

GOLD MEDALLISTS

Men's 45/54 Team Pursuit: IDD Expert (Fra) (Ludovic Montourcy, Jerome Pruvost, Frederic Authouart, Frederic Coste)
Men's 40/44 Points: Chris Kerkdijk, Ned
Men's 65/69 Individual Pursuit: Steve Cronshaw, Gbr
Men's 70/74 Individual Pursuit: Kent Bostick, USA
Men's 75-79 Individual Pursuit: Colin Claxton, NZL
***Men's 80+ Individual Pursuit: Walter Fowler, Gbr***
Women's 44/49 Sprint: Sonja Moi, Norway
Women's 50/54 Sprint: Julie Cooper, Gbr
Women's 55-59 Sprint: Debbie Capewell, Gbr
Women's Sprint 60-64: Julie Barnett, AUS
Women's 65-69 Sprint: Beverley Anderson, AUS
Women's 80+ Sprint: Bonnie Woodbury, USA
Women's 40/44 Sprint: Kristy Howels, Gbr
Women's 35/39 Sprint: Zuzana Rychnovska, Cze

Several riders are currently pushing for an 85+ category as they are no longer competetive in 80+ so who exactly is too old to ride a bike?

At aged 74, I seem to be an outlier in the "general fitness" age group, as are a number of cyclist aquaintances in the 65 -85 age category. The vast majority of folk at these ages are decrepit. 

There's nothing genetically special about me or my generally fit cycling acquaintances. The difference is down to lifestyle, in which significant and regular physical activity is a fundamental. Some of my generally fit cycling aquaintances follow standard modern diets with too much sugar, salt and UPF. Two have articial hips and one has an artificial knees, probably from work-related damage. Yet they're still fit, well and able.

The point is that modern lifestyles generally promote physical laziness and addiction to associated pastimes, travel modes and other daily modes that could (and should) be more physically demanding. We didn't evolve sitting in chairs in front of a TV or a steering wheel.

**************

In the 1950s, Harold Macmillan told the Blighters that they'd never had it so good, meaning there were lots of "comforts and conveniences" to be bought in the shops. He was thinking of junkfud, TV and car, probably. It turns out that this "good" is in practice a serious "bad". It just took a few decades for us to discover this.

The evidence is now rife: decrepid people but preserved by modern medicine; a seriously degraded environment getting so bad that it'll overwhelm all those apparent "comforts and conveniences". Health provision that's more like a very expensive repair service for knackered jalopies than a means to stay healthy.

***********

All the more reason to eschew the car, the TV and the junkfud. All the more reason to encourage, nay insist, that walking and cycling replace the evil car.

Some hope.

Well, you've currently got to die from something*...

Best do the more active things now, you can always watch TV and eat dribbly food later.

* I dont think most would be satisfied with living on as a cell culture.

chrisonatrike wrote:

Well, you've currently got to die from something*...

Speak for yourself - I plan to live forever: so far, so good....

HoldingOn wrote:

chrisonatrike wrote:

Well, you've currently got to die from something*...

Speak for yourself - I plan to live forever: so far, so good....

Well, perhaps not forever but I do plan to live long enough (and stay fit enough to enjoy it) at least until I've been retired longer than I worked (spit). One likes to get full benefit from the pension scheme, see?

15 more years to go ......

If that Pukin (or any other crazed denizen of Planet Mordor) ruins my cunning plan with their ordinance, I'll be very cross! But I suppose we might all be dead of weather quite soon ..... .

Reasons you can't cycle in Colchester

Hills, wind, rain, too far, too much to carry, everyone wants to drive.

Yes, let's all drive as that will make everything work smoothly. Just don't bother with around North Station or the roads around the centre at rush hour as you will be held up by all the cyclists in their packs (a swarm of lotuses (sic)).

even in a car I do my best to avoid the magic roundabout, it must be an experience on a bicycle.

Station way is a very busy section of road in Colchester, gridlocked in rush hour/school run time, feels hostile even as a pedestrian,its just a short stretch of bollards thats only on one side of the road, that then dumps you back on to another busy roundabout, its not connected to anything that gives you confidence to be able to cycle a safe route.

Im not remotely surprised it doesnt get used alot.

There is a convoluted route to get from A to B via shared paths and crossings and subways.

This is another route from A to B I was told to take to help the drivist overlords.

Via various shared pathways by an NSL over a crossing and then uphill.

I normally walk it North Station Road, past the Victoria Inn, that would be the way I'd try to cycle it too, dodging the deliveroos & scooterists.

But the roads around the station are just full of traffic cones & diversions for road maintenence which is making it far worse currently, you look at it and just think I don't want to cycle through that.

It sums it up at Northern gateway there's that cycle track facility, yet no protected cycle route to get to it even nearby, let alone from the station.

You can go up mile end road, through the bus gate, then boxted road to just past cuckoo farm studios where you can pick up a shared path that turns into some sort of service road to come in at the back of the complex.

Less confident folk would walk to the bottom of mile end road and boxted road is quiet but not protected, although has a shared pathway partly along it.

"Coun Lewis Bartoli said: “If the disastrous cycle scheme at Rake Lane has taught us anything, it is that prioritising a small handful of cyclists over thousands of commuters causes nothing but disruption and congestion and increases in accidents."

Had similar comments against the proposed schemes where I live. They don't seem to realise the 'small handful of cyclists' is due to the lack of safe cycling infrastructure!

The county council had produced some very good proposals, fully adhering to LTN 1/20, and funded by the Active Travel England central budget. Yet our town council threw the whole lot out, with no constructive feedback, because two residents turned up to the meeting and said it might affect parking.

I'm hoping the town council don't actually have as much of a say in this scheme as they think.

Here in Bristol there are local councillors complaining about changes proposed to be made to a large main link road from the M5 motorway into the city centre.

The Portway is 50 mph speed limit on most of its length, with a permanent bus lane coming into the city (so, eastbound) and with a footway/cycle path on the other side (so, westbound).  There is one lane for motor traffic eastbound, and - for much of the way - two lanes westbound.

The council is proposing to remove one of the westbound lanes so as to create a new bus lane and to widen the shared-use path but you'd think they wanted to mandate kitten-i-cide, the way people are talking...

And one of the big arguments used: Nobody uses that cycle path anyway so why should we give them more space?

Missing the point that if the path was wider, and there were more bus lanes, then maybe more people might think they didn't need to drive into the city and add to the mile or more traffic queues along there during 'rush hour'...

We get the same in the local paper here in Southampton. I only read it to argue with people about cycling.

The best one is when they talk about some kind of road user who can't get by without their vehicle, such as somebody who is disabled or a tradesman who needs to carry tools in a van. Fair enough, but if the people who didn't fall into those categories didn't drive journeys that they could walk or cycle then those who have no choice would be able to get around much easier.