“My first ride of the year resulted in five drivers reported”: Cyclist shares pictures of five close passes; 19-year-old British rider comes close to winning first stage at Tour Down Under; Peter Sagan does wheelies with fan + more on the live blog

It's OK though, because it doesn't matter why you were banned; ignoring the ban is unlikely to cause you problems!  And even if you are caught, unlikely to lead to serious sanction.

Perhaps the Association of Bad Drivers should be campaigning to stop honest upstanding banned British drivers being damned by association with benefit cheats?

I first heard this early this morning, and thought I'd misheard until it was repeated later.  Since I ascribe to the tenet of the punishment fitting the crime, this seems ridiculous to me.  Besides, it won't just be the person involved who's punished, it's potentially their family.

Why not remove licences from tax evaders?  I think we all know why not.

eburtthebike wrote:

Why not remove licences from tax evaders?  I think we all know why not.

The tax evaders can just pay someone to drive them around.  Losing their licence wouldn't affect them in the slightest.

Bigger impact on the tax evaders would be to stop them having right of free passage at borders: stop them being allowed to leave the country or allowed to come back in if they were overseas at the time.

mdavidford wrote:

...which is rather a change of tack from a couple of years ago, when they ended their previous partnership with Rouvy, and pulled all their routes and assets off and took them over to Fulgaz.

The staff at FulGaz got a shit sandwich in the deal. 

DC Rainmaker has made a very good summary of events here:
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2025/01/ironman-fulgaz-plenty.html

tl;dr

Events company buys virtual cycling platform in the middle of a global pandemic as a hedge because nobody is doing triathlons. 

Events company realises that running a software platform is harder than it looks, and triathletes are only interested in structured workouts by numbers.  

Events company sacks everyone working for said platform, hands over the assets to a rival established system. 

Events company tries to get key staff back when new owner finds they're needed to integrate the content and user base.

mitsky wrote:

It is not often that we read or hear the words...
(I don't ever remember it.)

"... was given a lifetime driving ban  ... "

According to BBC:

BBC wrote:

Gough was given a lifetime driving ban after also admitting causing serious injury while disqualified, dangerous driving and perverting the course of justice.

While the sentence is a (very rare) good start ... am I missing something here?  This seems pretty harsh given what we know the common sentencing is.

Driving while disqualified doesn't seem to be seen as particularly aggravating (on its own it seems to get "don't do it again, or we'll tell you not to again").

The driver was not said to be going faster than 70mph.  It seems they were barely twice the speed limit.

Plus there was no mention that they were obviously drunk and high, or that they bragged about this on social media.  In fact I'm a little surprised they were jailed - they didn't kill the victim, they were driving on the road not the footway or into a building... I believe other cases have covered some of those bases with lesser sentences.

(Of course a lifetime ban here is also likely futile given the odds of being caught - very low - the punishment for same - minimal - and the fact this man already ignored a ban.  The latter would be slightly ameliorated if only they might quickly get stopped and sent back to prison...)

A ban is no deterrent when the driver involved was already banned though...

Agreed, we have seen plenty of other examples of driving whilst already banned so it is clearly not a deterrent for some people.

But fingers crossed that this lifetime ban will have some effect as we can hope that if it does flout it then it will face more serious consequences...

Luckily a) it has to be proved it was you driving (obviously in Scotland you could just claim you have no memory of that!  Although I believe you can't simply dodge by saying you didn't know you were banned as this is an absolute offence - but I am not a lawyer).  And:

b) All the penalties seem to have the words "up to (certain penalty)" - which phrase clearly implies "zero" or "nothing" is an option!  AND there is the "hardship" defence!

Well the boss did say that they were on the side of the drivers (albeit while disguising himself in somewhat blue-ish clothes, if not purple).

I wouldn't say Labour have ever been particularly keen on active travel in my experience.  (Pity their road safety initiative from back when wasn't maintained though).  They might be a bit more keen on public transport?  Other than that my impression is generally it's more "it isn't fair that only the mill owner gets to have a car - tradesmen should be able to drive also!"

(Obviously there is a great deal of variation within political movements on such "minor" issues as transport, never mind active travel...)

"Thè issue is splitting our voters off to Greens and Remain and we'd like to put that cat back into the bag"

brooksby wrote:

There seem to be so many people who don't understand that the concept of the "15 minute city" is a good and aspirational thing: it's not the same as the bl00dy Warsaw Ghetto 

Apparently despite certain people decrying the "woke agenda" we need to "wake up" to the fact that this is "basically the same" and those who are keen on this are "literal nazis"?  Because the 3rd Reich or something - AND they had bicycle troops!  As well as ... er ... building autobahns?  And bringing us the Volkswagen (is that right)?  And ... making the trains run on time?

No, what we should be doing is asserting our independence and ensuring our future by ... er... importing lots of fuel (oil, gas, electricity) and motor vehicles ... er, and building a richer, fairer society by continuing to build our public spaces, housing, amenities, jobs and culture around only being able to access these by travelling 5+ miles (but sometimes a lot more) and doing so at 30mph+.  (But you have to get a lift if you're young, or have certain disabilities).

(Sign up now for our finance deal on a brand new w@**panzer and stick it to The Man!)

But anyway, it'll drive "growth" and bring in billions to our treasury (er...), as opposed to wasting money on providing for a few idiots' hobby [1] [2].

it's not the same as the bl00dy Warsaw Ghetto
To the average Tory hyper-junk press reader, being hindered in driving and parking where you like, when you like IS THE SAME as being in the Warsaw Ghetto!

Or even the original venetian ghetto.

Just like Police Scotland

I'm not seeing evidence it's having an effect, even if all police forces were taking an interest, and we know they all don't.

I probably get 2 per ride on average, and that's with a pass pixi displayed. 5 wouldn't be unusual if i counted similar equivalence to those car passes shared as they look fairly,sad to say, standard distance passes to me.

Had this last year. Driver took it to court, he didnt bother to turn up and the Magistrates spent more time talking about my swearing and what they considered my aggresive response to the close pass than the close pass itself. I readily admitted I was extremely upset since the car had been sitting behind me reving his engine for a good few minutes before the close pass (which was millimeters). They then admonished me for swearing - they also didnt like it when I asked what their reaction would have been if I had charged at them with a hammer in my hand. Driver was found not gulity. After the verdict it was then disclosed that the driver had had numerous runins with the police/other members of the public for speeding/careless driving/drink driving and was serving a ban already.

So from the above I learnt to delete the audio files when submitting claims and make no reaction / take no action if I am subjected to close passes (which is a least once on each journey of my commute from south london into the city).

Anybody who says there is a war on motorists is deluded. There is a war but its one that vunerable road users are casulties of

every day.