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Is 2 euro a litre going to matter?

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 2,200 ✭✭✭manwithaplan


    Yes there is a thing called Smeeds Law that shows road deaths falling as a given country's level of motorisation increases. It appears to apply accross many countries - some countries have managed to do this and also maintain levels of walking and cycling (eg the Netherlands). Others have simply followed the expedient of allowing these modes to largely die out other than in city centres (the UK and Irl)

    Does Smeed's law have no application in reverse? It appears inconsistent to me to talk about fuel prices and unemployment rates (essentially proxies for lower usage) as being the key explanation for reductions in road deaths while discounting higher usage being responsible, all other things being equal, for increases.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,735 ✭✭✭✭tomasrojo


    Does Smeed's law have no application in reverse? It appears inconsistent to me to talk about fuel prices and unemployment rates (essentially proxies for lower usage) as being the key explanation for reductions in road deaths while discounting higher usage being responsible, all other things being equal, for increases.
    I think the lower number of HGVs in a recession may be germane.

    I also have a feeling that Smeed's Rule of Thumb might have been a better name.

    EDIT: the apparent paradox is discussed here.
    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056306431&page=4
    I have no expertise, and have nothing to add.


  • Registered Users Posts: 454 ✭✭le petit braquet


    doozerie wrote: »
    cycling-with-a-trailer hippy-ism is perhaps a kaftan too far :)

    Not until Assos market a bib kaftan with suitable padding:D


  • Registered Users Posts: 4,830 ✭✭✭doozerie


    tomasrojo wrote:
    Mind you, that was years ago. I think cycling is a little more, eh, fashionable now.

    I do think there is an element of cycling being fashionable at the moment, which possibly doesn't do it any favours as fashions are so transitory and seen as being a bit whimsical. I wonder how many people basically see cycling as something that people dabble in until they find some other distraction. Slightly derisory phrases like "Middle Aged Men In Lycra", which paints a picture of deluded men exploring something that is somehow comical or unsuitable, seem to have become part of the standard vocabulary of some media commentators when talking about cycling.

    I'm not sure what is needed in order for cycling to be taken "seriously", to the extent that, for example, people stop staring in wonderment at the likes of a child trailer attached to the back of a bicycle, but we seem a long way off from that yet.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,735 ✭✭✭✭tomasrojo


    Yes, I think I must get questions or comments about the goods trailer every time I use it. Almost all positive, it has to be said, with quite a few people asking where I got it.

    EDIT: But they, or the silent majority, may well think I'm mental.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,830 ✭✭✭doozerie


    Similarly, my wife has had several people say very positive things about our child trailer when she has been towing it, and I've encountered such reactions myself too on occasion. The general response has been that child trailers are great things, but on the other hand some of those same people have said that they wouldn't use one themselves despite seeing the clear benefits.

    Surprisingly, some elderly women have told my wife that they wished child trailers had existed in their day. I guess it's easy to assume that the older generation are more conservative but it's clearly not always the case.


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,735 ✭✭✭✭tomasrojo


    Incidentally, doozerie, you'll notice in the photo the very kickstand you recommended to me. It's been a blessing; never again will my main bike not have a stand. Thanks for that.


  • Registered Users Posts: 14,229 ✭✭✭✭ednwireland


    tomasrojo wrote: »
    I have sunk that low.

    195632.gif


  • Registered Users Posts: 9,238 ✭✭✭Ardennes1944


    i was in the netherlands for a week last week and seeing the infrastructure they have there for cycling is amazing. i always expected a lot of bikes but it is crazy! wherever i saw a road for cars there was a cycling path on both sides next to it. people use their bikes for everything there. about 15% id say have people sitting on the back no problem at all. it was cold enough when i was there and it was nice to see streams of people coming home from work on their bikes, both hands in the pockets trying to keep warm.
    people carrying big and weighty things in one hand and steering with the other during rush hour, the dutch have done things so well in this regard.
    its just the mentality they have there. 75+ year olds cycling everywhere on there bikes is not something you see here often


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,245 ✭✭✭check_six


    doozerie wrote: »
    Incidentally, some individuals at client sites saw my cycling as being a positive thing but their corporate culture didn't so even if they themselves saw it as a viable alternative for themselves their employer essentially seemed to discourage it. Image, apparently, is more important than many other factors. In my current job the philosophy is very different and many people commute by bike, but in my experience this is the exception.

    I used to work for a crowd that seemed to go out of their way to give me hassle about cycling to work. Well maybe not the cycling to work, but the locking of my bike outside my place of work. I would do some night shift work and whenever we be on of an evening the underground carpark would be shut before we got in. Okay, so I tie the bike to a railing out side the office. My co-workers who drove cars would be in a similar situation and they would park in a visitor spot outside the front door of the building.

    So far so good, but one day they start 'clamping' my bike with a u-lock, so I stagger out of the building after an 11 or 12 hour nightshift to see my bike stuck.

    Many arguments ensued. The car drivers could park wherever the hell they liked because 'where else could they park, they've got a car?' and I got clamped every bloody morning. I'd end up having the same stupid conversation with the same grinning security goon every day I did the night shift. I was causing a serious blockage apparently (locking the bike to a decorative railing in nobodies way). I did have it clarified to me that if I could park in the visitor bays outside the front door in a car shaped and sized cardboard box that would be fine, just don't lock to the railing. :confused:

    They felt that a lone cyclist was 'weird' enough to victimise in this way. Very disappointing.


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  • Registered Users Posts: 4,830 ✭✭✭doozerie


    I was in the head office of SEAI (Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, in Wilton Park House) a couple of months back and if I remember rightly there were signs up discouraging locking bikes outside the building. If there was a likelihood of bicycles causing an obstruction then that would be understandable but the route from the road to the building doorways is a wide brick-work thoroughfare (including a ramp, for motorised vehicles I assume) so a bike being an obstruction seems highly unlikely. Presumably bicycles are deemed unsightly, and somehow not in keeping with professional offices, in this case the offices of an organisation that champions environmental awareness and responsibility.

    I checked with the person on reception who reckoned that I'd be fine just locking the bike to one of the several public signposts outside, which is what I did. In fairness to the SEAI they may not be the ones responsible for the various signs and restrictions, there may be a management company that imposes those restrictions, but it does demonstrate yet again the skewed view of cycling being something that you shouldn't really be seen doing.


  • Registered Users Posts: 209 ✭✭dancecatz2000


    €2 a ltr will be a pain in the ass, im living in an area were there`s no public transport, nearest train station is 10klm away, its a 30 odd klm commute to work each way, when i drive with a light foot on the acceleration it costs me avg €8 a day(,i drive leave the car an cycle the last 5klm) cann`t sell the car cause the way market is i wont get anything for it,


  • Registered Users Posts: 6,440 ✭✭✭cdaly_


    nearest train station is 10klm away,
    its a 30 odd klm commute to work each way,

    There you are, sorted.

    A nice 10k spin to the train in the morning to wake you up. Then a 30k evening spin on the way home to stretch the legs and get all your exercise done...





    Or you could leave the bike at the railway station for a 10k spin home...


  • Registered Users Posts: 209 ✭✭dancecatz2000


    id love to do that but you cannt bring your bike on in rush hour,


  • Registered Users Posts: 324 ✭✭cranks


    I think it will mean some sort of change in driving habits. It costs me about €80 to fill the tank at around €1.55 or so per litre at the moment. Stick that up to €2 a litre and it's going to cost well over €100. It amounts to the same thing but I think that notional amount will mean more to people than it being €2/l.

    Whether it moves people to bikes, that remains to be seen.

    Does anybody know, offhand, the average distance that people live from work?

    strangely enough I came across article yesterday (no idea now where it was) that estimated 17km to be the AVERAGE commute. I think it was a U.S., New York study so take it for what it is. I'd be interested in Ireland/Dublin figures.
    Personally, I drive 60km to and from work (120 total per day).

    As ever, 'average' is limited in what it tells us. Mode and median too would be more enlightening but there you go.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 1,268 ✭✭✭irishmotorist


    cranks wrote: »
    strangely enough I came across article yesterday (no idea now where it was) that estimated 17km to be the AVERAGE commute. I think it was a U.S., New York study so take it for what it is. I'd be interested in Ireland/Dublin figures.
    Personally, I drive 60km to and from work (120 total per day).

    As ever, 'average' is limited in what it tells us. Mode and median too would be more enlightening but there you go.

    I had a quick look but couldn't see the info immediately. Blorg, however, replied with much more useful search results...quoted below.
    blorg wrote: »
    The average is quite high: 15.82km

    However this figure is distorted somewhat by people with extremely long commutes; the mean is lower.

    49% of all workers have commutes of 0-9km, which seems a reasonable distance to cycle. Half of all commuters is a lot.

    In towns and cities this is a lot higher: 58% have 0-9km commutes. In rural areas commutes are longer; there 35% commute 0-9km.

    Children also have much shorter distances to school on average.

    Source: CSO Census 2006

    http://census.cso.ie/Census/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=76541

    http://census.cso.ie/Census/TableViewer/tableView.aspx?ReportId=76593


  • Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators Posts: 14,071 Mod ✭✭✭✭monument


    Detailed travel data for the Greater Dublin Area (GDA)... http://dublinobserver.com/2011/03/dublin-data-blog-how-when-and-where-travel/

    To put it in context: The GDA accounts for nearly 40% of the population of Ireland. Inside Co Dublin alone accounts for 30% of the population of the whole country in I think about 1% of the landmass, and the vast bulk of that again is inside the M50.


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