Cycling body objects to new stamp design--Is this for real?

Macy0161

Roadhawk wrote: »

Would still be a difference to all road users to have a hi vis.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0183/7587/files/Hi_Vis_Cyclists.jpg

You're not seeing hi-viz, you're seeing bloody reflective strips/ detail (with a flash camera, not headlights, in an urban setting). Reflective strips/ detail don't have to be attached to a builders jacket to be effective! That photo would show the same results with an old style reflective browne belt.

2RockMountain

SeanW wrote: »

No. If you had read my post above you would know that I expect cyclists to only:

1. Obey the law.
2. Cycle defensively.
3. Make sure you're properly visible, taking into account the time of day, your intended route etc.

If you can't manage that, sell the bike and get a bus pass because you are going to cause an accident.

But interesting that you put the emphasis on cyclists to 'make themselves visible' rather than motorists to expect the unexpected - slight bias perhaps?

buffalo

SeanW wrote: »

No. If you had read my post above you would know that I expect cyclists to only:

1. Obey the law.
2. Cycle defensively.
3. Make sure you're properly visible, taking into account the time of day, your intended route etc.

If you can't manage that, sell the bike and get a bus pass because you are going to cause an accident.

So by point 3, I need to not be invisible? Well I haven't managed to break the laws of physics yet, so I'm okay for that one at least!

07Lapierre

Even the RSA are at it!

CI should really lodge a complaint about this video..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFg5XptHvY

compare it to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmz73jS1AOc

No Hi-vis

07Lapierre

07Lapierre wrote: »

Even the RSA are at it!

CI should really lodge a complaint about this video..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFg5XptHvY

compare it to this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmz73jS1AOc

No Hi-vis

I like the way the SF video starts with pedestrians and politeness (people rolling forward into pedestrian crossings is a bugbear of mine!)

At the risk of colossal thread derailment the RSA really should know that red lights do NOT exist 'for the safety of all road users' - they exist to manage traffic flow in areas of high traffic density. That is, incidentally, the reason that in many cases it doesn't matter a damn if cyclists and pedestrians ignore them. But that's another argument for another day.

magicbastarder

07Lapierre wrote: »

CI should really lodge a complaint about this video..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKFg5XptHvY

one of the main issues i'd have about this video is that no-one is going to watch the damn thing, certainly not the people they would regard as repeat offenders.

Roadhawk

magicbastarder wrote: »

one of the main issues i'd have about this video is that no-one is going to watch the damn thing, certainly not the people they would regard as repeat offenders.

I think you are right, even though both of these videos outline the main issues, repeat offenders will still carry on doing what they see fit.

Carawaystick

magicbastarder wrote: »

one of the main issues i'd have about this video is that no-one is going to watch the damn thing, certainly not the people they would regard as repeat offenders.

One of the main issues I'd have is the fact it's represented that you need any special clothing to cycle at all.
See in Netherlands
https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/amsterdam.jpg?w=547&h=311
or even
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/73/ff/cd/73ffcd65866a5a88a2630799a45f2ed8.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/cf/e7/da/cfe7da60dd4ce15615cdc30d8378ddaf.jpg

Roadhawk

Carawaystick wrote: »

One of the main issues I'd have is the fact it's represented that you need any special clothing to cycle at all.
See in Netherlands
https://bicycledutch.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/amsterdam.jpg?w=547&h=311
or even
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/73/ff/cd/73ffcd65866a5a88a2630799a45f2ed8.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/cf/e7/da/cfe7da60dd4ce15615cdc30d8378ddaf.jpg

I would still rather see:
https://www.google.ie/search?q=hi+vis+at+night&rlz=1C1VFKB_enIE663IE663&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjC5uCVs5bOAhXrB8AKHVVZAYgQ_AUICCgB&biw=1125&bih=498#imgrc=Wo_-I989q7bRJM%3A

Carawaystick

seems to be no dangerization on the stamps yay!
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2016/07/28/pimp-my-stamps/

Roadhawk

Carawaystick wrote: »

seems to be no dangerization on the stamps yay!
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2016/07/28/pimp-my-stamps/

HAHA brilliant. Made my day

07Lapierre

Carawaystick wrote: »

seems to be no dangerization on the stamps yay!
http://www.broadsheet.ie/2016/07/28/pimp-my-stamps/

Ah crap!..now what are we going to give out about! :P

magicbastarder

That surfer is not wearing safety gear. And is dressed all in black. Maybe that's where the attraction is, living close to the edge.

Roadhawk

07Lapierre wrote: »

Ah crap!..now what are we going to give out about! :P

Look, im sure you will find something.

• Maintenance of Cycle lanes,
• to wear a Hi-Vis or not to wear a Hi-Vis (that is the question)
• wanting to be allowed to travel both ways on a one way street
• Pedestrians stepping out infront of cylists
• Taxis and other vehicles pulling into a cycle lane
• wanting to turn left on a red light???
• wanting new cycle lanes
• Helmets? dont mention the helmets
• Why cant we...as they do in the Netherlands
• Why cant we...as they do in the Copenhagen
• Should there be a cyclist license
• Should bicycles have a registration
• Should there be some sort of a theory test
• Overtaking space by vehicles

Roadhawk

magicbastarder wrote: »

That surfer is not wearing safety gear. And is dressed all in black. Maybe that's where the attraction is, living close to the edge.

If he had a hi vis a shark might see him

galwaycyclist

Roadhawk wrote: »

Yeah, trust the word of the RSA and Gardai who are there to assist with safety.

Hmm I am afraid that I don't accept that characterisation of the Gardai.

In my view if the Garda Siochana were assisting with safety then we would be seeing a large and generalised increase in walking and cycling - including among schoolchildren.

In my view it is better to describe the Garda Siochana as trying to maintain the status quo or maintain the current levels of road danger experienced by the public.

The classic example of this is the limiting of the new speed vans to places where there have already been deaths. The flip side of this approach is that the Guards are effectively saying they don't have a problem with unlawful or dangerous driving as such. It seems they only have a problem with it if it actually results in deaths.

Morally it is equivalent to the Guards saying it is ok to go around waving a loaded gun at people - provided the thing doesn't actually go off then there's no problem.

Killing other people is bad - but for the Guards putting people in fear for their lives and their safety is apparently ok as long as you use a car to do it.

magicbastarder

when cycling safety enforcement goes bananas:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2016/jul/28/roundabout-arguments-cant-disguise-sydneys-cycling-laws-are-taking-the-public-for-a-ride

(lifted from the cycling forum)

Macy0161

Re: The RSA and Gardai and safety - I'm going to repeat again, every Autumn they hand out lights to cyclists that I'd barely use as secondary lights!

plodder

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Hmm I am afraid that I don't accept that characterisation of the Gardai.

In my view if the Garda Siochana were assisting with safety then we would be seeing a large and generalised increase in walking and cycling - including among schoolchildren.

How on earth are the gardai supposed to deliver that?

In my view it is better to describe the Garda Siochana as trying to maintain the status quo or maintain the current levels of road danger experienced by the public.

The classic example of this is the limiting of the new speed vans to places where there have already been deaths. The flip side of this approach is that the Guards are effectively saying they don't have a problem with unlawful or dangerous driving as such. It seems they only have a problem with it if it actually results in deaths.

I don't know how you can say that. Limiting the use of speed vans to specific places may be wrong but it is motivated by a desire to achieve acceptance rather than "saying they don't have a problem with unlawful or dangerous driving as such". When you look at what has happened with some vans being attacked/burnt out, they were absolutely right imo to do that (initially at least). And that's before you consider that places where fatalities have occurred might be more likely to have them again.

Morally it is equivalent to the Guards saying it is ok to go around waving a loaded gun at people - provided the thing doesn't actually go off then there's no problem.

Killing other people is bad - but for the Guards putting people in fear for their lives and their safety is apparently ok as long as you use a car to do it.

Seriously, I think cyclists need to choose their battles wisely.

galwaycyclist

plodder wrote: »

How on earth are the gardai supposed to deliver that?

By enforcing the speed limits for a start. There is a generalised and obvious flouting of the 50kmh limit in urban areas.

Parking on footpaths on main roads is also rampant.

There are also obvious car frenzies around schools at drop off times that the Guards could quite lawfully and properly intervene to prevent.

It is not rocket science it just needs a police force that see themselves as there to serve the whole community rather than keep the car lobby happy.

Macy0161

galwaycyclist wrote: »

There are also obvious car frenzies around schools at drop off times that the Guards could quite lawfully and properly intervene to prevent.

And Churches/ Places of Worship - religion seems to give you absolution from road traffic laws!

galwaycyclist

plodder wrote: »

How on earth are the gardai supposed to deliver that?

I should also point out that under the Roads Acts the Garda Siochana are consulted by roads authority on roads schemes.

If you dig into many of the road designs around our towns that are hostile to cyclists and pedestrians you will find that some senior Garda superindant signed off on it on behalf of the Garda commissioner.

The Garda Siochana are intimately and directly connected to the creation of hostile road conditions for vulnerable road users and they then compound the problem by declining to make the most token efforts to enforce the law.

2RockMountain

plodder wrote: »

How on earth are the gardai supposed to deliver that?

Addressing illegal parking around schools and in cycle lanes would be a good start.

galwaycyclist

plodder wrote: »

Seriously, I think cyclists need to choose their battles wisely.

Sometimes you don't get to choose.

Sometimes you have to point at the elephant hiding behind the sofa and say "look everyone there's an elephant in the room!"

radia

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Sometimes you have to point at the elephant hiding behind the sofa

Sounds like a case for the RoadSofaAuthority.

magicbastarder

2RockMountain wrote: »

Addressing illegal parking around schools and in cycle lanes would be a good start.

i see this as a more complex issue - speaking as someone who lives on a busy road just down from a school. the issue is more around how safe parents feel in sending their kids off to school on foot. there's certainly nowhere else for people to park in the local school when they're picking kids up, so penalising all those parents would cause havoc.

endagibson

magicbastarder wrote: »

i see this as a more complex issue - speaking as someone who lives on a busy road just down from a school. the issue is more around how safe parents feel in sending their kids off to school on foot. there's certainly nowhere else for people to park in the local school when they're picking kids up, so penalising all those parents would cause havoc.

So if they can't park, maybe they won't drive to the school so much, therefore there are less cars around the school, therefore the school has less traffic around, therefore it's safer for the kids to walk in the first place.

magicbastarder

thankfully, i'm just far enough away that i've only ever had to deal with someone parking across the end of my driveway once, but as there's an on-road bike lane and bus lane, as well as two traffic lanes, it's not a big issue. not the most egregious example of drivers hogging the bike lane, as there's plenty of room.

speaking of how kids get to school, i was asking an extended family member, who is in secondary school in dublin - admittedly one very badly off in terms of access (mountsackville) - how many pupils cycle to school. she was aware of one person who cycles. when i was in secondary school, cycling was almost exclusively used by pupils who lived more than half a mile, and less than about three miles, from the school.

2RockMountain

SeanW wrote: »

Err, if you read my posts I stated very clearly that motorists should try to do this, but "expecting the unexpected" is by definition an impossibility - if you expect something, it is no longer unexpected.

You might have missed my subtle change from "unexpected" to "unexpected" - pointing that indeed, it really isn't 'unexpected' to find a cyclists or pedestrian or tractor or horse or broken down car on any road. These will be on any road, any time, and are not unexpected. Drivers need to be prepared to deal with these, not come up with excuses why they were driving too fast for the road conditions.

SeanW wrote: »

Bastard! It sounds like you want the system set up so that it works for everyone? You awful person you.

I remember discussing this very issue with another group of cyclists. A year or so back, one of the "two wheels good, four wheels bad" brigade was rabbitting on about some school in Galway where all the parents were illegally parking to wait for their children. He/She even posted a picture. What jumped out at me very quickly as soon as I saw the picture was that, while there was illegal parking and it was causing some problems, the road had waste ground on both sides of it. Simple solution I thought, would be to widen the road to provide legal parking. Win-win for everyone right? But I figured the cycling brigade would have a problem with the idea and I said as much in my reply, sure enough that's exactly what happened. There is simply no room in a cyclists world for "make things work for everyone" becuase many of them are totally incapable of thinking about any transport problem in any terms other than "two wheels good, for whees bad".

There's that slight bias again, probably arising decades of car-centric policies and public discourse. The only solution you can envisage is dedicating more and more public space for storage of private property. How about taking that waste ground and using it to provide a decent segregated cycle lane so the kids (with parents, while they're young at least) can get themselves to school, get some fresh air and exercise, reduce their contribution to global warming and our obesity crisis as an alternative?

SeanW

magicbastarder wrote: »

great way to be taken seriously.

An accurate description of most cyclists attitude to lawbreaking.

2RockMountain wrote: »

You might have missed my subtle change from "unexpected" to "unexpected" - pointing that indeed, it really isn't 'unexpected' to find a cyclists or pedestrian or tractor or horse or broken down car on any road. These will be on any road, any time, and are not unexpected. Drivers need to be prepared to deal with these, not come up with excuses why they were driving too fast for the road conditions.

All hazards are expected to have some kind of visibility marking - all of them. Visibility is so key that transport regulators now require new cars to have "Daytime running lights" because visbility is so important. Everything you've mentioned above is covered, even the horses! Go to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania, the Amish use warning triangles and red lanterns on their buggies. Because visibility is key to road safety. So, to review:

1. Automakers and transport regulators consider visbility so important they ordered that all new cars run headlamps during the day time hours.
2. This is in addition to a whole array of other lights required to provide visbility and information to other road users. Tail lights, brake lights, indicator lights etc.
3. Breakdowns are included, hazard warning lights provide visibility and unvisersally understood distress information to other road users.
4. Even the Amish who can't drive cars or use electricity, put warning triangles and red lanterns on the back of their buggies. Why? Visbility!

In short, almost everyone accepts and understands the need for road users to be visible. If you do not understand the need to be visible, get off the road because you are going to cause an accident.


Secondly as to the point, most motorists will try to expect what dangers they may forsee, but the unusual may be "the unexpected" because ALL people - which by definition includes motorists - have mental blind spots. To recognise something, a person must both visually see and then mentally percieve something in order to do anything about it. And all people, every day, miss things because they see, but do not percieve things, usually but not always because the missed things are unimportant. Again, this happens to all people, in all contexts, every day.

While this should not dissuade anyone from doing anything, including cycling down some rural road at midnight where no-one expects cyclists, it does mean that you should pay extra attention to visibility so that even a motorist not expecting you can see that "something is up".

If you are not capable of understanding this, again, get off the road before you cause an accident.

There's that slight bias again, probably arising decades of car-centric policies and public discourse. The only solution you can envisage is dedicating more and more public space for storage of private property. How about taking that waste ground and using it to provide a decent segregated cycle lane so the kids (with parents, while they're young at least) can get themselves to school, get some fresh air and exercise, reduce their contribution to global warming and our obesity crisis as an alternative?

This is a fundamental misrepresentation of what I said. To make this absolutely clear:

1. The road in question did have footpaths and cycle lanes, but the illegally parking motorists were blocking the cycle lanes.
2. AT NO TIME DID I SUGGEST EXCLUDING ANYONE. You'll note I summarised with "widen the road to provide legal parking" not "replace the cycle lanes with legal parking. Again, let's be clear: I suggested a solution that included everyone.
3. The only people who were suggesting that any group be excluded were the cyclists.

And yes, I knew exactly how my post was going to be responded to, both in that thread and my reference to it here, because of my experience dealing with cyclists.

Read the exchange for yourself: this thread starting at post 99 (well, the poster I was replying to was a few posts further back, obviously). http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=88527444