Journalism and cycling

check_six

Seth Brundle wrote: »

https://twitter.com/mickthehack/status/1226795303887671297?s=19

Well prevention is better than cure...

Or... maybe all the dodgy stuff you see people do on the roads every day is undetectable.

Or... you stop one dangerous driver and another three come up through the ranks to take their place. You could spend your whole time catching the minnows and you never get the big dogs, the boss drivers running the whole show.

The obvious answer is that the cops knew that Internal Affairs knew that they knew they were on to them. What next? Who knows?!

RobertFoster

Oh, 82 Roads Gardaí, not 82 roads Gardaí... I was wondering where these crime-free roads where.

p15574

Unbelievable that this driver could get away with claiming not to have been driving the vehicle - but still be done for not nominating the driver
https://twitter.com/roadcc/status/1226842618283380736?s=20

fat bloke

That's shocking above .

Just reading the journal article on a fatal RTA in Cork RIP. The headline is appalling, calling it a collision between a pedestrian and a truck:mad:.

I see at the bottom of the article as well, an increasingly common request from the Gardai - an appeal for any dashcam footage of the incident. - Were the Gardai not wholly against go-pro footage from cyclists and dashcams generally and the GDPR violations inherent in their usage?

Seth Brundle

fat bloke wrote: »

I see at the bottom of the article as well, an increasingly common request from the Gardai - an appeal for any dashcam footage of the incident. - Were the Gardai not wholly against go-pro footage from cyclists and dashcams generally and the GDPR violations inherent in their usage?

The Gardai were against publishing videos of alleged offences and used the nonsense about GDPR as their excuse.
They're not against people using cameras to record their journeys.

De Bhál

fat bloke wrote: »

That's shocking above .

Just reading the journal article on a fatal RTA in Cork RIP. The headline is appalling, calling it a collision between a pedestrian and a truck:mad:.
?

looks like a different headline to me - have they changed it yeah?
https://www.thejournal.ie/pedestrian-50s-killed-following-collision-with-truck-5002533-Feb2020/

mr spuckler

De Bhál wrote: »

looks like a different headline to me - have they changed it yeah?
https://www.thejournal.ie/pedestrian-50s-killed-following-collision-with-truck-5002533-Feb2020/

They've changed the headline but look at the link itself, still as per the original headline.

buffalo

fat bloke wrote: »

Just reading the journal article on a fatal RTA in Cork RIP. The headline is appalling, calling it a collision between a pedestrian and a truck:mad:.

I saw the same story on RTE and the IT, for comparison:

RTE: Pedestrian killed in Cork collision

IT: Woman dies after being hit by truck in Cork city

McGrath5

Good article on irishcycling.com about the state of cycling infrastructure in Dublin.

One part really stands out...

In an interview published yesterday, UK-based cycling journalist Carlton Reid said: “Dublin is like London 15 years ago — Dublin really hasn’t up its game. The amount of trucks and buses. You cannot keep depend on being a motor-dependent city” he said. “We [conference attendees] see this everyday and we’re all shocked.”

“I’m definitely shocked by how feral the roads are. Going from Temple Bar [to the Convention Centre], walking in the morning and cycling on the way back. It’s just awful — and you think: ‘how can they do this, how can they let it happen,” said Reid.

He added: “I’ve heard a few Dublin City Council people saying we cannot do much because we’ve got such narrow roads and then you look at the four lane highways on bridges. These are massive roads that you could put on a road diet.”

BrianHenryIE

McGrath5 wrote: »

UK-based cycling journalist Carlton Reid

He and another journalist, Laura Laker, did a good podcast of Velo City: https://virtualvelo-city.com/episodes/

AndrewJRenko

p15574 wrote: »

Unbelievable that this driver could get away with claiming not to have been driving the vehicle - but still be done for not nominating the driver

Does anyone know how Irish law works in these circumstances, if the registered owner refuses to nominate the driver?

AndrewJRenko

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Does anyone know how Irish law works in these circumstances, if the registered owner refuses to nominate the driver?

I was curious myself, I think this is the relevant section or most relevant I could find.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1961/act/24/section/107/enacted/en/html

(b) if the owner of the vehicle states that he was not actually using it at the material time, he shall give such information as he may be required by the member to give as to the identity of the person who was actually using it at that time and, if he fails to do so, shall be guilty of an offence unless he shows to the satisfaction of the court that he did not know and could not with reasonable diligence have ascertained who that person was,

Chips Lovell

McGrath5 wrote: »

In an interview published yesterday, UK-based cycling journalist Carlton Reid said: “Dublin is like London 15 years ago — Dublin really hasn’t up its game. The amount of trucks and buses. You cannot keep depend on being a motor-dependent city” he said. “We [conference attendees] see this everyday and we’re all shocked.”

And yet it seems that proportionally more people cycle in Dublin than in London Carlton. Twice as many if the stats are to be believed.

Chips Lovell

Chips Lovell wrote: »

And yet it seems that proportionally more people cycle in Dublin than in London Carlton. Twice as many if the stats are to be believed.

Maybe that's because London has a superior public transport system where as for Dublin for some it's either drive to work or cycle.

tomasrojo

I seem to remember that Carton Reid said that Dublin must be doing something right, because it does have many cyclists, and he also said that there was a reasonably diversity of cyclists -- I think he mentioned mothers cycling in front of buses -- whereas in London, you'd get mostly fit, young men on such cycling-unfriendly roads.

Something like that anyway.

Seth Brundle

Opinion: Cycling to work shouldn't feel like going to war but I still get flashbacks from being hit by car
Joan O’Connell is fighting for safer cycling conditions after she was knocked off her bike by a 1.5-tonne seven-seater car.

Stark

tomasrojo wrote: »

I seem to remember that Carton Reid said that Dublin must be doing something right, because it does have many cyclists, and he also said that there was a reasonably diversity of cyclists -- I think he mentioned mothers cycling in front of buses -- whereas in London, you'd get mostly fit, young men on such cycling-unfriendly roads.

Something like that anyway.

Or doing something wrong as in there's not much of a public transport alternative in Dublin for people not on a Luas/Dart line whereas in London you have vast underground and overground systems.

Duckjob

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Opinion: Cycling to work shouldn't feel like going to war but I still get flashbacks from being hit by car
Joan O’Connell is fighting for safer cycling conditions after she was knocked off her bike by a 1.5-tonne seven-seater car.

Surprisingly good article. Usual level of braindead comments.

Dr_Colossus

Seth Brundle wrote: »

Opinion: Cycling to work shouldn't feel like going to war but I still get flashbacks from being hit by car
Joan O’Connell is fighting for safer cycling conditions after she was knocked off her bike by a 1.5-tonne seven-seater car.

Driver prosecuted and convicted so obviously at fault for inflicting life changing injuries but only fined €250, says it all really.

Chips Lovell

tomasrojo wrote: »

I seem to remember that Carton Reid said that Dublin must be doing something right, because it does have many cyclists, and he also said that there was a reasonably diversity of cyclists -- I think he mentioned mothers cycling in front of buses -- whereas in London, you'd get mostly fit, young men on such cycling-unfriendly roads.

Something like that anyway.

My impression of cycling in London (and I realise that I'm doing the same thing I criticised Carlton for and giving you a purely subjective viewpoint) is that cyclists in London treat commuting as some sort of personal athletic achievement they're pleased to share with you, whereas people in Dublin tend to treat it as just going to work.

If that's the case, it's a bit odd, since they should be ahead of us. If I recall correctly, they had the bike to work scheme long before us, but they still seem to be trapped in that initial phase of captivation about getting all the gear.

We on the other hand, seem to have moved further on in the normalisation of cycling.

magicbastarder

from my very superficial experience (of not cycling in london), there can be a lot of very aggressive cyclists there. way more so than in dublin.

Type 17

Chips Lovell wrote: »

...If that's the case, it's a bit odd, since they should be ahead of us. If I recall correctly, they had the bike to work scheme long before us, but they still seem to be trapped in that initial phase of captivation about getting all the gear.

We on the other hand, seem to have moved further on in the normalisation of cycling.

London seems to attract more than the usual share of people with Type A personality, and many of them cycle... also noticeable when you meet them on the road in their BMW/Audi/Range Rover.

tomasrojo

Stark wrote: »

Or doing something wrong as in there's not much of a public transport alternative in Dublin for people not on a Luas/Dart line whereas in London you have vast underground and overground systems.

Yeah, fair point, though London's public transport does seem to be based mostly on buses. TfL has a graph that suggests twice as many journeys are taken by bus as by tube.

Dublin has plenty of buses, but they're not all that handy if you're not travelling to the city centre or returning from there. Which is where BusConnects comes in, I guess, but I'm not sure how far that's going to get.

Certainly, Dublin is so congested at peak times, cycling is the only reliable option for a lot of people.

I should say that I conflated two quotes anyway.

This one, not by Carlton Reid:

He said Dublin is “obviously doing something right, because there’s a lot of people on bikes.”

Lennart Nout, Dutch transport planner
https://irishcycle.com/2019/12/09/motor-traffic-around-dublins-river-liffey-quays-shocked-international-cycling-experts/

And this one, actually by Carlton Reid:

It’s amazing how many people are cycling here — there’s a very wide demographic of people cycling here, in front of buses. In London you’ll get the Mammals, the Lycra-clad guys, in front of a bus. But you would not get the mom on a bike in front of a bus, but here you do — that’s been surprising. The amount of cycling that goes on clearly shows there’s a huge demand.

https://irishcycle.com/2019/12/08/on-cycling-dublin-is-like-london-15-years-ago-dublin-really-hasnt-up-its-game/

Seth Brundle

New €2.5 million Dublin greenway still being hit with bad flooding

Seth Brundle

Biker gets on his blue velomobile for 600km charity cycle
Trip from Malin Head to Mizen Head will raise funds to help people with sight loss

MediaMan

Duckjob wrote: »

Surprisingly good article. Usual level of braindead comments.

Very well written and clearly very traumatic for her.

Why someone would comment under an article like that to bring up a point about cyclists breaking lights beggars belief. I would love to hear them explain their thought process.

Thinkingaboutit

MediaMan wrote: »

Very well written and clearly very traumatic for her.

Why someone would comment under an article like that to bring up a point about cyclists breaking lights beggars belief. I would love to hear them explain their thought process.

Given some of the comments 'thought process' is not likely factor for many of those commenters, except maybe some sort of simple Pavlovian reflexive reaction thing going on.

magicbastarder

Key Dublin cycle route delayed until autumn 2022
Construction on the Clontarf Cycle Route, one of Dublin’s key cycling projects, has been delayed by 19 months and is not expected to finish until autumn 2022.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/key-dublin-cycle-route-delayed-until-autumn-2022-w3bf65bg0

AndrewJRenko

Thinkingaboutit wrote: »

Given some of the comments 'thought process' is not likely factor for many of those commenters, except maybe some sort of simple Pavlovian reflexive reaction thing going on.

I think you are on to something here about the Pavlovian reaction.


There are some 'frequent flyer' commenters (I'm look at you, Jim and Gary) who are among the first to jump in on any cyclist related article with a tired old cliche.


And then there are the others, the lads who respond with the same cliched joke in any given scenario, who can't wait to jump in with the 'red lights' or 'road tax' or 'helmets and hi-vis' answer, and seem utterly amazed that anyone else would point out that they're basically talking sh1te.

Duckjob

magicbastarder wrote: »

Key Dublin cycle route delayed until autumn 2022
Construction on the Clontarf Cycle Route, one of Dublin’s key cycling projects, has been delayed by 19 months and is not expected to finish until autumn 2022.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/key-dublin-cycle-route-delayed-until-autumn-2022-w3bf65bg0

Hmmmm.... We've got a dual carraigeway running along the whole route from Clontarf to town feeding masses of motorised traffic into a small city centre which is in constant gridlock. I wonder what on earth could be done with that???

Should we take a quick look around at how the rest of Europe is dealing with motorised traffic in their cities ?

Nah, too complex. Let's just stick our fingers in our ears and go la la la la la la for another couple of years. Maybe the physics fairy will visit us in the meantime to bestow us some special powers to cram more motorised living rooms into the same little space.