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Cycling on paths and other cycling issues (updated title)

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Comments

  • #2702
    SeanW
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,394 ✭✭✭SeanW


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    I'd guess the families of the forty-ish pedestrians killed by Irish motorists last year might have a different view. Should they not wear helmets too?
    Well this is a lie. Actually two lies in one.

    The number of pedestrians who died on Irish roads/streets last year was 27, not "forty-ish". Now, normally when someone mis-states statistics like this, a certain "benefit of the doubt" is warranted, but in your case, I don't think so.

    https://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/RSA-Statistics/Deaths-injuries-on-Irish-roads/

    And your claim that those pedestrians were "killed by Irish motorists" is also a lie because it ignores pedestrian culpability in those cases. RSA research suggests that pedestrian actions or negligence may be the deciding factor in 70% of fatalities.

    https://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Fatal%20Collision%20Stats/Analysis_of_road_user_groups/Pedestrian%20fatalities%20on%20Irish%20Roads%202008%20to%202015.pdf

    Also from that research, a maximum of 2% of drivers involved in pedestrian fatality accidents hit-and-run so your claim in other posts of motorists "not taking responsibility for their tonnes of metal" is also a lie.

    As to whether pedestrians should wear helmets, the data suggests that having an ounce of cop on is enough to lower an already infinitesimally low risk to even lower. Assuming the 70% figure is correct for 2019, then that means about 8 pedestrians died in accidents that were not their fault, and further that all motorists involved were punished in accordance with law because at most 2% hit and run. So ... (8/5,000,00)*100 = a fatality risk of 0.00016% for 2019. If we further assume that helmets would not have helped in some of those cases, the case gets even weaker. So ... no. Pedestrians don't need helmets. Just an ounce of cop-on.

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  • #2703
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 52,485 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    i'm not disputing the 70% figure for culpability, cos i haven't any good reason to, but it's a bit of a gap in a report like that there's no explanation at all on how culpability is judged, bar
    "The culpability of the parties involved in pedestrian fatalities was based on the body of work completed using the Garda Investigation Files (2008-2012)."
    do they mean those files actually contain a judgement of culpability by the investigating garda? or does the researcher make that call based on the garda case notes?

    having seen some reports of high profile cases, i'd question the results of the gardai's investigations in some of those cases. whether correcting this would push the figures up or down, is obviously a guessing game too.


  • #2704
    TaurenDruid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,266 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    PeadarCo wrote: »
    The Fairview cycle lane through the Park is a bit of joke. All it is is a bit of paint on the ground.

    Yes. And in the vast majority of cases, all any traffic lane is, is a bit of paint on the ground.

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  • #2705
    SeanW
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,394 ✭✭✭SeanW


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    i'm not disputing the 70% figure for culpability, cos i haven't any good reason to, but it's a bit of a gap in a report like that there's no explanation at all on how culpability is judged, bar
    "The culpability of the parties involved in pedestrian fatalities was based on the body of work completed using the Garda Investigation Files (2008-2012)."
    do they mean those files actually contain a judgement of culpability by the investigating garda? or does the researcher make that call based on the garda case notes?

    having seen some reports of high profile cases, i'd question the results of the gardai's investigations in some of those cases. whether correcting this would push the figures up or down, is obviously a guessing game too.
    IIRC they went by death certificates, and there was some missing data during the study period, so the figure might not be exactly 70%. But it's probably not far off. And it does underscore one point - not every pedestrian fatality where a motorist is involved is a case of "Irish drivers killing pedestrians". In fact, such cases are probably the minority. But cases of "motorists not taking responsibility for their tonnes of metal" that most certainly is the minority, and by a very, very wide margin.

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  • #2706
    PeadarCo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,027 ✭✭✭PeadarCo


    TaurenDruid wrote: »
    Yes. And in the vast majority of cases, all any traffic lane is, is a bit of paint on the ground.

    Ah this getting ridiculous. Traffic lanes aren't bits of paint on the road. Most Irish back roads don't even have paint.

    If you ever been to Ireland or pretty much any country aside from the poorest countries you'll see the design of footpaths and roads are very different. They are made of different materials and have different regulations ie a road has to be at least the width of most road going vehicles. With footpaths on the other hand don't have a standard width for a whole host of reasons. And that's just the start of the differences.

    So I'll ask again why do you have an issue with people cycling on footpaths? You obviously don't think it is dangerous otherwise you would be giving out about the cycle lane going through Fairview Park. That lane is a relabled footpath that still has all the potential issues of cycling on a normal footpath.


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  • #2707
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 52,485 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    TaurenDruid wrote: »
    Yes. And in the vast majority of cases, all any traffic lane is, is a bit of paint on the ground.
    True, that.

    https://twitter.com/LkCycleDesign/status/1286320588911501312


  • #2708
    liamog
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Regional East Moderators Posts: 8,264 Mod ✭✭✭✭liamog


    Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of contraflow cycle lanes, but normally that means on a one way road, not just the other direction.


  • #2709
    Spook_ie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,896 ✭✭✭✭Spook_ie


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    True, that.

    https://twitter.com/LkCycleDesign/status/1286320588911501312

    Well I suppose that they could move the temporary dividers onto the cycle lane ( that would seem to be aimed at eventually tying in with the no right turn except cyclists at the bridge ) but then you'd just have Twitter going mad about blocking cycle lanes with temporary plastic bollards.


  • #2710
    Duckjob
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,860 ✭✭✭Duckjob


    To those complaining about cyclists that don't use bits of cycle path and how they are "holding up traffic"...

    Lets take the Nth Strand one as an example, since it was brought up by those complaining, and break down some stats a little-

    There's a nice flat stretch just before the uphill to the lights where the cycle path starts. I would normally hit the start of the uphill there at 30-35kph and might just under 30kph at the top (assuming lights are green),. That's a (conservative) average of 30kph in that uphill stretch. I'm far from a top cyclist so I would say thats a fairly reasonable speed for the type of commuting cyclist that posts on here.

    Imagine one such cyclist coming to the start of that cycle path who decides to stay on the road, and averages 30kph on that stretch with a bus behind them.

    Current speed limit on that stretch is 50kph (I would argue 50kph for a double decker bus going up that hill with a wall on one side and a line of cars on the other would be pretty inappropriate speed, but let's discount that and just go with the current legal limit).


    100m @ 30kph = 12 seconds
    100m @ 50kph = 7.2 seconds

    Assuming a worse case scenario where the bus is stuck behind the whole length of the 100m, and the lights are green at the top, that's a difference of 4.8 seconds.

    4.8 seconds ! Really lads? Really?

    And now here's the bonus part....

    Consider that if the bus was following behind the bike, and the bike was doing 30kph-35kph, the cyclist would need to slow down by at least 10-15 kph in order to safely enter the cycle path (with an 18 tonne vehicle approaching from behind - sounds delightfully safe).

    ...so the bus would also have to slow by the same amount, and then accelerate again after the cyclist was clear in the cycle path. By the time the bus has accelerated back up to speed, it could well have lost more than 4.8 seconds.

    So all in all, where faster cyclists are concerned, there's an excellent chance those cyclists going into the cycle path will actually slow buses more than if the cyclist remained in the bus lane, as well as being:-

    - slower for the cyclist
    - less pleasant for the cyclist (uneven surface, pedestrians, parked vehicles)
    - more dangerous for the cyclist (slowing down with an 18 tonne vehicle right behind you)


    Finally, it's 100 metres .... Why on earth would anyone in their right minds take a) more inconvenience and b) more danger to turn off the main road for 100 metres, only to have to stop and ask to get back on ? If it were a 2 or 3 km cycle track fair enough,. Hell even 1km of a half decent cycle track would have me sold to be away from traffic for a bit, but 100 meters ?


  • #2711
    namloc1980
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,449 ✭✭✭✭namloc1980


    .


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  • #2712
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,834 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    TaurenDruid wrote: »
    My cake is very big and can have many slices.

    I'm sure it's a very nice cake, though it is finite.

    So every slice of cake focused on cyclists on footpaths is a slice of cake not focused on reducing the death toll on the roads.

    Likewise, our legislative resources, our research resources and our enforcement resources are finite.


  • #2713
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,834 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    SeanW wrote: »

    As to whether pedestrians should wear helmets, the data suggests that having an ounce of cop on is enough to lower an already infinitesimally low risk to even lower. Assuming the 70% figure is correct for 2019, then that means about 8 pedestrians died in accidents that were not their fault, and further that all motorists involved were punished in accordance with law because at most 2% hit and run. So ... (8/5,000,00)*100 = a fatality risk of 0.00016% for 2019. If we further assume that helmets would not have helped in some of those cases, the case gets even weaker. So ... no. Pedestrians don't need helmets. Just an ounce of cop-on.

    Try the same calculation for cyclists and let us know how it works out please.


  • #2714
    07Lapierre
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,403 ✭✭✭07Lapierre


    gibgodsman wrote: »
    I cycle to work every single day to and from, sometimes to and from 4 times in a day if I go home for lunch. I literally never use the roads and always use the paths, I do not feel safe at all using roads and do not trust any drivers on such.

    I do not fly past anyone on the path either, I take paths that are usually fairly empty but if there is anyone on them I would slow down to almost a stop and let them past if they are coming towards me and otherwise I would slow down behind them to their pace and once the road is clear go on it to pass them

    In Dublin maybe its different, but in Navan its impossible to cycle on the roads and not fear for your life

    Are there no cycle lanes in Navsn?


  • #2715
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,834 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    Another of those 'exceedingly rare' stale red breaking events today - unfortunately the traffic lights may not be 100% clear on the video.

    Nice lady in the Volvo drives past me in Stillorgan holding her phone up at the wheel in her right hand. She then blows through the very stale red light at the pedestrian crossing (with the old lady in the green raincoat just about to cross).

    But yeah, let's worry about cyclists on pavements.

    https://streamable.com/bjo2st


  • #2716
    Tea drinker
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,818 ✭✭✭Tea drinker


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    Another of those 'exceedingly rare' stale red breaking events today - unfortunately the traffic lights may not be 100% clear on the video.

    Nice lady in the Volvo drives past me in Stillorgan holding her phone up at the wheel in her right hand. She then blows through the very stale red light at the pedestrian crossing (with the old lady in the green raincoat just about to cross).

    But yeah, let's worry about cyclists on pavements.

    https://streamable.com/bjo2st
    well... yes, per the thread title, yes.


  • #2717
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,834 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    TaurenDruid wrote: »
    The North Strand one brings you into a bus lane right before a junction with traffic lights and excellent visibility. No reason whatsoever to not use the cycle path.
    No reason whatsoever other than the many reasons pointed out in this post


    including the six tweets with photos showing examples of the blockages that cyclists have encountered on that route.
    Was it Einstein who said that the definition of insanity was to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results?


  • #2718
    Thargor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,185 ✭✭✭✭Thargor


    TaurenDruid wrote: »
    Yes. And in the vast majority of cases, all any traffic lane is, is a bit of paint on the ground.
    Wow.


  • #2719
    SeanW
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,394 ✭✭✭SeanW


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    Try the same calculation for cyclists and let us know how it works out please.
    Maybe once you've withdrawn your false claim about:
    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    the forty-ish pedestrians killed by Irish motorists last year.
    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    Another of those 'exceedingly rare' stale red breaking events today - unfortunately the traffic lights may not be 100% clear on the video.

    Nice lady in the Volvo drives past me in Stillorgan holding her phone up at the wheel in her right hand. She then blows through the very stale red light at the pedestrian crossing (with the old lady in the green raincoat just about to cross).

    But yeah, let's worry about cyclists on pavements.

    https://streamable.com/bjo2st
    So she drives the way the average Irish cyclist cycles. But hey, no-one died, so ... no big deal. Right?

    https://u24.gov.ua/
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    Help us in helping Ukraine.



  • #2720
    Spook_ie
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 10,896 ✭✭✭✭Spook_ie


    SeanW wrote: »
    Maybe once you've withdrawn your false claim about:



    So she drives the way the average Irish cyclist cycles. But hey, no-one died, so ... no big deal. Right?


    Another lucky cyclist saved from being murderised by a bastard truck driver, turning, oh wait no that's not what happened!
    https://www.dumpert.nl/item/7953955_d793c23c


  • #2721
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,834 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    SeanW wrote: »
    Well this is a lie. Actually two lies in one.

    The number of pedestrians who died on Irish roads/streets last year was 27, not "forty-ish". Now, normally when someone mis-states statistics like this, a certain "benefit of the doubt" is warranted, but in your case, I don't think so.

    https://www.rsa.ie/RSA/Road-Safety/RSA-Statistics/Deaths-injuries-on-Irish-roads/

    And your claim that those pedestrians were "killed by Irish motorists" is also a lie because it ignores pedestrian culpability in those cases. RSA research suggests that pedestrian actions or negligence may be the deciding factor in 70% of fatalities.

    https://www.rsa.ie/Documents/Fatal%20Collision%20Stats/Analysis_of_road_user_groups/Pedestrian%20fatalities%20on%20Irish%20Roads%202008%20to%202015.pdf

    Also from that research, a maximum of 2% of drivers involved in pedestrian fatality accidents hit-and-run so your claim in other posts of motorists "not taking responsibility for their tonnes of metal" is also a lie.
    Thanks for the clarification. You’re right, it wasn’t 40 in 2019. There was what looks like a statistical blip in the numbers for 2019, down to 27. The average for the previous ten years was 37 pedestrians killed each year, closer to my estimate than yours. Sadly, given the increased numbers of pedestrian deaths already this year, I’d guess that that average will be climbing back up.
    You seem to have overreached just a little in your analysis of culpability.
    For a start, the question of culpability doesn’t change the facts that these pedestrians were killed by motorists. That is a factual description of what happened. Culpability is a different question, an important question – but it does change that actual fact.
    On the question of culpability, that presentation unfortunately doesn’t actually define the basis for their allocation of culpability, which is a bit of a fatal flaw. You also seem to have ignored the significant chunk of deaths they deemed to be jointly culpable – 26%. You also seem to be applying an analysis of 2008-2012 deaths to 2019 data – a little leap there.
    So it doesn’t really seem like a very sound conclusion.
    Now, back to you for your analysis of the risks to justify helmet wearing for cyclists?
    SeanW wrote: »
    So she drives the way the average Irish cyclist cycles. But hey, no-one died, so ... no big deal. Right?
    I suppose the difference would be that she’s supposed responsible for a couple of tonnes of metal, rather than 10kg-20kg of bike. That’s a fair old difference, right?
    namloc1980 wrote: »
    .
    Honestly, it’s a bit disappointing. It’s good to see some progress for sure, but an increase of €250 on the purchase price is just pi$$ing about – it does nothing to make eBikes reachable for commuters.
    SeanW wrote: »
    IIRC they went by death certificates, and there was some missing data during the study period, so the figure might not be exactly 70%. But it's probably not far off. And it does underscore one point - not every pedestrian fatality where a motorist is involved is a case of "Irish drivers killing pedestrians". In fact, such cases are probably the minority. But cases of "motorists not taking responsibility for their tonnes of metal" that most certainly is the minority, and by a very, very wide margin.
    I don’t think we need to redo the culpability argument again, so let’s focus on the responsibility question. We have 98% of drivers breaking urban speed limits. We have the majority of drivers using their phones at the wheel, like the nice lady in Stillorgan.
    So eh, taking responsibility?
    Spook_ie wrote: »
    Another lucky cyclist saved from being murderised by a bastard truck driver, turning, oh wait no that's not what happened!
    https://www.dumpert.nl/item/7953955_d793c23c

    Sure, they were both on the wrong side of the road! Oh wait, no, we're trawling the world to drag in anecdotal 'evidence' to try to distract attention from the actual facts of what's happening on Irish roads.

    Did the trucker not have any brakes though?


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  • #2722
    Thargor
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 18,185 ✭✭✭✭Thargor


    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    I suppose the difference would be that she’s supposed responsible for a couple of tonnes of metal, rather than 10kg-20kg of bike. That’s a fair old difference, right?
    How many times has this lad had that explained to him in his time on Boards do you think? Its at least 20 times in this thread alone, he'll be back tomorrow saying the same thing, its pathological :confused:


  • #2723
    TaurenDruid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,266 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    PeadarCo wrote: »
    So I'll ask again why do you have an issue with people cycling on footpaths? You obviously don't think it is dangerous otherwise you would be giving out about the cycle lane going through Fairview Park. That lane is a relabled footpath that still has all the potential issues of cycling on a normal footpath.

    Because it's against the law.

    Because as a teenager cycling along the path by the sea wall at Clontarf, I clearly terrified a pensioner who thought I was going to hit him, and gave out to me and my mate, and I thought yeah, that's pretty ****ty, I shouldn't do that. Empathy. It's a thing.

    Because I've been hit twice by cyclists on the footpath twice in the last 18 months.

    Because I've seen other pedestrians had to jump out of the way of bikes on the footpath.

    Because in the vast majority of cases, for adults, cycling on the footpath is completely unnecessary, certainly so in the city centre, and it's just laziness to avoid having to follow the one-way system.

    I'm not giving out about the cycle path going through Fairview because it's a bloody segregated cycle lane, which is what I thought we all wanted, and there's a pedestrian path there too, so the cyclists shouldn't be on the footpath part! This isn't rocket science.

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  • #2724
    TaurenDruid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,266 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    True, that.

    https://twitter.com/LkCycleDesign/status/1286320588911501312

    That's an amazingly stupid design and I wouldn't dream of endorsing it for one minute.

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  • #2725
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 52,485 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    magicbastarder wrote: »
    my wife works (well, used to work, waiting to find out how permanent the WFH option is) in the city centre, and was saying you do *not* want to use the pedestrian crossings at the grattan bridge/parliament street/wellington quay junction without your wits well honed. she reckons she's witnessed several near fatalities there from motorists taking the piss or possibly genuinely just being dozy and misreading lights.
    one of her colleagues witnessed a pedestrian being knocked down, motorist completely in the wrong.
    and in the interests of balance, she's also shouted at cyclists too at the junction.
    apropos of nothing (i think that's the general ethos of this thread):

    https://twitter.com/J1Rooney/status/1286338662779826176


  • #2726
    TaurenDruid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 4,266 ✭✭✭TaurenDruid


    Duckjob wrote: »
    To those complaining about cyclists that don't use bits of cycle path and how they are "holding up traffic"...

    Lets take the Nth Strand one as an example, since it was brought up by those complaining, and break down some stats a little-

    There's a nice flat stretch just before the uphill to the lights where the cycle path starts. I would normally hit the start of the uphill there at 30-35kph and might just under 30kph at the top (assuming lights are green),. That's a (conservative) average of 30kph in that uphill stretch. I'm far from a top cyclist so I would say thats a fairly reasonable speed for the type of commuting cyclist that posts on here.

    Imagine one such cyclist coming to the start of that cycle path who decides to stay on the road, and averages 30kph on that stretch with a bus behind them.

    Current speed limit on that stretch is 50kph (I would argue 50kph for a double decker bus going up that hill with a wall on one side and a line of cars on the other would be pretty inappropriate speed, but let's discount that and just go with the current legal limit).


    100m @ 30kph = 12 seconds
    100m @ 50kph = 7.2 seconds

    Assuming a worse case scenario where the bus is stuck behind the whole length of the 100m, and the lights are green at the top, that's a difference of 4.8 seconds.

    4.8 seconds ! Really lads? Really?

    And now here's the bonus part....

    Consider that if the bus was following behind the bike, and the bike was doing 30kph-35kph, the cyclist would need to slow down by at least 10-15 kph in order to safely enter the cycle path (with an 18 tonne vehicle approaching from behind - sounds delightfully safe).

    ...so the bus would also have to slow by the same amount, and then accelerate again after the cyclist was clear in the cycle path. By the time the bus has accelerated back up to speed, it could well have lost more than 4.8 seconds.

    So all in all, where faster cyclists are concerned, there's an excellent chance those cyclists going into the cycle path will actually slow buses more than if the cyclist remained in the bus lane, as well as being:-

    - slower for the cyclist
    - less pleasant for the cyclist (uneven surface, pedestrians, parked vehicles)
    - more dangerous for the cyclist (slowing down with an 18 tonne vehicle right behind you)


    Finally, it's 100 metres .... Why on earth would anyone in their right minds take a) more inconvenience and b) more danger to turn off the main road for 100 metres, only to have to stop and ask to get back on ? If it were a 2 or 3 km cycle track fair enough,. Hell even 1km of a half decent cycle track would have me sold to be away from traffic for a bit, but 100 meters ?

    So much wrong in so much post...

    It's isn't an uneven surface. Surely the cyclist has a bell for pedestrians. There aren't that many parked vehicles.

    It does not take that long for a cyclist to slow enough to safely enter the cycle lane, and it certainly doesn't take the bus that long to decelerate and accelerate back up to speed. Internal combustion engines, they're good at that.

    Plenty of cyclists do use it - letting 72 people save 5 seconds per bus/cyclist combination, or even 144 if there's two buses following each other - so obviously it's not the death trap you make it out to be, and presumably they feel safer having a wall between them and the 34 million tonnes of Mad Max Deathroller that's ploughing up the road behind them...

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  • #2727
    magicbastarder
    Moderators, Category Moderators, Arts Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 52,485 CMod ✭✭✭✭magicbastarder


    do buses, on average, drive through that junction at 50km/h?


  • #2728
    eeeee
    Moderators, Sports Moderators Posts: 6,857 Mod ✭✭✭✭eeeee


    GT89 wrote: »
    Im all for better cycling facilities but unfortunately on Dun Laoghaire seafront where half the road is now a cycle lane there are still cyclists cycling on the bloody road. Why when they now have a perfectly safe cycle path. I bet it that sometimes cycle lanes are unsafe but where there is perfectly good segarated cycle are there still cyclists on the road.

    In these cases the use of the cycle lane should be mandatory and clearly indicated by signage this can be agreed between councils and cycle groups surely.

    Because it's not open yet :rolleyes:


  • #2729
    AndrewJRenko
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 31,834 ✭✭✭✭AndrewJRenko


    TaurenDruid wrote: »
    So much wrong in so much post...

    It's isn't an uneven surface. Surely the cyclist has a bell for pedestrians. There aren't that many parked vehicles.

    It does not take that long for a cyclist to slow enough to safely enter the cycle lane, and it certainly doesn't take the bus that long to decelerate and accelerate back up to speed. Internal combustion engines, they're good at that.

    Plenty of cyclists do use it - letting 72 people save 5 seconds per bus/cyclist combination, or even 144 if there's two buses following each other - so obviously it's not the death trap you make it out to be, and presumably they feel safer having a wall between them and the 34 million tonnes of Mad Max Deathroller that's ploughing up the road behind them...

    Can we take it that you're equally concerned about the vast number of '5 seconds per bus' delays that occur every time a car or (more often) a van or truck parks in a bus lane to make a delivery? These are a fairly constant feature along the Camden/Wexford/Aungier/George/Dame St axis into town. I recall one day have a 'clean run' along that route, and doing a little dance at the end to celebrate - but every other day, there were Guinness or Bulmers trucks at the hotel on Camden St or the Long Hall, or the bread van at Five Guys or the Urban Plant crowd watering the plants at the Trinity Hotel or a combination of these.

    That's a big issue, right?


  • #2730
    engleburt
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 33 ✭engleburt


    I guess a lot of money spent on new cycle paths on North Quays in Dublin, still the pillocks on bikes don't use them and crawl along in bus lane.
    Either make their use mandatory or don't bother creating them.


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  • #2731
    SeanW
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,394 ✭✭✭SeanW


    Thargor wrote: »
    How many times has this lad had that explained to him in his time on Boards do you think? Its at least 20 times in this thread alone, he'll be back tomorrow saying the same thing, its pathological :confused:
    The standard excuse from cyclists for their lawbreaking is "nobody died, get over it" same thing is true here. And the hundreds of pics Andy has posted of inconsiderate parking (nobody died), so ... no big deal.

    As pedestrians, we put up with this crap from Irish cyclists as a matter of general routine, why should we be bothered by the occasional gob****e doing it in a car, given both how that played out and more broadly, the statistics that show pedestrians are very safe on our streets?
    AndrewJRenko wrote: »
    Thanks for the clarification. You’re right, it wasn’t 40 in 2019. There was what looks like a statistical blip in the numbers for 2019, down to 27. The average for the previous ten years was 37 pedestrians killed each year, closer to my estimate than yours. Sadly, given the increased numbers of pedestrian deaths already this year, I’d guess that that average will be climbing back up.
    I suspect that it's 2020 that will be the outlier. The pandemic upset everyone's life and changed everyone's travel patterns, that's likely to have had some impact.
    You seem to have overreached just a little in your analysis of culpability.
    For a start, the question of culpability doesn’t change the facts that these pedestrians were killed by motorists. That is a factual description of what happened. Culpability is a different question, an important question – but it does change that actual fact.
    The statement is misleading. A clearly loaded term, it implies that the motorists actions were responsible for the fatality in all cases. This is clearly false. In many of those cases, the pedestrian killed themselves by being a muppet and the motorist was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. A more accurate statement would be that:
    "27 pedestrians (that) lost their lives on Irish streets/roads under various circumstances" or something to that effect, but this statement has less punch than "Motorist killing pedestrians"
    On the question of culpability, that presentation unfortunately doesn’t actually define the basis for their allocation of culpability, which is a bit of a fatal flaw.
    If you have a problem with the 70% figure I suggest you take it up with the RSA. They don't have a mandate to cover for bad drivers so it's safe to assume they didn't pull it out of their backsides.
    You also seem to have ignored the significant chunk of deaths they deemed to be jointly culpable – 26%. You also seem to be applying an analysis of 2008-2012 deaths to 2019 data – a little leap there.
    They deemed the driver to be solely culpable in 26% of cases, joint culpability was 2% and unknown culpability was also at 2%. Even if we assign full fault to motorists in those cases, that still leaves 70% of fatalities caused by the pedestrian in some way.
    Now, back to you for your analysis of the risks to justify helmet wearing for cyclists?
    Well, for one thing, pedestrians spend most of their time on footpaths, whereas cyclists in theory are supposed to be on the street/road. And you all keep complaining about how horrible and dangerous it is for you to cycle with all the horrible Irish drivers that are out to get you :rolleyes: so it would seem to me that you should have at least some protection in the case of a collision. Like how motorists have crash-worthy car design, airbags and seat belts, I'd assume that having something between your head and the pavement or a car bumper would be a good idea.
    I don’t think we need to redo the culpability argument again, so let’s focus on the responsibility question. We have 98% of drivers breaking urban speed limits.
    And yet, Irish drivers are among the safest in the world. Provably so, and by a very large margin.
    Did the trucker not have any brakes though?
    So the trucker is responsible for the cyclist veering out in front of them with zero warning? Kind of like how every fatal collision between a motorist and a pedestrian is an example of a "motorist KILLING pedestrians" ...

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