Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

CramCycle · 29-10-2020 11:02PM

My favourite photo of Stephen Donnelly is him sitting in his constituency office as he gets close to the ides of switching parties again:

breezy1985 · 29-10-2020 11:24PM

Who has he got left. Shinners and FG ? Or maybe the National party as he loves flavour of the month politics

tomasrojo · 30-10-2020 10:15AM

Shouldn't be surprised at the Irish Times at this stage, but here we go again:
https://twitter.com/dublincycling/status/1322078251490123777

tomasrojo · 30-10-2020 10:16AM

In addition to "long suffer motorists", they forgot "hard work motorists".

magicbastarder · 30-10-2020 10:27AM

i think i mentioned before that i know the partner of someone who used to be letters ed, and the problem is that that may have been on the more publishable end of the letters they have been sent.

tomasrojo · 30-10-2020 10:29AM

Stark wrote: »

I googled and I guess this is where the Harry Potter reference actually came from https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/election-2016/rightcol/the-front-bench-podcast-3-the-harry-potter-of-irish-politics-and-a-possible-fine-gael-fianna-fail-coalition-34465421.html

I think "uncanny resemblance" is in the book because he wanted Dáil-insider detail, given the nature of the book, misunderstood the joke, and since he's the type of writer who lets the clichés do the writing, the resemblance just had to be "uncanny".

Seth Brundle · 30-10-2020 07:06PM

€20,000 fine added to ‘unduly lenient’ sentence of drink driver who injured cyclist

The Court of Appeal has added a €20,000 fine to the sentence of an “uninsured driver”, who crashed his car into two cyclists while four times over the drink driving limit, leaving one of them with a deformed spine and both with life-changing injuries.

The court had already found that the four years in prison, originally imposed on Muiris Flynn, was unduly lenient for the charge of dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm.

I note that the original sentencing included an eight year driving ban :rolleyes:

Grassey · 30-10-2020 07:22PM

Why is he an "uninsured driver"... He admitted having no insurance, so why have parenthesis?

micar · 30-10-2020 11:32PM

Judge urges motorists to 'take that second look' as woman fined €4k for knocking cyclist off his bike https://jrnl.ie/5250371

Left hook.....no indication

She said she looked......yeah right.

magicbastarder · 30-10-2020 11:40PM

that fine is probably dwarfed by the compensation he received, so i'm wondering from a legal viewpoint is it considered purely punitive, or is there supposed to be some compensatory element to it?

30-10-2020 11:45PM

I was going to say the comments were tame by journal standards then noted it's Friday night and the story was only posted 50 minutes ago.

4k fine for depriving a guy some of his senses and no points mentioned but I imagine her insurance go through the roof once the claim is settled.

Is that a thing that happens often with head injuries, to loose hearing or smell? Guess it really comes down to the part of the brain involved.

magicbastarder · 30-10-2020 11:56PM

yeah, strokes can do similar.

CramCycle · 31-10-2020 12:31AM

magicbastarder wrote: »

that fine is probably dwarfed by the compensation he received, so i'm wondering from a legal viewpoint is it considered purely punitive, or is there supposed to be some compensatory element to it?

Purely punative and also not setting a precedent for giving no fine which might affect future cases. It may also be precedent already set, so it lessens the likelyhood of appeal

eclipsechaser · 31-10-2020 02:44AM

Seth Brundle wrote: »

...and yet another anti-cycling letter in todays Irish Times...

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/electric-bicycles-and-the-law-1.4390754

Did Mr. Walsh get his degree in law from eBay given that electric bikes are not propelled by the electric motor (Article 1 (h) of EU Directive 2002/24/EC)?

I have no idea why the IT allowed something so erroneous to be published. As well as getting the legal standing in Ireland wrong, I think there's a 2nd error in saying the UK does make provision for pedelecs. Northern Ireland, to my knowledge, doesn't. The barrister was wrong on every count. Embarrassing to be writing in about the law and getting it so wrong.

tomasrojo · 01-11-2020 01:39AM

They did eventually sort it out in Northern Ireland:
https://ebiketips.road.cc/content/news/northern-ireland-finally-make-e-bikes-legal-2401

magicbastarder · 01-11-2020 02:04AM

eclipsechaser wrote: »

I have no idea why the IT allowed something so erroneous to be published.

it's the letters page. which would not exist were everything to be fact checked and vetted for sanity. it's for people whose mates laughed politely at their jokes at the bar in the golf club, to inflict those jokes on the wider world.

zell12 · 01-11-2020 09:19AM

John Drennan in the Mail
Under the headline 'Gardai seize 91 electric scooters [in 2020]' and delay in promised legislation for legality of usage, he quotes a government colleague referring to Minister Ryan as:
"He is an awful ditherer, he makes Ross look like a hare"

breezy1985 · 01-11-2020 11:34AM

magicbastarder wrote: »

it's the letters page. which would not exist were everything to be fact checked and vetted for sanity. it's for people whose mates laughed politely at their jokes at the bar in the golf club, to inflict those jokes on the wider world.

A chara

Spot on with this. Really made me laugh

Breezy1985 MBE,TD,BS
Poshtown
Eire

magicbastarder · 01-11-2020 12:35PM

zell12 wrote: »

he quotes a government colleague referring to Minister Ryan as:
"He is an awful ditherer, he makes Ross look like a hare"

simon mcgarr (the data protection solicitor) was talking about a parallel point on twitter recently, in relation to the mother and baby homes/data issue recently, and it reminded me of the maxim 'the reasonable man adapts himself to fit the world and the unreasonable man adapts the world to fit himself, therefore for change, we need unreasonable men'.

i suspect the biggest issue with the greens in government is that they're not willing to be unreasonable, the party is set up to punish people who aren't team players.
mcgarr was making the point that what was needed from someone in roderic o'gorman's position was someone in charge to basically say 'i know this is something that many people have been working on for years, and even though i'm fresh in the door, i'm throwing that work on the bonfire because it's headed in the wrong direction'

and that's what will happen with a lot of the greens, they're not used to actually being in charge and won't have the confidence to swim against the current when required.

breezy1985 · 01-11-2020 01:09PM

magicbastarder wrote: »

simon mcgarr (the data protection solicitor) was talking about a parallel point on twitter recently, in relation to the mother and baby homes/data issue recently, and it reminded me of the maxim 'the reasonable man adapts himself to fit the world and the unreasonable man adapts the world to fit himself, therefore for change, we need unreasonable men'.

i suspect the biggest issue with the greens in government is that they're not willing to be unreasonable, the party is set up to punish people who aren't team players.
mcgarr was making the point that what was needed from someone in roderic o'gorman's position was someone in charge to basically say 'i know this is something that many people have been working on for years, and even though i'm fresh in the door, i'm throwing that work on the bonfire because it's headed in the wrong direction'

and that's what will happen with a lot of the greens, they're not used to actually being in charge and won't have the confidence to swim against the current when required.

In fairness the greens spend their whole life swimming against the current. Anyone on here why cycles knows how much crap you get every day for doing something a bit different

CramCycle · 01-11-2020 02:10PM

I was a green party member for a few years and left as I got sick of the uninformed tripe that used to fly around at meetings and any attempt ot question was met with disgust and you were asked to bring it up elsewhere. The biggest issue the greens have is not the likes of Eamon Ryan but the large number of old school greens who can't listen out the reasoning for anything that sounds non environmental. If they listened to it, they might see a modicum of sense to it. At least if they listened and still disagreed I could understand.

They are a party full of the best of intentions and on occasion get it right, regrettably that inflexibility is why they often get it, unintentionally wrong.

AndrewJRenko · 01-11-2020 03:00PM

zell12 wrote: »

John Drennan in the Mail
Under the headline 'Gardai seize 91 electric scooters [in 2020]' and delay in promised legislation for legality of usage, he quotes a government colleague referring to Minister Ryan as:
"He is an awful ditherer, he makes Ross look like a hare"

Ross who did nothing at all about scooters in his full term as Minister?

Seth Brundle · 01-11-2020 04:27PM

https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1322641262579777538?s=19

Original paywalled article: Cyclists are not the bad guys

mr spuckler · 02-11-2020 09:54AM

Is it just me that found these statements completely unnecessary in the FT piece?

Yes, I know that there are bad cyclists. Sometimes they jump red lights. Often they wear Lycra. I wish they didn’t. But there are also bad motorbike riders too, who act like our eardrums are non-essential items.

If we want cyclists to be less annoying, then we should build proper infrastructure for them.

Stark · 02-11-2020 09:55AM

"Just like the bad motorbike riders who wear leather".

magicbastarder · 02-11-2020 10:03AM

'often they wear lycra. i wish they didn't' is just *weird*. maybe it wasn't caught by a sub or was mangled by one.

breezy1985 · 02-11-2020 11:23AM

mr spuckler wrote: »

Is it just me that found these statements completely unnecessary in the FT piece?

I think he is just preempting the inevitable cliche comments section nonsense

CramCycle · 02-11-2020 11:39AM

I get what he was trying to do, try and relate to the people the article is aimed at. Regrettably though it comes across as the sort of thing you would expect of a Junior Cert writer who thought they were being clever.

Stark · 02-11-2020 12:38PM

"I wish they wore nothing at all".

Seth Brundle · 02-11-2020 01:05PM

Radical expansion of cycle infrastructure planned for south Dublin
Three new routes aim to facilitate safe cycling to at least 65 schools across the county

A radical expansion of cycle infrastructure across south Dublin is planned by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, following the success of the coastal cycle route from Blackrock to Sandycove.

A network of 25km of connected cycle routes will be created using quiet residential streets, parks, and existing cycle lanes, along with access-only arrangements on some streets, the closure of parts of other streets to traffic, and the introduction of a one-way system in Deansgrange.

Three primary routes are intended to facilitate safe cycling to at least 65 schools across the county, and will see previously disjointed cycle tracks connected for the first time.

cue a lot of angry residents complaining

Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

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