Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

What will be interesting here is the response (if any) from farming organisations. Presumably it is the 'rural communities' who suffer the brunt of the consequences of this attitude towards safety in the agricultural industry. They may stay silent here in the knowledge that 'farm families' know well to hide in their bunkers while this activity is unleashed for a few days a year on their local roads. But the manufacturers, dealers and operators of this equipment should not be allowd to hide. If this equipment is not operated by someone who has been trained in all the potential dangers, then it should not be allowed anywhere near public roads. It may be the case that the HSA person knows better what the facts on the ground are and is simply stating the obvious. As somrone who cycles 100km/week on rural roads, I am as well to know this.

Any issues I've had with tractors on the bike has been them coming from behind/ overtaking. The only blindspot issue is the person who is driving and their lack of awareness/ due care and attention.

Was listening to Imogen Cotter on the Pat Kenny radio show this morning, launching a new safety campaign for vulnerable road users:

https://twitter.com/CotterImogen/status/1654181446645415937?cxt=HHwWgoC8ld7Q6vQtAAAA

My worst experiences with silage contractors have all been off the bike. On bike you can hear them coming and can usually get reasonably well out of the way, but in a bigger vehicle when they come at speed with full load around blind bends and slide towards you it's absolutely no fun.

I have a memory of one lad coming within inches of T-boning a bus, right by where I had been sat on the bus: he was just tearing through every junction without slowing down because everything else was smaller than his tractor (I know this guy, he's in his 50's and this is explicitly his opinion, that "roads are for farmers"). He wasn't expecting the bus and only managed to brake at the last second.

Those would be my "standard" type of experiences of contractor crews: no stopping at junctions, no stopping pulling out of gates onto the road, no braking for corners. Because roads are for farming and everyone will get out of their way and they feel safe on the machine.

Ok last post as its pretty off topic.

I didn't say they were the same as HGV but there is similarities without the controls and regulations around HGVs like

*licences

*Training especially around vulnerable road users, blind spots, high risk locations

*Use of tachographs and control of how long operators can drive without a break.

When you add in that much of the silage crew are young and operate primarily on narrow roads where by nature of their width they will have to very frequently drive to some degree on the wrong side of the road; with the consequently risks to other road users arising from that.

Even if silage contractors complied with the Organisation of Working Time Act it would be a start, but is there any good reason they shouldn't comply with

"EU law regulates the driving time of professional drivers using goods vehicles over 3.5t (including trailers) and passenger vehicles with more than 8 passenger seats.  

The key requirements are that you must not drive: 

• Without a break for more than 4.5 hours. After driving for 4.5 hours, a break of at least 45 minutes is mandatory. You can distribute that break over the 4.5 hours by taking a 15 minute break followed by a 30 minute break. 
• For more than nine hours per day or 56 hours per week. This may be extended to 10 hours no more than twice during a week 
• More than 90 hours in two consecutive weeks"

Silage season would still be ground to a halt if that was in force and hence its not

To be honest I don't think the incident is made up. I've come across a couple of weirdly aggressive cyclists while cycling that route over the years (I cycle it for transport mostly and I'm very mindful of the shared spaces and broad range of abilities on the route) , a tiny minority but none the less they stick out in my mind. The issue is really that there are a number of complete arseholes in this world and some of them happen to pick up a bike every now and then.

I didn't realise it made the Indo, I agree it's not worthy of inclusion there and is certainly being used as a clickbait article.

Could well be true. I don't see why it's so shocking or newsworthy though. I doubt the woman who rolled through the blatantly red light at the Appian Way/ Leeson St junction yesterday morning rush hour while on reading/ texting on her phone had much concern for any of the pedestrians trying to cross. Or the aul wans on both sides of the road who took a look at me coming up O'Connell St yesterday in the bus/ cycle and decided that they'd just waddle out anyway nearly causing carnage.

Idiots will be idiots. And asshats will be asshats. Crazy that there are 'journalists' in the Indo for whom these is revelatory news.

if a certain GK is involved with this organisation i'd say it's absolutely makebelieve or at least totally exaggerated

I can well believe it too. I've been roared at by some eejit as i approached the crossing of the bull island causeway road. He came around the little bend of the path on the Sutton side far too fast and was highly irritated that i was coming the other way and was not out in the pedestrian part to acccomodate his speed. He swerved out around me using the pedestrian part - luckily nobody was walking there at the time or it could have been an incident. Some people are just d**ks.