what's the cheapest electric cargo bike on the market? without going bottom of the barrel?
i guess decathlon's R500 would be a contender? it's almost exactly 10% of the price of the cheapest battery EV i can think of (the MG4).
https://www.decathlon.ie/cargo-bikes/329177-135112-rear-loading-electric-longtail-cargo-bike-r500.html#/demodelsize-254no_size/demodelcolor-8605830
No, in my comparison the car is the e-bike. As in, MB might have picked the cheapest electric car but he acknowledged that the bike was higher end. I'm just doing the same - a high end car and not even the cheapest house.
Yep, fair enough, I see that.
In fairness, I'm not disagreeing with you. It's a fact - you can pay silly money for some bikes and get fantastic money for some cars. It's a curiosity to us, as cyclists, but it's also sometimes a lazy trope thrown at us as cyclists by motorists. I just often happen to look at the insane money people spend on cars versus the houses they live in or the house you could buy for a the price of a few of those cars. Which is fine, each to their own.
Cargo bikes don't enjoy the same economies of scale in production as cars, but they do cost much less to run and repair. Though there may be problems with battery or motor replacement. I don't know, because our cargo bike is just a standard bakfiets. Costsjust a few cent per km to run when you average everything out over a few years. Presume one with electric assist works out a little more expensive per km, but a car is about 20-30 cent per km (and that's without including motor tax, insurance, parking and the other things you usually don't need for a bike).
Ah, here we go, I guess this is how long its deemed acceptable to pretend we're going to do anything about our shocking road deaths - a couple of weeks is it? ...
Cork councillors express concern over ‘kneejerk’ speed limit reduction proposals (msn.com)
A sample of the intelligence on display - "people from Bantry will have to leave the night before" and "pubs will close down"... because we might have to drive 20kmph slower. As though the current speed limits are actually universally obeyed.
These people get elected?
Similarly there was some eejit of an Indo journo on with Kieran Cuddihy on Newstalk giving out about it yesterday. Sample quote "I like a good road when I see it" and this (paraphrased) howler "Driver/passenger casualties are not up, however pedestrian fatalities are [no mention of those pesky cyclists], so rather than look at reducing speeds, we need to maybe look at what pedestrians are up to". Like WTF???
Domestic violence assaults on women are up, so we need to maybe look at what women are up to.
It was Conor Skehan, the man who presided over our Housing Agency at the time of the worst housing crisis in the history of the State. He's got a great track record of being wrong.
Nothing surprises me anymore, nothing
It's like phrase-bingo...
Newstalk Lunchtime Live discussing the potential car ban in Dublin city center. Guy on said cyclists should pay road tax...
Gee, that's original.
Where's Mannix when you need him?
The father of a young boy who was killed in a collision in Carrigaline has issued a plea to motorists to be careful when they are driving through the town.
"In the same spot, where I go from time to time, I have seen more than three cars in different occasions crossing the red light. Thankfully no person was crossing. Two of those stopped at the roundabout and stay there waiting for their turn to continue their journey."
Mr Ladeiro said that this showed "two things".
"The first: drivers, apparently, only respect other cars. Second: drivers know that nothing will happen to them when they make some road offenses. Other places have automatic penalties, huge fines, or just drivers respecting all road users."
He is quoted on irishcycle.com. What you'd expect, but shorter.
--
Cllr Mannix Flynn (independent) — who is a serial objector to street changes which impact on cars, including taking the council to court over the Strand Road cycle route — said that the presentation on the plan had little mention of pedestrians, and instead, it was focused on cycling and buses. This is not true, O’Brien had repeatedly mentioned walking or pedestrians and shown images of extra public space.
He also claimed that Capel Street as it currently stands is “very confusing” and does not like cycling being allowed on the street.
https://irishcycle.com/2023/09/13/through-traffic-to-be-pushed-out-of-dublin-city-centre-with-bus-gates-on-bachelors-walk-and-aston-quay-council-committee-told/
The speed limit review was just released
The report and associated documents are below
Main items
There's loads in it to like but a lot of it requires additional follow up actions e.g. the urban areas classification
One thing I would love to see, for urban areas, is regardless of the classification of the arterial/regional roads, if there is not protected infrastructure for pedestrians/cyclists, then it should be 30k by default. You wouldn't be long seeing a raft of active travel getting built then
like listening to music?
When I am driving or cycling and there is a pedestrian aiming for the road with headphones on or there head in a phone, if safe I pull a bit further out, I might slow down if warranted and act as if its a possibility. This is hardly high level advanced motorist training stuff is it. It was drilled into me as a kid.
I heard a TD from Kerry calling for driving license training to be part of the secondary curriculum and I actually agree except, f*ck only knows what they will teach them based on some of the commentary from TDs, Gardai and the media.
I've had gardai warn me that I was causing a danger by cycling as cars regularly come around corners at over 100kmph in the area (rural road with an 80kmph limit and a safe speed on those corners of maximum 50kmph, possibly less on a few of them) and they wouldn't be able to stop. I mean at this point, without blanket retraining and then enforcement across the age groups and country, all this speed limit reduction will do is SFA except help a garda issue a fine at a fatal RTC.
I *hate* the idea of driver training in school. For a start, it would be eye wateringly expensive; especially if actual time in a car was included. Can you imagine the insurance implications, let alone the extra teachers required? At a time when many schools are struggling to find teachers too.
Also, it would reinforce this notion of car travel as being fundamental. It shouldn't be the state's job to teach kids how to operate machinery.
Thank you mb, saved me having to type out a response.
"a collision between a bike and a car"
We should be doing driver licence training, or retraining, with adults. Fully licensed adults, from 18 to 80 - regular retraining and retesting for all drivers - a small price to pay for the privilege of operating lethal machinery in shared spaces.
And yes, I know there's big backlogs in testing at present, so we need to find a better way - maybe simulator testing, and theory testing.
I'm with you as well. 4/5/6th year kids have more than enough to be going on with rather than being taught at the states expense how to be good little carists who will swell the coffers of the automotive industry and insurance gangsters
I meant it would be good to be trained in how to be good road users, ped, cyclist, motorist but you know it would be a sh1t show.
Yeah, I get you, it's just that any time society decides something is important to "the youth", the default position is it should be taught in school.
we all know what would happen if anything was announced about this. i'd be buying shares in companies making hi-vis vests.
I did the Cycling Proficiency Test when I was in primary school in the UK. I would think it wouldn't be a bad idea to at least get children out on bikes in that context, as part of TY in school time. My own club are running something, albeit at weekends... http://www.braywheelers.com/velocity-cycling-for-gaisce-ty/
We did this last year in our school. The Cycling Officer (or whatever his title is) in the county council organised it.
It was less than good.
I remember reading that one effect of driver's ed in secondary school was an increase in teenagers driving, which was a net decrease in road safety. Not sure where I saw it at this stage
ciaran cannon takes conor skehan to task over skehan's article.
Ciaran is a tonic. Hes certainly done the KM's on the bike all over the roads / streets of Ireland to actually know what hes talking about unlike that spoofer and chancer Skehan.
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