Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

At 30km/h and assuming a 1 second reaction time a cyclist will travel 8.3m before brake application.

Assuming use of front and back on a dry surface with decent grip a braking distance of 5m be possible but for most cyclist it'll be somewhat longer and certainly longer in wet conditions.

13m is the absolute minimum distance bar you want to argue a shorter reaction time is appropriate; which I don't think it is in the circumstances here.

As an aside the Plaintiff here didn't want a finding against cyclist; assuming he was uninsured. Collecting off lay Defendants is what any legal team want to be doing.

Pure nonsense from Dublin Bus, they could have bought this off for the cost of joining the Third Party alone pre proceedings.

Insofar as I know they don't use barristers to run their cases, with solicitors office doing all the work including in the High Court.

That friction between a solicitor and a barrister has the advantage of countering group think

If I'm approaching 3 buses parked up, I'm not slowing down 'more than 30m' before the stop, but I am waiting to react with my fingers on the brake levers (as is tradition cycling in traffic in Dublin). Not all cyclists will behave like that, but it isn't safe to make assumptions in either direction - the cyclist in this case could have been paying no attention and therefore even 10km/h was too fast, or he could have been watching like a hawk and he meant it when he said in his testimony that he had no time to react before impact and it wouldn't have made a difference if he was traveling at 10km/h.

If I was to always start slowing significantly 15m before any potential conflict in Dublin, again, there would be no point cycle commuting and I sincerely doubt there is anyone here who actually cycles that way in practice.

I'd be all for this, but only if it was accompanied by a mandatory assumption in law that motor vehicles are responsible for all collisions, unless proven otherwise with dashcam or similar.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/25/amsterdam-prepares-to-ban-the-fatbikes-amid-rise-in-serious-accidents

They're preparing to ban them in certain city centre parks rather than the entire city, for people who don't read past the headline.

Whenever somebody uses that word they should be asked for the value of the exponent.

Why people can't recognise that if cyclists and pedestrians disappeared from the roads tomorrow motorists would still be stressed, raging at other road users and involved in fatal RTAs is all beyond me.

Amen 🙏

Should we introduce mandatory classes on motonormativity as part of the driving test and driving license renewal?

It'd make more of a difference to road safety than any amount of hi-vis vests and lights.

The average and max deceleration rates were measured as 0.31g and 0.42g in the same study on expected braking.

The unexpected braking was on a controlled course where deception was used to make cyclists expect that they would not have to brake at all (which is different than unexpected braking where you expect you will have to brake at some point but are unaware of specific hazards).

The average approach speed was 16km/h, and the methodology doesn't make it clear in any way that greater deceleration was needed during the unexpected stopping test.

The research also found that lower perception time correlated with higher deceleration rates, and that this also had a positive correlation with cyclist speed during the test (those cycling faster, tended to react quicker, and brake harder).

Just reading an abstract on a small sample size study shouldn't be extrapolated into a general truth!

I'm not extrapolating anything; its a study by Transport engineers were the 85 percentile is a common metric.

String of posts came from this comment from you added below.

"but it's not going to require even 10m unless someone isn't even trying - potentially it could only take half that"

Even being kind and assuming you were only talking about braking distance; 5m braking would require a deceleration of circa 0.7g.

Given you included "attention" its clear you were including perception/reaction in your 5m.

That figure is wildly inaccurate for an average cyclist decelerating from 30km/h.

A very reactionary comment