Cyclist.ie launched

Raam · 06-11-2008 03:17PM

niceonetom wrote: »

you're complaining about complaining? well done.

Didn't we have a case of this before with Tackleberry? :pac:

Civilian_Target · 06-11-2008 11:24PM

Fnord wrote: »

The umbrella group Cyclist.ie comprises the local groups, which carry out these actions and many more, to varying degrees and as resources allow. A little less ranting and a little more action (well, visiting websites, or enjoying a few moments' consideration) might have revealed this.

Sorry, I don't buy it. Visit the DCC website. I see no helpful information on How to Cycle Safely in Dublin or something similar on the homepage or any direct link. It took me 4 clicks to find it, and I'm a cyclist and computer programmer.

I mean this as constructive criticism. You sound like you're involved on the campaign. Put it on the front page, How To Cycle Safely. Make it big. It's practical and free. Once people feel safe on their bikes, they're likely to cycle more and be interested in your campaign.

Lumen · 07-11-2008 07:43AM

DBCyc wrote: »

Driving at higher speeds reduces the time in which the driver can perceive a potential hazard and then react by braking, swerving etc. Also the higher the speed, the higher the braking distance required to stop.

Therefore reducing the speed of vehicles on the roads results in less accidents as drivers have more time to react to hazards and avoid them.

Everything you say is obviously true, provided that the driver maintains the same level of concentration and awareness at the lower speed.

This doesn't happen.

When you apply arbitrary speed limits (i.e. which have no relation to the actual safe speed you can attain on a given stretch of road in a given set of conditions) you will find that most people drive at (or slightly over) the limit. This will either be too slow or too fast for the prevailing conditions, and consequently it makes for a less safe driving environment, particularly for cyclists whose lives depend on drivers paying above average levels of attention.

How many drivers understand the extremely basic concept of "vanishing point technique" for assessing the safe speed to approach a bend? Almost none. Do you? How many copies of Roadcraft are read outside of police forces?

People are given a strict set of rules (don't drink and drive, stick to the posted limit) and suspend their mental faculties as long as they are adhering to those rules. Consequently, lives are lost.

The simplistic notion that "speed kills" is usually pedalled by people with no clue about safe driving.

oobydooby · 07-11-2008 10:13AM

I disagree with Lumen. An analogous argument could be made for drink driving and people of my parents' generation might go along with it: A few pints, no harm. You drive more carefully...

The point about excellent drivers (rally drivers, policemen, ambulance or fire brigade, bus/HGV drivers) is valid. Michael Schumacher flying down a busy street is arguably less of a risk than a nervous and inexperienced teenager obeying the limits or a tired person:mad::mad: (see triathlete story in newspapers last week).

However the law on public roads does and should apply to all road users. It doesn't mean that drivers suspend their critical faculties but you can't really legislate for that. The simple argument is that urban areas have road space shared with other road users (including unpredictable children and cyclists). A collision of a motor vehicle with a vulnerable road user is less likely to be seriously injurious or fatal if the speed of collision is lower. Hence a low limit.

The positive side effect of this would be (and this should be done before the superslow limits are introduced) to have good high-speed arterial routes through and around the city for motor traffic. This would divert cars from using suburbs as shortcuts and encourage them to make their way to the faster roads and leave the smaller roads calmer and more pleasant for cars, cyclists and pedestrians.

Turbulent Bill · 07-11-2008 11:11AM

Civilian_Target wrote: »

Sorry, I don't buy it. Visit the DCC website. I see no helpful information on How to Cycle Safely in Dublin or something similar on the homepage or any direct link. It took me 4 clicks to find it, and I'm a cyclist and computer programmer.

I mean this as constructive criticism. You sound like you're involved on the campaign. Put it on the front page, How To Cycle Safely. Make it big. It's practical and free. Once people feel safe on their bikes, they're likely to cycle more and be interested in your campaign.

Nail on head. Irish cities are car-centric, and given the slow rollout of public transport they're likely to remain that way for a long time. I applaud Cyclist.ie for promoting cycling, but I think the focus should be on enabling new and existing cyclists to use the roads as they stand, rather than constantly fighting for new provisions.

LCC have an advice section on their website (http://www.lcc.org.uk/index.asp?Pageid=111) which you could use as a template (or just link to it). For something more meaty you could recommend 'Cyclecraft' by John Franklin as a good guide to the practicalities of cycling in the city. Well-advised beginners are less likely to be scared off by traffic or make lethal mistakes, and will probably stick with it.

Just my 2c.

Fnord · 07-11-2008 02:22PM

Civilian_Target wrote: »

Sorry, I don't buy it. Visit the DCC website. I see no helpful information on How to Cycle Safely in Dublin or something similar on the homepage or any direct link. It took me 4 clicks to find it, and I'm a cyclist and computer programmer.

I mean this as constructive criticism. You sound like you're involved on the campaign. Put it on the front page, How To Cycle Safely. Make it big. It's practical and free. Once people feel safe on their bikes, they're likely to cycle more and be interested in your campaign.

Turbulent Bill wrote: »

I applaud Cyclist.ie for promoting cycling, but I think the focus should be on enabling new and existing cyclists to use the roads as they stand, rather than constantly fighting for new provisions.

LCC have an advice section on their website (http://www.lcc.org.uk/index.asp?Pageid=111) which you could use as a template (or just link to it). For something more meaty you could recommend 'Cyclecraft' by John Franklin as a good guide to the practicalities of cycling in the city.

I'm not involved in the DCC, but I'm sure someone in the group will read this discussion. Anyone with useful suggestions could also consider contacting them or any other campaign group.

Calling for new provisions is only part of what's being done. I know a lot of people who don't cycle because they're afraid of traffic, yet the best thing most people can do to make the roads safer for cycling is simply to cycle on the roads, so there's a Catch-22 at play. To overcome this there needs to be a broad, long-term and integrated approach to help foster Ireland's cycling culture. Hence Cyclist.ie, and to kick things off, its substantial and ambitious consensus policy paper. It's early days for the collective, but its member groups have been involved and continue to be involved in all sorts of other activities that promote cycling and safety on the roads.

The Galway Cycling Campaign puts a lot of emphasis on safety, something to which even a cursory look around its website will attest. (I am not in a position to detail the activities of other campaign groups.) Last year the Galway group had a joint initiative with the Gardai to encourage visibility at night, by handing out reflective gear and telling cyclists about the legal requirement for lights. We hope to do it again. We've put out press releases on the same subject and on other road safety matters, such as roadpath cycling. Prominent on the GCC website front page is a link to "Information Sheets", which comprise an archive of traffic analysis and advice. We also use the forum for tips and discussion, but it's fairly quiet in there. We've been planning cycling maps for the city, but this takes time. We've put up signs all over the city encouraging cycling and safe road use. We have a set of big new signs due to be installed around the county.

During Mobility Week last month the group held two seminars on traffic skills for cyclists. We ran free bike maintenance workshops in the city centre and the university. We handed out lights and road safety leaflets. Those leaflets, by the way, come in three forms and are adapted with permission from John Franklin's Cyclecraft. We've handed out thousands of the leaflets in recent years - from temporary stalls, colleges, libraries, bike shops and other public locations. John Franklin himself was in town for Mobility Week to (among other things) give a talk at the City Library's launch of the new edition of Cyclecraft. (It's an excellent book; I lent my copy to my brother last week.)

Just because someone doesn't know that these things are being done, it doesn't mean that they are not being done. They are being done (to varying degrees, as I've written), generally by a small number of people with constraints on their time like everyone else. Ideally we would spend even more time on these sorts of activities. They're enjoyable and effective. But they can only achieve so much. When road designs are proposed that are manifestly dangerous to cyclists and other vulnerable road users, we get involved. These dangerous designs and redevelopments are frequent, so we spend a regrettable amount of our energy fire-fighting, explaining best practice to politicians, engineers, officials, etc., dispelling myths about basic road safety issues, explaining and dispelling again the following month, then the following year and five years later, and so on. This can be akin to banging one's head repeatedly off a brick wall, but there are indications that things are changing, however slowly. Having a national voice will help.

Again, thanks for the constructive criticism. As for the scorn, it's like rain off a Galway cyclist's back...

Lumen · 07-11-2008 02:28PM

Fnord wrote: »

Lots of extremely good stuff

That's a great collection of carrots, but where's the stick?

Fnord · 07-11-2008 02:51PM

Lumen wrote: »

That's a great collection of carrots, but where's the stick?

Strapped to the handlebars, for emergency use only.

Turbulent Bill · 07-11-2008 02:56PM

Fnord wrote: »

Just because someone doesn't know that these things are being done, it doesn't mean that they are not being done. They are being done (to varying degrees, as I've written), generally by a small number of people with constraints on their time like everyone else. Ideally we would spend even more time on these sorts of activities. They're enjoyable and effective. But they can only achieve so much. When road designs are proposed that are manifestly dangerous to cyclists and other vulnerable road users, we get involved. These dangerous designs and redevelopments are frequent, so we spend a regrettable amount of our energy fire-fighting, explaining best practice to politicians, engineers, officials, etc., dispelling myths about basic road safety issues, explaining and dispelling again the following month, then the following year and five years later, and so on. This can be akin to banging one's head repeatedly off a brick wall, but there are indications that things are changing, however slowly. Having a national voice will help.

Thanks for the details Fnord, but to my mind this shows that the campaign's priorities are wrong. There will always be poor road designs because cyclists are a minority concern - this is highly unlikely to change in the foreseeable future. Rather than focussing on the losing battle of fixing poor infrastructure, concentrating on teaching roadcraft would allow cyclists to integrate with traffic and evaluate conditions as they occur. You essentially empower cyclists to make the correct decisions. Knowledge leads to confidence, increased participation and more national recognition. The GCC seems to have all the educational resources in place, it's just a matter of putting them front and centre.

I'm thinking of the analogy of teaching a man to fish rather than just giving him one.

blorg · 07-11-2008 03:45PM

I think Fnord is very reasonable in his responses here.

We have to remember here that all these campaigns are voluntary groups of people doing this work unpaid in their spare time. Good for them. Also note if you have any spare time yourself I am sure they would welcome you to get involved, discuss the issues, etc. I appreciate that someone is taking the time to campaign on behalf of cyclists and if you disagree with what they are doing (or indeed if you agree!) then get involved yourself.

Civilian_Target · 07-11-2008 06:29PM

I think Fnord is very reasonable in his responses here.

Hear hear. And the new site looks pretty. Still took me way too long to get to those Information Sheets, and my mother would never find them

And when I found them, they're not so useful.

Here's what I have, but I think you can improve on it http://www.civiliantarget.net/cycle/tips.html (particularly the colour scheme

)

Actually, I believe even that is too long, maybe half the length with better highlighting, like this:

# Be visible! If you can't be seen, you will be hit by other vehicles.
If cycling at night, make sure you have a rear light and a front one too.
Relective bands are free at any Garda station.
A reflective jacket is cheap and better.
If cycling during the day - just make sure that you don't wear all grey/black clothes.
# Stay clear of Heavy vehicles, particularly HGVs.
Busses often have to share lanes with cyclists and generally have a resonably safe (although often inconsiderate) attitude to cyclists.
Large trucks are unused to cyclists and this makes them very dangerous. If you see a HGV at a junction - stay away from it until it has finished turning.
# Take care at junctions, particularly roundabouts.
If in doubt at a roundabout, cycle in the centre of the lane to deter motorists from trying crazy overtaking.
If continuing straight ahead at a junction where left turning is permitted, ensure that you are not between the kerb and any potential left-turning vehicles. In this case stay in the centre of the lane as you appoach the junction.
# As a rule of thumb, you should cycle in the cycle lane unless there is either an obvious reason not to.
# Obey traffic lights unless you know better. You're probably liable for any damage that happens to you if you break a red light.

Bunnyhopper · 07-11-2008 09:19PM

Verb wrote: »

It's in the policy document, one of the immediate goals, repealing the mandatory cycle lane use law.

Hurrah. (And thanks, Verb - I'm only now getting time to have a look at the full policy document, which, by the way, is very impressive.)

I like the fact that there's attention to the problem of secure parking and storage. I know I'd cycle more often and to more places if I could be reasonably confident that the bike would be still all there and not in jumped-upon-by-vandals bits when I got back to it.

One thing I might give some more prominence to is the removal of VAT from safety equipment (helmets, lights and reflective belts, bibs, etc.). I see that you have the removal of VAT from all cycles and related equipment as a suggested fiscal incentive, but the safety equipment might be a useful (and relatively easy to argue) place to start.

You might even be able to get the motorcycling community to join in a combined assault on the powers that be (although getting them to take tax off anything these days seems to require at least 12,000 people on Kildare Street). The cycle to work scheme is some suggestion that they might be amenable to the idea, however.

RainyDay · 11-11-2012 11:13PM

Just to let you know that Google Reader doesn't like the cyclist.ie RSS feed;

Danger: Malware Ahead!
Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on www.google.com.
Content from www.cyclist.ie, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware.
Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss and permanent file deletion. Learn more

galwaycyclist · 12-11-2012 06:01AM

RainyDay wrote: »

Just to let you know that Google Reader doesn't like the cyclist.ie RSS feed;

Danger: Malware Ahead!
Google Chrome has blocked access to this page on www.google.com.
Content from www.cyclist.ie, a known malware distributor, has been inserted into this web page. Visiting this page now is very likely to infect your computer with malware.
Malware is malicious software that causes things like identity theft, financial loss and permanent file deletion. Learn more

Ta for heads up l'll let webmaster know - actually he's a boardsie will hopefully see.this anyway

miju · 12-11-2012 06:11AM

It really doesnt like it, lots of malware on the site:

http://safebrowsing.clients.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?client=Firefox&hl=en-US&site=http://cyclist.ie/

ciotog · 12-11-2012 10:00AM

Thanks for that folks. I've checked the pages and issues that Google lists. One example is

<script type="text/javascript" src="http://argoauto.net/tmp/
index-bkp.php">

being served via injection. I'm not seeing this (or the domains listed in the sources) in the content or in the database. I'm querying both the DB and using an exploit scanner. I've submitted the site for Google's review and will act if anything comes back.

miju · 12-11-2012 01:58PM

Had a similar attack happen on me before. Register on Google Webmaster tools it will help you find the pages infected and temp remove them Google (this fixes the Google warning prob)

Then download your entire site thats sitting on your server and use something like Dreamweaver to search all files in all folders for the URLs.

Usually the file sits in one of the folders that has public read / write permissions like the /cache/ folder

ciotog · 12-11-2012 02:09PM

miju wrote: »

Had a similar attack happen on me before. Register on Google Webmaster tools it will help you find the pages infected and temp remove them Google (this fixes the Google warning prob)

Then download your entire site thats sitting on your server and use something like Dreamweaver to search all files in all folders for the URLs.

Usually the file sits in one of the folders that has public read / write permissions like the /cache/ folder

I'd been on Google's Webmaster Tools and the info wasn't actually that useful. http://sitecheck.sucuri.net/results/cyclist.ie provided the answer (now it just shows that Google have blacklisted us) which was that the main index page (which scares me plenty, obviously) had a javascript prepended to the top of the file (identified as http://labs.sucuri.net/db/malware/malware-entry-mwanomalysp8). Wordpress, plugins and themes are all up to date and file/directory permissions all follow the recommendations on the Wordpress Codex so I'm waiting to get time to go through the logs and figure out what happened.

miju · 12-11-2012 04:55PM

The guide you are specifically looking for on what to do is here.

Even though all the file/directory permissions are set to recommended does not mean that they are not compromised.

These are pain in the ass attacks to clean up. It took me guts of 3 weeks to fully deal with mine.

Cyclist.ie launched

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