Journalism and Cycling 2: the difficult second album

The cyclist is described in the usual cold Garda terms "male" and "in his 40s", and of course was not knocked down by a driver or hit by a car but died after a "collision with a car".
Other cities are making hundreds of kilometres of protected cycle lanes in response to the pandemic; apart from protecting the people who ride on them, these also moderate driver behaviour.
Poor man, God rest him in his lonely death.

Funny how two journal commenters witnessed the crash on such a narrow road. I wouldn't be surprised if they're making it up so they can blame the cyclist, that's how f*cked up they are.

Cyclists who also drive are better able to recognize road risk, found earlier Australian research, published in Accident Analysis & Prevention. This 2017 study found that motorists who self-identified as cyclists were better able to spot potential road hazards.

Study author Vanessa Beanland of Australian National University noted that the “demands of cycling” appears to hone awareness skills. Beanland and her associates found that, in a lab setting, cyclist-drivers responded to new information more quickly than motorists who did not cycle.

Would seem to correlate with insurance companies' data that says customers who also cycle make far less claims.

Duckjob wrote: »

...I had this 'ould lad charging past me in his avensis only to have to slam on his brakes and nearly rear end the car in front.

I filtered past him again immediately and just shook my head at him. I don't think he even noticed that...

MGIF - Must Get In Front: A person whose entire driving plan consists of Getting In Front, treating all other road users, traffic lights, corners, roundabouts, etc as irritations to be overcome/dispensed with as quickly as possible, with no thought for planning ahead, space-sharing, safety of other road users or traffic laws. Most common in male drivers of German cars, but occurs to varying degrees in all ages, genders and vehicle-types (including bicycles).

Once you've been introduced to this concept, you start seeing it everywhere on the roads - I honestly think it should be defined in an RSA ad showing typical examples, because I do think that many people don't realise that they are doing it.

Yeah, I had a guy try to overtake me down Marlborough Road in D4, me on the cargo bike, cars parked on both sides, and a car coming the other way: no room at all, so he'd have pulled alongside me and then would have had to brake hard to not hit the oncoming car, or, I imagine more probably, swung hard left on top of me. So I just turned and said "no" loudly, and gave sort of a finger wag.

Of course, he pulled up alongside me once he had the opportunity (I'd pulled over as far as I could to let him pass, once there was room for him), rolled down the window and told me snootily that I had to obey the traffic laws too. I wasn't breaking any laws.

A lot of people are terrible at thinking one move ahead, but cyclists do seem to be a bit better on average.

CramCycle wrote: »

He didn't and even if he did, he probably won't fathom while. Had a car overtake me coming upto the turn into a school today. Thankfully seen it coming and dropped anchor and let a roar as I had to turn in. The look of confusion on the drivers face was interesting as I don't think they realised what had happened, just that someone shouted, their mind had not caught up yet.

Today on the school pick up, hit the lights and just as the light went red the car approaching floored it. Got air over the speed bump. Straight ahead stare, don't look left or right, god forbid you might see you're potential victim. Interestingly the reg and the car don't match. One of these days I am going to lose it and give chase. There was a young girl just stepping out on the other side, national school age, it is f*cking disgraceful, they have no shame.

I had another one today when I went on the bike to pick up kids from school. I arrived at the main gate which opens up at 2.15 to allow cars in for collection.

There's a crossing marked across this main gate which kids walk across at drop off and collection time. Only this morning there was an email from the principal asking parents exiting the gates to slow down and watch for kids crossing the entrance, because people don't seem to care once their own little darlings are safely despatched.

Anyway, I rock up today to the gate which was still closed as it was a bit early, and there's a woman in a tank pulled up in front of the gate with the arse of the car sitting right on the crossing. I couldn't stay quiet about this so I pointed out to her that she was blocking the safe passage and creating a danger for kids who had to walk nearly out on the road to get past. She did try to edge up closer to the gate and asked me "am I ok now ?", to which I said "well, you're still blocking the way, but you can't reverse now as you'll be creating even more danger than you are now". I have to say I wanted her to squirm a bit so maybe she'll think ahead next time.

On my way back out, the teacher that was greeting kids at the gate said thanks to me for saying something. I'm sure they're fed up to their back teeth of seeing this sort of inconsiderate s**te day in and day out.

tomasrojo wrote: »

Yeah, I had a guy try to overtake me down Marlborough Road in D4, me on the cargo bike, cars parked on both sides, and a car coming the other way: no room at all, so he'd have pulled alongside me and then would have had to brake hard to not hit the oncoming car, or, I imagine more probably, swung hard left on top of me. So I just turned and said "no" loudly, and gave sort of a finger wag.

Of course, he pulled up alongside me once he had the opportunity (I'd pulled over as far as I could to let him pass, once there was room for him), rolled down the window and told me snootily that I had to obey the traffic laws too. I wasn't breaking any laws.

A lot of people are terrible at thinking one move ahead, but cyclists do seem to be a bit better on average.

I've had a few on Marlborough coming against me from the opposite direction, with them passing the parked cars on their side. They seem to expect me to ride in the gutter to let them through, and are quite surprised when I hold my position, basically forcing them to stop.

I had one lady who stopped, as did I, then she inched forward hitting my handlebars, then she accused me of hitting her. When I pointed out that I was stopped and she was moving, she called me a wanchor and drove off. Charming people.

redlead wrote: »

From a motorists point of view I can never get my head around other motorists who think that overtaking cyclists gives them some sort of special powers that enables them to drive through oncoming traffic. As soon as they see cyclists on the road they instantly decide to overtake despite the fact that they will either hit you driving the other way , or worse still, clip the cyclist unless you jam on your brakes.

You lads cycling through Dublin must have balls of steel because there is some load of idiots driving around the place.

It's not limited to cyclists. I was driving past the local school at collection time yesterday. A line of cars parked up on the other side of the road along a bend despite the solid white line in the middle of the road. Oncoming drivers didn't really care, just moved out over the solid white line into my path for a nice game of chicken.

In fairness, the parked cars appeared to at least not be on the footpath.

tomasrojo wrote: »

I find it calm enough, mostly, on my regular routes. I've done a sort of iterative development cycle where I keep tweaking them until most of the slip lanes and close-pass streets are ironed out.

Marlborough Road is ok, in that cars can't seem to get up to any speed, but it's bad in that cars keep trying stupid passes, because the passing space is so narrow. It's definitely preferable to approaching my destination via the R138 through Donnybrook.

Off topic, sorry, but when did the N11 become the R138??

Duckjob wrote: »

Not sure how relatively good or bad I am at spotting hazards, but in general nearly everytime I go out on the bike or in the car I'm struck by just how myopic peoples driving appears to have become.

Cycling home this evening along North circular road, some eejit pulled out without looking and forced a clearly marked Garda van to slam on the brakes and give a huge blast of the horn. Unfortunately they didn't get pulled over.

Just home after cycling up the Malahide road. A guy in one of those new minis was struggling a bit to get past me, in the bus lane where he shouldn't have been around Maypark, and screamed "where's your f*cking helmet" as he speeded up the bus lane when he got past me eventually. Bizarre.

Another thing - Once again a teenager dies in a horror crash last night, 3 comments on the Journal. No one cares, and it's likely they could have been speeding or drunk, who knows. Why aren't the road safety enthusiasts that appear on cycling articles all over these deaths? It's a dead teenager ffs.