OT: New driving laws and cyclists etc

Yet this exact maneuver is done every day on the main bike path here.

It's a track too.

When the garbage collection pickup truck goes down the path, he stops, cyclists drive by him, he then drives on. Same with police and ambulance and even the rotary path sweeper. The sweeper operator stops the rig while cyclists pass (that machine is particularly dangerous if you don't have safety glasses).

Heavier equipment is near the path. Construction fencing completely blocks the side of the bicycle path in places (zero shoulder). These are areas where extra caution is required on everyones part.

Politeness actually works.

One of the reasons the legal system reaches decisions like this (the penalty for the event in the video), is for educational purposes.

When marijuana was decriminalized here, the very day that went into effect, there were police check points on the on-ramps to the highway. You'd be stopped, the officer would say "Have you had anything to drink today, sir?". Then, the officer would sniff the air of the vehicle for marijuana. It took them a couple of days, to catch a "representative sample" and write the person up a ticket for 600. Then, the persons name was published in the paper, the amount he was charged and so on. That was their advertising mechanism, to make sure people knew what the penalty was. They really did not catch a lot of people. It wasn't a Cheech and Chong movie, after all.

There are no regular roadside checks today. Only in the month of December, near Christmas. Do people toke and drive here ? Of course. But you only seem to notice this on certain days (at a guess, next date would be 4/20).

When a bylaw was written up, giving transit buses priority on the road (bus driver signals lane change, car drivers back off and let him change lanes), I thought that would never work. Yet, today, in rush hour, if you're a bus driver, you don't have to worry about chuckle-heads. People learn from one another, see people yielding to buses and the bus operator gets to keep his "good driving record" by not smashing up cars for nothing. What a world!

Paul

Apart from JCB fastracs, there aren't many proper agricultural vehicles that can 60 mph (and I think they are limited to 50)

What?

Fifty-nine inches space is just magicked up out of nowhere?

He might do that. Bin lorries make many stops.

But it isn't a rule.

Cuts both ways.

You mean his insightful factual contribution.

Define "at speed".

Is it just a negation of "stationary"?

I didn't know what the feature was, until the day I triggered it.

That curved plate on the end of the pedal, prevents the axle of the pedal from digging into the road, when you lean the bike over and make too aggressive of a turn. I was on the bicycle path at the time, heard the scraping, and because the pedal does not dig into the pavement, I was able to recover the turn no harm done. I think you can imagine the shocked look on my face, when putting 2+2 together :-) "So that's what that stupid thing is for..."

Years ago (age 18 maybe), I *did* have a bicycle without that plate on the end of the pedal, the pedal axle did dig into the street. The bicycle stopped instantly, I was thrown thirty feet to the grass strip on the side of the road. When I came to, I was on my hands and knees on the grass. And I could not figure out the trajectory, like how I was able to fly that far from the bicycle.

So now I know how that feature works. Neat, eh? One bike without the pedal plate. One bike with the pedal plate.

That plate is on the side of racing pedals. If you don't have that plate... then don't lean into the curves. Or you'll get your pilots license like I did. The next day I was a bit stiff, but because I didn't hit the road surface while in flight, there was no road rash or open wounds. The bicycle was a write off, but I still dragged it home after the incident. I think I had to walk about four miles with a busted front wheel, and one pedal crank rotated at a 45 degree angle, from the stress of catching in the crowned road.

There must have been some bodily rotation while I was in flight, and that could be why I temporarily blacked out.

And in terms of the force vector, I came off the side of the bicycle, not over the handle bars. That style of accident does not involve flying over the handlebars.

I didn't actually lean the bike too far over. That road has an abnormally high crown in the center, for water drainage. I didn't know about that crown when I hit it with the pedal. On a normal (flatter) road, I would have completed the turn without incident.

Paul

or try cycling safely and not like a maniac. What you describe, never happened to me, and I never heard of it happening to anyone.

So the difference is that older pedals had a rectangular edge rather than a curved edge on the outward side (opposite side to crank)? I can't say I've ever looked at the pedals on my bikes (manual and e-bike) but I will do tomorrow. I might have just learned something...

I don't think I've ever cornered so hard that one of the pedals has touched the road. I do find that I sometimes ground the pedals on raised earth when riding in a wheel rut on a muddy track, so I've got into the habit of setting my pedals at 3 and 9 o'clock and not letting one of them fall to 6 o'clock where it is more likely to ground on the edge of the rut. Obviously that only works if you are freewheeling rather than pedalling.

...

Much faster than I would consider prudent on a narrow road with other road users present. The CPS would seem to agree, or they wouldn't have brought the case to Court.

Possibly the better option. If the car stops and the bikes continue, there is the danger of one of the bikes scraping the car (which amazingly enough can lead to the car being written off), while the unidentifiable cyclist disappears with no come back.

The car cannot make more space by pulling off the road, in case the verge is too soft and the wheels sink in, while the cyclists can stop and pull fully off the road, perfectly safely.

There may not even be a verge, just a hedge coming down to meet the edge of the road. Plenty of lanes like that around here. Even one with a chalk cliff coming down to meet the edge of the road.

Did you get some Paxlovid ?

A lady here tested positive, and to get Paxlovid, you can't take it (serves no purpose) unless taken within about five days after a positive test. And she was having trouble getting approval for a course of the medication, in time to meet the deadline.

in a recent article here, a doctor warns that even if you have BA.2 and it seems mild, it can still be doing damage to you. And you really should do something about it. Don't be too complacent, just because you didn't cough up a lung. Maybe you could have heart trouble sooner than expected, or even a case of diabetes. I don't have a handy list in hand, of what the downsides are of "just riding it out". With the Paxlovid, you can take those at home. There are some other meds they can give you, but they're more of a nuisance.

I think we will burn through our tiny stock of Paxlovid fairly quickly here (production still isn't ramped enough).

It's in the sewer here (the signal never went away when the masks came off), so this crap never really left. Even if the rest of the medical system can't record things properly, those sewer people are heroes. That's the advance warning system. It tells you what the real prevalence is.

Paul

You have very valid points.

I rather hope Adam has *not* had Paxlovid given NHS England only give it to people at *highest* risk from Covid because of other conditions (such as cirrhosis) or recent chemotherapy/radiotherapy.

You might joke about brain fog, but when I had Covid (Delta) I made a couple of inexplicable safety mistakes with power tools. It was like I felt fine, I could still think about complicated stuff, but made these errors about simple almost subconscious tasks.

Whatever happened to the old section of the highway code prohibiting racing or time trialling on public roads?

Well, it comes down to the law.

As you demonstrate, some people are more concerned about a scratch to their car than a cyclist's life. The law is there to categorise this as antisocial behaviour and to act as a deterrent.

As ever you miss the point: You took exception to the phrase 'travelling too fast' and queried the speed limit on the 'road'. Speed limits do not mean you can travel safely at the speed limit.

You know that, I know that, most people know that but Andrew seems not to as he took exception to the phrase 'travelling too fast'