Anti-social vehicle - test case

Me? I certainly don't, but as a regular user of country roads I see an awful lot of people who clearly do. When you see a BMW going into a blind bend sufficiently fast to get serious body roll, you know the driver has no chance if there is a broken-down tractor just round the corner.

Heh! I see a lot of dead foxes and badgers alright.

I have been known to get out and shoo a hedgehog out of the way. How stupid is that? I bet the silly bugger wandered out under the wheels of the next milk tanker.

Guy

-- May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

10,000 miles a year counts as hardly ever driven? That's 200 miles a week or 30 miles a day Guy! Or should that say "Which I hardly ever drive but my wife drives a lot ;-)" Tony

Indeed. Thank you. That's what I suggested it was in the first place.

--

"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom.It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." (WilliamPitt, 1783)

There's a difference between the HC and the law. Failure to observe a provision of the HC is not, in itself, a criminal offence.

Jim.

This was a throwaway remark, based on some dimly remembered statistic I'd read several days before. It has met with some skepticism, which is fair enough. It has also caused certain people to accuse me of being a liar, which is *not* fair enough.

Just for the record, that 75% figure actually refers to junior school children only (whether infant and secondary school children were more or less likely to cycle, I have no idea). And rather than "forty years ago", I should have said "thirty-three years ago".

Life's too short to double-check every single stat I spew forth on Usenet, especially one so trivial. What I said wasn't that much of a distortion (at least I got the 75% right!), and it doesn't alter my original point in any way.

For those who had the manners to ask me what my source was, rather than coming straight out and accusing me of making it up, that figure comes from the Policy Studies Institute, "One False Move", 1990.

Jim.

Ping!

(BTDT)

cheers, clive

Is it heck as like.

Everybody these days distinguishes between the two (see, for example, rule 46 of the Highway Code).

Jim.

I'm intrigued by this. In what ways do such facilities increase risk? And do you have a link to any of these studies?

Jim.

I took my 11+ in 1958. As kids we all had bikes but not a single one of us rode a bike to school. There was no bike storage (and there still isn't, and never has been). And any bike left unnattended would certainly been stolen, pilfered from (bells lights, cycle pumps) or vandalised.

There was no other reason why no-one cycled particular to our school. All the kids came from surrounding housing estates, usually living 1-2 km from the school, about 20 minutes walk for me so probably 4-5 on a bike.

They are spouting bullshit. It was probably about right that 75% of kids had bikes, boys more than girls. Some Hooray- Henry with an Enid Blighton "Famous - Five" concept of life in the 50's and 60's must have just guessed they all rode their bikes to school and presented it as fact because it suited his current agenda.

I'd take "Policy Studies Institute" stuff with a large pinch of salt IIWY.

DG

But, as I'm sure you know, where the HC uses the phrase "MUST" or "MUST NOT" then it directly relates to Road Traffic Law and would be an offence.

Accidents happen mainly at junctions and rejoining the road. A cyclepath has many more junctions as it crosses side roads and driveways. Virtually all research reflects this increased risk.

Tony

Just zis Guy, you know? ( snipped-for-privacy@microsoft.com) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying :

Bought sensibly, absolutely. Look in your local paper at what £500-1000 gets you. Good quality cars, with PLENTY of life left in 'em, with one fundamental difference to most new stuff - they're maintainable without barrages of diagnostic computers. You can't troubleshoot multiplexing easily.

Bringing depreciation into it, as perhaps the greatest single cost of your motoring.

Nobody makes comfortable cars any more. They've all followed the Germans down the "concrete seats and no suspension" design path.

Our current average annual mileage is about 6k, of which roughly half is family trips (holidays, VFR and so on) and the other half utility trips locally. When the boys get to secondary school that should go down, as the secondary school is within walking distance.

Guy

-- May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Is that the noise of one of the little ball bearings flying across the workshop? Certainly sounded like it...

Guy

-- May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Wot Tony said, and also

Guy

-- May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

Yup. One of then landed in the box, the other two went into the depths of garage gloom. I'm impressed that my father managed to find them. _Much_ faff getting them back in again - but you know that!

cheers, clive

I considered posting the reference at the time; I should have.

Guy

-- May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.

88% of helmet statistics are made up, 65% of them at Washington University

It'll be under the fridge ;-)

Tony

There was no point in asking you the source, since whatever the source is, it is clearly wrong (as you quoted it at least). You really ought to have sensed that before you quoted it.

I don't think so.

They did not say that forty years ago, 75% of children cycles to school, which is what you "quoted" (or, if they did, they are away with the mixer).

I would be shocked to learn (authoritatively) that there has ever been a moment at which 75% of children at school simultaneously owned bicycles, let alone rode them to school.

And the fact that the whole thing is a pure fabrication does not necessarily imply that *you* made it up.