The war on Britains roads, 5th Dec BBC

meanredspider

Green Brompton wrote:

We should get helmet cams and show people what our commute is really about - getting from A-B quicker than most other modes of transport, comfortably and enjoyably.

What - like mine? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0Qs5gMz8cM

Wouldn't make great prime-time action viewing - needs Kate Humble to add interest

vermin

Tragic. RIP.

Koncordski

God that's depressing, sounds as though they haven't managed to track down the poor sod's family.

Brakeless

The only point to this programme was for the makers to profit! It's nice and cheap to lift footage from you tube, put a few people who they've contacted via you tube in front of a single camera and voice it over. The only real effort came in getting cameras into the cement lorry and taxi drivers cabs. I could understand the quality of this programme if it was channel 5 but BBC 1 !!!!!

mrjamesc

Il Principe wrote:

In other news, yet another cyclist was killed in London this morning. Collision invloved an HGV, again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20624639

RIP.

Such a shame!

I wish the government would introduce strict liability, Im sure this would stop almost all cyclist deaths

daviesee

Koncordski wrote:

God that's depressing, sounds as though they haven't managed to track down the poor sod's family.

A serious message here. Please, for everyone close to you, always carry ID and contact number.

Condolences.

spen666

mrjamesc wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

In other news, yet another cyclist was killed in London this morning. Collision invloved an HGV, again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20624639

RIP.

Such a shame!

I wish the government would introduce strict liability, Im sure this would stop almost all cyclist deaths

Strict liability would do more harm than good and would end up criminalising innocent people.

for example with strict liability, if a cyclist jumps a red light and rides into path of lorry proceeding slowly under a green light, strict liability would mean the lorry driver is guilty of an offence ( in criminal terms and financially liable in civil terms)



I suspect what you are thinking of is PRESUMED liability which is where in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the motorist is presumed to be liable for causing the accident

pinarello_fan

notsoblue wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Not sure what the point was of asking the lorry driver, etc. to comment on the thugs who got out and punched the chap in East London. What else were they going to say about blatantly criminal behaviour?

This really irritated me. The lorry driver's comments about the cyclists he saw while driving about were pretty ridiculous. The one guy wearing normal clothes who was minding his own business riding eastbound to the lights at Parliament Square was accused of being 'utterly oblivious' to the wheeled death being driven only meters behind him. I think its perfectly reasonable on a road like that, going at that speed, to not have to be constantly checking over your shoulder for danger.

IIRC, the guy in question was wearing headphones? If the 'wheeled death' or any other road user needed to attract his attention aurally, would he have heard? Doubt it

Personally, I thought that whilst the silver taxi driver clearly overreacted, the vast majority of the cyclegaz input seemed to be looking for trouble (with the exception of riding over the bridge). All the histrionics, clapping etc - what's the point? If I have to touch the brakes to avoid something happening on my commute, so what? I can quite happily ride along at 25 mph, but I can equally ride along at 24/23/18 mph and feel happy that I'm still alive and still get to where I'm going. You have to ride/drive to the conditions - just coz the speed limit is X, doesn't mean you have to do X

With the exception of the Cynthia Barlow piece and the clip with the tanker, I thought the rest of it just showed how arrogant/stupid/selfish road users in London can be.

notsoblue

vermin wrote:

iPete wrote:

If I can be arsed I might dust off the gopro and splice together 20+ rides & get in lots of CS8 'action'.

I want to see some proper SCR action on youtube, not this boring 'near-miss' stuff. Bring it on.

+1

Though I have a sneaking suspicion it doesn't look as exciting as it feels :P

whitebait01

notsoblue wrote:

vermin wrote:

iPete wrote:

If I can be arsed I might dust off the gopro and splice together 20+ rides & get in lots of CS8 'action'.

I want to see some proper SCR action on youtube, not this boring 'near-miss' stuff. Bring it on.

+1

Though I have a sneaking suspicion it doesn't look as exciting as it feels :P

What we need is a cameraman on a motorbike alongside and live Garmin data (speed/cadence/power) on screen. Plus helmet cams of course.

notsoblue

pinarello_fan wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

This really irritated me. The lorry driver's comments about the cyclists he saw while driving about were pretty ridiculous. The one guy wearing normal clothes who was minding his own business riding eastbound to the lights at Parliament Square was accused of being 'utterly oblivious' to the wheeled death being driven only meters behind him. I think its perfectly reasonable on a road like that, going at that speed, to not have to be constantly checking over your shoulder for danger.

IIRC, the guy in question was wearing headphones? If the 'wheeled death' or any other road user needed to attract his attention aurally, would he have heard? Doubt it

Thats just an assumption though. The point was that the guy was being criticised for cycling in a relaxed manner, on a quiet road. Maybe he heard the lorry behind and to the right of him, maybe he didn't, but he wasn't in any immediate danger through the way he was riding. The only risk to him at that point would have been another road user behind him not giving him enough space. Yet he was made out to be a negligent risk to himself.

mrjamesc

spen666 wrote:

mrjamesc wrote:

Il Principe wrote:

In other news, yet another cyclist was killed in London this morning. Collision invloved an HGV, again:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-20624639

RIP.

Such a shame!

I wish the government would introduce strict liability, Im sure this would stop almost all cyclist deaths

Strict liability would do more harm than good and would end up criminalising innocent people.

for example with strict liability, if a cyclist jumps a red light and rides into path of lorry proceeding slowly under a green light, strict liability would mean the lorry driver is guilty of an offence ( in criminal terms and financially liable in civil terms)



I suspect what you are thinking of is PRESUMED liability which is where in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the motorist is presumed to be liable for causing the accident

Ah yes, my bad, the latter

vermin

whitebait01 wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

vermin wrote:

iPete wrote:

If I can be arsed I might dust off the gopro and splice together 20+ rides & get in lots of CS8 'action'.

I want to see some proper SCR action on youtube, not this boring 'near-miss' stuff. Bring it on.

+1

Though I have a sneaking suspicion it doesn't look as exciting as it feels :P

What we need is a cameraman on a motorbike alongside and live Garmin data (speed/cadence/power) on screen. Plus helmet cams of course.

And Hugh Porter telling everyone that DDD is in the lead.

Blacktemplar

vermin wrote:

Blacktemplar wrote:

pete54 wrote:

Utter c**p. Was this BBC1 or had someone re-tuned my telly to Channel 5?

^This. Dreadful programme.

I only watched bits of it while flicking back & forward during the ads on another channel.

Which is why you thought it was bad. Had you watched it through, you would have seen that it was a well structured, balanced, thought provoking documentary. Instead, you dismissed it as a whole work and totally missed the point. Well done.

But Cyclegaz did come across as a bit of a twunt.

I watched enough of it to see that whilst it did present both points of view (drivers & cyclists) and it did show the tragedy and distress of bereavement, I did not say it was imbalanced, nor did I "miss the point" - it was also sensationalist, divisive and a cheap shot by the BBC. In what way is 99% footage of interactions between cyclists and drivers in the capital (not Britain, as the title suggests) "well structured, balanced"? In what way is showing old rat race footage "balanced, thought provoking"? In what way is watching a smug self-interested tw@t like CycleGaz pontificate on camera about "being assaulted" add anything of value to the debate about how cyclists and other road users can safely co-exist across Britain? Oh, wait a minute, it didn't.
Well done.

All it did was reinforce the widely held view of non-cyclists that cycling is dangerous, and Daily Mail man will feel justified in his hatred. Remember, YOU may have seen it as "a well structured, balanced, thought provoking documentary" but never underestimate the intellectual capacity of the masses to see only what justifies their own already one-eyed point of view. I am constantly amazed, even here in the provinces, at how ignorant and misguided even well-educated people are about the issues around cycling.

[/rant]

vermin

pinarello_fan wrote:

With the exception of the Cynthia Barlow piece and the clip with the tanker, I thought the rest of it just showed how arrogant/stupid/selfish road users in London can be.

True

mrjamesc

What was that guy called, the one with the website?

notsoblue

A Sustrans comment: http://www.sustrans.org.uk/resources/in ... -go-to-war

pinarello_fan

notsoblue wrote:

pinarello_fan wrote:

notsoblue wrote:

This really irritated me. The lorry driver's comments about the cyclists he saw while driving about were pretty ridiculous. The one guy wearing normal clothes who was minding his own business riding eastbound to the lights at Parliament Square was accused of being 'utterly oblivious' to the wheeled death being driven only meters behind him. I think its perfectly reasonable on a road like that, going at that speed, to not have to be constantly checking over your shoulder for danger.

IIRC, the guy in question was wearing headphones? If the 'wheeled death' or any other road user needed to attract his attention aurally, would he have heard? Doubt it

Thats just an assumption though. The point was that the guy was being criticised for cycling in a relaxed manner, on a quiet road. Maybe he heard the lorry behind and to the right of him, maybe he didn't, but he wasn't in any immediate danger through the way he was riding. The only risk to him at that point would have been another road user behind him not giving him enough space. Yet he was made out to be a negligent risk to himself.

Didn't the Cemex driver point out the headphones though? The 'relaxed cyclist' might not have been in immediate danger, but he's certainly reducing his ability to react to any danger. If the 'relaxed cyclist' has to react to a change in road conditions and swerves for example, unaware of what's behind him...then the 'relaxed cyclist', who was a negligent risk to himself has now involved a completely innocent party potentially.

whitebait01

mrjamesc wrote:

What was that guy called, the one with the website?

Gaz?

http://www.croydoncyclist.co.uk/

pinarello_fan

notsoblue wrote:

A Sustrans comment: http://www.sustrans.org.uk/resources/in ... -go-to-war

Pretty sensible and succinct I thought...

Headhuunter

vermin wrote:

Good god, some people on here really need to wake up.

"there was no analysis or detail, no 'cars: give cyclists space, cyclists: don't RLJ' advice. Just video clips." The message was abundantly clear in the clips and the editing/story-telling. Do you need it spelt out in massive flashing red capital letters across the screen for an hour?

"It basically said "don't cycle as it's incredibly dangerous"". Did it? The makers had access to goodness knows how many years of video clips and stories, yet showed just a handful of dangerous/scary moments, some of which weren't even scary. The other half's comment was, it's not that bad really is it? So long as you are sensible and aware.

For any drivers watching, unless they were twunts already, it gave prime-time exposure to how it feels to be a cyclist on London's roads.

Open your eyes, folks, and get a sense of proportion.

Are you serious? You thought it was an intelligent documentary? What a load of cr@p! It was basically a grandstand of vid clips showing how dangerous cycling was. There was no intelligent discussion, analysis not conclusion just a bunch of motorists and cyclists having a go at each other in Youtube vid clips. Alex Zane should've been presenting it. It was sensationalist TV in perfect form, not what you'd expect from the BBC...

Headhuunter

Origamist wrote:

I thought it was better than "Heir Hunters", but not nearly as good as "Cheaters".

Agreed, slots neatly into that category...

gtvlusso

Just had a nosey fish about on cyclechat; Some interesting comments on it, mostly the camera bunch who 'effectively' made the documentary possible saying how badly edited it was and taken out of context and regretting allowing the documentary makers from using their films, you know; the films that are publicly accessible on youtube :roll:

Still, the point of the documentary, as titled was to prove that there is a 'war' between cyclists and drivers...... The documentary delivered exactly what it sought by title.

Well, the only war they bring, they bring upon themselves. For that reason, I am now a pacifist.....

So, Next question: Is using a helmet camera and uploading footage to youtube a good thing or a bad thing?

**I don't give a sh*t about filming if it is for private or legal needs.

vermin

Headhuunter wrote:

vermin wrote:

Good god, some people on here really need to wake up.

"there was no analysis or detail, no 'cars: give cyclists space, cyclists: don't RLJ' advice. Just video clips." The message was abundantly clear in the clips and the editing/story-telling. Do you need it spelt out in massive flashing red capital letters across the screen for an hour?

"It basically said "don't cycle as it's incredibly dangerous"". Did it? The makers had access to goodness knows how many years of video clips and stories, yet showed just a handful of dangerous/scary moments, some of which weren't even scary. The other half's comment was, it's not that bad really is it? So long as you are sensible and aware.

For any drivers watching, unless they were twunts already, it gave prime-time exposure to how it feels to be a cyclist on London's roads.

Open your eyes, folks, and get a sense of proportion.

Are you serious? You thought it was an intelligent documentary? What a load of cr@p! It was basically a grandstand of vid clips showing how dangerous cycling was. There was no intelligent discussion, analysis not conclusion just a bunch of motorists and cyclists having a go at each other in Youtube vid clips. Alex Zane should've been presenting it. It was sensationalist TV in perfect form, not what you'd expect from the BBC...

I suspect a case of this...

notsoblue

pinarello_fan wrote:

Didn't the Cemex driver point out the headphones though? The 'relaxed cyclist' might not have been in immediate danger, but he's certainly reducing his ability to react to any danger. If the 'relaxed cyclist' has to react to a change in road conditions and swerves for example, unaware of what's behind him...then the 'relaxed cyclist', who was a negligent risk to himself has now involved a completely innocent party potentially.

Did you see the clip? Did you see how much space there was between the cyclist and the lorry? Just how far out would the cyclist have had to swerve (without looking) to have been a danger? I know that bit of road, and I'm not sure what kind of danger there would have to be along there that would have me constantly checking over my shoulder.

Besides, aren't motorists meant to give bikes enough room to account for swerving to avoid danger?

theotherjake

mrjamesc wrote:

What was that guy called, the one with the website?

Traffic droid?

jds_1981

notsoblue wrote:

pinarello_fan wrote:

Didn't the Cemex driver point out the headphones though? The 'relaxed cyclist' might not have been in immediate danger, but he's certainly reducing his ability to react to any danger. If the 'relaxed cyclist' has to react to a change in road conditions and swerves for example, unaware of what's behind him...then the 'relaxed cyclist', who was a negligent risk to himself has now involved a completely innocent party potentially.

Did you see the clip? Did you see how much space there was between the cyclist and the lorry? Just how far out would the cyclist have had to swerve (without looking) to have been a danger? I know that bit of road, and I'm not sure what kind of danger there would have to be along there that would have me constantly checking over my shoulder.

Besides, aren't motorists meant to give bikes enough room to account for swerving to avoid danger?

also see the other thread about the pedestrian and cyclist on the shared path..

rjsterry

Just had a trawl round and can't find a good review of it anywhere (except our Vermin ). Pretty much universally panned as sensationalist nonsense trying to prove the existence of a non-existant war, with the only saving grace being the inclusion of Cynthia Barlow and the cab driver who lost his grandson.

il_principe

theotherjake wrote:

mrjamesc wrote:

What was that guy called, the one with the website?

Traffic droid?

Or Cyclegaz. Not sure who is worse.

vermin

rjsterry wrote:

Just had a trawl round and can't find a good review of it anywhere (except our Vermin ). Pretty much universally panned as sensationalist nonsense trying to prove the existence of a non-existant war, with the only saving grace being the inclusion of Cynthia Barlow and the cab driver who lost his grandson.

8)

I don't get it. Struck me that if you just 'looked' at it, without thinking about the story being told, then yes, it was sensationalist and nothing more. If you actually immersed yourself in it and let the storyteller tell his story, then it ran much deeper and actually worked. Maybe I'm just much cleverer than everyone else. Or something.