h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Welcome Recumbentman! Still looking forward to seeing 'The future is laidback' on the front page...

Lull in membership applications? To pass the time, here's a merry ode

Fellow Motorists:

When we've driven the last cyclist from his toe-hold on the street
Let us not become complacent, for the job is not complete
There's another class of person lining up for our attention
And he bends and breaks the law in every way that you could mention:
The pedestrian. His blind insouciance is past endurance
When it's WE who pay the taxes, pass the tests and buy insurance!
We are gentle, kind, forgiving, but he does his best to thwart us
As the heart-arresting jaywalker or traffic-jamming tortoise . . .
We INVENTED good behaviour, he's determined to destroy it!
And don't tell me to stop ranting, it's my right! And I enjoy it!

LOL! And of course the dictionary definition of a pedestrian is "someone who's found a space to park the car"

Very funny!

Actually, I sympathise greatly with law-abiding, sensible cyclists. It's just they are becoming a vanishing species.

There's two sides to that observation, Felonious!

The Stealth Vehicle theory gives one slant on "vanishing species".

My own entry on recumbent bikes A901036 propounds a theory on bike-blindness in a blockquote, and a relevant footnote . . .

I almost killed a child the other week, who rode out in front of me just as I turned a blind 90 degree bend. And I was in second gear at the time. Also, in my area, there are huge numbers of people riding without lights at night. One rode OFF the pavement in front of me the other night. When I tooted my horn at him, he gave me two fingers. I *felt* like ramming him off his bike. I didn't, as it happens.

Probably a good thing you didn't give in to temptation, really...

I need to brush the cobwebs of my copy of Richard' Bicycle Book and take my bike out for a ride sometime... maybe at Easter. I tend to go by bus at the moment, because the traffic's pretty horrendous around where I live.

I think the time is coming that as motorists we will do more creeping about and less swishing along in built-up areas.

I also used to shout at unlit cyclists and mutter about suicidal behaviour. I see my duty somewhat differently now. On country roads you expect cars to come around corners faster than they can cover their entered ground by eye, and it is prudent to leap for a ditch if you have the misfortune to be walking out. But in urban areas, a driver should not go faster than stoppable speed for whatever may appear immediately in front of him/her, ever; and that is something we have got to learn.

Think about it. A car and a gun are equally capable of doing damage.

Injury inflicted with a gun is (at present) treated more seriously in court than injury inflicted with a car; presumably this has something to do with the fact that a gun hasn't any other use than to inflict injury, and a car has.

But apart from that, I don't really see much difference in the duty of careful handling.

Amen to that.

I have a modest proposal online, which I'll bung in here when I get a minute:

http://www.chapmancentral.com/Web/public.nsf/Documents/Safer_Roads_Manifesto

I'm a cyclist!
A very occasional one. I have a trailer for my bike that I haven't had the courage to get out with yet - I live in a very hilly area and the off-spring would not sit on the trailer the last time I tried it.

Welcome, ZSF....

Incidentally, has anyone seen the article in Peer Review on Tricycles (A962831) - I think we might collectively be able to make a bit of a contribution.

I'm a cyclist!

National BUG co-ordinator for the Environment Agency, no less.

Ravenbait

Welcome! What does BUG mean, though?

Never heard of Bicycle User Groups? Dearie me. I can see another entry is required....

Absolutely

Welcome on and all, I've added ZSF and Ravenbait. If only we could arrange for more than one Researcher to be able to update an Entry, more might get done. I've been spending altogether too much tme arguing with the webmaster of www.safespeed.co.uk - he has the naive and touching belief that speeding isn't dangerous but speed cameras are. He is a troll on uk.rec.cycling, and we take great delight in slapping him down every tim he misquotes or misrepresents a statistic

I'm a cyclist! (Or at least, A Fat bloke that rides a bike!)

I would like to know how many people ride on the inside of the white lines on main roads.
I just got back from a trip with a friend that does that and I kept being harrassed by motorists that though tI should be inside the line. It is NOT a cycle lane and the more people that use it, the more people expect us to use it.

I am brain damaged! seriously, aquired brain injuries from a motorcycle smash in 1996.
I have more reason than most to wear a helmt as, if I hadn't worn one, I would have had no head left at all!
The problem is the compulsory use of helmets.
If I wear one, the pressures, even a hat does this, make my permanent headache a hell of a lot worse. If I am knocked off by a car then the insurance company are likely to try the "You should have been protecting yourself" line.
What do I do?

Steve

I'm a cyclist!

Welcome DogBad the Helmetless

There's an entire list of them at

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transport_debate