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

Me, yesterday: Is this street one-way?

Elektra: I can't tell. There's a car parked the other way.

Me: That's not proof. Do you see any street signs going the other way?

... I'm lost again. I hate the neighbourhood this side of Main Street. It's like a roach motel. You can check in, but...

Elektra (snorting with laughter): You can't get off this street...what's this one coming up? Oh, no, we're all the way back to 7th...we're almost home again!

Me: Too many Indian trails around here....'Dear Google: Your online directions suck.' [More driving.}

I finally do what I should have done in the first place: follow my nose. After only one illegal manoeuvre, we succeed in parking in the town square. Two hours later, we're heading home.

Elektra: Can we get there?

Me: I dunno. It's a whole .8 miles....actually, we can. I'll just go around the 'Road Closed' signs the workmen have put up.

Which I did. Right in front of my next-door neighbour, who did the same thing.

It's not the size of the town in the mess, it's the size of the mess in the town.

Oh: if you read this drivel, you are entitled to see the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NH8KglumtQ

We have the pleasure of hosting the Tour of Britain today, six hours of road closures and diversions so middle aged men in Lycra can watch younger men in Lycra peddle their stupid bikes around our roads. I feel your pain but at least you get a new sewer at the end of it, we get nothing..unless you are a MAMIL!

I sympathise. As a non-rider (balance issues, fall off), I have never managed to develop an interest in bicycle races.

So what you're saying is that roads are cycle-friendly for a whopping six hours a year, but motor-friendly for a mere eight thousand, seven hundred and fifty four.
Doesn't sound fair to me – bicycles were invented before cars and motorbikes so should have priority on roads, particularly as the first national road building organisation, the Roads Improvement Association, was founded in 1885 by cyclists for cyclists, and then once road surfaces were made suitable for cycling on, motorists came along and said, 'Thank you very much, we're nicking these'.

<BB<

I suppose you think they should never have changed those laws whereby it was required to precede a car with a flagman to warn the horses?

What I fink is that since the Second World War the UK's transport policy has been:
'We'll close lots of railways in favour of the car'
'We'll close lots of tramlines in favour of the car'
'We'll close lots of local airports in favour of the car' – including the Isle of Wight's airports that pre-war used to have regular services to cities such as Portsmouth, London and Birmingham, and you can't drive across the Solent.

And who was making those decisions? Ernest Marples, a man who owned the UK's largest road-building company at the time (denying he had a conflict of interest 'cos he sold it to his wife for £1) and then when asked to pay some tax for once promptly fled to Monaco.

<BB<

It's the same everywhere - US school systems started printing school materials on wood paper instead of hemp. Then the US outlawed hemp growing, which used to be mandated by law in colonial North America.

Why? William Randolph Hearst owned a lot of forests he wanted to denude for profit.

Fight for your public transport. In the US, the highway lobby promoted the trucking industry and killed the railroads. My dad used to growl about this when stuck behind trucks on the interstate.

Pay tax, get mot, get licenced, stop at red lights, get insurance, if the roads are 'yours'.strange they won't close the roads for a charity motorbike ride, but for the TV cameras we've had a month of roadworks, resurfacing, diversions ....sorry if I've upset the pedal power people but try spending three hours getting home for a non charity event!

Hope the next stage is somewhere more pedal friendly...Isle of White?

I believe they go through Prof Animal Chaos' backyard at some point... If they can dodge his gardening, which he does with a flamethrower...

We were just talking over here about the bike lanes business. The mayor of Pittsburgh, Bill Peduto, is taking a lot of flak about bike lanes. Personally, I think anybody who can manage to ride a bicycle in Pittsburgh must be a heroic athlete. Pittsburgh has a lot of cobbled streets, many of which are at angles 30 degrees or above. We figure they have lots of gears and sprockets and such.

I am grateful for bike lanes. They keep bicyclists off the sidewalk. In Philadelphia, bicyclists on the sidewalk were a plague, although they were there illegally if they were over 12 years old. I have been knocked down by bicycles on sidewalks.

Then there were the seniors riding the streets in mobility chairs...

Ah, my dear FWR, we're not disagreeing.

Roads are everywhere, all pervasive and omnipresent. No matter what you do or where you go, chances are you'll be surrounded by roads. And inexplicably although they're everywhere, if you try and do something useful with them for a change rather than just have cars on the things, and people object? How dare they refuse to close the roads for a charity motorbike ride! Roads should certainly be used for charity motorbike rides, they should be used by traction engine events, ones with fair slopes should have go-karting on, they should have parades, carnivals, tea parties, they should close the high streets for those 50-a-side events that ran from one side of town to the other. The more the merrier! Get away from the idea that roads – which are everywhere - are only for cars. Make them multifunctional spaces that are shared with everyone who wants them.

Inexplicably there are a lot of people who'll say 'when I was a lad we used to play football and cricket in the streets and everyone left their front doors wide open so that when you smashed a window you could easily pop in to get your ball back' and complain that children spend too much time indoors, but the second you suggest closing a road for one hour a year so that they can play on them act all horrified.

As for your other points, my bike is regularly serviced, I am insured (and I mean me, not the bike) and I do indeed pay tax – council tax, income tax, value added tax etc. Obviously no-one born after 1920 has ever paid road tax 'cos it was abolished by Winston Churchill in 1937, when it was replaced by Vehicle Excise Duty. Vehicle Excise Duty (which I pay for the car) is of course calculated and based on the amount of Carbon Dioxide the vehicle emits, and as a cyclist I pay the fair share of as the net carbon dioxide release by my vehicle is 0. (Fortunately there isn't a breathing tax)
http://www.carwow.co.uk/blog/road-tax-doesnt-exist

Although I personally always stop at red lights, I agree wholeheartedly that many cyclists do and give the rest of us a bad name. However the vast majority of the time those concerned are young lads in their teens or early twenties. The sort of people who, when given a motorbike, act like kangaroos jumping forward and then slamming their brakes and think the more noise they create, the better they are. Given a car they'd do exactly the same thing – drive through red lights and think they own the road – it's just immaturity, something which isn't limited to the vehicle in question.

Sadly roadworks, resurfacing, diversions are a part of life. I'd still like to know why they dug up our residential area to install new carbon fibre cables between 1am and 6am 'to minimise disruption', when digging up during the day when no-one is in would be sensible…

I liked your end comment, made me laugh – roads being resurfaced on the Isle of Wight it'd never happen

<BB<

Get a bike race to come through, they'll soon find the money!
Thank you for the elaborate response. Trust me I am well aware of the advantages and disadvantages of shutting roads down for events. I am also aware of the dangers of pedal cycles on modern roads. I am also aware of the need for training, safety equipmdeny, lights, brakes, adherence to the highway code etc etc etc.

Scrape enough casualties up off the highways and you tend to get the point.

Pedal safely!

My apologies DG for hijacking what was a light-hearted thread. Building bridges indeed!

No problem! I think y'all just built a few.

I know why you went wrong in the streets
you'd put the batteries in the wrong way on your sat-nav



clout coming

I can't use a satnav. I can't hear it.

it does visual as well

but! sunlight CAN obscure vision sometimes

still runs from clout

My commute used to be 45 minutes. Annoying, but doable. Then they closed the car parks at the university - Luxembourg is trying to manage its traffic problem by putting the park & ride bus stops at the edge of the country now, rather than the edge of the city. So my commute turned into an hour, because I do the last 40km by bus.

And then they decided to close the road I drive on to get there, to replace the sewers. For the next TWO YEARS.

My commute is now up to 80 minutes, provided I don't get stuck behind a truck or a tractor on the windy forest road diversion where you can't overtake and end up missing the bus...

That sounds like no fun. You need a light plane.

Two years?!

Yeah. I'll probably be defending my thesis before it's open again!