Roads weren't built for cycling either.

Roads were not built for cars

I have had much discourse with Carlton Reid on this matter and I can say that he is so anti driver and anti car, that he cannot even accept the fact that, whereas society would totally collapse without drivers & indeed cars, the same isn't true about cyclists. That isn't anti cyclist or pro driver but a simple truth. When an author cannot accept truth, how true is his work? 

It is no surprise to me that the foreword to the book is by Edmund King on the pretence of representing drivers. He is so pro cyclist, and what I call an anti driver driver, it's like getting Captain Ahab to endorse a book on whale killing. 

Carlton Reid

Roads weren't built for cyclists either but for Roman legions. From the time mankind took to the horse bullock and camel, our society wasn't built on any manpower transport at all. Why did people like Ford apply their minds to cars? Because the pushbike was never a viable load bearing long distance transport mode and not fit for purpose.

Road cycling is a very dangerous business and is uncomfortable, hard work and miserable in wet windy weather and even riskier on ice so most of our 65 million don't do it. Like joggers, only a tiny minority of self flagellators feel the need. If it was viable, all of us would choose to do it as long as we are able.

The present day motor vehicle is the successor to the horse and cattle drawn chariots,carts, waggons, stages, traps and carriages of yesteryear and their part of the road is called the Carriageway to this day.

The cycle enjoyed a very brief heyday around the start of the last century as the poor man's answer to the horse and carriage so
of course cyclists played a part in developing all sorts of things since; although in those days, most couldn't afford anything else, they were clearly looking for something more fit for purpose than the push bike.

Today, there are only two types of road user that we must have to maintain our lives: Walkers and drivers. That is another truth that Carlton Reid cannot accept but for the sake of society, it's about time politicians woke up to the reality.

For doing no more than stating truth, Carlton Reid has blocked me from following his twitter account. @CarltonReid any pro drivers willing to join his followers to provide some balance would be most welcome I am sure.

Note: The ball bearing was invented and conceived by Leonardo de Vinci between 1498 & 1500. In 40 AD the Romans were using them in food rotarys. John Metcalf, who was blind and didn't cycle, built the first surfaced road in 1765. It was called the Stockport to Mottram Turnpike and was a toll road. He built about 180 miles of road in Yorkshire  His well drained roads were built in three layers of large stones, hardcore and then gravel. 

Amateur Anti People People want to cripple road transport.

 Much is being made of rural road fatalities. 'Three a day' they exclaim. In this Mail on Line piece. So let's start by getting road death in perspective shall we? See the list here. But for now there are about 4000 people killed every year from accidents in the home alone. A total of about 2000 a year from every cause on the roads after 300 billion driver miles a year.

And when they talk about 'rural roads', let's be clear, they are talking about all of UK's trunk routes, including dual carriageways, not just country lanes. 

The economic cost of hamstringing a major infrastructure, more spent on camera profiteering and dishonest courses, would save far more lives if in the NHS, and rescue services.

Who are these people? Who is Liz Brooker?

Well all she is is one of the local authority road safety managers we have exposed already with no credentials in the subject at all. Top road driving qualification? No. Dealt with accidents? No. Prosecuted from accidents? No. Investigated accidents? No Do read more about RSGB Ltd here

The AA are cited as a 'motoring organisation' in the piece, but my followers will know that like Liz, they have no credentials either

 and how does fixing cars, fixing plumbing and selling insurance, make them a motoring organisation? In fact, on the contrary, their President told a Select Committee that he wanted more motorists prosecuted and more sent on lucrative and dishonest speed awareness courses that the AA run too.

This is nothing to do with road safety, any more than the 20 zones being rolled out countrywide. It's part of the Green anti people agenda with the usual profiteers licking their lips in the background and for those reasons makes no economic sense whatsoever.

Head Cam Vigilantes

Drivers' Union has already commented on Head Cam vigilantism In this item. but now the hostile use of these head cams is being stepped up by the kind of cycling anoraks who seem to think it their duty to spy on all and sundry unsolicited in case they do something wrong  See story here 

and Here    and this lunatic: justice-on-two-wheels-in-the-heart-of-london

Without question, these cameras are emboldening their aggressive wearers to accost and rebuke other road users about issues which are very often no more than subjective perception like self appointed police officers. This is causing violent confrontation and is bound to lead to tears before long. See this good example.

It is not the right of any road user to rebuke others whilst pointing a camera at them in a threatening manner 

It seems that the Police Chiefs agree. 

.@DriverUnion People who take more overt action put themselves at risk of harm and could impact negatively on a police investigation.

— NPCC (@PoliceChiefs) June 19, 2015

I have already raised the very valid observation that, in an age when we are stopped from filming our own family at Nativity or in a swimming pool,  these people can use a camera discriminatedly to film whoever they happen to be peering at at the time. School kids, babies, young mums and so on. This Sneeky Pete is doing just that.  In my view this unsolicited filming of people could, and indeed, should be challenged whenever it happens. In fact, until tested, it could be deemed to be conduct likely to cause a breach of the peace. So far the police and Home Office, who I have raised this with, have not denied this is so. But usually the police don't like us being vigilantes in case we get hurt although they do seem to encourage it if against drivers; a discrimination if ever there were one. 

But for now I will concentrate on whether or not the police are able, or have the resources to examine every inch of weirdo footage submitted to them by sneaky Petes. Of course they don't. So let's get their role defined straight away. The police are meant to find their own cases, investigate them and instigate due process once the CPS is satisfied with their case. Of course they pursue allegations and compile evidence for prosecution but this role isn't confined to police. Any person is able to lay an information to the courts and present their case in due course. That is exactly how the head cam mafia should be dealt with. If they think they have produced enough evidence to convict a member of the public, then they should put their money where their mouth is and make the case themselves so that our police can get on with real crime as the majority of us would like them to do.

Unbelievably the new ACPO Ltd, NPCC, are saying they support aggressive head Cam vigilantes, accosting and rebuking other drivers whilst filming them without consent. See it here.   

Boardman does it again.

Chris Boardman

In this Sun article

 Chris Boardman, who manufactures and sells expensive push bikes says that the NHS should buy thousands of bikes and then hand them out on prescription to the obese.

What a surprise. Doesn't a financial vested interest rather undermine Chris' motives somewhat? Most of our 65 million people don't road cycle because it's had work, uncomfortable, highly dangerous and as a transport option, unviable. The fact is, the more that do it, the more killed or seriously injured by it so there are much healthier ways of getting exercise anyway.

 I have already raised questions about his evidence to a Transport Select Committee, who have endorsed his request for £10 a head from all of us (Some £600million plus) to promote cycling, See The Cheek of Chris Boardman but how brazen can he get?

Garmin v Tom Tom

  Ok. So you want a Sat Nav? Which one to choose?

Believe it or not it may depend on if you want to tour Europe or the U.S.A. Or if you just stay in the UK.

Last year on route to one of my Europe trips, I knew we would be going outside the EU into Poland and the Czech Republic, and my old trustee original Tom Tom 300 

didn't cover them, I stopped off at Halford's and bought the latest Garmin.

Two Sat Navs in one vehicle was too irresistible and to see how they compared or differed was an interesting prospect too. 

I could not help than to be very impressed with the options, displays and layout of the new machine, and of course, as one would expect with development, the smaller mounts and housing too. The display is much brighter than my old machine, so much so, I can't believe it always was so dim in bright light but what about navigation?

There are aspects of the old 300 that I like much better than the new Garmin, but the reverse is also true in other aspects. Madam TomTom is much calmer and clearer in vocal directions, and I can visualise yards better than I can decimals of a mile for example. I also like an ETA as opposed to time to run and the compass direction is very useful even without any mapping. So that even out of area, Tom Tom still gave a compass heading. But why oh why was Madam Garmin losing satellite connection so much when Tom Tom wasn't? If satellites are geo stationary? Why does this happen? And are both systems using different satellites?

Losing Sat Nav on a long leg of motorway with no expected turn offs is quite bearable, but certainly not when negotiating a large metropolis for a specific location, or a series of major intersections. The last thing a safe driver needs is confusion about direction. Garmin dropped out on us so regularly in Europe at crucial moments, I was so glad that I still had Madam Tom Tom guiding us in instead.

So if you ask me 'Which one to buy?'. For Europe it has to be TomTom.

But I will add that a lesson learned when staying in a large city, is to always carry city street maps so that if Sat Nav fails, as both did one night just before negotiating Paris, you can at least revert to the old fashioned method. We now have maps of Paris, Vienna, Zurich, Geneva, Prague and Dresden in our door compartments because Sat Nav can be very unpredictable no matter which brand.

Cyclists must take some responsibility for their own safety too.

Two incidents on this Europe trip where cyclists could've been on the wrong end of a shunt with a motor vehicle caused me to ponder what was a major contributing factor to two close shaves.

Firstly a major contributor has to be the sheer vulnerability of road cycling. To even mention this reality, sends cycling fanatics into apoplexy with shouts of 'victim blaming' from them because, one thing I do know about, is their determination that everything they do is so sensible that, when it goes wrong, the other guy, usually a driver, is to blame. 

The first incident involved me as the driver. I was trying to find a residential street in a small French Hamlet and had previously passed a couple of racing style a la Wiggo Lycra clads prior to turning off the main road and into a side turning. Driving very slowly looking for a street suddenly seeing it to my left, having almost passed it, a quick check in my mirrors and as expected, nothing following, I braked and turned at the same time. As I did so the two cyclists shot past on my right gesticulating and mouthing obscenities. The question is: 'Who is to blame?'.  Like most commercial vehicles, the rear view in mine is restricted to door mirrors and there were no cyclists alongside my vehicle when I made the manoeuvre. So they must have caught up with me and were immediately behind me and out of view. Had these been normal cyclists, instead of the racing kind with about 49 different gears, they would not have caught up with me for starters. But then didn't they notice two sets of GB plates as well as a funny registration plate? Wasn't it obvious to them that this was Johnny Foreigner a bit lost and looking for somewhere? In any case, if my actions didn't actually cause an accident and they were given time to evade one too, why the gesticulation and rudeness? What is it about these Lycra Clads? They had voluntarily placed themselves behind me and indeed their speed was a contributing factor to the scenario was it not?

The second incident was a classic of a Swiss woman driver just not seeing a Lycra Racing style cyclist and pulling out in front of him. He was riding on a cycleway to my right. Bearing in mind we were driving on the right side of the road, she was clearly intending to emerge from a shopping precinct across the cycleway. The cyclist saw her and indeed raised his arm and hand as if in anticipation and acknowledgement that she was about to stop except that she didn't. She did stop in shock but not until half of her vehicle was already over the cycleway and the cyclist had managed to swerve around the back of her. How he didn't collide with the car I have no idea. But again, having seen the danger, why keep up the pace? It's as if these cyclists are totally oblivious to their fragile frame compared with machinery.

What is common to both incidents is the speed of the cyclists and the belief that, because right is on their side, self protection isn't their major consideration. Surely it is and should be? Their adversary isn't drivers, other mere mortals, but large pieces of heavy metal. It isn't drivers cyclists collide with but big machines not matter who's to blame. So it is in the interests of cyclists to take responsibility for their speed and their safety instead of assuming the infallibility of complete strangers and then being angry and noisy about it all.

The Euro Cycling Myth continues to be wrong

Now let's be clear. Being pro driver and pro tax payer and pro community isn't automatically anti cyclist Ok?

We are now well into our second fact finding roads use European tour and that is because the demands of the UK cycle lobby on UK drivers, and taxpayers alike are very large and indeed to give cyclists what they want, amounts to many billions of pounds of infrastructure change and draconian laws and liabilities against drivers.

Part of their case is how much Europe does for cycling and cyclists and indeed how predominant cyclists are there.

It is a lie. Drivers' Union has already published a page of evidence based on last year's trip. Here

Paris is totally motorised traffic and we have pictures of whole unused Boris Bike racks and no cyclists in sight. Miles of very costly and empty cycle ways with the very occasional lycra clad enthusiast. Oh yes on Sunday pelotons of them, like joggers on wheels out for some fun, but are we really being asked to uproot our whole life to satisfy some-one's fetish?

London is not like Paris. Wide boulevards everywhere with plenty of green space to lay cycle tracks except in the centre.

Here in Geneva, and so far I have only driven at night, but hiving off carriageway to create cycle lanes is crazy. Motors are infrastructure whilst cycling isn't. This is a point we must hammer into politicians.

Out on the open road, the arteries and life blood of any nation, not a cyclist to be seen in hundreds of miles. So no Europe isn't depending on cyclists either. Come and see for yourselves.