Practically Classics Forum

OneCarefulOwner wrote: but to attract the attention of pedestrians who are too self-absorbed to see 2-ton lumps of metal hurtling towards them!

Probably due to being plugged in to their ipod/mp3 player and/or mobile...

I'm puzzled by Roadcraft stating that. I would have thought it a recipe for for traffic light snooker. There we all are with foot on pedal and I'm at the back. Someone drives into the back of me (numptiness or brake/heart failure) and the first thing that happens is I fly back in my seat and my foot comes off the pedal sending me into the car in front and so on......

Regarding bikes, I too am a black leather sort of guy Steady on now girls.... Or at least form an orderly queue. If conditions warrant it I will throw on a hi-viz.

When (not much) younger I used a sort of inverted risk compensation approach. Loud matt black chop, black leathers and cut-off, dreadlocks down to my waist and a matt black helmet. Never involved in an accident when done up like that. The theory was that other road users would look at me and think "If I knock him off and he manages to get up, what is he going to do to me? Erk!"

Aiming the hardtail at sunken manhole covers while taking my wheight on the footpegs also helped to keep a safe gap between me and the following vehicle as the back wheel would hop around a bit after hitting the sunken cover. Thinking I was about to come off seemed to make them think about how much room they would need to stop if I actually did come off.

It doesn't matter which seat I'm in, passenger or drivers. I always have
a hand next to the handbrake lever!

I have had a few rear end shunts where the person behind or coming up
behind thought I was pulling away as I DIDN'T have my foot on the brake
so the brake lights were on.

In a friends car shortly after collecting it from the seller, we stopped
behind a 3 week old golf, and she decided to adjust her seat!!!!
Yes she pulled a lever and went back wards and off the pedals, I pulled on
the handbrake and stopped a shunt. She never lived that down afterwards.
I kid you not she even spent 30 min trying to get out of a supermarket car
park getting lost

Way back in the late seventies when I passed my (rather rudimentary compared to today ) bike test it was at the time when bikers were dying in their droves, yet MAG were still nothing much more than a single issue anti-helmet group, and it was considered a bit weird to be riding with lights on in the daytime. Despite that I ran with dipped beam on and didn't have anyone pull out on me. Wether I got away with it due to the lamp or me being switched on I don't know however.

I do remember there being a bit of a press campaign for bikers to light up and there was a device marketed to pulsate your headlight, I thought that would cause more danger than no lights though, as apparently did others and it didn't last long. I do think though that the current fad amongst a sizeable minority of bikers to run on main beam all the time is just downright stupid....if you're being dazzled, you can't judge the position or speed of the bedazzling organ donor with any particular accuracy with predictable results.

When I drive the Triumph I don't usually have the lights on, except on country lanes where its small size and BRGish colour scheme tends to make it pretty hard to spot against a hedgerow!

I also use lights when I'm cycling, day or night, one set flashing and one set steady- modern LED bike lamps are superb these days, batteries last ages and they're bright, visible even in sunlight and given the doziness of the average British driver they're a possible lifesaver. So, yes, I like lights!

Really nice to hear of an considerate cyclist for once - Mr Rusty you are always welcome to come round my manor and teach the plonkers on two wheels and leg power what a light is - funny because every time one of them gets injured or worse (daily event in London) it's always the motorist that the blame is loaded on to. Meanwhile we have the blond haired plonker at county hall telling London that we all need to get cycling to get London moving.

Well when the 95% that do not have lights, high vis, insurance, helmet and some common roadsense that means that red traffic lights apply to all road users, pavements are for pedestrians and not bikes and that it's simply not cool to nip up the inside of any vehicle while it's turning left - wake up and realise that actually it's them that it is in wrong rather than mouthing off at the motorist - then I might have a little more consideration for them.

Slight diversion from the OP but Cyclist rant over

I'm normally a country lane and offroad cross country cyclist, I love mud and treat chains and sprockets as seasonal disposable items, but currently due to olympic parking restrictions I'm slinging the bike in the back of Mrs rusty's car and using it for the last 3 miles or so of my commute- normally I'd drop her off and continue in the car but due to locog's manic traffic control policy in the olympic boroughs this isn't possible, and I must confess i have become a bit of a light-jumper, not out of arrogance but purely out of self preservation......people turning left just do not look, and as most London cycle fatalities occur in just this situation, I personally consider it safer to go early on the lights. One junction on my route has a red light for straight on at the same time as a green left filter, incredibly dangerous for a cyclist. I never noticed how dangerous it is in the car...........

I'm spoiled at home, I can get to the shops quicker by bike than by car and all of it on seperate cycle tracks, one of the better points of living in a 'new' town, where the worst hazards are usually dopey dog walkers, and cycling down the A12 and A11 in busy London traffic has come as somewhat of a revalation to me, I now know just why cockney cyclists jump lights!

OneCarefulOwner wrote:It's not even a new law, it's been on the books for a year or two. The only legal way for them to be extinguished is when the headlights are turned on, and at that time they HAVE to be extinguished because they're a dazzle hazard.

I read this somewhere else too but I saw quite a few cars with DRLs over the weekend and they were all on with headlamps on too.

Dave

Them LED lights for push-bikes.

One of the best pieces of road safety equipement EVER.

I can now see cyclists half a mile away instead of a couple of hundred yards or less and have much more time to plan for them.

Whoever invented them should get a Knighthood in my opinion.

Maaarrghk wrote:Them LED lights for push-bikes.

One of the best pieces of road safety equipement EVER.

I completely agree and I see many sensible cyclists using them in daylight too. Big thumbs up there for that

Dave

Mitsuru wrote:It doesn't matter which seat I'm in, passenger or drivers. I always have
a hand next to the handbrake lever!

You'd be in the back seat as far away as possible if you were in my car, then!Recipe for a rear end shunt using the handbrake to stop... Distinct lack of brakelights to the guy behind... Remind me not to be driving in your vicinity, M! Also I prefer to keep both hands on the wheel when I'm driving, not one on the handbrake!



Another vote for the new LED lights for cyclists, especially those big ones, they do make a difference, though far too many don't bother with lights at all or manage to cover them up with clothes/cape/rucksack...