Thorn Cycles Forum

Community => Muppets Threads! (And Anything Else) => Topic started by: jags on January 20, 2014, 07:01:47 PM

Title: bbc podcast .
Post by: jags on January 20, 2014, 07:01:47 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r4choice.
very interesting.
Title: Dr Kevin Fong evaluates the realities of travelling by bike on UK roads.
Post by: Andre Jute on January 20, 2014, 07:06:04 PM
To expand on Jags' most interesting reference a little:

Right of Way: Cycling and the City

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/r4choice

After 2013's high-profile spate of cyclists' deaths on London's streets, Dr Kevin Fong evaluates the realities of travelling by bike on UK roads.
Title: Re: bbc podcast .
Post by: Chris M on January 20, 2014, 07:08:59 PM
Cheers jags, I'll have a listen to that later. I commute home on CS2 and last year got to the junction where a cyclist was killed just minutes earlier; really bought it home to me how dangerous cycling can be in London sometimes:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24858462 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-24858462)

Chris
Title: Re: bbc podcast .
Post by: phopwood on January 20, 2014, 08:28:51 PM
Very interesting.  I commute in London 3 days a week, and it is an interesting place for cyclist, I watch some cyclists and think how have you survived this long in life, and I watch some drivers who think that 1700 kg of steel is a weapon.  But this is true on any town in the UK some are better than others.


Peter
Title: Re: bbc podcast .
Post by: John Saxby on January 20, 2014, 10:33:29 PM
Scarifying, listening to the details of HGVs beside bike lanes, with lorry drivers having so little vision of cyclists in those lanes. That restricted vision seems odd, in some respects: I rented a big white Ford cube van for a weekend last year, and it had small convex mirrors on the bottom of the large rearview mirrors, precisely to ensure that the driver could see the road surface and the sides of the big van on both the driver's and passenger's sides. Worked very well for the 1000 or so kms I did on that weekend, in both city and country traffic.  Perhaps the greater height of the driver's position in an HGV makes the critical difference.

An Ottawa cyclist was killed in a similar type of collision late last summer on a major suburban arterial road. Obviously, our population is much smaller and less dense than that of London, but the speed of traffic on arterial roads is *much* higher.

Safe journey to all London cyclists. - J.