LadyDeliah

Well dudes, fun as this has been, I think it's about time I got on with all the interesting things I've got planned for this weekend. To be continued ...

Loz Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > To be fair, I wouldn't restrain a 10 year old - or > any minor - unless you had a *lot* of witnesses. > That's begging for the sort of retaliatory false > allegation that would appear on an enhanced CRB > check (or whatever it is called these days). I'm a mother and grandmother (still hot tho!) so I'd have no qualms about grabbing some little shit by the scruff of his neck until the police / parent came for him. I've done it when a group of about 6 little Pre-teens tried to steal my bike from the back of my (old) office in Peckham. I gave him a severe bollocking with his mates jeering him from a safe distance. I threatened to call the police on him and he was embarrassed and was pretty scared, so after telling him what a stupid like idiot he was, I let him go. Not sure how much impact it had, but my 23 year old daughter was there having a go at him too and she's seriously scary!

Smartarse!

So if a ten year old threw a brick through your window, are you telling me that you wouldn't restrain him and call the police?

Crap argument for compulsory insurance and registration by the way if he's only 10 years old!

You couldn't restrain a 10 year old?

Traffic cameras?

I agree the drafting was imprecise, but it clearly says that use your own parameters to prove cycling (general) is more dangerous. It does not say, use your own paraneters to prove cycling is more dangerous within those parameters. Otherwise you could rightly say, parked card cause zero deaths per mile compared to moving cyclists per mile. Nonesense parameters don't prove general relative danger, they just prove relative danger that is a nonesense.

Plus what Loz said. Only in the post above mine mind you, not in general :-)

glasshalffull Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > How about paying insurance? I've just paid ?536 to > have a dent removed from my car caused by a > cyclist coming down a one way road and hitting my > car with their bike. Spoke to said cyclist at time > of incident who told me to drive more carefully > and that I was lucky they weren't injured!! Did I > have any options to reclaim the money from the > cyclist? You are perfectly entitled to seek a remedey in the small claims court, as is anyone else who has damage caused to their property by another person in any other situation. Car insurance is compulsory because damages are likely to be in the thousands, not hundreds of pounds.

binary_star said: > There were two parts to the challenge. The first > was to choose your data set, year, parameter for > danger etc. you did that part ok. The second was > to exactly what you've admitted it doesn't...use > it to prove cycling is more dangerous. Oooo, Loz I do think she's got you there. The flaw in your argument is that you anslysis of the data and you parameters DO NOT prove that cyclists are more dangerous than motorised vehicles. Narrowing the parameters too much makes a nonsense of any relative danger argument. Premature congratulations I'm afraid. I think it's you who needs to go off and do a bit more homework. I'll give you an A for effort though!

Can't be arsed editing my phone typed typos so grammar and spelling nazis, do one.

You fail to grasp what im saying. Motorways cost many millions to build and msintain as do other motor infrastructure projects from which cyclists are excluded. Your 'road' tax, does not pay for roads, neither does your insurance (goes to pay for damages and legal fees when you collide with something or someone). Petrol tax and vehicle excise duty don't even touch the costs of building and maintaining motorways and other non-cyclist motorist infrastructure. Pollution from an increased number of motorised vehicles has been linked to a huge Increase in asthma and other respiratory illnesses, mainly affecting children. I don't live in China, so their pollution stats are irrelevant. Lard arses, well it's been proven that car drivers tend to become less active, making unesseary short journeys by car resulting in an increase in all the diseased associated with sedentary lifestyles. Add to that the increased stress due to becoming frustrated by driving on congested roads and motorists are increasing my NGS bill. In comparison, cyclists reduce the demand on the NHS, except when they get mowed down by motorists, of course, because exercise decreases the incidence of our most common illnesses that drain our NHS resources :-) See, simple really.

Lol, Binary I think the 'any parameters' clause kind of opened the door to Loz's argument! So he may have won this minor victory, but if you can be arsed, maybe getting stats using more relevant parameters we can win the next round :-)

Lol, ok got to admit that did make me chuckle. To be honest though I'm much more of a danger on foot on the pavement than on a bike. Lack of exercise makes me incredibly grumpy and when I'm due on, I'm a menace to society. At least on a bike, I'd be past you in a flash and my endorphins would keep me happy enough not to want to go postal on someone blocking my way, walking reeeeaaaallllyyyy slowly whilst typing on their phone.

Fox, didn't you read any of the previous posts before you commented? We all pay for roads out of our general taxes. Vehicle Excise duty is levied according the weight (ability to damage the road) and emmissions. Low/zero emmissions cars pay no vehicle excise duty. So how much do you think bicycles would pay? I addition, as a tax payer, both central and local, I pay for motorways, public car parks and other vehicle infrastructure that as a cyclists I would not use and which cost hundreds of times more than any cycling infrastructure. The costs to the NHS from pollution and lard arse drivers, also comes out of my pocket. The cost in terms of climate change is paid by all of us, including cyclists who emit no CO2 by their mode of travel. So as a cyclist who pays tax, I am subsidising motorists, not the other way round.

Lol, thanks for that Loz. Just another thought on your analysis of pedestrian deaths by cyclists per mile travelled, cars do long journeys outside of urban conurbations where there are very few pedestrians (everyone drives or uses public transport), so pedestrian deaths per miles again tells you nothing about relative danger. Pedestrians stay away from cars because they are too dangerous to go near. I reckon the deaths per mile of pedestrian deaths at the hands of other pedestrians would be the highest rate of dangerousness of all of them. Maybe we should all suit up in Iron Man armour incase a pedestrian decides he/she doesn't like the look of us and takes us down! Actually, I know I can get pretty much everything I need delivered to my door, so I'm not going to take any chances, I'm staying in my house from now on. What's that Loz? You say it works for you? Great, I won't need my silly helmet cam now, I'll be safe as houses if I never go anywhere :-)

Ok, if the parameters are just pedestrian deaths per mile driven and those stats are correct then I guess your analysis is correct, even if it isn't really a true refelection of the reletive dangers of cyclists v motorists. But we are not comparing like with like. Pedestrians and cyclists mix more often and like I said cyclists are silent so pedestrians are more likely to step out in front of a cyclist than they are a car or bus etc. If you were to keep the analysis just to pedestrians, you would have to look at whose fault the collision was, because I would imagine from my own experience, more collisions involving cyclists and pedestrians were the fault of the pedestrian not looking before stepping into the road. Another way to determine releative danger to pedestrians would be to get the stats for all collisions with pedestrians and see what percentage of those resulted in a fatality, to get a more accurate idea of relative danger. If you want to go with danger relative to miles driven / ridden, I think because of where each of them do their riding / driving relative to pedestrians, you would have to look at all fatal accidents / collisions not just with pedestrians to get a true picture of the relative dangers. So off you pop. Lots of homework for you there!

Loz, the thing about the pedestrian deaths by cyclists might have something to do with the fact cyclists are generally located closer to where pedestrians walk and they are silent so a pedestrian is more likely to walk out in front of one. I think you'd need to look at who was the one at fault to gain any useful information on the relative dangers of cyclists v motorists. I have also read that it was about 5 deaths by cycle in a few years. Sonething like one every two years or something like that, so I'm not sure your stats are correct, but can't be arsed searching for my source right now. I think it is important though, not just to include pedestrian deaths anyway in a calculation of relative danger, even if we want absolute figures, not figures based on fault. Do you have total deaths for cyclists v motorists, or deaths where either the cyclist or motorist was at fault?

Hoho *Bob*, such a side splitting comedian, how do you manage it?

Any chance you can compare all deaths caused by cycle v motorised vehicle per mile?

That sounds like a really good idea.

Just found out that the mast on Dawson's Hill will be back on next Thursday and the smaller one in Landells Road will be off for another 3 weeks. I've just got my signal booster box set up at home and I'll let you know if that fixes my reception problems.

Yes, I make a habit of trying to get eye contact with drivers anyway, to check if they've seen me. Some of them can be looking right at you but don't seem to see you though :-(

Bloody hell that 3rd one looks really bad. I have so many near misses with cars going straight into the roundabout when I'm already on it. It's a serious problem, lots of them don't want to give way to a cyclist, or maybe they just don't see us because they aren't looking for bikes.