CycleCraft - a discussion...

Johnmcl7

modsandmockers wrote: »

What makes you think I am not a cyclist? Is Brat a traffic cop? He seems to have little understanding of driver psychology.

Because your sole purpose on the forum seems to be complaining about cyclists and displaying total ignorance of anything cycling related, if you've not outright said you're not a cyclist you've strongly implied it repeatedly.

John

Nebulous2

modsandmockers wrote: »

What makes you think I am not a cyclist? Is Brat a traffic cop? He seems to have little understanding of driver psychology.

You come into a cycling forum, posting a lot of criticism in the guise of discussion, which is classic passive-aggressive behaviour, including the comment above.

I spent a lot of time digging out information for you and responding to your points before, then found you had cycled right back to where you started, so I withdrew.

In my accident the driver saw me, admitted he had seen me, but said he expected me to stop. His insurance company refused to back him and settled.

Accepting inattentional blindness is a factor is not something I have a problem with, but where we would vary considerably would be what to do about it.

Most of us here would be looking for a range of responses; more driver training, bigger penalties, assumed liability and increased spending on separate infrastructure.

Your response is that people just shouldn't cycle. You are very much swimming against the tide though, as cycling is one of the biggest growth activities in the country.

brat

modsandmockers wrote: »

What makes you think I am not a cyclist? Is Brat a traffic cop? He seems to have little understanding of driver psychology.

Mods, I'll always listen to reason. I have actually read quite a bit about driver psychology.
But your reason is skewed for the purpose of bias confirmation. You read stuff, whether it's from cycle craft or wikipedia, then try to shoehorn it into your wacky notions of driver behaviour.

The simple fact you need to accept is that drivers are more likely to avoid things which are more visible to them. It has nothing to do with a subconscious grading of risk to the extent that if the risk is to a third party they are "routinely edited out".
That is just not the way the mind works, nor is it evidenced in practice.
So, if you're going to make such radical assertions, then you need to back it up.

"Inattentional blindness" is about looking and not seeing a hazard rather than seeing but not dealing properly with the hazard. Furthermore it makes no claims about any difference in attitude (in normal driving situations) between personal risk and third party risk.

Franklin makes an unsupported premise that drivers look in the area of greatest risk to them. This does seem reasonable on the face of it, but it doesn't support any suggestion that drivers will reduce their collision avoidance strategies in normal driving conditions if the risk is solely to a third party.

This is why you need to support your unusual assertions, or better still, stop making them up in the first place.

So as long as your earlier anti cycling comments are here for all to witness, the reason for your more recent unsubstantiated wild claims become quite apparent.
You are an anti cyclist, and a troll, and if you have nothing better to do with your time than to post your nonsense on here, I feel sorry for you.

Cash-Cows

Marco_Panettone wrote: »

None of that has ANYTHING to do with road positioning though. People don't look properly. They don't look properly when you ride in primary, secondary or hug the kerb. There's nothing you can do to absolutely ensure they do look properly either. It's one of the fallacies of any of the 'be safe, be seen' stuff - it only works if the other person looks properly.


What's more, we KNOW people don't look properly, yet we design our environment to only be safe if everyone always looks properly. We need to design and build to ensure these KNOWN human errors don't lead to death and injury.

That's why some schemes have been introduced which have removed street furniture including signs, barriers, islands etc so all road users have to react to each other. These schemes are quite popular in Europe but gaining popularity here. Have a look at the town of Poynton for an interesting approach to a traffic problem. There's a good video as well of the project.

IIRC there's a thought that the Poynton scheme wasn't good for cyclists, generally accidents have reduced.

Marco_Panettone

Cash-Cows wrote: »

That's why some schemes have been introduced which have removed street furniture including signs, barriers, islands etc so all road users have to react to each other. These schemes are quite popular in Europe but gaining popularity here. Have a look at the town of Poynton for an interesting approach to a traffic problem. There's a good video as well of the project.

IIRC there's a thought that the Poynton scheme wasn't good for cyclists, generally accidents have reduced.

I'm well aware of "shared space" schemes - Exhibition Road in London is a classic British example of how to do it badly. For the system to work you need to limit motor traffic and remove through-traffic. Putting in a different road surface does very little to change attitudes - pedestrians are pushed to the sides, motor vehicles dominate the space and cycles are ignored entirely.


Sharing anything is only possible if all parties want to share. If the 'bigger' party doesn't fancy sharing, they won't, to the detriment of the smaller, more vulnerable ones.

Norman_Castle

frisbeej wrote: »

I still disagree that it supports Mocker's argument though, his bizarre Mad Max vision of the roads.

Mad Mocs. The pavement worrier.

brat

Marco_Panettone wrote: »

None of that has ANYTHING to do with road positioning though. People don't look properly. They don't look properly when you ride in primary, secondary or hug the kerb. There's nothing you can do to absolutely ensure they do look properly either. It's one of the fallacies of any of the 'be safe, be seen' stuff - it only works if the other person looks properly.


What's more, we KNOW people don't look properly, yet we design our environment to only be safe if everyone always looks properly. We need to design and build to ensure these KNOWN human errors don't lead to death and injury.

We have two separate issues running in this thread. One is the drive or directive towards integrated cycling infrastructure. The second is cyclists using skills and understanding driver attitudes to make their ride in the current cycling environment as safe as possible for their ability and confidence profile.

Both issues are valid, one deals with making the best of the situation here and now, while the other is to plan and implement the future vision of cycling in the country.

In other words you can have a foot solidly in both camps. The camps don't have to be divided down a pro Franklin/anti Franklin dividing line.

Nor should they be.

Marco_Panettone

brat wrote: »

We have two separate issues running in this thread. One is the drive or directive towards integrated cycling infrastructure. The second is cyclists using skills and understanding driver attitudes to make their ride in the current cycling environment as safe as possible for their ability and confidence profile.

Both issues are valid, one deals with making the best of the situation here and now, while the other is to plan and implement the future vision of cycling in the country.

In other words you can have a foot solidly in both camps. The camps don't have to be divided down a pro Franklin/anti Franklin dividing line.

Nor should they be.

The trouble is that the more you use the crutch of VC to promote safe cycling, the more non-cyclists hear "the roads are fine, you just need more training" which is clearly not correct. It's the same as discussing helmets - not helpful or valid as a way to make people feel that riding a bike is something they should do, and let their kids do independently. You cannot create mass cycling with VC, and nowhere ever has. You can (and do) create it with high-quality, protected infrastructure. Instead of focussing on safety we need to make riding a bike for everyday journeys feel pleasant and enjoyable, and that means removing motor vehicles from close proximity where possible, and reducing traffic volume where not.


I agree that the principles of Cyclecraft currently have a purpose, but they really shouldn't! It's a safety-net for an activity that doesn't need one as a result of the environment we have created.

modsandmockers

Nebulous2 wrote: »

Most of us here would be looking for a range of responses; more driver training, bigger penalties, assumed liability and increased spending on separate infrastructure.

Your response is that people just shouldn't cycle. You are very much swimming against the tide though, as cycling is one of the biggest growth activities in the country.

More driver training? How about some compulsory cyclist training?
Bigger penalties? Assumed liability? That’ll apply exclusively to drivers, right?

Please ask Brat for some more information about bias confirmation.

Spending on separate infrastructure? That’s what I’ve been saying all along…

Cycling takes many more forms than previously. There are lots of family leisure routes to which bikes are taken by car, there are various forms of off-road cycling and there is quite a lot of interest in competitive track cycling. But CycleCraft is about Vehicular Cycling, which is becoming increasingly dominated by combative young adult males and less and less accessible for any other group. Those other groups are increasingly getting off the roads altogether, frequently by taking to the pavements instead.

Brat - I have no statistics to support my wild speculations, but the bit about young adult males was mentioned earlier in the thread, and the combative bit is clearly demonstrated by some of the contributors to this thread. The bit about taking to the pavements is taken directly from my own experience.

frisbeej

My Dad and his three cycling friends recently celebrated a combined age total of 300 years.


I'm sure they'll all appreciate being labelled as "young"!