[Travel] I felt powerless - So I started filming’: one-man battle with dangerous drivers.

[Bold Seagull]

Personally, given the choice I'd rather be hit by neither.

I don't drive and I don't cycle. I use the pavements and when I want to cross the road, I understand that vehicles have right of way so I use a crossing. When I am using the pavements I don't expect to have dodge cyclists who are breaking the law as equally as idiot speeding / drunken motorists.

And your inference that it is better to get hit by a cyclist didn't hold true for this poor woman

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45497026

Cycles can kill too.

Safer roads, especially in our towns and cities without a shadow of doubt is one with less motor vehicles. More room for pedestrians, more room for cyclists and dedicated lanes, less congestion etc. etc.

Brighton and Hove could be transformed with some proper long term sustainable transport planning that radically reduces motor vehicle use, and thereby allows us to open up urban spaces, and make being in the city a worthwhile experience, because otherwise our retail centres are just going to die a slow death at the hands of online stores. I still cannot believe that walking up North Street toward Churchill Sq. and getting across the roads where the pavements pinch down to nothing for all those pedestrians at what should be a grand piazza is just embarrassing. Welcome to Brighton from the station is basically a walk down a street where the pavement is barely wide enough for 3 people to pass each other. It's crazy.

The Dutch and others figured it out in the 1970s – growing car ownership...growing population...growing cities...going to be a problem. Wasn't rocket science, just sensible planning that too many cars was going to be bad news for cities and towns. So they slowly but surely changed infra-structure, changed attitudes, now have cities that are not congested with cars, that 50% of journeys or more can be made by bike, with more by walking and public transport. Cars, yes cars, can actually get around because there is less congestion due to less car use. Brilliant for those that need a car as a necessity. Don't talk to me about hills and weather, the same is true of the Danes, and Norwegians.

Just watching these threads unfold and our ingrained attitudes, we are so far behind, so far. We just don't get it. We still think it's fine for cars to dominate, still happy to add more of them, make this junction a bit wider, expand this lane. Ridiculous really. A bike on the pavement is 1 dickhead. It really does miss where we should be on our transport.

 

[Hamilton]

We are so far behind the curve on progressive thinking about sustainable transport as a real holistic approach across the board.

All this transformation to electric cars or whatever technology is going to be meaningless if we just swap motor vehicle for motor vehicle on our roads.....'but at least it's an electric powered rush hour gridlock'.

[MENTION=225]Hamilton[/MENTION] points out, a percentage of human beings are dickheads, so it matters not that drivers text, jump lights, do stupid things because an equal percentage of cyclists will behave the same - it's the human beings not the vehicles. It's just that getting hit by a push bike is likely to be walking away a bit angry rather than in an ambulance to an ICU.

Comes back to the overarching discussion about infrastructure and what we're going to do in order to give up our addiction and belief that it is a god given right to drive a car everywhere we want and when we want.

Many people require a vehicle as a necessity for their daily lives whether through work, disability or other requirement, but a huge number, especially in cities and towns they are just a convenience, not a necessity. Those where it is a necessity need to be prioritised, their journeys made easier at the expense of those whose journey is only a convenience.

My daughter is 18 in the summer, we talked about getting her a car, but why? We live in Hove, close to buses, trains, we all have bikes, surprising how far a brisk 40min walk gets you. We have 1 car we can share between us. We don't need a car each, it would be convenient of course, if one person has the car, and you need to nip out to the supermarket, but that is what needs to be let go of - that convenience is a necessity, it simply isn't.

This.

We have to curb our reliance on the motor vehicle and get more people out of the tin boxes and into using other forms of transport. Our commitment to the motor car is one reason that the circle lanes in Upper Shoreham Road were removed. We simply can't get our heads around the idea that we might use cycle lanes and buses over our own car.

"But it's cold and it rains here!" people say.

Have you been to Amsterdam? It pi$$es down there and they are all on their bikes.

We just need to shift our mindset a little, and maybe that might shift the dickbrainery* that we've adopted. Maybe not, but who knows.

One of my bugbears is the original cycle lane along the seafront. It's built into the pedestrian pathway! That tells you everything about our attitude towards bikes. Cycling is seen as a pastime and not a serious mode of transport.

*as Bold mentions, I have said that there are dicks on bikes as well as dicks in cars.

 

[BNthree]

As a pedestrian, I'd quite like to walk on the pavement without being hit by a bike.

How often does that happen? In 50 years of being on this planet and an enthusiastic walker I've never once been hit by a bike.

 

[Hamilton]

Personally, given the choice I'd rather be hit by neither.

I don't drive and I don't cycle. I use the pavements and when I want to cross the road, I understand that vehicles have right of way so I use a crossing. When I am using the pavements I don't expect to have dodge cyclists who are breaking the law as equally as idiot speeding / drunken motorists.

And your inference that it is better to get hit by a cyclist didn't hold true for this poor woman

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-45497026

Cycles can kill too.

I agree that cycles can kill, but it is very very (very very) rare.

A total of three people in motorised vehicles were killed in collisions with pedestrians and cyclists in 2019. By contrast, 517 pedestrians and cyclists were killed in incidents involving motorised vehicles.

https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money...d-users-statistically-likely-kill-others.html

 

[Stat Brother]

Fingers crossed none of them committed the ultimate crime of riding through a red light.

[tweet]1478760455992746000[/tweet]

 

[GloryDays]

As a pedestrian, I'd quite like to walk on the pavement without being hit by a bike.

Tbh if you walk around E10 you have as much chance finding a BMW coming at you on the pavement as you do a bike.

 

[Monkey Man]

Safer roads, especially in our towns and cities without a shadow of doubt is one with less motor vehicles. More room for pedestrians, more room for cyclists and dedicated lanes, less congestion etc. etc.

Brighton and Hove could be transformed with some proper long term sustainable transport planning that radically reduces motor vehicle use, and thereby allows us to open up urban spaces, and make being in the city a worthwhile experience, because otherwise our retail centres are just going to die a slow death at the hands of online stores. I still cannot believe that walking up North Street toward Churchill Sq. and getting across the roads where the pavements pinch down to nothing for all those pedestrians at what should be a grand piazza is just embarrassing. Welcome to Brighton from the station is basically a walk down a street where the pavement is barely wide enough for 3 people to pass each other. It's crazy.

The Dutch and others figured it out in the 1970s – growing car ownership...growing population...growing cities...going to be a problem. Wasn't rocket science, just sensible planning that too many cars was going to be bad news for cities and towns. So they slowly but surely changed infra-structure, changed attitudes, now have cities that are not congested with cars, that 50% of journeys or more can be made by bike, with more by walking and public transport. Cars, yes cars, can actually get around because there is less congestion due to less car use. Brilliant for those that need a car as a necessity. Don't talk to me about hills and weather, the same is true of the Danes, and Norwegians.

Just watching these threads unfold and our ingrained attitudes, we are so far behind, so far. We just don't get it. We still think it's fine for cars to dominate, still happy to add more of them, make this junction a bit wider, expand this lane. Ridiculous really. A bike on the pavement is 1 dickhead. It really does miss where we should be on our transport.

Great post. I really wish Brighton could take a lead with this stuff but North Street, Queens Road, West Street and the seafront are pretty unpleasant places for cyclists or pedestrians. In fact most of the city.

I am, at various points of the week, a walker, a cyclist, a runner and a car driver and try to be less offensive in my behaviour than some of the other walkers, cyclists, runners and car drivers I encounter. (To be honest most are fine.)

 

[Happy Exile]

For 5 years I used to cycle 16 miles a day to and from work in Hove and a couple of times a week would have a near miss and several times got knocked off my bike. This was mostly before GoPros existed and I used to naively think that if drivers could see quite how dangerous some of them are it might change behaviours. A typical month might include:

- drivers turning across me without indicating. My "favourite" was by The Level, and a driver with a phone trapped between their left shoulder and their ear turning sharply across me without warning and without looking and sending me across their bonnet

- drivers parked in the bus/cycle lane forcing me into the main flow of traffic where annoyed drivers would overtake centimetres away

- parked drivers opening their door into me (wrote off my bike - which was lucky as I'd have probably instinctively swerved under a bus had they opened it a second or two sooner)

- drivers parked at the side of the road and pulling out at speed into a "gap" in the traffic not seeing that gap had me in it

- drivers doing a u-turn without looking properly. I had an argument with a bloke on Lewes Road who said he hadn't seen me - I'm 6ft2, was wearing a bright yellow reflective jacket, a white cycling helmet, reflective stripes on my cycling trousers and shoes, and had a light bright enough to comfortably see where I was going on unlit country roads.

- cars pulling out of junctions into stationary traffic, forgetting to check the cycle lane first

- a car going over the edge of the give way line going round a roundabout and taking out my front wheel. That was probably the scariest.

- people with dogs on extendible leads letting them suddenly run across the cycle path on the seafront (hospital x-ray because they thought I'd broken my collarbone)

Of course there'll be drivers, including me, who can list idiocy of cyclists too. But despite large amounts of exposure to idiot drivers as a cyclist, I remember many of the incidents because they were idiots and the majority of drivers were OK - it's amazing how many drivers assume that all cyclists somehow deserve derision though and anyone who points out dangerous driving is a jobsworth. For what it's worth as a cyclist I never had a near-miss with a pedestrian, much less collided with one. I also never jumped a red light or cycled on the pavement, just like the majority of cyclists don't even if they aren't the ones you notice.

 

[nwgull]

I’m disappointed that we’re on page 5 and we’ve not had the two classics:

Cyclists pay no road tax (even though many do)
Cyclists aren’t insured (even though many are and it wouldn’t bankrupt most to pay the worst-case damage to car in an accident where they were at fault anyway).

 

[brightn'ove]

I'm not buying this crap that cyclists are generally safer and not really a danger on the roads.

What do you mean by 'not buying this crap'? It's factually correct backed up by statistics. Cars cause the vast vast majority of traffic deaths ON AND OFF the roads.

 

[Audax]

Some great posts in this thread.

Absolutely agree with those saying we're over-reliant on cars. Not just cars in general, either, but larger vehicles than we actually need. Big SUVs that only ever get driven in urban areas, as an example. I'd love to see the government track the average size of vehicles used on the roads and establish a target for reducing that average size over time.

Unfortunately, the most recent VED changes did the opposite and almost completely removed (other than for full electric / hydrogen) the incentives for buying vehicles that produce less CO2.

 

[The aloof gatekeeper]

This is my fave video of his!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sii4jDh3WL0

 

[maltaseagull]

I reckon if I drive around London in a car I could catch loads of cyclists cycling through
red lights, cycling on the pavement and cycling down one way streets. Amongst many other
crimes. I agree with what the bloke is doing to an extent, but wish there were more
sensible cyclists around too who obeyed the rules.

The stand on electric scooter riders are a menace.
Yesterday we passed two of them going the wrong way down a 2 lane tunnel!

 

[Stat Brother]

Some great posts in this thread.

Absolutely agree with those saying we're over-reliant on cars. Not just cars in general, either, but larger vehicles than we actually need. Big SUVs that only ever get driven in urban areas, as an example. I'd love to see the government track the average size of vehicles used on the roads and establish a target for reducing that average size over time.

Unfortunately, the most recent VED changes did the opposite and almost completely removed (other than for full electric / hydrogen) the incentives for buying vehicles that produce less CO2.

Careful now.

You'll make me make [MENTION=16159]Bold Seagull[/MENTION] come over all unnecessary


He does so loves these pics.

[tweet]1474716117612601344[/tweet]

 

[Stat Brother]

Imagine if he wasn't wearing a helmet either.


[tweet]1479036726458912768[/tweet]

Apparently the inside of the car was a bit of a mess too.

 

[faoileán]

As a pedestrian, I'd quite like to walk on the pavement without being hit by a bike.

Do you really encounter cyclists on the pavement that often? I walk in B&H every day and regularly in London and I can't think of a single occasion in recent years where I have been inconvenienced by a bicycle.

 

[BLOCK F]

Yes, of course there are dickheads on bicycles and driving cars, and as cars outnumber bikes and are rather larger, they are going to cause more damage in the unfortunate event of an accident.
I am sure that all sensible people would wish for better road safety for all road users and pedestrians, so it is a pity that discussions on the topic sometimes descend into cyclist versus motorists mode…….
Lazy, arrogant motorists against the righteous smug cycling lobby.
The way forward is for enlightened planners to cater for all travellers and make it safer for everyone. At the moment, it seems that that neither cyclists nor motorists feel that they are adequately catered for. To an extent, both sides feel persecuted or hard done by and the result is that battle lines are drawn up against each other. This doesn’t really help anything.
By all means, have a go at the town planners, highway bods and anybody else involved in transport planning, but perhaps present a united front rather than having a pop at each other.
Finally, not all of us live in urban areas like Brighton and have no alternative but to use the car, for what some of the urban dwellers on here may consider unnecessary journeys, and there also exist, decrepit old gits like me whose mobility is severely restricted, who would love to be able to walk to the local shops! Please don’t call me selfish!

 

[Stat Brother]

No smugging needed.

[tweet]1478698026487238656[/tweet]

 

[The red pepper kid]

Thing with cyclists is constantly using the road when there's a perfectly good pavement !

 

[Worried Man Blues]

We have a few shared pedestrian and cycle pavements, never heard of any accidents or trouble. The only time I cycled fast was to get away from a chasing rotweiler!