That's because they OWN the road

Deffo. But the way I look at is that as taxi drivers, like all people who drive for a living, their livelihood depends on the rules of their profession. Those rules happen to incorporate the highway code. Tough. If I ignored the fundamental tenets of my industry, I would expect to lose my job. I'm not sure how and why they are able to get away with it on a regular basis.

I too have started to notice a shift in driver behaviour - people trying to overtake me when cornering - that is really starting to piss me off.

Hehe that's cos they pay ROAD tax.

But road funding comes out of the general tax fund. We ALL pay ROAD tax.

I doubt the annual road tax fees cover the costs of administering them.

Sources of funding for road building and maintenance;

Motorways - Car Tax (correctly called Vehicle Excise Duty) topped up by funding from the Treasury as that isn't enough. Treasury funding comes from Income Tax, VAT (including that charge on bicycles) etc.

Major trunk roads (i.e. non urban A & B roads) - Treasury funding as above.

All other roads - Council Tax.

Was she wearing a helmet?

/black humour

off point but i completely agree. their trade faces ever rising taxation and regulation and they are always "hard done by", this increase is experienced by all car owners which gives them an excuse to act as they do.

As far as the article goes it was an accident, neither party wanted it, but poor decision making on both sides left one dead and one pretty fkd in the head from now on.

i had a woman step out on me, past my line then step back last minute, my decision to aim at her and hers to step back meant all she got was a "tap" and i got off fine. if we chosen the opposite the article would have contain a few more "*"'s in the qoute

Basically, the guy sounds like one of these holier than thou types who, once sat on a bicycle, suddenly feels people need to respect him because he's 'going green' or some shit.

End of the day, he didnt need to run into the girl, he sounds like a cunt, send him down as hes got blood on his hands, and no doubt his tyres too

I have to be a little cryptic - but you haven't heard the last of this story.
It's being followed up today (conviction was yesterday) and will be on one of today's lunchtime news programmes...

We dont have any pictures of what the site looked like. So its hard to make a judgement about any of this.

But I know that a group of kids walking into the road can obscure most of the view, and I at least dont make a habit of looking a great distance into the right hand lane for oncoming traffic (even if I should) rather just stick to a good position on the left and keep an eye out for junctions. If a bunch of kids walked into the road how I am imagining, I would be very hesitant to swerve into the other side of the road, I would either try to stop. Or if going to fast, shout something out to hurry the group along.

I can imagine a situation here, where no one really is to blame. There press articles are pushing a sense of outrage, but I feel it is more to do with the fact that it is so unusual for a bicycle to cause a pedestrian death.

If a group of teenagers walked into the street in front of a car travelling at speed, the whole group wouldve been seriously injured or killed. Yet the driver would not have been expected to stop in time, and the 'blame' wouldve fallen on the "unruly teenage kids" who run into the street in between sessions of happyslapping.

In the worse case scenario, of there being lots of space and time to brake. Yet the rider being a cunt wants to speed through the group of kids. The £2200 fine seems just about right, as I doubt most cyclists would expect to cause serious injury to pedestrians travelling at 17mph. When 1tonne metal boxes are carreer through tight residential street at a minimum of 30mph.

tuppence>

That spot is really, if such a thing could be imagined, in the vibrant and busy hub of modern Buckingham, an example of a Fine English Market Town (Ruined By Traffic). There's always going to be pedestrians, crossing roads, there. Slow up. I'm sorry and sickened to hear someone passed away, its a terrible thing for all concerned.

I feel for the rider, though, to have been found to have 'caused' this tragedy. I imagine riding the main roads around there requires a pretty fast pace. Sounds to me like the shouting thing aint working for us cyclists.

Strange to hear that the papers were focusing on reflectors, particularly as pedestrains don't usually wear headtorches. Or have headlights fitted to their person. I wonder if it was even dark at the time?

and you're back in the room

National or just local?

Something along the lines of the BBC News article that was just published?

They are a rule unto themselves, to put it bluntly


Hugh Bladen, Association of British Drivers








But you could easily say that of motorists!

I'm tired of this crap, just about every single driver breaks the law every single fucking time they use a car, simply by breaking speed limits.

WTF is wrong with people in this fucking country.

fuck the bbc, how many times have you run a red light? I do it daily, but i know when and when not to do it. i sure as fuck dont aim for teenagers swilling beer because I'm on my bike. i hope the guy goes down for 25+

Er, the verdict and sentence was yesterday. Get with the programme...

If the guy could have stopped / avoided her without putting himself in danger (swerving into the on coming traffic etc) and didn't because he wanted to teach her a lesson or something, and there is evidence to prove it, then send him down - he's a danger to society.

But, everyone has to take responsibility for their own safety, including pedestrians who often walk around as if they are in some kind of protective bubble. On nearly every journey we take as cyclists we have to at least once perform some kind of evasive maneuvre to avoid a collision - this isn't the same when walking as there are designated areas provided for the safety of pedestrians. Roads are dangerous places, everyone knows that and general commonsense is usually enough to safely see us across. From what I have heard (admittedly second hand info) it sounds like she was playing some form of 'chicken' with the cyclist, which she obviously lost. If she was, which may have been why he shouted he wasn't stopping, she got burned playing with fire.

That's my 2 cents.

AFDS may sound indignant about this, but I'm fully with him. I can only imagine how I'd feel if it were my sister or daughter that had been killed by a cyclist.

I have a confession to make. Years ago, when couriering, I knocked over a lady crossing the Euston Road. I was in the "right" (green light on the main road I was on)....but I knew that I was going too fast, and when I cut behind her, it startled her and she jumped back. She hit the ground with force, and her skull craked open. I looked at her and screamed obcenities at her because I thought she was dead and I was scared as shit. The police came and were going to arrest me, but all the witnesses said exactly what happened. I was let off. It could have been worse. I had seen her straggling behind a group crossing the road, and aimed to go at least a few metres behind. She stepped back and jumped back in the same second, and I couldnt avoid her. I still do the same speeds, but I slow when I see peds that I might hit. Being in the right, and being cocky about is just wrong.

Nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions. Everyone wants to have somebody or something else to blame.

And it's all your fault... ;-)

^ you started it!

Metro article made it sound like he had plenty of room to avoid her. Sounds like a jumped up prick who feels like the road belongs to him and him alone and his little 'lesson to the ped' didn't pan out as he expected. Probably drives a BMW when he's not cycling.

Hippy -
If the Metro article didn't put up a picture of him with devil horns and a speech bubble proclaiming his love of terrorists I'll be bloody surprised.

hehe yeah true..

good thread. guy sounds like an assclown.

oh god i'm tired of all this two tribes shite

Can't believe I've missed Vitalic twice..

17 mph in a cul-de-sac ? 17 mph and how was that 'fact' estabished then ? The black box flight recorder ?

The Daily Heil ffs - of course 'I only buy it cos my parents do and for the sports coverage '

On C4 news they said he was described as a thrill-seeker. He didn't look the friendliest person but a court case can't make you friendly.

looked like he was riding a downhill rig from the pics

I can't believe it made the 10 o'clock news!
How many people get killed on the roads everyday & how many cyclists get killed and none of them ever make the main headlines.

I know he seems like a complete cunt - ploughing into the girls when he could have avoided them - but the tone of the news (again) was how do we stop this plague of slaughter from cyclists who are immune from the law.
Really not helpful.

nankatsu - do you work for the beeb?