Safe Speed Forums

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q31LXQKxaWo

Oh, hang on!....

Good to see you've still got time on your hands to bother trolling this forum...

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

It's an important point, not trolling!

People do all sorts of stupid things, not car drivers, not cyclists, people...

Utterly deplorable, impatient and intolerant driving.

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Anyone who tells you that nothing is impossible has never bathed in a saucer of water.

BUT, from ALL your previous, it would be OK if it was a cyclist, but not a car.From ALL your previous, there seems to be TWO sets of rules on the road. Those for cyclists, and those for other road users, with one rule. SURPRISINGLY it's a variation on the PIGS law in Animal farm, substituting 2 wheels for four legs.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

I don't condone cyclists doing it in the main, although I'm not going to get too angry at say a mum riding carefully on the pavement with her child.

Can't you see the difference between somebody on a bike doing it and somebody in a car doing it though?

If you can't, no wonder you find me so confusing!

ok, I'll bite- is mum on bike with child on rear seat, or is it mum on one bike and child on a kids bike ? .But then, Why should a car want to drive over the full width of a pavement. No wonder WE all find you so confusing as you fail to explain the point.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

My point is can you not see the difference between somebody in a large vehicle with limited visibility driving along a pavement and somebody on a 28lb bike?

We're talking physics here.

There is certainly some poor driving in there, but I'm a little confused as to why you think they were all also cyclists? I know some cyclists habitually use the pavements, I have on occasion to let traffic through, do you think this makes them more likely to drive a car on the pavement too?

You are right, people do stupid things, including copying someone else being stupid.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

NO- we're talking common sense, unless that car ( you mentioned) has transformed into a HGV. Unless you know different, PAVEMENTS are designed for PEDESTRIANS ( and other slow ALLOWED ,as in HC) modes of transport. Cyclists are not ( as far as I can see, from HC definition) allowed to travel on the PAVEMENT.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Neither are drivers.

Which is worse in your eyes though, cycling along a pavement, or driving along it?

It depends what or who else is on the pavement, both are bad if there are pedestrians using it or able to enter it quicker than you can stop. I don't particularly approve of cyclists habitually using pavements, however there are use cases where it is safer and providing there is little foot traffic, they are willing to give way to pedestrians and keep their speed down below, say, 6mph it is not much of an issue.

Motor vehicles should not use the pavement, however again in some, if rather more rare, cases using it to pass an obstruction with the same caveats on care is not an issue.

As you stated earlier, it is people being stupid that is the problem.

On the subject of physics, the bike's weight is not that relevant if a 80Kg rider is on it and hits you at 20mph, what is more important is all of the pointy bits. Being hit at 20mph by a cyclist may be more dangerous than by a car as the car has been built with rounded surfaces designed to minimise pedestrian injuries, a bicycle certain hasn't.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

You clearly don't understand physics!

Force = mass x velocity squared...

If you stand up 100 people and ride a bike into 50 of them at 20mph then drive into the other 50 at 20mph, which group of 50 will have to send more people to hospital?

I understand it rather better than you.

Force = mass x acceleration

Kinetic energy = 1/2 x mass x velocity squared

Both can play a part, however sticking to force, what will do you more damage?

An 80kg person standing on you in bare feet or a screwdriver being pressed into your chest with 10kg of force*

Your example makes no sense as 50 people would be clearly visible to both cyclist and driver and they would both stop or would not be on the pavement in the first place, well not the driver at least unless it is a deliberate act of aggression. It is far more likely that both would hit a single or small group of pedestrians. I am not saying the car would not cause injury, simply that the cyclist could also cause severe injuries.


* A kilogram is technically a unit of mass, however feel free to convert it to Newtons by multiplying with Earths gravity.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

You've missed my point.

Take 100 pedestrians.

and

50 drivers in cars
50 cyclists on bicycles

Each cyclist rides into a pedestrian at 20mph
Each driver drives into a pedestrian at 20mph

No slowing down, no avoidance, no stopping.

Which group of 50 would have more severe injuries?

Which group of pedestrians would you rather be in to improve your chance of avoiding serious injury (and neither is not an answer)?

Nice skirt around your lack of knowledge of physics.

In answer I'll take the car, they are designed to minimise pedestrian injuries and would feel happier that I could deal with it in a more predictable way by rolling up and over it. With a cycle I'd have to take the full impact and a cycle has all kinds of low radius projections not to mention getting headbutted by the cyclist themselves.

I've hit cars at similar speed on both push and motor cycles and while I'm not saying it didn't hurt I got away with bruising, grazes and a pulled ligament.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

You rather have your body have to deal with 40,500 joules of kinetic energy (1000kg car at 20mph) than 3,700 (92kg of person and bike at 20mph)?

Really?

You are being quite charitable there, most average cars seem to weight more like 1400 to 1600kg.

I'm not Superman so would not be attempting to bring the car to a halt, at worst I'd be dealing with the gain in energy due to being accelerated to 20mph by the car, though in reality it would be much lower as you would go up and over the car. The energy only really matters when you have to dissipate it so is really important for crumple zones in cars or your body when stopping an oncoming cyclist.

It is the applied forces that cause the damage and particularly differential forces and point loads, the car is made of large smooth areas designed to deform on impact and absorb energy, cycles and cyclists aren't. It is just physics, I asked a couple of people in the office and they gave the same answer as I did.

A car would definitely have more scope to cause injuries to more people though, a cyclist hitting three or four people will not cause as much injury over all as a car doing the same.

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Driving fast is for a particular time and place, I can do it I just only do it occasionally because I am a gentleman.
- James May

Try telling this poor lady that cyclists aren't dangerous.


http://www.shropshirestar.com/news/emer ... collision/

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

We can all pick individual cases graball.

And you when you say "that cyclists aren't dangerous" do you man all of them?