Latest Moan From You and Me 2024

Carparkng spaces have not increased in size in line with the size of cars.
If everyone drove a ford anglia there would be no problem.
The spaces are not only too narrow they are also not long enough either.

 

Found in a BBC news article:"East Suffolk Council said the work was essential to arrest a "steep decline of certain wildlife species" and "habitats lost to self-sewn pine trees over the last century"."
Just gives me a vision of pine trees industriously sewing a tapestry of small pine trees across the landscape.

 

It would also depend where you're going and how far @simone_in_wiltshire. In any case - why should others pay tax and insurance to be on the road, and can then be held accountable for their actions because they have a registration plate, and cyclists don't have to have any of that?
I saw another one yesterday skelping along the pavement across the road from me. He nearly ran a chap over who had come round the corner - who then saw my look and shook his head too. He crossed the road, and carried on along that pavement [beside a busy doctor's surgery/pharmacy] before disappearing round the blind corner there at the traffic lights. Just as well there didn't seem to be any pedestrians coming round, but it's at a very busy junction where there's that surgery, a Health Centre across the road, and also next to the railway station.

Parking a Range Rover responsibly @Sheal? Don't be silly. They're far more important than us ordinary folk....

 

Not even sure I could ride a bike, I'd have to relearn.
I sometimes think that road planners are out to pit cyclists against other road users.
Cycle lanes that stop dead and leaving the cyclists nowhere to go, roads narrowed for no good reason other than to make it impossible to overtake a bike.

I've seen those on bikes in London and it's carnage for all concerned.

 

I'm massively into the sport of cycling and so is most of Europe but their is a massive divide in how people percieve cyclists. We don't have the infrastructure to fit all road users in and we are so population dense that of course we get in each others way.

The thing is though wherever you stand you see the actions of others as the biggest problem. I'm generally a pedestrian and I have far more problems with stupid drivers illegally turning to get into shops or mounting the curb to abandon their cares outside the shop. The local council in their wisdom just spent 5 million changing a perfectly safe roundabout into a danger zone because cars are either to impatient to wait half a second at a zebra crossing or just disregard it all together.

For me someone who cycles on the path isn't a cyclist, someone that dodges through traffic on their bike isn't a cyclist, someone that runs red lights isn't a cyclist, someone who doesn't pedal on a de-restricted bike isnt a cyclist....... They are all prats.

 

Or cycling to your local shop ( over 2 miles away down a steep hill) to do a weekly shop for 4 when it is about - 7oC. I’d also add that the nearest I have been to being seriously injured on the roads was when a cyclist was flying down our single track road at serious speed ( I live on a council designated cycle route) and hit me when I was collecting my refuse bin. Luckily it was only a glancing blow, 2 seconds earlier he’d have hit me head on!

 

Nearly every morning I come across this person on an e bike going through though the park.
Speed limit is 5mph but he is doing at least 20mph, almost silent.
He wears a full motor cycle helmet, presumably so he can't be recognised or maybe he assumes he's dangerous to himself but obviously not others.

 

My bicycles have carried shelves, carpets, not to mention tons of cat litter over 30 years, and all the shopping bags. My bicycle can easily carry a bag of compost.
People lived on hills without cars and survived. They walked on foot.

 

Not around where I live. I live in a very old early Georgian house built as a retirement manse for the local minister. Here there were stables and you either rode down the hill or if past that pony and trap. With our weather when we can get 3ft of snow a la 2010/11 I really don’t think a bike would cope with that. Even a horse would struggle.

 

I had to cycle in Berlin to work at -20c. Arrived an half an hour later, I was wondering how I was able to stand because I couldn’t feel my feet and lower legs.
Of course I wouldn’t ask a group of pensioners to cycle up and down hills but since most of us live in towns or paved areas, cycling is often a foreign word. When I moved to Maidenhead, there were 3 cyclists over the winter. When I left 9 years later, there were around 30 cyclists.