Helmets and testing information

"JNugent" wrote in message
...
On 24/03/2011 17:45, BartC wrote:

This is not a contest between cars and bikes.

Of course it isn't.

But when distance is taken into account, bicycles soon run out of
viability for journeys where time is of the essence.

Well, so do cars, which have to give way to trains and airplanes.

IOW, whilst their viability is certainly not nil, it is limited compared
to motor vehicles (which consist of more than just cars).

Different kinds of transport are viable over different kinds of
distances.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. There is no distance over which a bicycle is
viable over which a car is not just as viable (leaving aside contrived
journeys involving foot bridges over railways, rivers, etc).

Over shorter distances a car could well be slower than a bike, taking
account congestion, and one-way systems and such (where a cyclist can simply
dismount and walk), and overheads of finding a parking spot

If you need to take tools, equipment or materials with you however, or have
to cart other people around, then a bike is not so practical (works for
Royal Mail though).

If you're talking about commuting that might be an about an hour each
way.
Many in the London region would *love* their commuting time to be as
little as that!

That doesn't change my point. But more than an hour, you don't really want
to be walking, cycling *or* driving, not twice a day. Not so bad on a train
though.

(There's also buses, which is where I *would* dispute their viability as a
form of transport, depending on the individual journey.)

(How many miles did people use to commute on horses, on in a horse and
carriage? Is *that* a form of transport?)

Have many people ever commuted by either mode? I shouldn't have thought
so.

Sherlock Holmes got around with a carriage, by train, or on foot. He didn't
seem fond of cycling. It was hardly a 9-5 job in an office he had though.

(BTW I used to commute 5-8 miles each way by bike. It was faster than a
bus,
but not quite as fast as driving. But it cost almost nothing. Some toy.)

I think the point is being missed here. That distance is fine for a bike,
for some people, over some sorts of terrain. But it is just as fine - in
fact, more so - for a car, or a bus. The argument is not symmetrical.

When I used the bike, it was partly because I didn't have a car. And for
lots of people cycling now is more for recreational purposes. Nevertheless
plenty of people do still cycle, either recreationally, or as a serious form
of transport, or because they are too young or too poor to drive. But the
anti-cycling attitudes in the UK now are frightening.

--
Bartc

On 24/03/2011 19:47, BartC wrote:

"JNugent" wrote:
BartC wrote:

This is not a contest between cars and bikes.

Of course it isn't.
But when distance is taken into account, bicycles soon run out of
viability for journeys where time is of the essence.

Well, so do cars, which have to give way to trains and airplanes.

Absolutely: it's a hierarchy.

And bikes are second from the bottom of it.

That isn't controversial, is it?

IOW, whilst their viability is certainly not nil, it is limited compared
to motor vehicles (which consist of more than just cars).

Different kinds of transport are viable over different kinds of
distances.

Up to a point, Lord Copper. There is no distance over which a bicycle is
viable over which a car is not just as viable (leaving aside contrived
journeys involving foot bridges over railways, rivers, etc).

Over shorter distances a car could well be slower than a bike, taking
account congestion, and one-way systems and such (where a cyclist can simply
dismount and walk), and overheads of finding a parking spot

Do you see what you're doing there? You are positing the very contrivances I
mentioned above.

The journey would have to be very short (measured in the hundreds of yards
rather than in miles) for that contrived argument to be true all the time.

If you need to take tools, equipment or materials with you however, or have
to cart other people around, then a bike is not so practical (works for
Royal Mail though).

Not really a "journey", is it? The bike is being used as a trolley.

If you're talking about commuting that might be an about an hour each
way.

Many in the London region would *love* their commuting time to be as
little as that!

That doesn't change my point. But more than an hour, you don't really want
to be walking, cycling *or* driving, not twice a day. Not so bad on a train
though.

I'd rather drive, for more than one reason. I absolutely detest public
transport and the PT experience, especially for commuting into London. I
rather suspect that I am very far from being alone in that. It's about more
than just the average speed.

(There's also buses, which is where I *would* dispute their viability as a
form of transport, depending on the individual journey.)

???

Most UK cities have buses as the only option for most workrs who don't have a
car and don't want to, or cannot, cycle. It seems to work well enough, though
it is a very high-cost system which seems to need bottomless subsidies from
people who don't use buses.

(How many miles did people use to commute on horses, on in a horse and
carriage? Is *that* a form of transport?)

Have many people ever commuted by either mode? I shouldn't have thought
so.

Sherlock Holmes got around with a carriage, by train, or on foot. He didn't
seem fond of cycling. It was hardly a 9-5 job in an office he had though.

(a) He wasn't a commuter. (b) He didn't exist.

(BTW I used to commute 5-8 miles each way by bike. It was faster than a
bus, but not quite as fast as driving. But it cost almost nothing. Some
toy.)

I think the point is being missed here. That distance is fine for a bike,
for some people, over some sorts of terrain. But it is just as fine - in
fact, more so - for a car, or a bus. The argument is not symmetrical.

When I used the bike, it was partly because I didn't have a car. And for
lots of people cycling now is more for recreational purposes. Nevertheless
plenty of people do still cycle, either recreationally, or as a serious form
of transport, or because they are too young or too poor to drive. But the
anti-cycling attitudes in the UK now are frightening.

I haven't detected them (well, not very much).

Tell you what, though... I find the anti-car attitudes in the UK now to be an
affront to the majority and to their aspirations.

On Mar 24, 7:24*pm, "BartC" wrote:
"The Medway Handyman" wrote in . ..

On 24/03/2011 17:45, BartC wrote:
(BTW I used to commute 5-8 miles each way by bike. It was faster than a
bus, but not quite as fast as driving. But it cost almost nothing. Some
toy.)

Cyclists are well known freeloading spongers.

If you're talking about building roads, that comes out of general taxation,
which everyone pays and everyone uses, either directly or indirectly. (And
roads that only need to be wide enough and strong enough for bikes, would
cost a fraction of normal roads.)

And that's ignoring the fact that the majority of adult cyclists are almost
certainly motorists too, and who understand that different kinds of
transport can be used for different classes of journeys.

--
Bartc

And it also ignores motorists like my wife who drives around in my car
that I pay for 100%, while I cycle everywhere.

--
Simon Mason

On 24 Mar 2011 19:20:40 GMT, Tony Raven wrote:
JNugent wrote:

How many people do you reckon commute daily by bicycle all the way into
London from around 35 miles out (Medway, for example, or Chelmsford,
Luton, High Wycombe, Farnborough, Godalming, Horsham or Tonbridge)?

And how many by private motor vehicle?

Assuming you've come up the right sorts of comparative numbers, can you
think of any reason for that?

I suspect far more people travel into London by train and bike combined
from those sorts of distances than drive. But I doubt anyone has the
statistics to show one way or the other.

Commuter Flows in London and the Wider South East: 2001 to 2016/21
http://www.eera.gov.uk/GetAsset.aspx...HwAf AAwAHwA0

Figure A1-5 on page 129 suggests that for the 40-60km band
commuting into central London, five times as many people do it by rail
as by car (scaling bar height by eye). For inner London, it's about
equally split rail and car.

London Area Travel Survey
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...rveynation1809

Figures 6 and 7 on page 13. Only about 1% of journeys into London
have access to the starting station by bicycle, and 2% have egress
from the destination station by bicycle.

There's some wacky rounding going on, because although 2% of commuters
arrive at the station on the way in to work by bike, 3% of them get
home from the station by bike on their commute home, suggesting bikes
are being spontaneously generated at stations. It's a long way short
of the 20% you'd need, however, for as many commutes to central London
being partly by bike as there are by car.

Admittedly I'm mixing ages of survey, and the LATS doesn't investigate
the access and egress modes by journey distance, but I think it
unlikely that there are as many partly by bike as entirely by car from
that distance. I'm not really sure what that proves.

regards, Ian SMith
--
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On Mar 24, 7:47*pm, "BartC" wrote:
But the
anti-cycling attitudes in the UK now are frightening.

--
Bartc

But the financial, environmental and health benefits that regular
cycling bring to the individual and to wider society in general far,
far outweighs the blinkered attitudes of a handful of misanthropic and
self centered motorists. Many motorists would secretly love to emulate
cyclists, I hear it all the time at work. I have lost count of the
number of colleagues who have said to me that they intend to cycle to
work, but sadly very few actually go through with it.

The biggest stumbling block though seems not to be the weather as you
might imagine, but that a bicycle might costs (cough) 300 quid or so.
The fact that that may pay that for a couple of tyres or 4 tanks of
fuel does not matter. They will not shell out that sort of money for a
bike even though they will soon get back what they paid for it.

That said, the bit of fence that I lock my bike to which used to be my
sole domain now houses 7 bikes, so some are making it.

--
Simon Mason

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:54:58 +0000
Tom Crispin wrote:

I am suggesting that the puzzlement shown by your daughter's exchange
parents is not that surprising.

You did seem to imply that in 50 years time Dutch cyclists will consider
helmet wearing to be the norm, which I found a little confusing.

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:36:08 +0000, Rob Morley
wrote:

On Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:54:58 +0000
Tom Crispin wrote:

I am suggesting that the puzzlement shown by your daughter's exchange
parents is not that surprising.

You did seem to imply that in 50 years time Dutch cyclists will consider
helmet wearing to be the norm, which I found a little confusing.

It certainly is a very real possibility. Indeed, I would be prepared
to wager a substantial sum of money that at some point within 50 years
the wearing of cycle helmets in the Netherlands will exceed 50%.

£100,000 would be a good wager. Is anyone prepared to accept my bet?

"Judith" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:46:27 +0000, Judith
wrote:


I cannot understand why so many cyclists here are against helmets - and
ridicule them at every
opportunity - calling them foam hats - ridiculing the speed to which they
are tested.



Oh bugger - I am sorry.

I have just realised that all the manufacturing details and processes and
the testing details which
I posted were referring to Motorcycle helmets rather than cycle helmets in
particular.

So then WTF did you post this rubbish to a cycling newsgroup, or do you not
understand the meaning of the word 'cycle'?





It is a good job that there was not a queue of ****wits ridiculing what I
posted and saying that
such helmets could serve no useful purpose :-)

"Simon Mason" wrote in message
...
On Mar 23, 9:16 pm, "alan.holmes" wrote:
"BartC" wrote in message

...







"Judith" wrote in message
.. .
On Tue, 22 Mar 2011 20:29:24 -0000, "alan.holmes"
wrote:

snip

Have you ever ridden a bicycle?

Yes - I currently do so.

Some claim it is illegal because it only has a single back pedal brake.

It is obviously very dangerous as it is a Dutch bike - and they have no
experience of making bikes
do they?

Which is more dangerous then: riding one of those, or riding without a
helmet (both, say, in central London)?

I would love to see statistics which, if all the Boris-bikes are
replaced
with those Dutch models, show whether bike accidents have decreased or
increased (taking of account that there would likely be a lot fewer
rentals).

Just out of interest, does Boris require people renting bikes to use a
helmet?


No, of course not.
Why should he?

Because the BMA say that people who ride bikes 'must' wear a helmet, or so
Judith keeps telling us!



--
Simon Mason

On Mar 24, 8:55*pm, "alan.holmes" wrote:
"Judith" wrote in message

...





On Sun, 20 Mar 2011 13:46:27 +0000, Judith
wrote:

I cannot understand why so many cyclists here are against helmets - and
ridicule them at every
opportunity - calling them foam hats - ridiculing the speed to which they
are tested.

Oh bugger - I am sorry.

I have just realised that all the manufacturing details and processes and
the testing details which
I posted were referring to Motorcycle helmets rather than cycle helmets in
particular.

So then WTF did you post this rubbish to a cycling newsgroup, or do you not
understand the meaning of the word 'cycle'?


Have you not met "Judith" before?
--
Simon Mason