Castle Coombe Track Days

First off, apologies for the lack of posting recently. I've been ... er ... busy. More on that in another post. But for now, I have a small treat for my readers:

Recently, I was contacted on behalf of MotorCycle Direct, a bike insurance company, with a request to publicise some of their promotions. Now, this is a strictly non-commercial blog, and I have never taken a penny from anyone in relation to anything I have posted. And I have had some crazy approaches! 'Genuine' Rolex replicas, betting scams, dainty Italian footwear, generic Viagra, you name it. And yet the things that MotorCycle Direct is promoting seem to be a good fit with the general tone of this blog, and may be genuinely of interest to my readership, so I agreed to host a couple of promotional pieces. I told them I would flag the material as 'third-party content' and they were OK with that. No money has changed hands, but I have been promised a 'motorcycle safety kit' as recompense, which I am allowed to keep or use as competition prizes. When I see what is in the package I will decide on that one (heh), but I have the germ of an idea ...

Here is the promotion:

Motorcycle Rider Safety Days supported by MotorCycle Direct

This year, MotorCycle Direct is giving their support to the Rider Performance Safety Days by offering their customers and anyone who has completed a bike quote from their site, a 10% discount on two dates later this year.

The courses, which are held at the Castle Combe Circuit in Wiltshire, have been specially designed to allow motorcyclists to become more ‘road aware’ and therefore less likely to be involved in a motorcycle related accident.

The safety days are taught by a team of expert instructors and are open to all bikers, so it doesn’t matter whether you’re a novice, experienced or born again biker. The team of instructors will be able to guide you through various workshops that will include:

• Positioning
• Observation
• Causes of Collision
• Attitude
• Cornering
• Braking
• Overtaking
• Motorcycle Maintenance

There are two dates planned for 2012, which are on Wednesday 30th May and Wednesday 5th September. Any bikers who would like to take advantage of MotorCycle Directs 10% discount offer should call the Castle Combe Circuit on 01249 782 417 or email: sales@castlecombecircuit.co.uk and quote the code ‘MDI 2012’ along with your MotorCycle Direct quote or policy number.

It seems like a reasonable offer, and if you were thinking of renewing your insurance any time soon (or just wanted a quote to check prices), you could do worse than give it a go.

N.B. There was an illustration to go with this material, of a biker on a track next to a man in hi-viz, a sort of generic 'training' image. Unfortunately, it was embedded in a Word document and even with the help of Photoshop I was unable to get a decent quality image out of it. I shall ask them to send the image and text separately next time.

Foggin' Stupid

I was commenting on a fine rant over at MajorGav's PetrolBlog where he rails against the use of fog lights when it isn't foggy (an amusing and timely article) when I realised that I had banged on so much in my comment that I had virtually written a new blogpost. So, with necessary amendments, here it is:

---

It's that time of year again, when both morning and evening commutes are in the dark, the weather is turning wet and chilly, and the road surfaces are getting trickier. I'd like to say a word to all car and van drivers on behalf of motorcyclists. Please, please, please make sure your headlights are adjusted properly and don't use fog lights, either front or rear, unless absolutely necessary. I know that some of you have them angled forward and call them 'driving lights' (what else would they be? Knitting lights?) but the result is the same.

We - bikers - don't have windscreen wipers, and what for you is a hard glass windscreen is, for us, a bit of soft plastic that scratches almost without touching - and costs 30 or 40 quid a pop to replace. Proper rain, paradoxically, is OK, as the water beads up and is blown off as long as you keep up a decent speed. But light rain or, worse, mist leaves a coating of cloudy droplets on your visor and cuts both visual penetration and contrast. Double that, treble that, if you have followed a lorry or bus which is sucking up a mist of road muck in its wake. 100 yards is enough. Bad enough when wet, but then it dries opaque.

Add an unlit road, and an approaching car with main beams on (or squinty dipped beams, or macho 'fog' lights) and you are literally riding into a black hole. You can see nothing, not the edge of the road, nor the surface, nor if there are any pedestrians tucked away in the shadows. The only answer is to pile on the brakes, slow down to a crawl and hope for the best.

The blazing rear fog light when it isn't foggy has the same effect (although the red is easier to deal with, and it's 21W x 2 rather than 60W x 4). In proper fog, a life-saver; in light rain or clear conditions a painful and annoying added hazard. But they are 'safety features', so it's OK to leave them on, right?

One thing about misused rear foglights that MajorGav didn't mention is the brake reflex on busy roads and motorways. You get attuned to the brightness level of everyone's rear lights, and when you see a much brighter one you assume someone up ahead is braking. You look, you react, and are ready to brake. When some muppet with a fog light on is up ahead, you keep seeing this between the other cars and the brain keeps twitching the brake reflex. That's annoying enough (the brain constantly going onto high alert for nothing) but it's also dangerous - after a while you become acclimatised, and then when somebody does brake in a genuine emergency, you just think "oh, it's that twat with the fog light again" and fail to react. Cue massive pile-up when nobody reacts in time.

Please just remember the Highway Code, Section 226:

You MUST use headlights when visibility is seriously reduced, generally when you cannot see for more than 100 metres (328 feet). You may also use front or rear fog lights but you MUST switch them off when visibility improves.

It's not difficult: switch them on when the fog makes it hard to see, and switch them off when visibility gets better. Everybody's happy.

And having four lights at the front does not make your car go faster, or give you a bigger willy.

RoSPA response

I posted recently about the horrific M5 crash, in which I criticised RoSPA for a bit of apparent shroud-waving in the aftermath of the events. It seems that RoSPA have been trawling the blogosphere for criticism of their stance (now why would they do that?) and are doing a bit of damage-limitation. Today, I received an email from Jo Bullock, their Head of Press and Campaigns, which gives the background to the interview I saw. It is certainly an eye-opener, and I am happy to publish it here in full. It seems as if the agenda was the BBC's, not RoSPA's (no surprises there), and that the interview that I saw was a highly-edited extract of a much bigger corpus of material. Here's what she wrote:

Hi Going Fast, Getting Nowhere

Further to some of the points made on your blog, I wanted to fill you in on the background to media coverage related to the horrific accident on Friday.

The pre-recorded clip shown by the BBC was only a very small part of what I discussed with BBC journalists throughout the day on Saturday and also with other journalists across the weekend.

At RoSPA, we did not proactively share our views on the 80mph limit, or, indeed, any aspect of the awful tragedy on the M5 - we only responded to direct enquiries from the media, and we, like other road safety/motoring organisations had many enquiries. The 80mph speed limit proposal, and also the issue of potential distraction, were the two most common lines of questioning from both broadcast and print journalists, and this is continuing today. I’m sure you will have seen comments from other organisations on these issues too.

Before recording the BBC TV piece in question and also during some of the recorded answers I gave to questions, I spoke at some length with the journalists about how I was in no way happy or able to link the M5 tragedy directly to the proposal to increase the motorway speed limit to 80mph. I actually told the journalist who recorded the piece that RoSPA would in no way seek to gain “political mileage” in such a way, not just because of the massive insensitivity of doing that but because it was also far too early in the investigation to even begin to speculate about the contributory factors to the crash.

The BBC, however, was doing a backgrounder piece on general motorway safety to accompany its breaking news coverage about the accident and this was the package they wanted RoSPA to be part of, not the breaking news to talk about the actual accident. As well as talking about motorways being the safest roads in the UK, supported by the national road casualty figures they shared, the journalist felt it important to mention the current big issue that people were talking about with regards to motorway safety - the proposal to raise the limit to 80mph. That’s why she asked me directly about this issue. In my answer, I was very clear to stress that RoSPA’s view on the proposal was one that we had held before the accident and that it was in no way prompted by the crash. Also, in no way did I urge the Government to reconsider its 80mph proposal “in light of the accident” - as has been suggested in a couple of places. I’m not sure if other organisations have done that or not, but that line has certainly not come from RoSPA.

It’s important that people talk about whether the motorway limit should be increased, and blogs are a great place to do this (I’m sure there’ll be a lot more discussion when the Government issues its consultation), but I am sorry if on this occasion people thought RoSPA was seeking to gain something in the aftermath of a horrific crash.

Best wishes

Jo

Jo Bullock
Head of press and campaigns
Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents

Tel: 0121 248 2134
Out-of-hours media enquiries: 07785 540349
Fax: 0121 248 2001
jbullock@rospa.com

For what it's worth, I have always had the highest respect for RoSPA. Their system of advanced motorcycle testing, leading to the coveted RoSPA Gold, is way ahead of anything else in the UK as far as road riding goes, and I was very disappointed to see their approach in the BBC interview. Having read Jo's explanation, I have had my faith somewhat restored. I have emphasised certain bits above to illustrate what I mean. The formatting of her email (removed in version above) suggests that the message was pre-written and then individualised and sent to a lot of people. I suspect they got a lot of flak that they weren't expecting over this.

BBC promoting an anti-car, anti-speed agenda? Who'd-a thunk it?

Blaming the Bonfire

It's starting to look as though a culprit has been found for the M5 accident on Friday evening - a nearby bonfire.

Police probing the M5 crash which killed seven people have said a firework display next to the road is the "major line of inquiry".

Assistant Chief Constable Anthony Bangham, of Avon and Somerset Police, said he was focusing on the event held on Friday night.

He said "a bank of smoke" was across the M5 at the time of the crash.

This may well be true. Fires have a habit of making a lot of smoke, and the wind has a habit of taking that smoke where it is not wanted. Sometimes this causes problems. It does not mean that fires should be banned.

I lived for a long time in North and South Humberside, an area of predominantly arable farming. At certain times of year, the farmers used to burn off the stubble in the fields, which caused massive thick clouds of yellow-white smoke to hang over the landscape. Often, the wind would blow it across roads - even major routes - and the traffic would come to a near standstill for a while. It was like a very thick fog, only it made you cough as well as blinding you. People grumbled, obviously (especially if you had a load of clean washing on the line when they set it off), but no-one suggested that the burning should be banned. It was a seasonal thing, part of the way of life in those areas, and you accepted it.

I have a feeling that a different view will be taken over the bonfire smoke from Taunton Rugby Club. Even if the smoke is not found to be a primary cause of the accident, I am sure that there will be calls for bonfires near major routes (and how many are not?) to be banned. After all, if it saves just one life ...

Sorry, no. Bonfires are part of our tradition, going back thousands of years. Never mind recent history like the Gunpowder Plot - our Celtic ancestors were burning the old year away back in the Iron Age, and I'm sure their Neolithic forebears were doing something similar. The smoke from a bonfire is just something that we have learned to deal with, even as motorists - back to that old rule about 'being able to stop within the distance you can see to be clear'.

Sometimes I think our roads are too good. Because of the regulations surrounding motorway construction, we expect good surfaces, shallow bends, consistent road marking and signage, control of joining traffic, and so on. In short, we expect them to be an ideal environment in which we can go fast and not have to think too much. We feel 'entitled' to a certain standard, and when something unexpected comes along, we can't cope. More, we are annoyed, because that kind of thing 'shouldn't be allowed to happen'.

I think we are going to see a curtailment of bonfires "for everyone's benefit". That would be sad, but it's easier to do than, God forbid, expecting people to think for themselves.

And, for a bonus point, in the coverage of this over the next few days, look out for the climate change argument to be added to the mix - all that nasty CO2 being pumped out for no good reason every year. It will be there, mark my words.

M5 crash

Let's get one thing out of the way: the M5 motorway crash was horrific and dreadful, and my heart goes out to those involved - perhaps especially to the loved ones of those who died, as it seems that some perished in an appalling manner, trapped in their cars while a firestorm went on around them. Living with the knowledge that this was how someone you loved ended their life sounds like a lifetime's heartache to me. This is not the time to be making contentious statements based on a partial understanding of what happened. There was a lady from RoSPA on the BBC News this evening trying to get the Government to 'think again' about the proposed raising of the speed limit from 70 to 80. No-one knows what caused the crash, not even the policemen dealing with it, so how anyone can go on the telly and use the dreadful events to promote their agenda as if the causes were all laid out and understood by everyone is a mystery - and leaves a pretty unpleasant taste in the mouth.

But this won't stop the hard of thinking from posting their incisive analysis. COLIN's response on the Yahoo News site is typical:

horrific crash on M5 many DEAD and they want to increase speed limit from 70 to 80 God help all of us

Here's the logic: for cars to run into each other on a motorway, they must have been going too fast. Therefore, lower speed limits are the answer.

Right; and wrong. On a motorway in thick fog, 30 mph is suicidally fast. On a clear day with light traffic, 90 mph is a safe speed. Any general speed limit is, by its nature, arbitrary. It's the speed in relation to the conditions that either avoids or causes accidents. And getting that right is all about training, not arbitrary enforcement of a number on a stick.

All the witness accounts that I have read say that the cars involved were travelling below the speed limit in any case, so how a higher overall limit would make accidents like this more likely is not obvious.

But watch for the usual suspects (I haven't seen Brake commenting yet, but I am sure they will) coming on the airwaves to call for speed limits to be ratcheted down yet again. Despite the fact that this is nothing, nothing, to do with this awful event.

I suspect that the outcome of any investigation of the crash will conclude that some people were travelling too fast for the conditions, which is so obvious it hardly needs saying, sadly. What will be more interesting is the way that various vested interests will use the incident to further their own agendas.

Another day, another IAM Poll

This time it's about MoT tests. The Government is considering bringing MoT testing into line with the minimum European requirements, which would be:

• First test after four years from new (currently three)
• Subsequent tests every other year after that (currently annual).

Personally, I have no problem with MoT testing. I'm glad to ride around knowing that there is a scheme in place to make sure that other vehicles sharing the road with me are at least of a minimum standard of roadworthiness. I know the system is fallible and can be got around, but it's better than nothing. Also, I'm glad to put any vehicle of mine to an independent test every twelve months. Two sets of eyes are better than one, and occasionally an MoT tester has spotted something that I either hadn't seen, or had underestimated the seriousness of. In those circumstances, I have been very glad to be told.

I use any one of three testing stations, and all of them know that I will be taking the car or bike away, doing the work myself, and re-presenting it, so there's no danger of the make-work brigade finding faults that aren't there, although I appreciate that this is a problem with some places who might see a gullible or non-technical customer as an opportunity to get some workshop time when things are slow.

As for reducing the fequency of testing from 3+1 to 4+2, I am not sure. Most modern vehicles will still be in as roadworthy a condition after four years as they are after three. The regs were brought in when vehicles were much less reliable than they are today, and I doubt if that extra year will make much difference. Once a vehicle gets to 5-6 years old and has perhaps 60-70k miles on the clock, however, my instinct tells me that an annual check is a good idea. That's when things start to fail, and some of them are safety-critical.

Anyway, go and have your say. Unlike Mr Cameron, the IAM are keen to get the opinions of as many people as possible. You don't have to be a member, etc.

UPDATE: Having done the survey, and learned that 27% of cars fail their first MoT at three years old, I am inclined to say keep things as they are. Getting a 3-year-old car tested, and then testing every year thereafter, is hardly onerous.

SMIDSY

If there is one phrase which unites motorcyclists all over the world in a mood of weary resignation, it is this one: Sorry, mate, I didn't see you. SMIDSY, always in the aftermath of a collision or a near-miss, said by the hapless driver of a car, van, motorhome, lorry or tractor, to a bemused and probably angry motorcyclist lying on the floor amid the wreckage of his or her pride and joy. Injuries are probably minor: after all, if they were serious the motorist would probably be talking to the Police; but the curious thing is how this is what drivers always say, and always in this form of words. Friendly, but self-exculpatory: I didn't see you, therefore it wasn't my fault. It was just one of those things.

I read a lot of motorcycle forums, and whenever this topic comes up there is usually a lot of anger, directed at car drivers who are variously careless, blind, senile, murderous or blessed with an IQ smaller than their shoe size. I'm not sure that anger is justified in every case, although it is in some: people who cause accidents when distracted by being on the phone or, worse, texting come to mind. But I want to be fair here. Many studies over many years have shown that when a car and a motorcycle have an accident, the blame lies with the car driver in most cases - two-thirds or three-quarters are the usual figures. That makes perfect sense to me. Having an accident on a bike hurts a lot, and it is in the interests of the rider to avoid such collisions at all costs, so it is not surprising that in most cases the fault was not the rider acting carelessly and hitting a car, it was the other way round.

I am prompted to write this because of an email sent to me by one of the blog's commenters, Zaphod. He writes this from the perspective of someone driving a van:

A variation on the SMIDSY hazard, which I haven’t previously encountered, nor anticipated.

No Bikers were physically harmed in this experiment.

A mini-roundabout in a built-up area. I slow as I approach. A car is followed by a big bike. Nothing else in view. I adjust my trajectory to slot in behind the bike.

I’m focused on the bike, now passing directly in front of me as I roll in. A quick glance left, to check that the car in front isn’t unexpectedly slowing, which would slow the bike. A quick glance right, behind the bike.

A little scooter has materialised! Right behind the bike, in the space I was about to enter!

I did look, so I didn’t hit him. (But he was clearly rather cross.) He was in the shadow of the bike when I first looked. He will have seen my van, but I didn’t see his scooter. I’d like to believe that he would have evaded my unprovoked attack.

I hope I’ve learned something new. Is there also a defensive lesson for Bikers here?

I’m not shifting blame, honest. But it being my fault would have been no consolation to him.

Be gentle with me, I confessed to you freely.

Zaphod.

Now, Mr Beeblebrox did the right thing here: he glanced to the right before pulling out, saw the scooter, and avoided an accident. It seems to me that his concern is that he nearly didn't. And if he hadn't, he would have been the one standing over the scooter rider saying "Sorry, mate ..."

It has been established that a lot of car/bike accidents, maybe the majority, are caused by the driver of the car not seeing the rider. To be as fair as possible to car drivers, I think a lot of these come into the category of what the Police classify as 'looked but didn't see'. In other words, the driver does everything he is supposed to according to his driving lessons, but failed to spot the hazard. A failure of perception rather than method. He looked in the right direction, but 'saw' nothing. I'm no expert, still less a psychologist, but here are a couple of thoughts:

Safety car designs

Cars are now designed to be much safer for their occupants, and one of the features that I have noticed is that the A-pillar (the one between the windscreen and the door) is much heavier than it used to be. I assume this is to provide greater protection in a roll-over accident, but it has a devastating effect on the driver's ability to see other road users in that crucial sector that, on a boat, would be "off the starboard bow". When pulling out into a major road, or entering a roundabout, that pillar is exactly where you need to be looking out for other traffic. Bike magazine did some research into this a few years ago, in conjunction with (I think) the TRL, and they concluded that under certain circumstances a bike on a roundabout would be literally invisible to a car driver - the rider's position on the roundabout would be tracked exactly by the movement of the pillar as the car moved forward and leftward onto the roundabout. This would seem to be the circumstances of Zaphod's near-miss. The recommendation of the Bike article was that drivers should be trained to deliberately move their heads from side to side in these conditions, so as to see the view from both sides of the A-pillar. This is something which all car drivers could start to do from today, and which would doubtlessly save lives in the long term.

Atavistic Strategies

Given the general numptiness of the population, it always amazes me that a complex activity like driving a car in modern traffic can be carried out by almost any human being - by teenagers, housewives, pensioners, footballers, hairdressers, professors - with a very high dgree of competence. If you doubt that, think of how many thousands of millions of miles are driven in the UK each year, and reflect on how rare accidents really are. (In the UK, 5.7 people die in road accidents per one million vehicle-kilometers travelled. That means that for the average driver who covers 20,000 km per year, your chances of being killed on the road in any year are 1 in 8,750. Put another way, you could set 98 people driving an average mileage from today until the end of the 21st Century and statistically only one would die in a road accident. Compare that with the agriculture industry, which manages to kill 8 workers out of every 100,000 every year.)

How can motoring be so safe? My guess is that it uses skills which have been honed over millions of years of evolution - running, jumping, throwing, hunting, fleeing predators and so on - which are now hard-wired into the human brain. Moving rapidly through the landscape, estimating the speed and trajectory of other objects, strategies for reaching goals and avoiding dangers, going all-out and gently cruising; all of these are as natural to us as eating. We have pushed the envelope a little: our natural maximum speed is about 20 mph (Usain Bolt managed 100m in 9.58 sec, which equates to 23 mph), but we seem to be able to cope with speeds of around four times that before our limitations begin to show, and for such as racing drivers ten times that. The human brain is remarkably adaptable.

But the strength of those skills and abilities are their limitation, too. No-one has to learn that a car approaching at x mph will reach us in y seconds and will pass us within z feet of our right-hand side. Any child who learned to catch a ball at the age of 5 knows that. It's all processed in the unconscious part of the brain. But that is where threats are processed, too, and threats are analysed in a very selfish way: how will this thing affect me? Will it kill me, or can I ignore it?You are waiting to pull out of a side-road into a main road. You see something approaching from your right (remember this is a UK blog, US readers!). Your back brain has assessed the threat and decided on a course of action before the conscious mind has even seen it. A lorry or coach? Big, dangerous. Hold back. A car? Just like me, might or might not. A bike? Small, no threat at all. Off I go ...

Another SMIDSY.

That ought to be 'Sorry, mate, my unconscious mind didn't perceive you to be enough of a threat to stay out of your way'.

This is not carelessness, or wickedness, or even stupidity. It's human nature. I've driven coaches and minibuses, as well as cars and bikes, and I can tell you that this is true. In a 53-seater coach, no-one pulls out in front of you. On a motorbike, lots of people do. I was passing a petrol station on a bicycle once. A lady was waiting to pull out. She waited until I was less than 10 feet away before moving: she had her window open, and we were so close that the words we exchanged did not even require a raised voice. "What are you doing?" "Oh, sorry, I ..."

Looked, but didn't see. Or looked, saw, and reacted in a way that was about 10 million years out of date. I'm not sure I know the answer to this. Better driver training would surely help. Training that focused on the whys and wherefores, rather than on 'look right, look left, look right' (although that would be a start). But it does demonstrate the futility of all the conspicuity stuff - the high beams in the daytime, the high-viz clothing. If a driver doesn't see a 17-stone biker on a big red bike as a threat, then he won't see the same guy in a yellow vest as a threat either.

My answer to all of this, as a rider, is a common one amongst experienced bikers: ride as if you are invisible. Assume that car is going to pull out of that gateway, because he will. He hasn't seen you. Assume that car will change lanes and cut you off, because he will. He doesn't know you are there. Keep that bubble of safety between you and the other idiots. If they close in, back off and keep the bubble. Recognise that a wet surface, or a narrow road, shrink your bubble and slow down to expand it again. And be patient and forgiving with people who don't treat you with respect. They don't mean it (well, most of them don't). It's just their jungle brains.

I think that's possibly the answer to Zaphod's question: "Is there also a defensive lesson for Bikers here?" He's absolutely right on one thing: if there had been an accident, it may have been his fault, but that would have been no consolation to the scooter rider. When you ride a bike, you are responsible for your own safety. No-one else values your life and your good looks like you do. Be intelligent and prevent other people's accidents. It's a big ask, but it's your life at stake.

And props to the guy for writing what he did. Honesty and self-examination are rare qualities these days.

Latest IAM poll

The latest IAM poll is on 20 mph speed limits, pedestrian areas, and so on. It also asks about woonerfs (areas with no signage, based on a Dutch idea, which I have discussed before).

Have a go here (you don't need to be a member, etc.).

For what it's worth, I have no problem with 20 mph limits in the appropriate areas (residential districts, outside schools and so on). There is a direct connection between the limit and the reason for the limit, and the limited area is clearly defined. France (where I am until tomorrow morning) has many of these limits: in fact, villages without the huge, soft speed cushions and the 30 kph signage are quite rare. Compliance seems to be very high, as you might expect where a law is sensible and restricted to the immediate need.

Brilliant, again

Last February, I posted a safety video from Sussex Safer Roads Partnership. The message was just the usual 'wear your selt-belt', but the concept was highly creative and its execution was excellent, and the ad won many awards. Briefly, a man sits in a chair in his living room, pretending to drive a car. He sees an (imaginary) accident developing, and his wife and daughter rush to clasp him into his chair just before the impact. If you haven't seen it before, go and do so now. It's stunning, and I can't watch it even now without getting something in my eye.

The Partnership have now come up with one for bikers, called 'Stay A Hero'. It was made by the same company, Alexander Commercials, and has a similar creative slant. I can see this winning awards too.



These two have a much greater impact on me than almost any other safety 'commercial' I have seen. I think it's because they don't set out to frighten, or threaten, or induce guilt. They work on love rather then fear, on positive emotions rather than negative, and they work superbly.

Helmets and liberty

I posted a little while ago about cycle helmets, and the compulsion debate.

I like cycling, and I view it as an extension of walking. The idea of compulsory safety kit, or cycle registration, or mandatory licensing and testing fills me with horror. You can just buy a bike, get on it, and go: and that's how it should be. I can accept that systems of vehicle licensing and driver registration are necessary where cars and motorcycles are concerned. The principle difference is that in a car or on a motorbike, you can cause significant harm to other people, and that needs to be controlled in some way. A bicycle is essentially harmless, and it should remain free from state interference.

And then poor old Norman Baker goes and gets himself into all sorts of trouble:

Norman Baker, the minister responsible for cycling, walking and local transport – and lifelong bike enthusiast – has reignited a debate that divides bike lovers. The Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes has declared it his "libertarian right" to put himself at risk on roads by not wearing a helmet, prompting claims from road safety groups that he is unfit for the job.

Is it the law that one must wear a cycle helmet? No, it is not. Is Baker therefore free to choose whether he wears a helmet or not? Yes, he is. But that's not enough for the chiding, nagging governesses of the 'charity' Brake:

"Ministers should practise what they preach and when a minister directly responsible for cycling safety refuses to wear a cycle helmet, we then have to look at their suitability for the role."

Nice little scold, that one, as well as the classic illiteracy of 'their'. But Baker has it absolutely 100% right when he says this, and in the process proves himself to be a true Liberal (from the days when Liberal meant believing in freedom):

"It is a libertarian argument. The responsibility is only towards myself. It's not like drinking and driving where you can damage other people. You do no harm. I'm not encouraging people not to do this, I'm just saying I make a decision not to."

That's the key, and it is a truly Libertarian concept. If you do no harm to others, then you should be free to do as you please with your own life. It is no-one's business but your own. Thank God that someone in government feels this way and can articulate it. Brake obviously feels that the general public aren't intelligent or subtle enough to understand that someone may recommend one course of action while pursuing another. Note: recommend. If he were legislating for the rest of us to wear helmets by compulsion while not wearing one himself, that would be different. That would be like banning smoking from all enclosed public spaces while making the Palace of Westminster exempt, ha ha. But all he is saying is that wearing a helmet is a good idea, although he prefers not to. That's not too hard to understand, is it?

On a bicycle, I don't wear a helmet, and if it were made a legal requirement I would still not wear a helmet. On a motorcycle, I always wear a helmet, and would do so even if the compulsion to do so were removed. Partly, that's from comfort - the world is a different place at 70 mph compared to 15 mph, and I am rarely cycling for 200 miles at a stretch - but it's also from a concern for self-preservation. A fall on the head from a bicycle saddle is unlikely to cause serious head injuries (although it may), whereas a fall from a motorbike at speed would almost certainly be catastrophic. It's the old risk management thing: one is a small and acceptable risk; one is a large and unacceptable one.

I'm with Norman here. On a bicycle, I like the feeling of the wind in what remains of my hair, and the pleasure is enough to make the small risk a worthwhile one. On the other hand, if wearing a motorcycle helmet is a choice I make, then do I believe it should be compulsory for everyone? No, I don't. There is a massively-strong case for wearing one, but even that does not justify taking away people's freedom to live their own lives and make their own choices. The time for protesting against the helmet laws is long gone, and it's not a freedom I would go to the barricades over, but the principle is clear. If we're not free to go to Hell in our own way, then we're not free. There's a surprisingly robust defence of Baker in a comment piece in the Grauniad here, and the comments are surprisingly supportive of Baker (I suspect it is because they associate pro-helmet with anti-bike, and therefore Daily Mail-style wrongness). Support also here and here, where Brake's claim (on which the whole of their argument rests) that most cycling fatalities are caused by head injuries is blown apart.

Cycle Helmets

Mandatory semi-relevant babe picture

Moving away from motorbikes for a moment (don't worry, we'll be back before long): what do you think about the wearing of cycle helmets?

There was an interesting debate a few years ago over at Treehugger (visit for research purposes only), with all points of view if you follow the links therein. My view was formed by a reading of the excellent Richard's Bicycle Book, when I was a regular cycle commuter back in the late 70s/early 80s. Accidents involving head injury on bicycles occur mainly in urban areas, and mainly to children, so if you are an adult riding in the country, you probably don't need to wear one. I didn't.

Recent research (links in the Treehugger site) suggests that the wearing of helmets makes a big difference to child injury rates, and very little difference to adults. This makes a kind of sense. The protection that the helmet provides for an adult is counterbalanced by the increase in the likelihood of having an accident if you are wearing one, and overall rates stay unchanged. I assume this is due either to risk compensation (you feel safer and therefore take more risks) or a change in the behaviour of the car drivers around you. This piece of research suggests that drivers will see a rider wearing a helmet and assume an increased level of competence, and will therefore drive closer to the bike when overtaking.

Some countries make the wearing of a helmet compulsory, either for all cyclists or just children (for example, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and some US states), and I have just picked up a hint that this may well be on the cards for the UK. The IAM are holding another poll, this time on the wearing of cycle helmets. Why would they be doing that, I wonder? As usual, you don't have to be a member to participate, and they want as many views as possible.

Go and make your views known. And ponder a curious fact: the countries with the best cycle safety records (Denmark and the Netherlands) have among the lowest levels of helmet use. It's a complex issue involving infrastructure and attitude, but it's interesting.

Insurance and Gender

Following the ECJ's decision last week, that insurers cannot charge people different premiums based on their gender, there has been a general uproar to say that decision was 'absurd' and 'equality legislation gorn mad' (blogosphere passim). I beg to disagree.

Take car insurance. Insurers have, traditionally, quoted higher premiums for male drivers on the basis that men have more accidents than women, and that men's accidents tend to be more serious and therefore more costly to the company. Men (and especially young men) are expected to take this on the chin and cough up the extra, somehow shouldering the blame of all their similarly-testicled colleagues, no matter what their own driving skills or accident propensity.

Now it is correct that, generally speaking, men are more likely to be a poor risk, and generally speaking, women are more likely to be a better risk. But how does that reflect on an individual driver, just passed his or her test, who has no accident record, poor or blameless, to fall back on? I am male and have been paying proportionately more than my share for about 40 years now, and yet I haven't cost any insurance company a penny in payouts. (I suppose I should allow a small amount for admin costs in dealing with an accident which was not my fault, and for which I successfully claimed all my out-of-pocket expenses.) A girl I work with has written off two cars in as many years.

Predictions based on generalities and populations are not the same as predictions based on observation of actual behaviour. A young male driver may be accident-free for the whole of his life, and yet he will pay more over his lifetime than his sister, who may be as accident-prone as Mr Bean. What 'most men' do is irrelevant. He is being penalised for something over which he has no control, and which has no causal relationship with his own behaviour: the behaviour of other males.

We say that 'men can run faster than women' and, for the generality of the population, averaged out, this is true. However, this does not mean that some women cannot run faster than some men. Paula Radcliffe and my good self would be a prime example. Despite the ownership of X and Y chromosomes and two testicles, I could not beat Paula in any race, whether a hundred-yard dash or a marathon. And yet, looked at from an actuary's viewpoint, I should stroll it at any distance because I am packin' a pair.

Imagine if there were to be a race between a thousand people, 500 men and 500 women. And imagine that, because men were 'generally' faster runners than women, all the men were given the handicap of waiting ten seconds after the starting gun, to give the 'slower' female 500 a fair crack of the whip. Sure, some men would reach the tape at the same time as the fastest women, but many men would be lagging far behind, and many women would be up with the leaders. It would be ridiculous to handicap an entire gender in a mixed sporting event. So why is it 'logical' to penalise someone on the basis of their reproductive organs in something like car insurance?

I know insurance companies aren't a charity, and they must relate their premiums to the likelihood of paying out. But why not base that on the individual, rather than the entire sex of which that individual is a part? There exists already, and widely accepted, a system of premium loading and discounting according to claims record. We already discount premiums for drivers who don't make claims and keep a clean sheet, and we already load premiums for drivers who can't stop wrecking their cars, or who drive while drunk, or who break the law and get points on their licences.

I would suggest that the insurance industry takes this one on the chin, but use discounts and loading much more intelligently. Let all new drivers, male and female, start at the same level - a basic premium based on the likely repair costs of the car. A ten-year-old Corsa would cost less than a new Audi, but that would be the only relevant factor. The basic premium would need to be fairly high at first, as the driver would be an unknown risk, but could come down significantly with every year that the driver was on the road without an accident. By 'significantly', I mean by far more than the current maximum of 60% no-claims 'bonus'. After all, if you can drive for three years without a bump, you must be doing something right. Conversely, any claim on the insurance would be evidence that the driver was a poor risk, and premiums could be raised accordingly. This loading would need to be much more brutal than at present if it were to replace the gender-based risk calculations and be cost-neutral for the insurance companies.

So John passes his test and buys a car. For the first year, his insurance costs him (round figures) £1000. But a year later it is only £600, and two years after that £300. He is a safe driver - proved - and his insurance is costed accordingly. Jane starts with the same premium of £1000, but six months later has a minor accident. At renewal time, she finds her premium is now £2000. A year later, she writes her car off and soon afterwards is caught driving over the limit. Her next insurance premium is £6000, and she decides to give up and catch the bus. Actual driving behaviour, good and bad, would have real and significant consequences - nothing to do with gender, and everything to do with real-world outcomes. That would seem to me to be a much fairer way of going about things. And it could well have beneficial effects on the accident stats.

The ECJ's decision seems to me to be the right one from the point of view of simple fairness. A driver should pay premiums according to how he or she actually behaves, not how they may be expected to behave on the basis of their gender. That is in line with principles of individual responsibility and matching actions with consequences, which is good for the moral fabric of society.

These are some initial thoughts, and there's probably something major that I have missed. Your thoughts are, as always, welcome.

Of course, we know that all the inscos will do is to rack up female premiums to match male premiums, double their profits, and hope no-one will notice. But that's the way the world works.

Sadly.

Hey Diddle Diddle

I was alerted by an email from Brian (tyvm) to this story from the Daily Mail:

A road safety body's failure to read a map means no speeding drivers have been caught on the UK's deadliest road despite £1.3million of taxpayers' money being spent.

In a bid to cut the number of fatal motorbike crashes road on the notoriously windy 'Cat and Fiddle' road between Cheshire and Derbyshire, safety chiefs came up with a scheme to place cameras along the route to make sure drivers' average speeds remained within the 50mph limit.

However, they had reckoned without the existence (clearly visible on a road map) of a short-cut, freely available to all who use the road, which would have rendered any average-speed calculations meaningless.

But despite the huge amount of money spent on the project, catching drivers breaking the law has proved impossible as safety chiefs forgot that motorists can avoid the hi-tech camera system by moving to a side road and and rejoining the Cat and Fiddle about a mile further down the road.

Ah, but spending all that lovely free money was worth it, wasn't it? I mean, you have caught lots of speeding bikers and saved loads of lives, right?

Now it has emerged that with cash for the scheme in danger of being scrapped, not a single motorist has been prosecuted for speeding on a stretch of road that last July was again named as the UK's most deadly route.

I'll take that as a 'no', then.

Part of me is delighted that such a gnat-brained scheme has failed, and failed so humiliatingly, and part of me grieves for the things that could have been done with the £1.3m, such as schools and hospitals. But there is a more general point to be made.

For one thing, there is no such thing as a dangerous road; only a dangerous driver/rider. OK, I will allow that this road in Bolivia:



given the vertical drops, lack of protection and heavy traffic use is objectively dangerous, but not this one:



Barriers, signage, smooth tarmac - it's as safe as houses if you treat it properly. You could kill yourself on it, but it's unlikely you would do so unwittingly.

But it seems to me that the Cheshire Safer Roads Partnership have got their strategy entirely wrong.

The bill for the cameras is £800,000 but road safety measure including reducing the speed limit, installing high-friction surfacing, barriers and signs, widening the carriageway, and using mobile speed cameras means £500,000 had already been spent on the route.

Reducing the speed limit is pointless, believe me. If riders are going to challenge themselves to ride the Cat and Fiddle, a number on a stick, however low, isn't going to make the slightest difference. And the theory of risk homeostasis tells us that any measure to make a road 'safer' will only encourage people to go faster. Road straightening, good surfaces, clear sight-lines all make a road easier to ride fast. And people will. I am no arse-in-the-air racer, but if I see a corner coated with that nice Shellgrip, I will take advantage. All their 'measures' are doing is making it easier for riders to go stupidly fast, and when they have their accidents they will be that bit more serious.

If they really want to slow riders down on the Cat and Fiddle, the answer is a simple one: rip up the tarmac and replace it with cobblestones, and then tear down the barriers and line the corners with barbed wire. Just don't tell them I said so.

Dead Red Bill

No, relax: Slick Willie is still alive.

I was alerted to this story from Kansas a couple of days ago. It seems that motorcyclists in Kansas are getting fed up of waiting at red lights, which fail to register the presence of a small vehicle like a bike and stay red for hours on end.

Nicknamed the "Dead Red Bill," Kansas HB 2192 would allow motorcyclists to run red lights if the signal sensor at the intersection failed to recognize that a motorcycle was waiting at the intersection, and the light failed to change from red to green.

"It's a major annoyance," said motorcycle rider Charles Smith. "You can pull up to a turn lane at a traffic light and watch it cycle through a couple times."

How's that going to work, then?

The bill, which was recently passed by the Kansas House, states that "a red signal, which fails to change a green light within a reasonable period of time because …the signal has failed to detect the arrival of a motorcycle …because of its size or weight …shall have the right to proceed subject to the rules."

Ah. "Reasonable." That wonderful word that allows everything, and nothing. What is reasonable to me may be totally unreasonable to you. I know riders who regard car drivers who travel 5 mph below the posted limit as 'unreasonable' and will take any risk to get past them. I know drivers who regard six pints as a 'reasonable' quantity before a drive home from the pub.

Anyone who reads this blog will know that I am all for people making their own decisions and living with the consequences. However, with a system such as road transport, which is both universal and highly complex, and is used by people with a huge variety of competence levels, attention spans and states of mind, it makes sense for there to be some basic rules which everyone sticks to. I don't regard waiting for a red light as a huge infringement on my personal freedom.

Having said that, there doesn't seem to be a problem with this in the UK. I can't remember ever waiting ages for a red light to change because I wasn't heavy enough to trigger the sensor (and I have made an effort in this regard, let me assure you). If I had waited at an empty junction for five minutes with a red light, I think I would be very tempted to sneak through - although with the knowledge that, if anything went wrong, I would be fully responsible for the consequences.

I think it's best left that way, to be honest. Cops turn a blind eye, and if it goes wrong it's down to you. Introducing the idea that people have a 'right' to run a red light if they think it's 'reasonable' to do so is a recipe for chaos, as far as I am concerned.

At least we don't have these ... do we?

(H/t Joe Public, via email)

Happy Birthday Highway Code

The Highway Code is 80 today!

Boring, boring, boring - after all, it's only what you must do to pass your test, right? A bit like all those skool textbooks: used to get what you wanted, and immediately forgotten thereafter.

I'm a big fan of the Highway Code, as it happens. Everything you need to know is in there, and if everyone drove according to its (quite reasonable) guidance, accidents would be few and far between. Sometimes what it says is a bit obvious, but then it has to cater for a readership from the barely literate up to winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature. In its structure and detail, it's a model of clarity. And so it should be, after 80 years of development.

The IAM is conducting a survey on attitudes to the Highway Code. You don't have to be a member to take part. Poll is here.

UPDATE: the IAM site seems to have fallen over for the time being. It was fine earlier today. If you want to take the survey, perhaps try later. (Perhaps posting a link to them here gave them more traffic than they could cope with? Nice thought.)

UPDATE TO UPDATE: The links to the site and polls seem to be working fine now (Thursday 18:00)

Future Perfect

There's an interesting bit of futurology in the BBC Magazine at the moment, which has an article on developments in car safety. The deal is that, with current technological advances, it may be possible to have a future without fatalities in car accidents, and maybe even no crashes at all.

More than a million people die in car accidents each year but experts in the industry now believe fatal smashes could be eliminated. Some hope there could be an end to car crashes altogether.

Scientists and engineers are developing technology and enhancements to cars that would aid drivers to the extent that crashes would become rarer events. Bad weather conditions and poor judgement would be mitigated by the car itself.

The features discussed are:

• Automatic braking, using GPS and proximity sensors to detect when another car or object is too close
• Infrared cameras to monitor the driver's head position and gaze, so that the car knows where you are looking at any given time
• Virtual crash-test dummies, which can be used to test a massive number of design features in a far shorter time
• Robot doctors that can allow an A&E specialist to guide ambulance crews at the scene of a crash in the best strategies for dealing with a casualty
• Cars which can alert the emergency services if they detect something that is not within the normal range of car behaviour (that's a sinister phrase if ever I heard one), and even report likely injuries following a crash.

Sounds great. No-one likes car accidents, or people dying needlessly. So this must all be wonderful and a consummation devoutly to be wished, yes?

I'm not so sure. I am certain that we have the capability to produce, eventually, cars which don't crash, which can't crash. Cars which look after you so well that they won't let you do anything that might result in a loss of control, which monitor the weather and your speed, the terrain you are driving through, and the cars around you, and react instantly as soon as they detect a potential accident. But do we want them?

Relatives and loved ones of people who have died in cars (always the worst people to ask about road safety, in my opinion, as they have no objectivity) will no doubt clamour for all these 'advances' to be included on all new cars. "If it saves just one life ..."

I beg to differ. A life without challenges and risks is no life at all. If cars become, as the article suggests they might, 100% safe by removing all opportunities for the driver to get it wrong, then where will be the pleasure in that? If I want a journey where I have to do nothing but sit and be a passenger, then I will take the train or a bus. If I want the thrills of driving without any potential painful consequences, I will play a video game (life, sadly, doesn't have a 'Back' button). But I ride a bike (and to a lesser extent, drive a car) partly because it is a challenge to my skills, and exercising those skills in a real-life situation enhances my life. Take away the challenge, and you take away the whole experience. I am a lousy passenger anyway.

And, to go a step further, do we want a life without risks? It is said that, to know true happiness, you must also have known true pain. And a sunny day is just another sunny day, unless it is preceded by rain and followed by fog, at which point it becomes a joy and a blessing. I've known people leave the UK for a sunny climate, who have complained that they get 'bored with all the good weather'. Life needs light and shade. All shade is pure misery - but all light is dull as ditchwater, and a kind of hell in another way.

Am I arguing that car accidents and road deaths are a good thing? Probably not, but I can't buy into the idea that life is perfectible either - and if it is, I wouldn't want it to be. Some bad things happen, and we have to live with that. It's what makes us human.

I am reminded of that horrible scene at the end of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, when Alex gets his 'scientific' treatment to cure him of his despicable violence. At the end of it, he is no longer a violent thug, but he has also lost his passionate love of Beethoven, and the implication is that the 'cure' was, if not worse than the disease, then at least an evil compromise.

The future is bland, the future's beige.

Lucky escape - update

Further to Sunday's post and video about a driver who narrowly avoided being toasted by a semi crossing the central barrier into his path, the Daily Mail has some more information.

The driver, Matthew Krizsan, was travelling with a female companion when the incident occurred last Friday. He attributed his quick reactions to hours spent video-gaming when he was young ('young' is a relative term here, as in the photo he looks about 15). Several vehicles were involved in the crash, although there were no serious injuries.

The truck was carrying 30 tonnes of sand and apparently had no mechanical faults. A 48-year-old truck driver, Bahadar Bassi, has been charged with careless driving.

Rider Visibility

'Zaphod' made an interesting comment to a recent post, and rather than reply at length (as I think his comment deserves it) I thought I would start a new topic. The original post concerned the often negative consequences of 'safety' improvements, but the comments thread drifted somewhat into Risk Compensation Theory and road safety issues.

Zaphod said...

Does anyone have a viable solution to the "Sorry-mate-I-didn't-see-you" problem? Anger is justified, but doesn't actually help; and I see the point about lights and unintended consequences.

Riders always assuming that they haven't been seen, that's a bit unrealistic? I give bikers a nod when I'm waiting at a junction, so they know that I've seen em. That makes their life a little easier, but doesn't solve the big problem. And what about the one that I won't see, one day?

I read once that sailors are aware that anything on a collision course doesn't move relative to the background. That sounds a bit complicated, but it's important.

Car drivers- When coming out of a junction, don't just rotate your head. Move it about a foot, side to side. This gives your stereo vision an 18 inch baseline, instead of 6 inch. If you don't follow that explanation, just do it. It works. Make it a habit. Every little helps. Bikers don't want to die, and drivers don't want to kill.

I am assuming that Zaphod is writing from a car driver's perspective. My response would be:

A viable solution to the SMIDSY problem is indeed to ride on the assumption that you are invisible. If you assume that no-one has seen you, and that they may do anything within the laws of physics in front of you, then you are pretty safe from other motorists who actually haven't seen you. In effect, you have compensated for their lack of observation before the event.

To give an example which is a frequent occurrence near me at the moment: traffic lights controlling some road works on a major route, with long tailbacks of stationary cars and lorries occupying the nearside lane. A common error for riders is to see the offside lane clear and assume that they can ride up it as long as no-one is coming the other way because it's for opposing traffic, right?. What often happens is that a car driver gets frustrated and decides to do a U-turn and try another route. He doesn't check his offside mirror because no-one will be coming up behind him because it's for opposing traffic, right? (same error) and pulls out to make a sharp turn. The rider is caught unawares and T-bones the car in the side. He has effectively hit a solid stationary object, and the consequences for the rider can be severe. Oscar India described a similar incident here recently [1].

If the rider assumes a) that no other motorist is aware that he is there, and b) any other driver may do anything at any time, then the rider will perform this manoeuvre with great caution, by riding slowly past the stationary traffic, and as far away from the queue as possible - on the far side of the offside lane. If a driver does do something unexpected, firstly you are travelling slowly enough to be able to take avoiding action, and secondly the distance from the traffic queue means that you have the maximum room to work in.

That's the ideal, but none of us is perfect. If the situation happens on a regular basis (and I guess city riding and constant filtering are an extreme example), then the rider will travel a little quicker and perhaps a little closer - familiarity breeding contempt, and all that. That increases the risk, but it also increases the advantage of the bike to deal with congestion, so each rider will find his or her own level of risk/benefit ratio. But the principle remains - it's safest to assume that you are wearing a Harry Potter Cloak of Invisibility. To answer Zaphod's point - yes, it may be unrealistic to ride like that all the time, but riding according to the principle is by far the safest way to ride. And he is dead right in saying that anger (other than at yourself for your stupidity) serves no purpose in this kind of situation.

Nodding to acknowledge that you have seen a rider is appreciated - that's thoughful behaviour, and we would all wish that all car drivers were similarly aware of other road users. Personally, I will 'ride invisible' until I am sure that a car driver has seen me, either by such a nod, or by positive eye contact. After that, I will move a little more confidently, but still with caution. We have all known a situation where a car driver has looked us straight in the eye, and then pulled into our path anyway.

Zaphod's comment about car drivers moving their heads is a good one. Bike magazine did some research a few years ago in collaboration with SafeSpeed which demonstrated exactly this point. Recent car design, and especially the concern for protection in a roll-over accident, has led to the A-pillar of new cars (the one between the windscreen and the front windows) being much thicker than it used to be. This has two important consequences for car/bike interactions:

• The A-pillar is thick enough to represent a bike-length at a distance of about 20m - in other words, at normal traffic separation distances, the bike can be completely hidden behind the pillar, and
• The motion of a car pulling onto a roundabout and the simultaneous motion of a bike going round the roundabout can coincide so that the bike remains hidden for about 50m of travel - long enough for the driver to pull out and hit the bike which he has never seen, despite looking.

The advice that the magazine gave [2] was that drivers should do exactly what Zaphod suggests - look deliberately on both sides of the A-pillar, moving the head to do so. The main check should be round the front of the pillar, to avoid the risk of 'opposite tracking' a vehicle in the blind spot. Bikers can assist the process by being highly visible - high-viz clothing and headlights on dipped beam are the usual suggestions. I'm not a big fan of the high-viz approach, but I can see the logic here. Another thing riders can do (and I can recommend this, as it works) is to change course slightly. This works best if you are approaching a junction on a straight road, with a car waiting to pull out. The small profile of the bike and rider don't give enough information to the driver about approach speed and direction (compared to say a truck, which gets bigger very quickly as it approaches), but the eye is always attracted to something that moves from side to side. Just doing a gentle weave as you approach the junction makes you instantly visible to the driver. (He may just assume you are drunk or out of control, but the end result is the same: he knows you are there.)

Bikers don't want to die, and drivers don't want to kill.

This is spot on, and I am glad for a bit of debate that is co-operative rather than hostile. Car drivers can help by looking out for bikers, and bikers can help by realising that car drivers may not always have seen them for good reasons, and even if they have looked propely and not roar up into people's blind spots and act as if the whole world owes them safe passage.

(The reference to sailors and collision courses is correct, too. If you spot another vessel heading across your course, you take a compass bearing on it. If you take another compass reading in a few minutes and it is the same, then you and the other vessel are on a collision course. One or both of you should take avoiding action.)

[1] A good biking blog. He doesn't post often, but when he does it is always thoughtful and intelligent.

[2] Link to the SafeSpeed website here, which gives screenshots of all of the above, plus artciles by Spen King (designed of the Range Rover) and others, and a general review of the SMIDSY phenomenon. Worth a read.

The Stupidest Thing I have Ever Seen

Seen here:

Preventable, BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation, and the District of West Vancouver have launched a 3D illusion geared to make drivers slow down at high-risk intersections.

If you’ve read the Vancouver Sun, Province, or National Post articles or heard interviews on Vancouver radio and TV programs about the illusion, you’d know that drivers near 22nd street in West Vancouver will be confronted with what seems like a young girl running after a ball in front of their vehicle. In reality, it’s a decal on the pavement that looks like a real person. Signage near the 3D image reads “You’re probably not expecting kids to run out on the road.”

Let's get this right. You are concerned about the number of children killed on the roads. So you put an anamorphic decal on the road that looks like a child running out after a ball. This will slow drivers down and make them think twice about their responsibilities, right?

Wrong.

I can think of three catastrophic side-effects of this apparently radical idea:

1. Driver sees the decal, slams on the brakes, swerves and mounts the pavement, taking out a bus queue. Three children die, because the driver was trying to avoid an inanimate image. We know that people brake unexpectedly for speed cameras and have caused accidents, so this is not an unforeseeable consequence.

2. Driver kills a child and in court argues "but I thought it was a decal". It's Canada; he's in with a chance.

3. The worst, and the most predictable: drivers will become desensitised. The first time you pass the decal, you will slow down and think, as the designers wanted you to. But if that decal is on a regular route, you will pass it tomorrow. You will slow down, and perhaps say to your passenger "hey, look at that cool decal!" The next day, you won't even slow down. In effect, you have been taught to ignore the image of a child in the road. And it won't help if they change the image and move the location. You will then learn to ignore children in the road wherever you see them. What's that? Ah, it'll be a decal. Squish.

How ever this idea got beyond the coffee-time brainstorm I do not know. Did no-one from 'Preventable' think it through? Do they employ no-one with an atom of common sense?

To add an extra layer of stupid on top of the championship, exhibition stupidity already demonstrated, they have placed the decal on the far side of a pedestrian crossing - distracting drivers with an inanimate image at the precise moment that they should be concentrating on looking for stray (real) pedestrians.

Apparently, it's not a spoof. If you read the comments on the original article, however, the good citizens of Vancouver have not been slow to make their feelings heard.

Other blogs have covered this well, (Dick Puddlecote wins the prize for Best Title with "What Could Possibly Go Wrong?", also Longrider and Civil Libertarian) but I couldn't let this one go by unremarked.

H/t to Anna Raccoon for the link.

Fix My Street

There's a stretch of road near my house, about a mile and a half away towards town. There is a nasty double kink in the road, and right on the bend there is the entrance to a farm on one side and a residential home on the other. The road layout is utterly lethal, and there have been numerous minor accidents there where cars have entered the bend too fast and been caught out by either a vehicle exiting the farm or home, or another vehicle approaching but hidden by the kink in the road. No fatals as far as I know, as the road at that point doesn't encourage high speeds, but it's something you have to be wary of every time you pass that way. I tend to ride it at about 10 mph, looking everywhere.



Source: Google Street View

(Edit: the depth of view in this photo is totally wrong, I suspect because the Street View camera uses a very wide-angle lens. The distance between the camera point and the furthest bit of the road is probably no more than 50m, and it looks three times that in the photo. It's all upon you much quicker than it appears from the image.)

The farmer couldn't give a toss about anyone else, apparently, because the road for 400m either side of the farm is regularly inches deep in either cowshit or mud. His cows cross the road right on the bend, and his tractors drag mud out of the fields either side and deposit it in large quantities along the road. In dry weather such as we have at the moment, the road is just a dusty grey with dried mud. In wet weather, the road can be covered in a layer of mud and shit which poses a serious hazard. And not just stripes where the wheels go - the mud covers the full width of the road. There is no 'clean' way through it. I know the guy has to make a living, and I understand that cows will do what cows will do, but he makes no effort whatsoever to clean up what is, after all, the public highway. Farmers in Europe do it (by law) and construction firms in the UK can do it, but this guy doesn't seem to see it as an issue. I am no clean-bike obsessive, but many times I have turned round and taken the long way to town when I have seen the state of the road here. Not only is it a serious skid hazard, but within ten feet the bike would be hanging with filth. My Danish friends were horrified: "In Denmark, that farmer would have to clean it up. The road belongs to everybody." I had to point out that, in the UK, some farmers are excellent and some don't give a monkey's, and there's not a lot we can do.

This came to a head a while ago, when the road was resurfaced and we suddenly had a lovely, black, smooth tarmac surface instead of the potholed mess that was there before. And within two days, it was covered in crap, just for that stretch.

I came across an interesting website recently, www.fixmystreet.com, and I thought I would give it a go. You find a road which is in a dangerous condition, you enter the postcode and locate the exact point on a map. You provide a description of the problem, and then the site contacts the relevant local authority on your behalf. So I did all this for the road I am talking about.

Hot news: it works.

On the same day I reported the problem (in fact, within an hour or so), I had an email from Pembrokeshire County Council saying that they had noted the issue and had passed it to Dyfed-Powys police, who deal with all reports like this in the area. And the following day, I had a phone call from the police, asking for further details and assuring me that they were aware of the problem. The police person gave me some backgroud on the force's approach to the issue (they have been mounting a campaign on cleaning up roads with local construction companies and are only now turning to farmers) and said they would be having a word with the farmer concerned. They would then monitor the situation and would take legal action if things didn't improve. I wasn't made to feel I was an interfering busybody or a nuisance. In fact, when I said that the problem had been going on for years, the guy got a little stern with me and said that I should have reported it far sooner.

The road is dry and dusty right now, and I can't see any difference. Whether this approach has worked will be evident in a few weeks' time, when he's brought in the silage on a wet day. I will be watching with interest. But so far, I am impressed with the way it's been dealt with. Top marks to PCC and DPP.

Please feel free to use the site to report any issues in your own area - it covers the whole of the UK - whether it's spilt diesel, a dangerous pothole, or something else that ruins your day. The next biker to ride that bit of road might thank you for saving his skin.