Best way to travel 5 miles to a train station?

I see two different situations. I see cyclists stopping at reds, getting
impatient and going whilst its still on red. I see drivers going
though on amber because it's just turned to amber when they got
to the line and they are unable to stop their car safely.

You're probably going to call me a hypocrit, which is fine.
I'm aware that I break some motoring/driving laws often.
And no-one gets hurt. The cyclists who go through on reds
probably think the same. Maybe I should just accept that
I'm guilty of 1984-esque doublethink and shut up.

 

I understand that it's actually about 299 792 458 metres per second,
which is distinctly finite. Some laws supercede even traffic law

A

 

Outside London, the car generally couldn't be ticketted for parking on
the pavement.

A

 

I don't see a problem with that.

I'd rather not weigh my bike down with bits of plastic, but I would
happily see them stopped by the police... as long as they also do the
same to drivers who can't understand what the green tarmac with "Bus
Lane" written on it is for.

Wow. To repeat the question that you started to ask in another post,
where do you cycle? Until I took to taking a whole lane whenever
possible, I used to get overtaken with a clearance of centimetres (And
not very many of them either!). One morning the same idiot overtook me
three times, waiting each time for a pinch point in the road.

Another memorable occasion was the guy who tried to overtake me on the
corner through a junction, was forced to brake because the line I had
taken did not allow enough room for his manouver, and then pulled
alongside me further up the road and proceeded to give me grief for not
cycling on the extreme left hand side of the road.

These are two major events, but being overtaking with no room to spare
forms a normal part of my daily cycling.

Try moving to Edinburgh where you'll find the tables turned. ;-)

Jon

 

Actually, a lot of the value for money has been taken out of the NHS
in the period of Blair's government. There may have been some
improvement in services, but not commensurate with the extra 60 odd
percent that's being spent on it.

A

 

A lorry driver's cruising up the M1, window open enjoying the summer breeze.
He sees a biker coming up behind in his mirrors.

Next thing he knows a voice next to him says, "You got a light mate?"

The lorry driver looks and there's the biker; he's taken his crash helmet
off and to reach the window he's standing on the bars of his bike, working
the throttle with his right foot and he's got a fag sticking out of his
mouth.

"You mad bastard!" shouts the lorry driver, "You're going to kill yourself!"

"Nah", says the biker, "I only smoke 5 a day".

BOOM! BOOM!


--
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The speccy Geordie twat.

 

You raise a very real problem for cyclist - a large percentage of
traffic lights (not just road work lights) do not pick up the presence
of a bicycle. It means you either have to wait for a car to arrive and
trigger them or set off cautiously to cross them on red.

Tony

 

The speed limit is still infinite even if you cannot reach it because of
other limitations - just the same as the speed limit on a dual
carriageway is still 70mph even if your 50cc motorbike cannot go that fast.

Tony

 

Play fair... Metal frame, two wheels. It's a bike... so what?

Though I agree that it doesn't look particularly ugly. It's certainly
nothing compared to Renault's strange habit of giving all their cars an
arse!

Jon

 

Encountered a set of these for a metal bridge between Perth and
Blairgowrie (Or Blairgowrie and the campsite, I don't remember). No
amount of waving arms would trigger the lights, and the bridge was a
little too narrow to comfortably risk jumping the lights.

Jon

 

Gonzalez () gurgled happily, sounding much
like they were saying :

Would you drive across a red light in the same circumstances?

 

Tony Raven () gurgled happily, sounding much like
they were saying :

Don't forget the weight savings to be made by stripping all this structural
impact protection bollocks out of the average car.

Weight saved = fuel saved, so it'd be better for the environment, too.

 

I don't think they do humour.

 

Ben wrote

It is a bit short on pedestrians to target. You might find a niche
there.

 

The difficulty with humour of that nature, when combined with the
dryness of Usenet and a lack of smilies is that, that exact same
impression _is_ believed by a number of people.

Jon (Not yet bought the SPD sandals, but considering it; reads grauniad;
has long hair; bearded <only when I forget to shave>; leftie. I think I
may resemble that remark)

 

I'm not particularly short, but I'd have needed stilts to reach the ones
I've encountered.

Does throwing things work?

Jon

 

Any traffic light that's set up to use it's detector can be made to
detect a cyclist. Get off the bike, walk up to traffic light, wave hand
toward and away from detector from about a foot in front of it (getting
palm of hand closerto the sensor, not waving from side to side) and that
will trigger the detector (unless it's faulty). Obviously don't do it
too slowly, either - a good firm movement is what you need, and it's
really not at all hard to trigger them.

The exception to this is where it's faulty, or where they've not been
configured to use the detector, in which case they are on the timers,
and will change in time.

I know this works, cos I have a city and guilds in conebreeding, and it
covers signs and temporary traffic lights too

 

The Maserati is a bit of a mess too.

Sheesh. The Aston is about as perfectly proportioned as you can get. It
looks 'right' as a car but it would work equally well as an abstract
sculpture. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but some things, such
as a sense of proportion are also innate [1] and mathematical. The Peugeot
is a horrible caricature of the Aston. The length of the front overhang is
what kills it. If it is meant to look like the Aston then I wish they hadn't
bothered. At least the Fiat Multipla is unique and individual - as well as
being ugly.

[1] Admittedly I'm losing faith in this.

 

You've not spent anywhere near as much time on the roads as me then.
I've seen more of those types than I'd like to, unfortunately.

 

Do't know about you but I don't go around with a big mirror stuck in front
of my car. For something that's only looked at when being washed, people
seem to attach a disproportional importance to appearance.