Best way to travel 5 miles to a train station?

I have no idea. We didn't cover permanent traffic lights, just
temporary ones!

 

Indeed it didn't, because it covered *temporary* traffic lights, which
don't have induction loops...

 

And you will now post me the link to where I said they were... Oh, I
didn't.

And yet, nationally, the drivers still manage to kill many more people
per mile travelled than do the cyclists. Why is that, do you think?

Guy

 

The point is that a green traffic light doesn't give one carte blanche
to drive with no regard to the risk of another breaching the right of
way. After all a traffic light junction is still a junction where
roads cross and there is the potential for collision.

Quite apart from this, most cyclists (the semi-professional peddlers of
ukrc excluded) move at a sedate pace and should leave a car driver time
to take avoiding action as long as the car is being driven at an
appropriate speed.

No.

 

Oh, I don't know. DTLR figures for 2001 show 66% of cars exceed the
30mph limit in urban areas. A Met Police survey in London showed 63%
exceeding the 30mph limit with 10% doing over 50mph. Not that that makes
anybody else breaking the law alright but mass breaking of the rules is
not the monopoly of any one group.

Tony

 

Except that this was how many American cars were *built* in the 1950s
and the casualty rate was horrendous.

Seriously, look at some of the chrome steering wheel bosses fitted to
cars at the time....

 

<snip>

OK, you do it. Under existing C&U regulations, of course.

Can't be done.

You *might* get away with registering it as an agricultural vehicle.....

 

So they don't happen, then. Right, that's sorted.

 

.....which they're marketing very effectively, IMHO.

 

Funnily enough, here I agree. It's so distinctive I love it.

 

So how, precisely, do companies force people who live more than a
short distance away, to work for them in the first place, and at
unsocial hours in the second place?

Guy

 

In

Closest think I've seen to this is the old sign on buses reminding people to
"let buses pull out" (Highway code rule 198). But that's not a law, just
advice.

A

 

**** 'em. Round here they all like to pull out into yellow box
junctions and block them.

 

(The Older Gentleman) wrote

Admittedly I was being flippant, but that's not what I said.
I appreciate it's along and dull thread to plough through but I'm not sure
what the point is of snipping all relevant context and then making a point
based on the result; and I don't recognise it as being your style. Welcome
back, btw.

My argument throughout this thread has not been that accidents don't happen
or that some effort shouldn't be made to minimise the results, but that
there comes a point where the law of diminishing returns applies and that it
would be better to encourage people to avoid accidents in the first place
rather than dealing with the consequences of what are relatively rare
events. I'm surprised you disagree with that.

 

I've seen one[1], what do I win?

[1] On the Coventry ring-road, of all places. Cyclists was on the
ring-road and the car was joining it. The slip-roads onto the road are very
short, the car driver was looking behind to check for cars as he moved over,
didn't see the cyclist and collected him neatly on his bonnet. I stopped
and the cyclist was OK, apart from a few minor cuts and bruises.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.

 

This is a slightly different premise to the one you stated initially.

The employers 'force' the worker in because they offer the only rate for
the skills that are on offer. You rely on a true market economy - this
doesn't exist.

The employers know by skewing the market either by deskilling or by
allowing an atmosphere of desperation amongst low skilled grades (and I
include a lot of management and administrative positions) results in a
good pool to draw from and there will always be people desperate enough
to break ranks and work for less.

As their earning power in this distorted market is not commensurate with
the cost of living in the area they have to commute into work. This,
bizarrely, is considered quite normal. To take an extreme but valid
example look at the 'Okie' orange pickers of the '30s US.

The point I made in reply to your statement "If nobody was prepared to
work antisocial hours in central London the rate for the job would
rapidly escalate to the point
where they would" was that there is no 'free' market. Workers are forced
to take what is on offer.

What there is - is distorted.

The only effective way to achieve a change in the balance of power is
through industrial muscle. Which is to say: distort the market in your
favour.

If you were organised enough to ensure an industrial gun was held to the
employers head you could force wages (as opposed to earnings - they are
distinct entities) over the market level. To expect this to happen
naturally, in the context under discussion, is very unusual and
touchingly optimistic.

Market forces are assisted by the state to ensure low skilled employees
go where the work is for the rate that is on offer, which is kept
artificially low and the economic cultural pressure kept high. There is
no 'free' wage market in the industrialised West.

.... Now the discussion enters the arena of wage slavery - this time the
wage slaves are the middle classes.

 

Cool. Undying affection OK?

TBH, I'm beginning to wish I hadn't posted that sentence - the one about not
having seen that type of accident - it's causng all sort of problems.

Concave bonnets for improved scoopage. Maybe that's the answer.

 

Never mind about whether it hurt him - did the car look good?

Tony

 

After having some lardy cyclist land on the bonnet, I doubt it.

 

It was a Rover, so no, it didn't look good.

Did a fair old job of throwing Mr Cycle-bloke up in the air, though.


--
AndrewR, D.Bot (Celeritas)
Kawasaki ZX-6R J1
BOTAFOT#2,ITJWTFO#6,UKRMRM#1/13a,MCT#1,DFV#2,SKoGA#0 (and KotL)
BotToS#5,SBS#25,IbW#34, TEAR#3 (and KotL), DS#5, COSOC#9, KotTFSTR#
The speccy Geordie twat.