exdulwicher

I think this is where Wikipedia would use the term "citation needed". You seem to know about a vast swathe of incidents caused by cyclists in spite of them never being reported...

That's not how accident reporting works. If someone goes / is taken to hospital for an injury, they are asked how that injury was sustained. Could be falling off a ladder, hit and run (from a car), hit and run (from a bike), being in a car which crashed into something.... That's recorded. That's where the stats come from. It's cross-referenced with police reports if they attend a road traffic collision (they don't always, especially if it's just what the Americans term a "fender bender") and a picture is built up of locations, severity of incidents, frequency of incidents and so on. You can further correlate that with traffic data to look at delays and locations. Insurance has nothing to do with it by the way. Also, the public version of CrashMap only has data on it up until 2023. You have to go for the pro version available to councils to get more recent / in-depth than that.

So... LTNs are good then? You're SO nearly there Rockets... Come on, just that one little extra step...

It wasn't "given", it's freely available online. It's very common that people (in any professional walk of life) will keep an eye on relevant websites, publications etc. Most academics and journalists will be signed up to all sorts of mailing lists, access to journals, social media accounts and so on, literally anyone could have got that report and written about it if they were interested enough. Even you. Strangely, the Mail and Telegraph - in spite of their massive "interest" in LTNs - haven't picked up on it... Wonder why?!

Wheelchairs (manual or powered), mobility scooters, prams / buggies / pushchairs, skateboarding, scooters (nominally manual ones, can only apply to e-scooters when they're part of a hire scheme cos obviously private ones remain illegal on public land but that's a slight tangent to this). Even things like zimmer frames and shopping trolleys. A lot of "wheeled" devices are mobility aids for elderly / disabled so any features such as wider / smoother pavements, better crossing points, seating and so on is really beneficial. Same with a parent pushing a double buggy for example.

Very true. In some respects, "society" has created this issue with delivery drivers and riders (and Uber). Food delivery companies promise you'll get your takeaway within 30 minutes - that doesn't leave much time for the restaurant to receive your order, prepare and pack it and for the rider / driver to then get it to you. They're almost incentivised to break the law. With delivery riders (all of them on zero hours / "pay per drop" conditions), literally the only way they can do this all day every day is to buy a bunch of cheap knock-off batteries and a motor from some dodgy online retailer, strap them to some old mountain bike and blat around on that. Minimal expenditure (cos they can't afford proper legal electric bicycles) and minimal regulation (cos they're all working under dodgy conditions anyway, half of them are probably on the verge of slave labour / exploitation / no legal right to work) so they can't get UK driving licences as required for mopeds / motorbikes. Lime riders are mostly on pay-per-minute (Lime do offer the option to buy blocks of time as a "Day Pass", I don't have any figures on how many people use that option). Uber drivers are all rushing to the next fare, knowing that if they're late they'll get a bad review. The whole system has created a sub-group of road users who are incentivised to speed, use mobile phones (cos everything they're doing is app-based, all their orders are received that way) and jump red lights. I don't really have any suggestions of how to put that genie back in the bottle, I'm not justifying their behaviour, just explaining some aspects of it. There was a long discussion on road.cc a couple of years ago about a proposed law change (which never made it beyond talking about it) and notes a few examples from around the world where cyclists can (in certain circumstances) treat red lights as a Stop or Give Way: https://road.cc/content/news/should-cyclists-be-allowed-ride-through-red-lights-298809

It is very much in the interest of cab drivers to drive to the speed limit and stop at every red light, they earn more that way! Cabbies are normally worse on mobile phone offences though.

Not really - turn right on red has been A Thing for motorists in many US states for years now, it's basically accepting that there are situations where a filter would be appropriate but for whatever reason it's too expensive / time consuming to put them in as a formal set of lights. A lot of US states have something similar for cyclists called the Idaho Stop - Idaho as the state that introduced it. Basically says that cyclists can treat a red light as a STOP sign and a STOP sign as a Give Way. So if you get to a red light, stop, can see that the way for a bike is clear and it's safe for everyone, you can make the turn. It;s a tacit admission that bikes are not cars and sometimes measures designed for cars are not entirely necessary for bikes. On the other hand, if you blow through a red light, mowing down pedestrians every which way, you can expect to be severely punished for it, there are traffic cops everywhere in the US. As a result, the road laws are generally complied with. Same in Australia where there are routine stop and search operations, regular speed checks and the fines (for drivers and cyclists) are eye-wateringly expensive and heavily enforced. The issues the Government is having with taxes and the welfare bill could be solved in a couple of weeks by actually doing some proper traffic enforcement (and to be clear, I mean on both drivers and cyclists). An issue mostly created by the pricing structure that Lime use which charges by the minute. People don't want to pay 25p to sit there at a red light for 2 minutes. Santander mostly avoids this by charging in "blocks" of time which largely removes the time pressure element because it doesn't matter if you ride for 5 minutes or 20, you still pay the same amount.

It's still a factually correct definition and given that Stonehenge, and every other significant henge, were built around astronomy, you could argue that it's the original one. You must be furious that the schools haven't started summer holidays given that we are (apparently) in "the height of summer". To be fair, for once the complaint wasn't about road closures or disruption but the much more important definition of "summer"... 😉

Meteorological summer starts on 1st June: June / July / August is meteorological summer, autumn starts 1st September. Astronomical summer, which is connected to Earth's tilt & rotation around the sun, begins on 21st June and ends on 22nd September. Summer solstice, the longest day of the year is today, 21st June. So he's right, even if it's a sentence that doesn't really sound correct.

Buy one shop, get 824 shops free. But I only went in for some shampoo!

Did it look like this? 😉

Back in about 2016 there was a rewrite of the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directives (it's not exactly a fascinating read, I warn you now...) that required certain signs - things like "New Road Layout Ahead" or "Changed Priorities Ahead" - to have a yellow sticker on the back with a note that they were temporary signs and they should be removed by [date]. And to have a contact number for the council on there. So any of those can easily be reported. IN theory, councils are supposed to have a record of this stuff but in practice, most no longer have the resources to manage small scale highways assets effectively. Thanks, austerity.

There's a fundamental misunderstanding as to what a consultation is. The question is not "should be do X, yes or no?" The question is "we are doing X [because - state reasons], do you want version 1 or version 2?". That's perfectly normal and legal and above board and if you think about it, I bet we all do the same in day-to-day life. You don't say to your young kids "what do you want for dinner?" because that's too open-ended and can result in impossible requests. You present two options that you can actually deliver. Pizza or lasagne (for example). You might then get a bit more creative with pizza toppings but you're essentially offering two options that you have in the house (or can quickly order), it's not going to result in an impossible request that you can't deliver. Nor does it easily allow for the option of not having dinner. We are having a meal, here are your options. The council have done the same. We are putting some minor restrictions on traffic because [road danger, pollution, congestion, parking etc], should we do it via this method or that? Now in theory, everyone wants less road danger, pollution and congestion (much the same as everyone wants dinner), the mystery is how it generates such howls of outrage given the wealth of evidence that says LTNs, School Streets, pedestrianisation, more walking and cycling, less vehicle use etc are all good things. I mean you're basically complaining that the council are making the area a bit nicer.

Well it was only open to adult free males - no women, children or slaves allowed to have a say. So I'm not entirely sure that's the best argument in favour...