Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to
True enough, bikes are classified as vehicles (as anyone who’s been pulled over for a DIC of a bike knows)…
…except that a bicycle is a vehicle but the drink driving laws only apply to MOTOR vehicles. So, despite the common myth, you can’t be charged in NZ for being drunk in charge of a bike. They could possibly find reason to charge you with, say, “careless use of a vehicle”, but again they couldn’t compel you to take a breath test to make their case.
Yes – bicycles are vehicles for almost every purpose except the drink-driving law.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to
I started cycling in London in 2003, along Old Kent Road, I was one of the few cyclists about and got regular abuse for being on the road (honked at, sworn at, etc.,).
Ah – so you experienced the delights of the Elephant & Castle roundabout? I used to ride through that in the late 80s en route to the mags I was working for by Blackfriars Bridge. I think it's still the scariest single road feature I've experienced.
Now drivers are in the main quite polite, but there are so many cyclists that sit behind gridlocked traffic I could squeeze through it’s hard to get ahead sometimes.
Well that's no fun! When I was a London cyclist the gridlock actually made things easier: it's safer to slip past stationary cars than mess with moving vehicles :-)
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Via the Island Bay Cycleway Twitter account, a link to The Near Miss Project.
Key takeaway: The average UK cyclist will bike 8000 years before a fatal crash but experiences a "very scary" near miss every week and some kind of incident daily.
So you're left with relative safety in terms of the injury rate but a sense of constant threat.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to
For me it is dark coloured Audis and BMWs that always seem to cut me up.
Oddly enough, I’m just back in the door having been reminded that my bete noire is the black BMW.
Its always a bit awkward coming up the slope at the Pt Chev end of Meola Road, where there’s often parked cars and following traffic – although the additional speed of the e-bike makes it easier.
I let one following car past then took the lane to go around the first parked car and the BMW driver accelerated and crossed the centre line to overtake me, when she could simply have very briefly lifted her foot off the gas. Fuckin’ nuts.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to
Like the little blue car
More often the tradie in a great big ute, in my experience.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to
As I experienced two years ago when I spent a lot of my long service leave cycling around Auckland most drivers in Auckland are really good around bikes.
And imo, it's getting steadily better – it's worth saying this out loud. I've been pleased and surprised a few times lately.
Otoh, my current bugbear is drivers who think it's okay to pull into (and block) a cycle lane while they wait to turn left at an intersection, or who roll forward into the stop-box at the lights. C'mon, people.
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And a lower-fi clip of 'Green Light' on SNL. Is this the first time Lorde's performed with conventional backing singers, as opposed to her own canned vocals?
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Lorde's very impressive performance of 'Liability' on Saturday Night Live:
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There doesn't seem much point in keeping this thread open. Closed, then.
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Hard News: Friday Music: It all leads to…, in reply to
Prints are A$900 (ex. GST) … I would love to get one or two, but felt the prices were pretty steep!
It was a bit like that at the opening of Murray's Fast Cars show – all his friends turned up and had a great time and none of us were flush enough. But the gallery sets the prices and it seems there are buyers ...
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