London Singlespeed Society

Nice campaign from New York City’s Department of Transport highlighting cyclists (yes, I know, I’m turning into Safety Pierre…)

: P

Although this was designed to highlight the danger of walking into the road while lost in your own little world, it’s a good time to remember how idiotic being an “iPod zombie” on a bike really is: cars and motorbikes have rear view mirrors; cyclists have ears.  If you want to “get in the zone” or isolate yourself from the outside world, don’t do it in traffic.  At least, don’t expect to do it for long.

: P

This video on creating a mobile phone activated stun gun was posted as a follow up to the anti-theft Instructable. It works by attaching the stun gun battery connectors to the phone’s vibrate function thus triggering the shock by calling the phone.

The inventor (titter ye not, he’s only naked from the waist up) proposes waiting until your bike is stolen before giving the thief a little more than he bargained for (presumably first waiting for him to get stuck at traffic lights and put his foot down for maximum effect).  

I’d take it a little further and try to hook it up to something with a motion sensor – an iPhone or the like should do the trick, that way you can shock the perp automatically and get it to text you when the bike stops moving.

Of course, anyone nudging your bike while it’s locked up would get shocked too, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.

Instructables have an article up on how to keep your bike from being stolen.

I am a particular fan of steps 9 and 10:

Step 9 – Trying to make your bike unridable

Fixed gear riders advocate fixed gear bicycles as a method of this, that they are somehow more secure because they are harder to ride. They are forgetting that due to the unbearable popularity of fixed gear bikes, they have become incredibly attractive targets for theft. 

The accompanying picture is of a Bianchi Douchebag Pista with chopped flat bars. The author says:

I love the reflectors on the pedals, by the way.  Nice, really nice.

Step 10 advocates ratting your bike to make it look ugly.

even major bike manufacturers have taken to making intensionally ugly bicycles. Please, a bicycle should be a thing of beauty, make the madness stop. 

The accompanying picture?  A particularly nasty specimen of the Langster, London Edition.

Pretty spot on if you ask me.

In the Times article I linked to in the last post, they dragged out a lunatic who calls himself Captain Gatso to present a counterpoint to the otherwise pro-cycling tone of the piece.  I’d normally ignore this blatant trolling, but it’s amusing enough to want to go through it line by line.

For the unaware, gatso is a shortened version of gatosmeter – the name of the speed cameras that seem to be getting everywhere at the moment.  Captain Gatso is the anonymous mouthpiece of a somewhat dubious operation named MAD (Motorists Against Detection) who are involved in direct action (think angle grinders, tyres full of petrol, driving into) against motorway speed cameras.  They are, as I’m sure you’ll agree, ideally positioned to comment on contraflow cycling.

Captain Gatso says:

The same rules should apply to every road user.

True.

You cannot make exceptions just because someone happens to be on a bicycle.

Also true.

Cyclists already get away with blue murder 

The same accusation could be levelled at lot of motorists, in particular bus drivers, white van drivers, taxi drivers and Royal Mail van drivers.  Not all drivers, of course, but then I’m sure Captain Gatso mean that not all cyclists “get away with blue murder”.

and it would be a mistake to give in to their law-breaking.  If they get their way on one-way streets they will then start demanding the right to intimidate pedestrians on pavements.

I do not see the link here.  Pavements are full of people, dogs on string, prams, lamp posts and other hazards.  Roads tend to be a lot flatter and generally more pleasant to cycle on.

I would like to see cyclists pay a £10 registration fee to the DVLA and be forced to wear a bib bearing a unique number whenever they use the public highway.

Not unless it’s made by Rapha.

Then they could be caught on CCTV cameras, just as motorists are, when they ignore no-entry signs and jump red lights.

Jumping red lights is a funny one.  Technically if you go past the white line closest to the lights you are jumping a red light.  On most large roads there are cycle areas at the front of the traffic lane, however there is frequently a bus/HGV or other large vehicle sitting in it.  

In these situations the only thing a cyclist can do to ensure that they are visible to the driver of said vehicle is to move in front of it – which will normally result in the cyclist “jumping” the red light.  Drivers can be fined for driving in cycle lanes (I suppose the cycle only area counts if the lights are red) but until it’s enforced it seems a little silly to punish the cyclist for drivers’ bad habits.

If a police officer saw a cyclist without a bib, he could pull the cyclist over automatically as he would a car without number plates.

That sounds like an excellent use of police time.  No doubt Captain Gatso thinks they have a lot of it since speed cameras mean they don’t have to occupy themselves with chasing down speeding motorists.

What makes drivers angry and frustrated with cyclists who ignore the Highway Code is that they know there is very little chance of them being stopped by police. Cyclists are already far too smug – and giving them special rights that are denied to motorists would only encourage them in their arrogance.

Again, what makes cyclists angry and frustrated with bus/van/taxi/car drivers is that there’s very little chance of them being stopped by police as they swerve in front of you or aggressively overtake a gnats whisper from your elbow only to slam on the brakes when they notice the red light twenty metres away.

I can understand why some drivers may not feel inclined to give way to cyclists coming the wrong way down a one-way street. I shout at them when they ride past me but they either ignore me or come out with the old gag: “But I’m only going one way.”

I must remember that one.

Image stolen from Katmellie.