Posts by Bart Janssen
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to sandra,
Sheesh, how many cyclists have a bell to give a little ping? When I’m out walking (on a shared track) and cyclists are approaching from behind the answer would appear to be … none. (I have one on my own bike and use it.)
I use my bell regularly.
We do a fair bit of cycling on shared paths and we're very conscious that bike vs pedestrian is not fun for either party. A bell helps a lot but doesn't get past the music some pedestrians are obviously listening to which can be a problem.
If we're commuting and riding faster we don't use shared paths instead we use the road and share with the large metal objects.
What we'd love is if there were separate spaces for each group.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to william blake,
Pedestrians do wander around on shared cycleways its written on the box.
Which is true and fair, although not all bike paths are shared.
The issue is that just like a car or truck, a bike has a limit on how quickly it can stop or swerve.
Pedestrians (myself included) need to be aware that if they step into a bike path without looking it just may not be possible for the bike to stop or dodge.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
Have you got a link handy ? The wiki page doesn’t seem to mention this phenomenon.
This thread has lots of links to reviews and primary source and is based on David's RNZ science spot.
I have a folder at work somewhere on my computer that also has a bunch of source links.
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Regarding good drivers. I tweeted the other day about a police car that modeled perfect driving around cyclists through what can be a confusing intersection on Mt Albert Rd.
Hopefully as people see good drivers give cyclists appropriate space and consideration more drivers will learn how to do it.
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Hard News: Fear of Cycling, in reply to Mikaere Curtis,
As is repeal of the helmet law.
I don't know about this, I've fallen off / been knocked off my bike enough appreciate having even an imperfect protection between my head and the road.
This has been explained in two previous threads.
We probably shouldn't go there again but absolutely wearing a helmet is a good idea even if they are a bit less useful than we think.
It's the law that is the problem. The law has unintended consequences and it's trivial to show that it raises the likelyhood of having a car v bike accident.
It wasn't a bad idea to try a law but it had a negative effect and should be repealed because it does more harm than good.
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My partner bought an e-bike at the beginning of this year and we've been cycling a lot, her on the e-bike and me on my road bike, usually single file. For the most part it's been great. 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.
The bike paths are getting better every day and even the fairly useless green painted paths are helping define space for bikes. Then there's the doofus who decided that because the green paint had been painted over the dotted yellow line on Mt Abert rd opposite Owairaka Ave then it was obviously now an acceptable parking space - sigh.
The problem is the 1 in 500 driver (number pulled out of my head but feels about right). Like the little blue car that decided to overtake us down a hill in the rain on a narrow road with a blind corner ahead - and yes a car came round the corner forcing him to cut in on us. Never mind that we were doing over 50 kph in the rain anyway and waiting a minute behind us would have given him a perfectly safe passing zone.
It's that guy, the one that swerves into you as they pass or stops at the lights completely covering the green paint. Those are the ones that make cycling scary - it doesn't matter how experienced you are on the bike they threaten your life.
And I just don't get it, every time we ride to work it's one less car and one more parking space for them - you'd think they'd like us on the road not try and kill us or just scare us with their one tonne metal sledgehammer.
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Up Front: For Your Own Safety, in reply to Jackie Spencer,
But pissing on the seats
urinating is hard
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Hard News: Superannuation: Back to the Future, in reply to Katharine Moody,
“where would the government get money if we don’t tax income?”
Land value tax - most efficient and most progressive of all taxes;
You don't need to restrict yourself to only one tax. There is a complexity issue but so long as you don't have exemptions then using multiple systems to tax is not inherently a problem.
It also allows you flexibility to modify the system if it isn't achieving the stated goals.
However, that would require you to state goals and measure changes - you know like having a hypothesis and collecting data and then reassessing your hypothesis ...
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I’ve no idea what Family First’s position on it is
It probably involves years of practice and incredible flexibility.
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As far as I can tell both men and women make a mess in toilets. At home we clean up after ourselves, unless we want disharmony.
Elsewhere we rely on someone paid to clean up after we have for some unknown reason decided to spray the walls floor and seat with body fluids ... or solids (how?, just how?). If the toilets are dirty it's because someone doesn't want to pay enough to get them cleaned regularly.
Most homes have gender neutral toilets, the idea that a home would have segregation is nuts so why do we have segregation anywhere else?
The only reason for separating genders is if you can have men use a urinal, preferably one with a large target because some men find it hard to aim ... or maybe like a firehose they can't control the force ... or maybe the barrel is too short ... or maybe they should just learn to look where they're aiming.
Or alternatively we could get over ourselves and just have completely gender neutral toilets because frankly seeing another gender do their ablutions is not going to scar you for life and maybe we could all do with some reality about our bodies and the various things that bodies do.