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forum
Drivers and their problems
A new catch-all Tea Shop thread for those miscellaneous new stories that don't quite fit with parking, crashing into buildings or trapped/prisoners in their homes.
If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.
Latest Forum Topics
Latest Comments
- Backladder 12 min 28 sec ago
I'd have to say that my old Shimano dura-ace compatible with Look delta cleats are the best, just retired them after about 35 years, not because...
- ooblyboo 17 min 50 sec ago
Does 'single vehicle collision' suggest that the police don't think it was a hit and run?
- Rendel Harris 34 min 54 sec ago
Shithouses the bloody lot of 'em, raising money for good causes and that. Despicable.
- dubwise 35 min 32 sec ago
Who knows, Sunak doesn't seem to be very bright. Denying things he said, which are recorded and reported, shows there isn't much between the ears.
- Rendel Harris 37 min 23 sec ago
And surely Wiggo would always be welcome?
- Spangly Shiny 1 hour 21 min ago
I wonder whether, should there be a trial of a cyclist, that there will be a requirement stipulating all jurors should be cyclists? After all a...
- Mr Hoopdriver 2 hours 39 min ago
Does anybody else feel like crying sometimes
- ktache 5 hours 59 min ago
Well at least you can make sure that the bikes are still there by glancing up.
- john_smith 6 hours 30 min ago
How much would a MotoGP bike cost? Presumably quite a lot too.
- LookAhead 7 hours 50 min ago
How many times now has Strava announced that they're finally going to do something about the integrity of the leaderboards, but then actually done...
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3299 comments
and we're back in Clevedon.
So all the local drivers, especially the ones with a faded-out plastic poppy in the grille that stays there all year round are rising up and saying "we will not drive for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning so the remembrance parade we all care so passionately about can go ahead".
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/disappointing-red-tape...
I've seen road closure signs our for Remembrance Day in one nearby town.
To recap, RBL issued new guidance on parades. Not sure what's changed as regards the police. What I am working towards here is "How cars stole the Remembrance Day Parade"
A local authority led TTMO takes 12 weeks to do. Having been involved in this in the past as a manager, I know people all quick to blame the council, so it was usually my team nudging the RBL people in the summer about getting things in place in good time for November.
https://counties.britishlegion.org.uk/media/6540234/200821-remembrance-p...
"A serious road accident at a 2018 parade focused attention on how serious the consequences of a road traffic accident can be for the victims and those close to them. In this case, the accident left a supporter with life changing injuries. The accident also drew attention to the burden of cost such an accident can have, with claims for damages often running into the tens of millions of pounds. In this case, the Legion has benefitted from the support of its insurers. However, those insurers have made it clear that the approach to TTMOs must be more formal and, in future, all branches must adhere to the policy."
"TRBL and its volunteers must not engage in the deployment, management or removal of any TTMO. This includes, for example, placing barriers, directing traffic or driving vehicles that are involved in the TTMO."
Remembrance Day Parade in Port Talbot will not be taking place this year after 'shift in the stance of police forces towards security'
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/remembrance-day-parade-por...
From the Clevedon article above: There has been no change to the advice this year. A Royal British Legionspokesperson said: “The Royal British Legion does not expect or allow its volunteers to organise remembrance parades and we regularly remind branches that local parades are organised by local councils who have the expertise and legal knowledge to deploy road closures and other safety measures.
“Local parades are civic functions that are attended and supported by the Royal British Legion, not RBL events supported by civic authorities."
How cars stole the Remembrance Day Parade.
The Royal British Legion are taking a stricter line with their local branches as a result of this incident or one like it in 2018:
https://stratfordobserver.co.uk/news/army-veteran-fights-for-his-life-af...
"AN ARMY veteran from Warwickshire is fighting for his life after being hit by a car at a Remembrance Sunday parade.
Ade Stowell volunteered as a marshal at the centenary event in Studley and was clearing away closed road barriers when the accident happened."
It sounds like there was an insurance claim made and paid.
This conversation must be being had in every community that has a tradition of a Remembrance Day parade. They seem to have managed OK in my village this year with our fairly simple parade route. Whether they're complying with the RBL line, I don't know.
District Councils and police cannot deploy personnel to multiple locations simultaneously . Town and Parish councils have no powers to make road closures - the community org mentioned in the article would have needed the district council to effect this if required. It may also depend on the happenstance of where your cenotaph is located e.g. in a park.
More broadly, although there are lots of willing participants and helpers, everything, like PA equipment, signage, the wreaths, public liability insurance all has to be organised, found and usually paid for. It's usually the Council that has inherited the upkeep, and even updating of the war memorial.
I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that in large measure cars did this.
No Remembrance Day Parade in Kingswood after disagreement over who is responsible for it
Is it a Royal British Legion event or a civic event?
"The wreath-laying at the town’s Cenotaph took place as usual, followed by a church service at Holy Trinity Church in Kingswood, but there was no parade due to a row over road closures and public liability insurance."
"South Gloucestershire Council maintained its position that the responsibility for organising the road closures and insurance connected with the event lies with the Royal British Legion, but the RBL nationally - and the Kingswood branch - maintain local authorities should take on the ownership of the logistics and legalities as they regard them as civic events."
"Parades with road closures did happen in Yate and Staple Hill, where a local community organisation took on the responsibility of organising the legal issues around insurance and road closures."
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/no-remembrance-day-parad...
Campaigners enlist highways expert to fight seafront changes
"The SOS group is to now submit a Freedom of Information (FOI) request"
"This is not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship." - welcome to our world, guys.
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/somerset-news/campaigners-enlist-hig...
Liam Fox can't see a bandwagon without attempting to jump on it
I don't understand why a 30 mph limit and having to wiggle between the parked cars to get onto the seafront is better than a 20mph limit and a cycle lane.
Oh yeah - "cyclists"
Just keep driving! The hated cycle scheme will be sub-aqua in a generation!
non-story alert here, but welcome to our world, guys. I admire the courage of whoever went out of their way to intervene here as this article would follow as surely as a burnt mouth from biting into an apple pie too fast:
'Humiliated' pensioners on mobility scooters turned away from Lincoln McDonald's drive-thru
"I felt as if I was discriminated against because of my age"
"I am 71 and I have had a stroke. That’s why I find it difficult standing and walking around sometimes."
"I felt really upset about it all. I have got a license plate on the front of mine. It’s all registered."
https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/lincoln-news/humiliated-pensione...
If i were the individuals here, I would take a different approach (and I'm banking it for when I end up on a scooter cos a dickhead driver has wiped me out)
I'd be demanding the name of the name of the insurers and the wording of the exclusion.
Next steps depend on the response (insurers have more options to go after them) but either way, this is questionable legally.
Sometimes I wish I wasn't this sad, but complaints like this are my hobby. Gonna have to change my name to CyclingKaren.
Demand whatever you like. You must want that cheeseburger real bad.
The menu is dire and beside the point (exception made for cheese bites when I am pissed)
What gets my goat is firms making up rules under false risks. Whether lazy or discrimination, when firms do this you cannot rely on them to get the big stuff right. Discrimination against protected characteristics, using data protection to be lazy, denying service because of an incorrect application of anti-money laundering etc, well worth my time in challenge.
In this case, it appears people with a protected characteristic are denied a service, because they have a protected characteristic. It may be OK, but there would need to be a rigorous and documented thought process underpinning it. I would bet my next pay packet there isn't.
I'm not about to suggest that cycling becomes a protected characteristic... but when firms start thinking rather blindly denying, the world will be better for cyclists.
It's one of those "why can't scooters use the drive-thru?", which when there's a shunt will turn into "why was there a scooter in the drive thru?"
Not sure what liability would fall on the landowner there.
In my view, because that's a risk anywhere yet scooters are not banned. However, in this case, a business has chosen to deny a service to someone because if a protected characteristic. Unless they are saying that they are offering a service that is more dangerous than other similar environments which in it self is a concern.
Personally I think it's a risky position to take under the Equality Act. I might be wrong, but it's not unreasonable to ask for their consideration under the Equality Act.
We were very badly let down 5 years ago when it came to activating a funeral plan my parents had taken out.
These days, you're on you're own with this stuff - the old Equal Opportunties Commission seemed to be little more than a vaguely sympathetic a call centre.
The funeral company were evasive when I complained. I'd have had to have gone to court to get anywhere, the moment had passed and who's got the time?
The potential disability discrimination problem here is not the drive thru, but that for whatever reason they didn't/couldn't enter the restaurant for service.
I'm really sorry to hear this.
It might not come as much comfort now, but the dire approach of Funeral Plan companies towards consumers means that Funeral Plans have recently been brought under new regulations. Consumers going forward are more likely to be treated better and I'm pretty sure people can go to the ombudsman service now as an alternative to court.. It probably means some Funeral Plan providers will go bust... though to be honest, they probably should. I have some familiarity with the change in rules and what went before... I can only imagine what you went through at a horrible time.
We probably have differing views on this, but I'm firmly in the camp that business showing a poor understanding of protection laws means that their practices are poor for everyone... and it benefits everyone to challenge them.
I don't disagree about challenging crap businesses.
We'd have made a local journalism classic - "85 yo wheelchair user denied adapted funeral car by callous funeral company bosses. As it was, we hired one of the regular taxi firms and all was well, in fact they were brilliant.
My sense of the Mcdrive thru story is that that the situation got adversarial when it needn't have. As is often the case with these stories, the situation and the players seem a bit confused and there are minor inconsistencies that don't quite add up.
Tesco shoppers threaten boycott as 28p electric car charge branded 'disgusting'
It was previously free to charge electric vehicles at the supermarket
but my free charge-up
Another shopper said: "I was using the free charging as an incentive to shop at Tesco, the only supermarket around my way to offer free charging. Now I'll spread my wings a bit and shop at other places too."
https://www.devonlive.com/news/uk-world-news/tesco-shoppers-threaten-boy...
I wonder: did those people expect free petrol from Tesco when they were shopping there (before they bought an EV)? If not, why do they expect free charging?
Free charging, it's like free parking - it's a basic human right! Or at least, I'll boycott them that don't provide it. (Unfortunately I'm not able to extend this analogy to McDonalds and drive-thrus as it'd be a cold day in hell that would see me cycling there specially).
A perspective from a neighbouring country shows that - if there are alternatives - even free parking just ain't that big of a draw. So presumably with a slight change in direction now we could avoid having to take up sizeable chunks of the streetscape / trip up pedestrians by putting charging facilities everywhere.
Doesn't the Stevenage experience suggest that if driving is also easy, a lot of people will plump (geddit?) for it?
Indeed. Several good articles knocking around on this one, Carlton Reid said it best IMO: "where cycling and driving are convenient, Brits drive". More detail argues that even in Stevenage / Milton Keynes (the most often-cited new towns with cycling provision) things were stacked in favour of the car from the get-go.
In the UK the genie is more than half a century gone from the bottle there is often very substantial resistance to any change. A lot of people see changes affecting their car travel as an existential threat. So much so that even making something else available and making driving both more expensive and slightly less convenient won't cause most people to change.
I do believe lot of people can be persuaded to change - and will find that it didn't ruin their life in retrospect, rather the opposite. That's because it has happened both elsewhere and here.
This butcher's shop claims that access issues and parking charges are forcing it to move out city centre. Those first 100 years of operation must have been really tough.
https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/23103040.pritchetts-butchers-fis...
I imagine the reality is that as with so many shops like that they just aren't taking enough money over the counter and no amount of free parking is going to alter that. I think that only leaves the M&S food hall and a couple of convenience stores around the fringes selling groceries.
Yes - if only more people had cars (or there were more roads into town) that would restore their trade, surely? 🤔
Never mind, there are still a few people with cargo bikes about to make up for others who are no longer popping in for an entire pig or a side of beef.
Does make me think of how sometimes the time AND place must be right (minds open, basically):
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2018/11/13/the-demonstration-cycle-ro...
95 per cent of drivers have no idea how to pronounce BMW, study says
suggestions?
https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/uk-news/95-per-cent-drivers-no-253...
Bay Em Vay not bee em vee
Clue here- https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-cancer-beaten-driver-no-reason-297009
Try for the proper pronunciation of VW while we are at it.
Newton Abbot bus lane plans defeated by people power
'It is essential that we listen and understand these concerns'
Flip! There's this and another 5 pages of bad news stories about Stagecoach buses, but well done, gammons and NIMBYs of Newton Abbott.
https://www.devonlive.com/news/devon-news/newton-abbot-bus-lane-plans-77...
"We know that cycling organisations in Bath are opposed to trams on the basis that they are dangerous to cyclists, but this is not the case. The danger to cyclists and the thing that puts them off cycling more than anything is cars, and one only has to look at the pictures on the Bath Trams website of cyclists in tram towns happily cycling over tram rails in Europe to realise this. Avoiding a tram rail is no harder than not cycling into a kerb."
It's academic, Mr Tram Fantasist as sadly it will never happen in Bath but anyway while there have been some cyclist/tram track issues (poor execution in Edinburgh from memory) I think we'd all rather live in a world where trams were a thing than not.
https://www.somersetlive.co.uk/news/news-opinion/trams-the-only-way-solv...
Seems a bit wasteful to me. Either install them, or not, but make your mind up.
it's nice it's nice to know that someone is reading my stuff - attentively in your case.
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