CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
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On another thread, @wc wrote:
I may be wrong, but for every muppet who passes me on the road there were 40 drivers who were perfectly safe
that's well generous..
think i'm averaging out at around 1:15
mixture of urban and rural
interested in others experience
whats your road muppet ratio?
Depends on the road, the drivers, other traffic such as bin lorries, the weather, the queue, the daylight or otherwise and indeed the cyclists. Not trying to blame us here just noting the factors involved. Over the years I have adopted primary more often as I have gained in confidence. I know I am right to do this but I know it annoys some muppets. I have also noticed that some days I am more bothered than others by close passes.
So say you were STV Edinburgh and you wanted to do an article on punishment passes.
You would film two cyclists riding perfectly legally side by side on the road from kirkliston to linlithgow on a quiet Sunday morning. This would be guaranteed a punishment pass probably with masses of space in the opposite lane probably within fifteen minute section.
But Thursday morning using the A70 from Balerno to Edinburgh, before 8 am on my own, very quiet day indeed and sunny so very pleasant. Nothing of any note from any direction.
I would say two narrow passes per ten mile commute is the norm. There is a corner just at turn to Currie High where if I hold my line because of a little kink to the right in the road I can virtually guarantee a punishment pass if there is other traffic.
If we are extending the muppetry to overtaking followed by sharp breaking etc then it goes up.
Personally, I would also count the muppetry of the cyclists (including Moi, that makes me Miss Piggy). No shoulder check, no hand signal etc. RLJ (I allow two in a row. Before I call foul).
Time of year of course also causes surge in muppetry. Festival driving, when the studes return in the autumn for muppet cycling etc.
I do not fancy your commute if every fifteenth driver is a muppet?
The stupendously bad manoeuvre the 4x4 driver pulled at slateford lights the other day annoyed me. But also left me trying to remember that not every driver on my commute is a regular on that road and that when they make a mistake there is a good chance they will become a muppet, temporarily.
As gembo says, there are quite a number of factors. Not least I guess as well is what we see as muppetry. For me it's someone passing too closely in a way that makes me 'react', or a full on SMIDSY, or the classic left hook. I don't necessarily count things like 35mph in a 30 zone etc. It's wrong, but not really 'muppetry' (in my eyes, but obviously not in others).
So for instance I was out at 8 this morning on a fishmonger and butcher run. 9 miles, primarily on roads, some of them busy, some of them small and narrow, some one way, some with bus lanes. I think I was probably passed by around 60 cars in total. I had one person pass rather too closely just a few minutes out of the door, then every single other driver was absolutely fine, so 1 in 60.
On Monday I did a 40 mile loop out to South Queensferry, and back via the Gyle and the canal. About half the distance, maybe a little more, was on the roads, and I had not one single moment of muppetry. Not one. And must have had a 100 cars 'at least' that went by me.
However on some commutes, just 4 miles, with a mile of that off road anyway, the level could be as high as 1 in 20, which could be put down to a number of factors, but I'd assume the biggest factor being volume of traffic causing much frystration (not an excuse, just saying that could be a reason for a higher count).
I have to admit that as with gembo, if my ratio was an 'average' of 1 in 15 I think I'd be giving up cycling! Considering on a busy road 15 cars can go by every two minutes, on a half hour ride that'd be 15 times your life is put in genuine jeopardy!
What would be a very very interesting study would be for a whole commute and leisure rude to be filmed, and have people separately noting the moments they thought they'd seen some muppetry, and then compare the counts, as I suspect there would be wildly differing figures, simply because we all view things differently.
I do think, though, that we do sometimes forget most of the good driving around us, focus on the bad, then see that as a disproportionately high amount (a bit like drivers seeing 7 cyclists waiting diligently at red lights, then one going through, and that somehow being inflated into 'every' cyclist runs red lights - I'm sure the psychology behind it all is incredibly interesting, but that's most certainly not my field, so I doubt I could even come up with a vaguely sensible reasoning!).
So in short, bax, fancy being the guinea pig filming your commute?
I'm sympathetic to people who end up in the wrong lane (e.g. at the turn into Chambers St) so unless they try to squish me I'm pretty forgiving if they need to move across. I moved (back, but after 20+ years) to Edinburgh last year, had never really driven/cycled here, and it's not always obvious where you ought to be, especially if there's a car on top of the arrow. Wanted to put a sign on my back/in the rear window, "recently relocated from an island with no traffic lights or roundabouts - please be patient while I memorise lane markings!".
Ha, point! And cyclists can, of course, be muppets too:
my muppet factoring does include passing at what i would consider an inappropriate speed..
dismissing that as merely an everyday environmental factor might make it nearer 1:25 than 1:15
will attempt empirical test on commute next week
I was factoring in 'inappropriate speed' as well, but I guess that falls into the differing views point as well - is 35 in a 30 muppetry? I've been passed at 40 in a 20 and that counts without a shadow of a doubt. Then again, perception of speed can often be affected by how close the pass it as well, what you're having to negotiate, etc. So someone passing at 40 in a 30 zone, but miles from me as I'm in a bus lane, doesn't make me feel they've directly endangered me, so I'd not count that as muppetry, though it's clearly inappropriate speed.
I'm beginning to wonder if scientific study of this is doomed to end up in trying to create definitions!
Suspect muppetry is like obscenity - you may not be able to provide a watertight definition but you know it when you see it...
Ratio count abandoned early doors, upon realising that junction / roundabout jumping muppetry means having to count everyone else waiting at junctions etc also.
Nevertheless the "muppets per road mile" calculation came out at five and a half muppets over 28 miles today, so not far off the gembo reckoning (two muppets every ten miles), overall.
Quite a bit of dog muppetry today on the WoL path. Three huskies and a massive black mastiff to name but four. My new bell which is a tiny thing of great beauty (brass) emits a high frequency ping best heard by the dogs and maybe teenagers but not so well heard by some owners. Anyaway the day was mild and the path was just me and the dog walkers.all smiles and thankee, thankee.
The huge equestrian centre over the river from Juni green coming on. Some say Zara Phillips is the owner. The splash bathroom warehouse still getting turned into a home.
I was seeing more of the world as I was on my old three Speed as my normal commuting bike picked up slow puncture, that is two quite close together. Methinks I need a new back tyre.
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