CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

Today's rubbish driving...

(11341 posts)
  • Started 13 years ago by Stepdoh
  • Latest reply from Murun Buchstansangur
  • This topic is sticky

  1. gembo
    Member

    @ejstubbs, yes, coming up from Colinton makes you invisible to the drivers heading south. I usually cross to the barracks side due to the very incidence of poor driving.

    But even the safer left turn heading back down to Colinton from Oxgangs you will be driven at

    It is a craz6 drivers roundabout for sure

    Posted 3 years ago #
  2. chdot
    Admin

  3. chdot
    Admin

    Recently Edinburgh Council conducted a week long speed test on Redford Road. Thanks to
    @CllrScottArthur and Cllr Jason Rust for helping to organise.

    https://twitter.com/rimc123/status/1443349409513811968

    Thread

    Posted 3 years ago #
  4. amir
    Member

    Interesting thread.
    I wonder what method was used to measure speed - those rubber tubes across the road?

    "Folk need to use cars"
    This needs questioning. Certainly that's what many people think. Perhaps we could start with "Folk need to use cars less". We need everyone to face up to the environmental and health crisis that we are in, not just the politicians. It might help if the politicians in power make the point.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  5. Yodhrin
    Member

    Technically yesterday's rubbish driving - stopped at the temp lights at the St Mark's Park end of McDonald Road which had changed just before I got there, almost got taken out from behind by a twonk in one of those "bodykit and growly-muffler on a crap hatchback" jobs swerving past to blow through the red.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  6. chdot
    Admin

  7. crowriver
    Member

    Lots of impatient, sour faced drivists in Edinburgh today. Busier than usual, so massive tailbacks everywhere, interspersed with short stretches of clear road where most hit the accelerator hard to get to the back of the next queue 100 yards or less away. Some seriously dangerous driving by folk desperate to cut away from jams by roaring down wrong side of road, taking turn-offs into side streets at speed, etc. They're not driving ambulances!

    Was nice to get some respite between Gillespie's and Greenbank with the SfP measures still in place - makes for pleasant cycling.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  8. gembo
    Member

    Dalkeith was like that yesterday at lunch time . We were tooted at for being able to get to the front.

    I was then in the correct lane and a black golf GT type thing was in the wrong lane so the6 floored it over 100 yards to undertake me and get in front. They then had the pleasure of watching me filter to in front of them again, though by then I could not see the lights I was too far forward. But was easy enough to work it out.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  9. chdot
    Admin

  10. ejstubbs
    Member

  11. Arellcat
    Moderator

    As soon as it gets dark and a bit drizzly, the drivists really seem to lose what little self-control they had. Was turning right onto the A701 at the Bilston roundabout yesterday, and a similarly intentioned driver came up behind me and was literally going to undertake me around the roundabout. Motorcycle lifesafer checks meant I knew exactly what she was doing, and I became extremely wide on the road and blocked her. She didn't react to me calling her out on it as she overtook once I'd moved into secondary, and she got the next green that had gone back to red by the time I reached it. Nevertheless I caught her up by the IKEA crossroads and watched her staring straight ahead.

    You know, when I have occasion to drive, and I reach a red light, I'm looking all around all the time, observing and watching. Not out of boredom, sometimes out of casual interest, but always out of habit and a road safety mindset. Clearly many(?) people genuinely don't do that. Of course it has also sometimes meant I was the only one who could provide a witness statement of events.

    When I started Primary school, I had a Tupperware lunchbox with all those road signs on the back. I must've read that thing thousands of times.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  12. ejstubbs
    Member

    I can remember avidly reading the "New Traffic Signs" leaflet when it was issued in 1964 (I think - mid-sixties anyway - which makes me realise what an annoyingly precocious child I must have been).

    There was much fun had in the early days, with correspondence in The Guardian suggesting alternative meanings for some of the new signs: "man having trouble with his umbrella" for the roadworks sign, "natives hostile" for the two-way traffic crossing one-way road sign and "nudist colony ahead" for the uneven road sign being ones I remember clearly.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  13. nobrakes
    Member

    Just had my closest and most dangerous non-collision with a car.

    I was out on my MTB, across Sel Moor and then down Lauder road into Stow, the steep descent that comes out at the Town Hall. I'm not exactly doing a Froomey as I'm on a MTB but easily doing 20-25 mph. I'm about 3 feet from the side of the road.

    Jeep goes past me at a safe place. Next car - WF20 JZP - driver decides to try and overtake me on a blind corner. He's level with me on the other side of the road when a car appears coming the other way. Everybody jams their brakes on but it was a very near miss. Unbelievably, the guy then does exactly the same thing on the next blind corner, although this time nothing coming so he gets past. I peg it down into Stow and catch the traffic at the A7 T junction.

    I am incandescent and giving the guy some choice language through his closed window, but he grips the wheel and stares straight ahead. Then the guy from the jeep gets out (traffic is still waiting at the T junction) and starts having a go at me. I am selfish, trundling down roads at '10 mph' and holding up the traffic. It is entirely the fault of people like me that accidents happen. I have a bad attitude for not letting the cars past - I should have pulled over on a steep descent and let the cars past (he seems oblivious to the fact he hasn't actually gained any time on me). He tells stare-straight-ahead-guy that he will back him up with a statement if I report him to the police.

    Jeep man had an aussie accent, not very tall, reddish hair. I was so angry I didn't get his number. If anybody knows who he is (he might be local to the Gala Water valley), please let me know.

    A few years ago I mulled the idea of setting up a site to report incidents where people can upload video footage and a reg number. Searchable database for prior behaviour checks. I'm going to do it now.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  14. gembo
    Member

    Those two drivers are total clowns

    You need the guy coming up the hill who saw him on the wrong side of the road. To say what that felt like. He will be with you surely?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  15. nobrakes
    Member

    Yeah, unfortunately I didn’t get his number either. My vision was obstructed by my life flashing by in front of me.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  16. LaidBack
    Member

    @nobrakes - that forcing incoming drivers off th e road things drives me and too.
    Know you're getting into more off-road things to avoid such things so extra annoying to happen.
    If course they would never have got by if you had been on the M5!
    Actually all my closest incidents have been on my upright bikes.
    The more visible profile makes them more agressive. Recliners are funny and scary so they sometimes hold back more?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  17. nobrakes
    Member

    I have the fear on steep descents on the M5 these days. Too fast! 2 blowouts and loss of much leg skin has made me realise I'm not an invincible teenager any more. I figured I had hit 50 mph enough times and was pushing my luck. Tend to take things a lot slower these days.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  18. Arellcat
    Moderator

    @nobrakes, once upon a time we had http://www.ragingbike.co.uk, many of whose contributors reappeared later, in a much less ragey manner, as .citycycling magazine contributors.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  19. Frenchy
    Member

    Dear drivers who scowl at me when you finally get to overtake after having to wait a few seconds whilst I took primary at a pinchpoint,

    You are only proving my decision justified.

    Thanks,
    Frenchy

    Posted 3 years ago #
  20. fimm
    Member

    Yesterday evening: I'm cycling along Gorgie Road to the 5-way junction, to go up Henderson Terrace. I'm first in the queue, with a bus behind me. When the lights go green, a white taxi comes absolutely flying down Henderson Terrace and down Murieston Place. Thanks to the driver who sounded their horn as a warning. Its a shame I was there, though, the taxi driver wouldn't have done that to a bus...

    Today, on the famous 1-way section on Stewart Terrace. I've just got off my bike to walk up when I realise that the reason the car coming down has stopped is that there's a car behind me. So I helpfully point out the No Entry sign and the driver shouts at me. At this point another two cars come round the corner to come down the hill in the permitted direction, so I walk away and I suspect that Mr "No Entry Signs Do Not Apply To Me" had to reverse...

    Posted 3 years ago #
  21. LaidBack
    Member

    @fimm - that junction down from the Diggers is almost as dangerous as Kings Theatre one on the NCN! Taxi on a mission at speed though is no minor thing.
    Aye....hope the shouty driver had to reverse up!

    Posted 3 years ago #
  22. gembo
    Member

    There was a traffic jam from south house to Gillespie x road today. Lunch time. One siren was a black saloon, eg fire chief, by lass seemed to be flowing was maybe teachers knocking off for the hols.

    Hilarioisly up from Colinton to Gillespies the cars were too far on either side to be able to pass each other.

    All single occupant

    Posted 3 years ago #
  23. chdot
    Admin

  24. chdot
    Admin

  25. gembo
    Member

    Glad I watched that with sound down

    So strange that it was a Range Rover? They are in fact very common these days. But their handbrakes seem faulty?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  26. chdot
    Admin

    Bigger

    Posted 3 years ago #
  27. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

  28. gembo
    Member

    Not proven.

    Cyclist on his side of road

    Driver kills him on his side of the road?

    Driver remembers nothing.

    Jury is brain dead?

    Posted 3 years ago #
  29. Yodhrin
    Member

    You can't win can you. When they get caught for "minor" offences that might kill somebody, the polis and Magistrates let them off with it, when that sense of total impunity eventually leads them to *actually* kill people, the gormless car-owning jury lets them off with it.

    Is she at least going to permanently lose her license on medical grounds? Because I'm pretty sure blacking the eff out for several minutes before and after you *kill somebody* is a serious enough "condition" you shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel again.

    Posted 3 years ago #
  30. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    “ Is she at least going to permanently lose her license on medical grounds?”

    Doubt it. A medic testified earlier that there’s nothing physically wrong with the driver.

    Harry Clarke, the driver of the Glasgow bin lorry tragedy, retained a license to drive cars (& did) for a significant period after killing 6 people.

    Posted 3 years ago #

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