CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

Today's rubbish driving...

(11332 posts)
  • Started 13 years ago by Stepdoh
  • Latest reply from CocoShepherd
  • This topic is sticky

  1. chdot
    Admin

  2. edinburgh87
    Member

    Was wondering what this was when I left work today:

    https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/lorry-smashes-into-pavement-railing-outside-edinburghs-flora-stevenson-primary-school-minutes-before-pupils-came-out-of-building-3690299

    A shop worker who witnessed the incident added: “It’s lucky that pupils were not out playing at the time and nobody was hurt. I feel sorry for the driver. My son’s car was recently smashed just around the corner. Buses can’t get to where they need to go. The roads and turns are way too narrow

    Not sure what they expect can be done unless "they" level Flora Stevenson's to soften the turn. Crewe Toll nearby is multi-lane and still the sees relatively frequent incidents

    Posted 2 years ago #
  3. wishicouldgofaster
    Member

    Had to laugh at this We’re angry about it. This accident shows something needs to be done

    Perhaps the only thing needed is that some people need to learn to drive properly!

    Posted 2 years ago #
  4. acsimpson
    Member

    Perhaps it's time we removed through traffic from Stockbridge.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  5. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    A shop worker who witnessed the incident added: “It’s lucky that pupils were not out playing at the time and nobody was hurt. I feel sorry for the driver. My son’s car was recently smashed just around the corner. Buses can’t get to where they need to go. The roads and turns are way too narrow

    Stockholm syndrome treatment required.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  6. the canuck
    Member

    Perhaps it's time we removed through traffic from Stockbridge.

    Please. Do it tomorrow! We could make it a single lane and widen the pavements so they weren't so awful.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  7. gembo
    Member

    Locals of Stockbridge who don’t drive loved it during lockdown when it was closed to through traffic

    But locals of Stockbridge with cars (some with SUVs as we know)

    Preferred to be gassed.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  8. nobrakes
    Member

    Catching 'cereal' offenders :)

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-61421665

    Posted 2 years ago #
  9. the canuck
    Member

    I'd even support a one-way system going into the city through there, with a contraflow for cycles.
    Not sure what could happen with busses. I know when the High St section was closed for gas works, it was a real problem for folks who relied on public transport.
    They came up with a workaround (and the place I volunteer in noticed an increase in sales at that time) but it was awkward with those long busses.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  10. Yodhrin
    Member

    Don't think it even needs to be made one-way - a quick peek on google maps and I couldn't find any point on the main route/B900 between Flora Stevenson and Royal Circus that was less than 14m wide property line-to-property line and most of it is more like 16m. The problem is two wide running lanes and two almost uninterrupted rows of parked cars.

    Two 3-3.25m lanes, in-lane bus stops, strip out all the regular parking(marked and reinforced on-pavement bays for blue badge and timed loading would have to be added at wider points) and there's plenty of room for lovely big pavements. Trees, even. You could squeeze in a bidirectional cycle lane if you were determined, though putting in bus gates as part of a traffic circulation plan and lowering the speed limit to 15mph would make it almost as attractive for cycling as full segregation while maximising benefit for peds.

    The fact is at some point if the city is serious about reforming high streets, they're going to have to get rid of the private cars cluttering them up, regardless of the rabble-rabble from lazy business owners who want to park at their front door and the SUV-driving "think of the elderly/disabled/children!(who mostly don't drive...)" brigade.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  11. CocoShepherd
    Member

    Close pass this morning on Torpichen St by a very Important Man in an A*di. We were both stopped at the red light round the corner so after a polite request to give people on bikes more room, I learned that it had been a punishment pass. My crime being that I hadn't looked behind me before overtaking another cyclist. Very much verboten in slow moving traffic on one of the city's widest streets apparently, and thoroughly deserving of vigilantism.

    Ashamed to admit that I reacted by closing his driver side wing mirror and cycling off once the light changed.

    I expected some kind of reaction from Important Man given that I touched his Precious Vehicle so once I got to the conference centre I hopped off my bike onto the pavement. Scared that he would drive straight through the back of me. Fortunate as sure enough Important Man came zooming up behind then slammed on the brakes as he pulled in as close as he could to the kerb beside me. I let out a smile as the fancy shiny alloy wheel of his Precious Vehicle got scraped along the kerb.

    As I was now guilty of criminal damage by closing the wing mirror of said Precious Vehicle I was now going to be reported to the police along with video evidence of my crime spree. I wished him a good day and now look forward to receiving my notice of intention to prosecute and will be glad to give evidence in court of his disregard for the safety of other road users and aggressive driving.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  12. Morningsider
    Member

    @CocoShepherd - would love to hear that call to the police:

    Police emergency. How can I help?

    I wish to report A CRIME!

    What's happened, sir?

    A miscreant moved my wing mirror!

    I see...

    Posted 2 years ago #
  13. chdot
    Admin

    I’ve hit mirrors a couple of times, one broke (not my intention).

    Clearly the cars were too close.

    The reason wasn’t ‘malicious’ or ‘revenge’, more like fear.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  14. steveo
    Member

    Haha, I'd have been tempted to put the passenger mirror in when he pulled over to "have a word".

    I'll often fold* wingmirrors in when a car is parked on the pavement on the way to school tbh its probably better than the kids crashing into with a scooter. Though it would serve them right.

    *with less care than the owners would appreciate I suspect

    Posted 2 years ago #
  15. Arellcat
    Moderator

    Cars are awful.

    It's understandable, if perverse, because when we are in a vehicle, we become the vehicle. Our sense of personal space expands to the same degree as it would were we not in a vehicle. How dare you encroach my personal, yet invisible boundary! As well as that, we understand intuitively that vehicles are typically expensive and usually large, which means our instinct for immediate mobility is frustrated. Our ability to communicate immediately is also frustrated, and so we rely on the horn, hand gestures, our speed and our position on the road, all of which are appropriate means for other people in vehicles, but, like unnecessary horsepower, grossly out of proportion to many of the people with whom we wish to communicate.

    Someone who then enters that personal space beyond the vehicle is to trespass, to take liberties with our place in the world. Someone who then trespasses to the extent of damaging! our vehicle represents an invasion of our very body, our finances, and by extension our status.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  16. mcairney
    Member

    @Cocoshepherd what a pillock! The alloy will hopefully be a timely and expensive reminder of his stupidity.

    Reminds me a bit of the van driver going purple with fury after I overtook a cyclist on the stretch between Prestonpans and Cockenzie (except in that case it was because I hadn't signalled even though when I did my shoulder check he was about a half-mile back just leaving Prestonpans and by the time he caught up with me to vent his considerable fury we were just outside Cockenzie House!)

    Posted 2 years ago #
  17. wishicouldgofaster
    Member

    I wonder if these drivers that express so much rage when cyclists don't signal do similar when car drivers fail to.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  18. acsimpson
    Member

    @steveo, I sometime do something similar, raising the wipers of such abandoned vehicles.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  19. chdot
    Admin

    SNP MP Angus MacNeil has been banned from driving for three months after being found guilty of careless driving.

    The Western Isles MP had been on trial on a charge of dangerous driving, but was instead convicted of the alternative charg

    https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/20148477.snp-mp-angus-macneil-found-guilty-careless-driving/

    Posted 2 years ago #
  20. Yodhrin
    Member

    Nipped down to the ASDA in Newhaven late tonight, coming up to the junction on Lindsay Road to turn down Sandpiper Drive, got some ****bag in a Nedmobile(small hatchback with body kit & loudification exhaust) tailgating me and then blasting past to turn down Newhaven Place leaning on their horn.

    And while they are assuredly a proper moron for getting so outraged over a 10 second delay...that whole stretch of road and junction is a bloody death trap. Two pinches on Pier Place for crossing islands, immediately followed by another pinch for car parking spaces, and then you need to stay in the outside lane to go over and make the second turn. As soon as I entered that stretch and they came up behind, the only way to let them past prior to the junction itself would have been to pull over completely and stop.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  21. chdot
    Admin

  22. fimm
    Member

    Chap in a blue car overtaking me on the Dalry Road on the way to the (very obviously) red lights at the Haymarket junction. I was so tempted to ask him 1) why he did this and 2) was he aware that the speed limit there is 20mph, but I had a train to catch.

    Posted 2 years ago #
  23. MediumDave
    Member

    Yesterday morning, about 0920, waiting to turn right on Russell Road up the zig-zags. A good meter at least to the left of the centre line ('cos I know the cagers like to cut the corner...)

    Black cab #625 came steaming up from Roseburn and cut the corner to such an extravagant extent that I was able to push myself clear by banging on the side of the vehicle.

    Van driver behind (top bloke, thankyou) jumped out and yelled at cab man on my behalf. As did a few other passers-by. Nice.

    Cab man's excuse was *drumroll*

    "I didn't see you there"

    Reader, it was broad daylight and I was (unusually) wearing this jacket:

    https://www.jtatkinson.co.uk/pp/tppe905p/dickies-hivis-bomber-jacket-yellow-sa22050

    Impolitely suggested to the fool that such a line of argument was almost certainly untenable or if not, to get an eye test pronto. And (more importantly) to stay to the left of the centre line!

    Thought of excellent gag about right wing cabbies as I cycled down the railway path but sadly too late to deploy. Such is life.

    -D

    PS This is the second time in my life I have been SMIDSYd while wearing class III hivis. The first time I was wearing the full costume (trousers and even flashes on the boots too). This "safety" malarkey perhaps not all it's cracked up to be...

    Posted 2 years ago #
  24. nobrakes
    Member

    30 seconds in. This clip comes to mind a lot as the proper course of action when on the roads these days. Maybe this could be incorporated onto a tandem.

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Video Widget

    .

    http://YouTu.be/7gc1EIrxjws

    Posted 2 years ago #
  25. chdot
    Admin

  26. chdot
    Admin

  27. shuggiet
    Member

    Tuesday. Junction of Kilgraston Road/Strathearn Road.
    I'd been close-passed by speeding taxi #213 coming up Kilgraston. He'd overtaken into oncoming traffic, with his off-side wheel just over the white line. He-hoh that's pretty normal for Kilgraston. Got to the traffic lights which were red and taxi was at front of queue. Filtered to advance stop area. Took middle of lane as I get to the pedestrian refuge invariably before cars and don't want them overtaking before then. Stopped Car turning right at traffic lights from Marchmont onto Strathearn. So no room for taxi to overtake. You'd think! When lights change I was across onto the start of Marchmont Road in the middle of the lane, when the taxi came beside me and the turning right car, shouting abuse out of his window whilst my handlebars were 20cm from his moving car. I may have shouted back!

    Ironically taxi 213 appears as good driving 7 years courtesy of Algo..

    Can't complain to taxi licensing board. They don't accept driving complaints. Has to be police.. no chance of anything happening there..

    Posted 2 years ago #
  28. chdot
    Admin

    “They don't accept driving complaints“

    Really??

    Posted 2 years ago #
  29. shuggiet
    Member

    Taxi Complaints...
    https://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/licences-permits/comments-taxi-private-hire-car/1

    'Please direct matters of alleged criminality or breaches of road traffic laws to Police Scotland and not the licensing service'

    Posted 2 years ago #
  30. chdot
    Admin

    Mmm

    Not sure it was always like that.

    However, as such, you are not concerned with police matters.

    More about ‘ignoring the recommendations of the Highway Code’.

    PLUS the abuse which is likely to be of interest/concern to the taxi office (well it used to be).

    IF there was a passenger in the cab, then they are (were in the past anyway) more interested/concerned.

    Just because you didn’t notice one doesn’t mean there wasn’t.

    It really is (was?) about driver attitude and whether they are fit to hold a license - complaints get recorded.

    Posted 2 years ago #

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