CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!

  1. LaidBack
    Member

    Cyclists are considered 'fair game' by some.
    Pedestrians less so...?
    Driver charged after incident running into anti-genocide protestors on Mound.
    How on earth could they think they could get away with it?
    Open season for craziness in the world.

    https://www.thenational.scot/news/24048050.edinburgh-woman-charged-road-crash-pro-palestine-protest/?ref=fbm

    Police Scotland has now confirmed it received reports of "minor injuries" from pedestrians after a "road crash".

    A 70-year-old woman has since been arrested and charged in connection with a driving offence.

    READ MORE: Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh: Lawyer's closing statement in ICJ case against Israel praised

    A Police Scotland spokesperson told The National: "Around 2.30pm on Saturday, January 13, 2024, we were made aware of a road crash involving a car and a small number of pedestrians in Ramsay Lane, Edinburgh.

    "Officers received reports of minor injuries from pedestrians, but no medical attention was required.

    "A 70-year-old woman has been arrested and charged in connection with a driving offence. A report will be sent to the Procurator Fiscal.”

    The incident came on a Global Day of Action in support of Gaza, with demonstrations across the world taking place.

    Posted 10 months ago #
  2. SRD
    Moderator

    made the Guardian now too: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/13/70-year-old-charged-after-car-runs-into-pro-palestine-demo-in-edinburgh

    Hope driver wasn't targeting the protestors but crazy dangerous with so many elderly and young people in the crowd, and you, know, a crowd of people with no way to get away.

    Posted 10 months ago #
  3. wishicouldgofaster
    Member

    I'm sure if she said the sun was in her eyes she'll get off scot free!

    Posted 10 months ago #
  4. mcairney
    Member

    You can't be blinded by the sun if you keep your eyes closed or look at your phone instead! :-)

    Here's today's entry:
    https://youtu.be/ao0paYcLB18

    Undertaking and speeding outside Portobello High School. I won't comment on their choice of car as I literally have a newer version of it!

    Posted 10 months ago #
  5. gembo
    Member

    Wee red car Dick

    Posted 10 months ago #
  6. mcairney
    Member

    How did you know his name was Richard?

    Posted 10 months ago #
  7. chdot
    Admin

  8. mcairney
    Member

    No video but almost got hit outside the Portobello Rd Morrisons by a car turning right into the supermarket. Was riding along in the segregated path and saw a car in the right hand filter lane signalling right so back off the gas to let them through. The car behind them (no indicators) also decided to go for it and came within inches of hitting my front wheel (in fact I had to turn left into the supermarket junction to avoid hitting them). She then had the cheek to blame me for 'cutting through' traffic at which point I may have said some things I shouldn't have while pointing out the existence of said bike lane.
    Segregated infrastructure is all well and good but you need enough of it to 'normalise' it and we need to actually enforce driving laws in this country, both by prosecuting careless/dangerous drivers and also with harsher penalties (more bans, crushing the cars of people who get a driving ban to act as an additional financial deterrent etc)

    Posted 9 months ago #
  9. chdot
    Admin

    He told BBC Scotland News he had not driven in the city for about 10 years, but his sat nav had not picked up the road changes.

    He said: "I was just following the sat nav.

    "I always remember I used to come down this way. I followed it and just got stuck.

    "I had no idea there was a step there, I used to come down this way.

    "I am a bit embarrassed about it."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cmmgvnnjgq9o?

    Posted 9 months ago #
  10. Arellcat
    Moderator

    And it didn't occur to him that the manoeuvre apparently required driving up a kerb and over the footway? And he couldn't see the steps from his lofty vantage point?

    Drivers should be made to take a test or something before being allowed to use the roads.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  11. mcairney
    Member

    Maybe they need one of those anti-terror barriers like they have at Waverley station? If it doesn't deter the driver it'll at least do so much damage to their vehicle as to render it a write-off which might get the point across.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  12. Morningsider
    Member

    I think the Council should treat this problem as if it applied to a cycle lane. Simply install a miniscule sign saying "Steps - please dismount and carry your vehicle".

    Posted 9 months ago #
  13. Frenchy
    Member

    Interested in thoughts on these. Both the drivers' actions and my own:

    https://youtu.be/9yr_G1OUeYc

    Posted 9 months ago #
  14. Greenroofer
    Member

    I see more incompetence that malice from the drivers in both of these.

    In case 1 it looks to me like they knew you were there and were hoping you'd let them in (i.e. they were 'negotiating' with you, as people on bikes do with drivers when they want to change lane). The issue from a bike rider's point of view is that it costs effort to slow down and then accelerate, so drivers who know this won't ask cyclists to slow down for the driver's convenience.

    My take on case 2 is that you unfortunately arrived beside the bus in a way that you ended up in their blind spot at just the wrong moment. I can imagine that the driver of the bus would not only have checked their mirror but also looked to their left to see if there was anything beside the door if they were turning left but, because they were going straight on, they didn't bother. I'd guess that you then did appear in their field of view at a point where they felt committed to a manoeuvre, and they made the wrong choice of whether to slow down to let you go ahead or to speed up and push you into the kerb.

    I can't see what I would have done differently to you in either situation. The option of waiting in the bike lane behind the first bus but visible to the second would have left you sandwiched between them on the other side of the junction and reliant on the following bus driver to give you space rather than squeeze you out.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  15. Dave
    Member

    Yeah, in both cases it's clear that the drivers should have yielded to you but it has an air of "hapless might is right" rather than anything malicious. The bus driver must have seen you there based on how they drove, so should just have held back, that's disappointing.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  16. Frenchy
    Member

    Thanks both, very helpful.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  17. chdot
    Admin

  18. chdot
    Admin

    Edinburgh M90 motorist reported for dangerous driving and 'blaming their sat nav'

    https://www.edinburghlive.co.uk/news/edinburgh-news/edinburgh-m90-motorist-reported-dangerous-28716532

    Posted 9 months ago #
  19. ejstubbs
    Member

    Many years ago (back in the heady days of freedom of movement) I was working on a project for San Paolo Bank in Turin. The project team was based at the bank's data centre, which happened to be located within a major gyratory motorway intersection a mile or so outside of the city. The project team office had quite a good view out towards one of the off-ramps and it wasn't unusual for a bored team member to be staring out of the window and suddenly calling out "there's another one!", indicating that they'd spotted someone who had missed their exit trying to reverse back against the one-way flow of traffic. Cue all the team members there present going up to the window to observe the, er..."entertainment" for the next few minutes. The vehicles involved ranged from ordinary cars all the way up to bloomin' great artics. Fortunately, as best I can recall, we never saw an actual accident, but there was usually a lot of tooting of horns and - it being Italy - angry gesticulation, and a number of fairly close calls.

    The crowning idiocy of the manoeuvre was that, it being a gyratory system, all the driver had to do was continue all the way around to get back to the exit they'd missed. Of course in those days there was no sat nav to blame (or to tell the driver how easily they could rectify their navigational error).

    Posted 9 months ago #
  20. gembo
    Member

    Thanks Stubbsie your tale allows me to reminisce again about the yomping holiday I went on with the Royal Marines when I was 18. in Brittany.

    The Marines liked very much to being their evening on Le Cidre by taking their chairs from the pub put to the roundabout on the edge of town and to sit and drink and laugh at the traffic jam on said roundabout.

    The French way was for all commuters to enter onto the roundabout and then toot their horns and gesticulate.

    This is what CEC has designed at Picardy Place I. 2024. 40 years fewer said camping trip

    Posted 9 months ago #
  21. acsimpson
    Member

    So you're sorry is missing is 3 Brits in minis navigating through the gaps in the traffic.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  22. acsimpson
    Member

    That should have read "All your story is missing...". I should learn to proof read when on my phone.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  23. ejstubbs
    Member

    @acsimpson: Don't worry, I knew what you meant!

    Our daily taxi ride out to the data centre and back used to pass right by the Palazzo a Vela, which featured in the car chase. Other locations which I used to show to friends and family who came out to visit me were "God's Grandmother" aka the Gran Madre di Dio church, down the front steps of which the police cars chased the Minis, and the weir just downstream which the Minis crossed successfully but the police cars didn't. Not forgetting of course Via Roma and Piazza San Carlo where the 'traffic jam' was created, which the Minis avoided by driving down the colonnaded pedestrian arcades which run along either side of the street, as per the plan given to the gang at the start of the film.

    Posted 9 months ago #
  24. mcairney
    Member

    Driving along the A1 with cruise control on in the LH lane and a massive Volvo SUV come tanking along in the outside lane at around 100mph. 30 seconds later their brake lights come on along with a flash of the speed camera. Probably made my weekend if I'm honest, things you like to see.

    Posted 8 months ago #
  25. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    “Steven Turner, 25, pleaded guilty to a charge of dangerous driving on the A701 Romanno Bridge to Lamancha road on May 9 last year.

    Prosecutor Drew Long explained the cyclist was heading north at around 20 to six in the evening when she was “undercut” by a Mitsubishi pick-up on the left hand side going onto a grass verge.

    The manoeuvre took place when a vehicle in front of Turner was overtaking the cyclist in the normal way and was captured on a vehicle video-cam.”

    https://www.bordertelegraph.com/news/24156270.motorist-undertook-cyclist-borders-gets-road-ban/

    Posted 8 months ago #
  26. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    More on the A701 prosecution above, along with dash cam video. Frankly the driver should be in prison:

    https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-slams-claim-driver-mounted-verge-avoid-crash-307151

    Also

    “ Gibson also says she was initially informed that the case against Turner had been closed, “as they were unable to cite him to court”.

    “I appealed and case was reopened,” she says. “To get the email to say he had been to court and plead guilty was a relief.”

    Polis Scotland - unfit for purpose and incapable of change

    Posted 8 months ago #
  27. mcairney
    Member

    Wow I'd seen the still photos of this but....wow.
    The only 'positive' is that I really don't rate his chances of passing an extended driving test.

    In cases where a driver is banned they should be confiscating and crushing the car. Strapping the driver to the driving seat while it enters the press might be considered capital punishment by some but at least the significant financial hit of £30K's worth of vehicle getting routinely turned into a square metre of steel would make some of the crazies rethink their behaviour.

    Posted 8 months ago #
  28. acsimpson
    Member

    I wonder how many other times this same driver has done similar dangerous manoeuvres before being caught. Given the lack of VED/Insurance and MOT perhaps a tagging order would have been in order to ensure that he doesn't drive during the ban.

    Posted 8 months ago #
  29. the canuck
    Member

    I would defintely support some sort of tagging event.

    Posted 8 months ago #
  30. chdot
    Admin


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