Right -
'So he's paid Road Tax* just like you'
'Yes'
'So when he's cycling he doesn't get his money's worth? So in fact he's subsidising you.'
(Obviously none of this is about logic!)
*VED
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Overheard
(189 posts)-
Posted 9 years ago #
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Anon:- "Not when he's cycling! And none of the cyclists have, you, know, insurance or have to pass a test. What happens when a cyclist goes into the side of your car? Who pays? We do!"
Me*: "So you don't pay your road insurance (sic) either then?"
Anon:- "I do"
Me*: "Maybe when you're drivnig but not when you're making pointless arguments which aren't based on facts, you don't."* not actually me...
Posted 9 years ago # -
My hairdresser's colleague having a rant about the shop over the road:
"And there's the traffic warden, wandering to have a chat. They get to park over there all day and never get a ticket, because they're pally with the traffic warden. They're not loading, they're parked. That's where I was parked when I got a ticket, but they never get tickets... see, off he goes, they've been parked there for hours but they're not going to get tickets, oh no..."Posted 9 years ago # -
A colleague was complaining that it took him 20 minutes to get out of the work car park yesterday because of the Morrison Street gasworks, then complaining more about the traffic jams today. (He lives in Morningside so could get a bus easily).
I jokingly said "it took me seconds to get out of the car park and I'd have made it home before you were even out of it. "
Cue complaints about pavement cyclists, red light jumping....the guy opposite him said "Don't get him started, he hates us cyclists!"
Think I may potentially have identified one of the EEN commenters.
Posted 8 years ago # -
He could have walked to Morningside in 20 minutes....
Posted 8 years ago # -
Can you arrange to leave at the same time as them one day, preferably waving ostentatiously to them as you both leave the car park, then allow yourself to be spotted doing something relaxing like sitting reading a newspaper outside their house when they eventually arrive at it?
Posted 8 years ago # -
...to which they will hopefully respond, "gosh, cycling must be quick", rather than, "Oh my god, crazy stalker person!!!"
Posted 8 years ago # -
While filtering passed a line of barely moving traffic - "I should've brought a bike"
Posted 8 years ago # -
Behind-screen colleague, to diagonally-opposite colleague: "..something something past a bike shop and there was a wheel in there. Fifteen hundred pound, just for the wheel."
I peered round my monitor at this point with eyebrows raised, waiting for someone to come out with the "whole car" line, but no-one did. They accepted that someone sufficiently dedicated to going up hills as quickly as possible might consider it reasonable. I quoted around £100 for something unshowy and heavy but durable enough for heavy use whilst still being essentially disposable, if rim-braked.Posted 8 years ago # -
On the train, one half of a phone conversation...
"Mum's not going to like it."
"I mean, all the people are cycling, and then there's the red light district. You hear about it, then you visit and it's a bit weird."
Pretty certain it was Amsterdam, but I'm still in two minds as to whether the weirdness and dislike would arise from the cycling or the red light district!
Robert
Posted 8 years ago # -
@Roibeard
Do the cyclists jump the red light district?
Posted 8 years ago # -
A colleague was reading the local news.
"So they're removing the bus lanes?"
Another colleague (not me) explained the reality to them.
Posted 8 years ago # -
I am now in a big shared office of various individuals and businesses, and the reality of the general concensus on all travel matters is an unpleasant and cold wake-up-call having left the serene bubble of my all-cyclist/walker previous office.
The most infuriating line is "I drive a car and I cycle" which has some implicit assumption that I don't drive; and the notion that the real menace on the road are cyclists, without a single pause for consideration for my question as to which road users pose a real life-threatening danger to others.
IWRATS might also understand why I'm struggling in general to bite my lip to this particular group....
Posted 8 years ago # -
@algo
Welcome to the wonderful world of open plan. The way I live and work has inured me to most aspects of it, but the car chat can be unbearable.
My favourites;
A nice, gentle man fuming that it took hours to drive from Loanhead to the Commie pool to drop off his athlete kids before heading out to a large office beyond the Gyle. No inkling that they could cycle or get the bus as both would inevitably lead to the children being either murdered or run flat.
A nice, gentle lady opining categorically that she could only drive a faux by four for her sixty mile a day commute as otherwise she was sitting at the height of others' headlights.
Are headphones an option? Can you get a podcast of background liberal academic chat? I might even sign up for that.
Posted 8 years ago # -
@IWRATS You might find something valuable at http://tabletopaudio.com/ - say, the sounds of the Orient Express? I'm not sure the creator does "liberal academic chat" yet but I'm sure for a donation...
Posted 8 years ago # -
@dougal
Presumably 'Cavern of Lost Souls' is open plan chat?
Posted 8 years ago # -
I think that's Waverley Station while waiting for the Rail Replacement Service.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Colleague in the Ventoux, which is decorated with bicycles.
"Cyclists should have insurance. I had an accident with the car and it melted away the car door."
"What do you mean melted away the car door."
"They ran into my car door when I opened it."
Posted 8 years ago # -
Aaaargh.
But "melted"?
Posted 8 years ago # -
But "melted"?
Yes, 500 lux front light.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Posted 8 years ago #
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Stayed at a friends' parents' house at the weekend. Found a working one of these in the garage.
You could barely see it was on.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"You could barely see it was on."
Unless you are being ironic (comparing with modern lights), must need fresh batteries.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Batteries fine. It was daylight though.
Posted 8 years ago # -
How many lumen are those old style lights?
Posted 8 years ago # -
How many lumen are those old style lights?
About one for the first three days, falling exponentially thereafter until only a barn owl living in a carrot shed can detect them in week five.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Photometry formulae are fantastically complex and interrelated, and I don't understand them all yet.
As I recall, the Night Rider front lamp gave a feeble but noticeable rectangular spot on the ground 3 or 4 metres in front, with perhaps a horizontal beam angle of 50º and a vertical beam angle of 10º, and the rest of the light was spread thinly and wider. We can assume a solid angle, therefore, of about 0.16 steradians. The lamp's power output was about 2W, and two D cells gave a run time of about 10 hours.
However, an incandescent light bulb has a luminous efficacy of between 7 and 14 lm/W, and a halogen reflector bulb between 10 and 20 lm/W or thereabouts. The MR11 halogen bulbs in my old 10W Vistalites were around 10 lm/W.
If we assume that ye olde Krypton bulbs in the Ever Ready lamps were similarly incandescent, and taking the low end, since luminous efficacy tends to improve with size, 14 lumens would be about right.
At 4 metres, the illuminance is only 5.6 lux (14 lumens divided by 2.5 square metres - since at 4 metres a solid angle of 0.16 projects an area of 2.5 square metres). Be generous and call it 6 lux, maybe 10 with good batteries.
Posted 8 years ago # -
Work colleague has just arrived late.
She had been sitting in traffic for 55 minutes after dropping her son off at nursery.
She lives at Craigleith.
Her son goes to Stewart Melville.
The office is at Morrison Street.
Posted 8 years ago # -
"The office is at Morrison Street"
With its own car park? Free?
Posted 8 years ago # -
Funny how my school run commute was only delayed because I stopped to take a photo of the sunrise...
Posted 8 years ago #
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