No Bike Parking Charges Demo 24/10

[kabbes]

If society ever got the point where you became mayor, I think I'd join them in the Dome of my own free will.

 

[teuchter]

No, actually it's the blatant disregard for the safety of other road users, and the highway code, from the majority of London cyclists, that's most of the problem.

I'd round up every cyclist, put them in every taxi I could find, drive them all to the Dome, and set fire to the lot if I was Mayor.

Did something bad happen involving you and a cyclist, somewhere in your past? Maybe you need to talk about it?

 

[kabbes]

No, he's just showing his capacity for Christian love.

 

[ajdown]

Did something bad happen involving you and a cyclist, somewhere in your past? Maybe you need to talk about it?

Why is counselling always 'the solution' to a non-existant problem? Am I not just allowed to dislike two wheeled twats?

 

[Crispy]

Of course you are And we're allowed to ridicule you for it

 

[snowy_again]

But you lump them all into one big marinated tofu melange and don't seem to be able to distinguish good from bad...

 

[teuchter]

Why is counselling always 'the solution' to a non-existant problem? Am I not just allowed to dislike two wheeled twats?

The first stage to healing is accepting that the problem exists.

It's a difficult stage to go through, though, but everyone is here for you.

 

[snowy_again]

We're all ears (with the exception of the cyclists plugged into ipods or phones that is).

 

[ajdown]

The first stage to healing is accepting that the problem exists.

It's a difficult stage to go through, though, but everyone is here for you.

I know, except that there are no 'bad incidents with bicycles' that I can think of; I rode one as a child, as most do, and when I was old enough to get driving lessons I did, and when I passed my test, I got a car, and didn't need my bike any more.

Ergo, nothing to fix.

 

[teuchter]

I know, except that there are no 'bad incidents with bicycles' that I can think of; I rode one as a child, as most do, and when I was old enough to get driving lessons I did, and when I passed my test, I got a car, and didn't need my bike any more.

Ergo, nothing to fix.

Perhaps you need to try some of that regressive hypnotherapy stuff.

 

[ajdown]

No thanks.

 

[teuchter]

Maybe some aromatherapy then.

 

[ajdown]

Aromatherapy... ok I'll cook some bacon this evening, that's the best smell I can think of.

 

[teuchter]

OK good plan. Let us know if you're feeling better afterwards.

 

[zygote]

Well the weather ain't great but so what! (it's October innit!)

Here's some links:
http://www.notobikeparkingfees.com/events/
http://forum.notobikeparkingfees.com/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/notobikeparkingfees

 

[fredfelt]

Well the weather ain't great but so what! (it's October innit!)

Here's some links:
http://www.notobikeparkingfees.com/events/
http://forum.notobikeparkingfees.com/
http://www.flickr.com/groups/notobikeparkingfees

Sorry for contributing towards taking the thread off topic.

Anyway I'll be interested to hear how the demo goes, please report back.

 

[berniedicters]

What damage do you think that bicycles do to the road, that requires its costly maintenance?

Actually, damage to the road is proportional roughly to the exponential weight. Which means that a bicycle weighing 10kg does billions and billions times less damage to the road as a car weighing one tonne. That would seem to be a fair road tax ratio to use.

"fourth power of the axle loading", I'd heard.

So a vehicle whose axle loading was twice another's would do 16 times as much damage. It's not quite as simple as that (is it ever?), but here's the guff...

http://www.pavementinteractive.org/index.php?title=ESAL

As for ajdown's ludicrous and trolltastic points about taxing bikes: they've already been addressed several squillion times on here, and well he knows it. Funny how often he seems to choose to make controversial posts on topics pretty much guaranteed to get an outraged response here. One might almost think....nah, it couldn't be.

 

[kabbes]

That's the worst possible example you could have chosen to clarify what you meant, agnes, since 2^4 is the same as 4^2!

 

[berniedicters]

No, actually it's the blatant disregard for the safety of other road users, and the highway code, from the majority of London cyclists, that's most of the problem.

I'd round up every cyclist, put them in every taxi I could find, drive them all to the Dome, and set fire to the lot if I was Mayor.

That's probably why you're not Mayor, then.

Well, that or the fact that you sound like you're just another blowhard Internet Warrior who's long on invective and rather short on actually doing something about it...or even getting your facts straight.

But that's OK, there's room on the Internet for quite a few of those...

 

[berniedicters]

That's the worst possible example you could have chosen to clarify what you meant, agnes, since 2^4 is the same as 4^2!

Yeah, but I couldn't be arsed to work out the fourth power of (say) 1.5.

 

[berniedicters]

I know, except that there are no 'bad incidents with bicycles' that I can think of; I rode one as a child, as most do, and when I was old enough to get driving lessons I did, and when I passed my test, I got a car, and didn't need my bike any more.

Ergo, nothing to fix.

Ah, denial.

Crops up a lot in counselling, you know...

*runs away*

 

[Crispy]

It's about 5 I think?

 

[kabbes]

So you do mean the fourth power, then, rather than an exponent of four? Because I've heard about three different versions of the rule but the one thing they have in common is that they are all exponent rather than power-based.

 

[teuchter]

So you do mean the fourth power, then, rather than an exponent of four? Because I've heard about three different versions of the rule but the one thing they have in common is that they are all exponent rather than power-based.

For the purposes of this argument, I think we can settle on the mathematical term "loads more".

 

[berniedicters]

It's about 5 I think?

I got as far as 2.25^2 and gave up

 

[berniedicters]

So you do mean the fourth power, then, rather than an exponent of four? Because I've heard about three different versions of the rule but the one thing they have in common is that they are all exponent rather than power-based.

The simplest bit of the rule is that you take the ratio of axle loadings: suppose we have two vehicles, one with an axle loading of 1 tonne, and another with an axle loading of 1.5 tonnes.

To determine the amount of damage each will do relative to each other, you take n^4 where n is the ratio of loadings: that will give you the damage one does as a proportion of the other. So, in my example above, we could determine that n^4 where n is 1.5 comes to..."about 5"

*grin*

 

[kabbes]

Either way, a car is doing at least 100,000,000 times more damage than a bike to the road.

(And a lorry is doing at least 10,000 times as much damage as a car. Which is why the haulage industry should be the ones really paying for the cost of the roads.)

 

[bouncer_the_dog]

It is a key function of British society, especially Councils, to track down any thing that can be considered 'free' and slap a charge on it. I am surprised they have been allowed to do this for so long...

 

[T & P]

Actually motorbikes do charge congestion.

So do bicycles, and they should be taxed as a nuisance to other road users.

Piss-poor troll is piss-poor.

 

[zygote]

Ooh, good luck with this- let us know how you get on.

I'll be interested to hear how the demo goes, please report back.

Okay!
I'd say at a rough guess-timate about 100 turned up.
Due to small numbers it was decided to stay in one group and just do Marble Arch.
Quite a few others joined in for 10mins or so and left.
As you can see from the clips below bikers have great difficulty sticking together, they are opportunists and if they see a gap they go for it. Heh!
But hey!, it was noisy and fun.
A fair amount of press coverage too.
(I understand the London Paper used stills from it on the front page today, about a bus lane story though. doh!)

http://uk.youtube.com/user/METHESAGE