In the news

No, the Harry who wore a Nazi costume once when he was 20, 15 years ago. You must be thinking of a different Harry.

Genuine question, do you think that him dressing a a Nazi 15 years ago is an indication of anything more serious than a lack of judgment?

Apparently that's not him.

Oh really? Sorry.

Who knows. Anyway, fuck all of these people into the sun.

That’s disappointing, perhaps she’s written of his pinarello dogma. You get 5 years for property damage.

What am I missing?

It's an Algiz rune. Very popular with white supremacist groups, going right back to the early Nazi days. The black and red colours of the badge and the military style hat make it very likely it's that way intended and not just something more spiritual.

If you see somebody with that tattooed anywhere visible, irony is not going to be their thing.

how dare those eastern europeans lads have go at our royal family, thats our job

coming over here stealing our jobs .........

The general principle is 'sail before steam'. As a bike rider, you're so fast compared to a pedestrian that the larger share of the responsibility falls on you. This is obviously complicated by inattentive pedestrians. However, it is difficult to avoid bias when assessing/assigning 'share of responsibility'. As we know from innumerable cases of driver vs. rider, the general tendency, because of minority issues, dominant 'culture', etc., the rider (=the pedestrian in this case) is often found to be more liable than by any reasonable assessment they should be. I have to say that in this case I would have found the rider more liable than the walker, even though she was being oblivious.

Ms Brushett, who works for a City finance company, “panicked” and tried to retreat to a traffic island but Mr Hazeldean swerved in the same direction and hit her.

What immediately strikes me here are the parallels with the Charlie Alliston case. Both somehow assumed that sounding warnings was the right thing to do, the pedestrian stepped back, and then the rider tried to go around the back of the pedestrian. Prioritising warnings over braking, stepping back (on the part of the pedestrian), and going round the back are all bad ideas and the wrong decisions. All understandable in the confusion of the moment, but the stepping back thing at least is often warned against in traffic education. Not assuming that sounding an air horn will give you priority is just common sense. However, the going round the back of the pedestrian is such a rare scenario that I don't think it's likely to get specifically mentioned in education or training. It was very lucky that unlike Kim Briggs Gemma Brushett didn't fall on the back of her head, or she might well have died in these very similar circumstances.

The main difference is that non-fatal outcome and the fact that Robert Hazeldean was presumably riding a standard geared bike.

I think I did that deliberately after the new forum platform was introduced because I didn't want to be tagged in anything. I can't remember why now-just being a cunt probably...

Well, all anyone has to do to tag you in is to c&p your username:

@übé®_grübé®

The only two I've found untaggable (although I'm sure there are others) are Joe and Mrak.

@Oliver Schick

YOU BITCH.

Soz. To boldly go ... :)

The milkshaker lost his job over it though...

I've started a thread here:

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/335314/

True. And that probably would have been factored in during sentencing?

@landslide & other Sheffield fellows, I hope your local magazine editor gets a splinter that he thinks he has removed but actually he missed a bit and it goes all sore & throbby and he has to go to the minor ailment clinic to get it removed properly but he still develops a fever from the infection and feels like shit for a good while.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/jun/18/sheffield-magazine-under-fire-after-call-to-razor-wire-cyclists?utm_term=Autofeed&CMP=twt_gu&utm_medium=&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1560868367

I find it bazaar that a cyclist shouting a warning is almost seen as an aggravating factor for a cyclist but if a motorist sounds their horn it would been seen as prudent. I don’t think there is any evidence that this cyclist was prioritising shouting over braking, you can do both. I also think its not a straight forward for a cyclist to just perform a emergency stop in heavy traffic given there own vulnerability they could very easily end up under bus.

He got the sack too so the real cost will be a bit more than £350.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-china-48667221/inside-china-s-thought-transformation-camps

It's not so much that as the assumption that he should not have to stop. That was the main mistake Charlie Alliston made.

I took it as the rider shouted as there was simply not enough time to stop, not that he had no intention of stopping. Didn't Alliston do this too, in a last second attempt to alert the ped in the hope of avoiding an accident?

I thought it was Allison's lack of brakes (and lack of remorse or any acceptance of blame) that did for him, not that he had no intention of braking and expected everyone to just get out of his way. All the braking distance stuff and comparisons with MTB's etc in that case was utter bollocks and should have been challenged and ripped apart much more than it was.

It doesn't matter if you are brakeless or run full disc brakes, if someone steps off the kerb directly into your front wheel without looking, you're going to crash unless maybe you are going at less than walking pace, and there's no point in having a bike if you have to go everywhere at walking pace or less. Would drivers accept having to go everywhere at walking pace just in case any peds step into the road?

Reaction times are key. The point that seems to have been missed in both these cases, is the courts seem unable to accept a situation where a pedestrian suddenly steps off the kerb without looking and gets injured or killed, and its not the cyclists fault. It seems that whenever a cyclist is in an accident there is always an assumption they were going too fast as they did not stop in time, yet drivers of much more deadly vehicles are not subject to the same criteria. I would totally accept the verdict in this case if it meant presumed liability was applied to drivers in the same way, but it doesn't and it won't, so it just smacks of double standards.

I don't think its going to do much to encourage Londoners and other city or town dwellers to take up cycling either, there's enough perceived danger already, without adding in being financially fucked over into the mix.

Its almost as if the logical conclusion is if you're a cyclist involved in an accident to fuck off away from the scene ASAP giving no details, or better still sack off cycling completely and buy a big fuck off 4x4, cos at least you're less likely to get hurt. What a shit state of affairs that is.

Well, I think it's probably not a good idea to reopen the debate about the Alliston case. I don't quite understand it. However, it is clear that he expected her to get out of the way. I also don't think he couldn't have stopped if he hadn't wanted to--IF he could skid. Obviously, if he couldn't skid, he had a problem. Giving him the benefit of the doubt on that, however, I've long found it more probable that the problem wasn't that he couldn't have stopped, but that he could have stopped. Let's also not forget that the circumstances really were extremely unfortunate, with the key mistakes I listed above all being committed within a short space of time.

I'm not defending Alliston, but I can envisage a situation where a pedestrian steps out causing an accident and it is not the fault of the cyclist, I just wondered if the courts have ever ruled as such, as it just seems the cyclists are always guilty.

Do you think all cyclists should always be able to stop in any circumstances without causing an accident, and if they cannot it is their fault?

If you have time to shout, hit an air horn and steer a different course, you have time to hit your brakes. Any decrease in speed is likely to mean a much reduced amount of damage on impact.

I don’t really get the puzzlement around this. You wouldnt think it’s ok for a car driver to honk the horn and drive around a pedestrian who has stepped out without stopping so why think its ok for a cyclist? First thing any road user should do when seeing a hazard is apply the brakes. If you don’t drop your speed, whichever vehicle you are operating, then you are consciously deciding to risk a worse injury to the pedestrian you might be about to hit. First course of action is always reduce speed, everything else is secondary.