This morning's commute and other commuting stories

To be fair I've had 30 years of road rage and dumb shit and never bothered - I'd have loved cheap cameras for the shit tonne of Aussie hit and runs I've had.

I guess my frustration in finally outweighed the dorkiness+camera cost. Or I just got old enough to think instead of trying to chase people down (which in Oz was almost impossible) and fight them I'd record, submit from the comfort of my home and see them fined/prosecuted.

Before I had cameras I used to very obviously vocalise dangerous driver's numberplates to them to make sure they knew I was taking note of their details. That often helped. So many emails to myself of dangerous driver number plates. Cameras make my brain have to work less in this regard. Wish the Apeman battery lasted longer though.

Not too bad though, I hope? You're on the forum after all. What happened?

One time I left the hospital after having MRI for previous issue and then ped ran in front of me on the way home and sent me back to the same hospital within the hour to have my eye patched up. So much for my planned day off... aim at the soft ped instead of trying to avoid and hitting the hard ground.

Not too bad cheers. Left shoulder damage after leaving a nice dent in their car. Filtering on the outside of traffic and car pulled out right on me.

Separated the ac joint in that shoulder after previously being hit by another car so hopefully it hasn’t made that worse.

Always seem to get hit on the left for some reason

Always seem to get hit on the left for some reason

Maybe because you're paying more attention to the right? Or perhaps because you're so habitually left hooked you're used to seeing the signs for that but less inclined to see them on the right? Interesting to find out anyway. I bet there's a research paper in it :)

Did driver stop and render any assistance? Get details? Etc?

Shoulder injury not so hot. Mate of mine has done his heaps of times and has had multiple surgeries to get it to stay in place. Hope it heals well.

Cyclic front and back for me.

I got their older rear light/camera cheap. Already have £££s of front lights so just use a £30 Apeman off Amazon.

Cyclic front and back for me.

Same. They're a bit hefty, but it's nice to only have to worry about 2 things instead of 4 (2x cams & 2x lights) and I only tend to charge them after about 5-days worth of use. (5hrs commuting). The Cycliq app is truly shite tho.

I use a "Mobius ActionCam" at the front, it's a small little camera. I actually used it previously on a drone and as a dashcam too. 6 years. Replacing the battery every three or so. Records about 2 hours + change.

I used to have it under the saddle for a few years, but as a front cam it gives more YouTubeable results. That reminds me some cunt tailgated me today in Parliament Square, no footage (because the cam is at the front) and readable plate on the recording.

Also had a close call with a flatbed truck near the light at King's Road just before the Lots Road entrance, squeezing me to the left. Then he went ahead and blocked a yellow box. Will report, although the number plate's murky because of the water on the lens. (I have better shots, I'll just need to examine frame by frame)

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For the the kings road junction, while I don't know the specifics of your incident, never try and go through that junction adjacent to another moving vehicle. The lanes are not wide enough, as can be seen in the photo. If you're not in primary, you're gambling. Terrible junction, terrible road markings / 'cycle lane'.

Driver stopped and got details. Cyclist behind me had a helmet cam who stopped and offered up the footage if it had the accident.

Minor (last 3cm) broken collar bone in the end. Despite me only being there a grand total of two days so far new job are being lovely

new job are being lovely

Wish I could find the photo from Oz work where there's three of us posing in slings with broken collarbones/shoulders all from the same weekend. Was MTBing with the boss and he did his collarbone on Fri, I went MTBing on the weekend and smashed mine into bits, other mate broke his shoulder playing indoor soccer. Pisser! The company only had like 5 employees at the time! LOL :D

I just did a frame by frame to get the plate of the woman in a Merc that drove straight across my path the other morning, requiring a (albeit fairly low speed) safety turn. I wish I wasn't automatically programmed to avoid crashing - I was on the Inbred so should've just piled straight into the side of her car and then laughed in her fucking face after getting her to pay for my new forks.

Haha just listening to the audio... "use ya fuckin' eyes ya cunt!"

You can take the boy out of Oz...

LOLz

If you're looking frame by frame trying to read a plate, one thing you can do is stack a series of frames up to get a better signal-to-noise ratio. Basically, deform/align up the characters of the plates and adjust the transparency of each image in the stack so you can see them all. Weight the least-blurry images higher than blurry ones if you want to get fancy.

This tutorial is for astronomy but the principle is the same:

https://astrobackyard.com/tutorials/stack-exposures/

Probably also possible to do some deconvolution unblurring stuff

And drizzle might be good if you've got a series of images that are individually too low resolution. Real life CSI ENHANCE! algorithm:

I guess none of this is worth doing for a close pass but a genuine accident or insurance claim perhaps

Heal up soon Ste_S..

Did my first commute home from Westminster to East Ham (60 mins easy pedalling) last night, despite losing daylight, the greenway was a pleasant way to decompress after a full day of meetings, lobbing/catching grenades (yep my days in Parliament are quite event filled) with deadlines.. I am hoping that in the winter months the greenway does not become a desolate route without joggers, bike commuters and dog walkers around 7-8pm

Uneventful commute into work today, only one busdriver tried to block me in as I overtook him before and he couldn't handle it? Like mate, there's three lanes of blocked traffic, you aren't going to stop me from filtering.

With all the talk above, this reminds me I should buy a camera because obviously shit is incoming.

This happened to me every single day on London Bridge with either a bus or a black taxi.

Changed bridges and its made my commute 95% less stressful

I'll check the map for some alternatives but for now it was only the one asshole, most have been fine as long are you stay out of their blind spots. This one must have been having a bad morning but why take it out on cyclists :')

Definitely need to change to Southwark bridge after last week's rainy nightmare

You clever cookie!

Fuck knows how I actually do that in the software I have but something to remember if I REALLY want a plate.

I reported that truck yesterday, but seems like the road markings are a joke. Still no excuse. I think that was the only time I arrived at the junction with the light green and queue of cars. I almost always catch the red light and filter through, so never noticed the danger.

Good commute, perfetto weather for the perfetto jersey. Not sweaty even a little bit.

Photoshop/free alternative is good enough for shift-and-add stacking. Bit tedious though.

I'm far from an expert on this, I know there's a few astrophotography people on here who might be able to offer more insight if there's a serious incident

Oh yeah, I was thinking about video editing software but it's stills stacking isn't it? So yeah, I probably have an old version of Photoshop kicking about and if not I know enough people who use it regularly for work so no problems.

My biggest gripe is having to charge the batteries on cameras (I did contact Cyclic suggesting a dynamo version) and having to copy/edit the footage.