This morning's commute and other commuting stories

it is kind of liberating, not being pissed off anymore

Unfortunately, I've come too close to being liberated from my earthly existence before, so I'm having a very hard time with not getting pissed off.

Note to self: don’t upset the natives

Had my first experience like this on camden road a few weeks ago. Shite wobbly driving and a close pass through a traffic island. Caught up with him, he's got two hands on his phone in his lap, not even looking forward as he crawls with the traffic. Shouted through the window for him to get off his phone and he tried ramming me into the bus stop, not letting me through on the left until I gave up and got on the pavement. Scary adrenaline not good.

A slap on the roof is the entertaining solution there. You get the panicked look as they try and work out what they've hit whilst they weren't looking.

As the bin man suggests, if they block the road they still have to drag the bins across the cycleway, therefore still creating a hazard for cyclists.

Also, in blocking the road zero cars will be able to safely navigate the bin truck. A car pulling into the cycle lane would be both illegal and dangerous. I bet some would still try it, and therefore create a more significant hazard to cyclists. However, by blocking the cycle lane, a cyclist should be able to safely navigate past the truck either by waiting for a gap in the traffic or pushing their bike down the pavement. Neither of these are difficult.

As a result, if you compare the two options for the bin men, i think you can reasonably argue they've chosen the best one and the safest for them. Clearly its not ideal, but this is a big, busy, crowded city, and sometimes you've just got to deal with mild inconvenience in a calm and safe manner.

I find in most scenarios it best not to react. 9/10 when I've cought up with a close passer or phone using driver and suggested they take a bit more care they get defensive/aggressive. And I've never ever noticed anyone's driving improve after I've called them a dickhead.

As for bin-rage guy, I can understand his annoyance but none of his behaviour is going to achieve what he wants. The bin men will think he's a dickhead, most pedestrians, drivers and twitter users are going to think the same and tomorrow the bin wagon will be on the same route making the same stops. He'd be better contacting whoever is subcontracted to collect the rubbish and trying to get them to change/enforce their guidance to drivers. Or just chilling out and waiting a minute until it's safe to go round. Inconveniences are going happen and sometimes we're someone else's inconvenience.

What Scrabble said. The driver of the waste lorry is absolutely the last person anyone should blame. Obviously, it's usually the people on the frontline/on the street who get it in the neck. The whole situation is one of the many undesirable symptoms of Camden's failure (over getting on for decades) to filter this whole area.

Where they/TfL have filtered, as in the lamentable fairly recent scheme at the junction of the A501 Euston Road, Midland Road, and Judd Street, they've filtered at the main street junction with a side street instead of inside the traffic cell to be filtered, which is one of the worst things you can do. Obviously, the intention is to increase motor traffic capacity for the major flows along the A501 and out of Midland Road, which in turn is a one-way street for the same reason. In the area south of there, there is still a major rat-running alignment open, i.e. from Gower Street to Gray's Inn Road, and that's why you still get high flows west-east.

The whole area is a perfect demonstration of how not to approach modal filtering, with many partial legacy schemes, e.g. around Regent Square, filtering previously dominant rat-runs, thereby pushing the flows on to other alignments which then likewise get partially filtered. Even were that main remaining alignment filtered, it would make driving around the area very indirect, maintaining an atmosphere of quasi-through motor traffic, i.e. people driving fast in the area because they have so far to go to get to where they want to go. The inflexible design where this incident occurred is just a very minor symptom of this systematic failure.

This bin lorry inconvenience is a consequence of Tavistock Place being made one-way for vehicles. Having used it before and after, it seems a reasonable compromise.

It's also no more stupid or dangerous than the taxi drop-off outside the Tavistock Hotel, and that's completely legal.

Hard to make out but on the full facebook video it looks like there is another bin lorry doing the same further up the road.

1 Attachment

Obviously it's an infrastructure problem. That doesn't make the issue in itself any better though.

What happens next will blow your mind etc
https://twitter.com/theJeremyVine/status/1228430718881140737

How do your bins get collected every day? Looks residential

Obviously it's an infrastructure problem. That doesn't make the issue in itself any better though.

Do you mean by 'the issue in itself' what the binmen do? As I tried to argue further up, I don't think that's 'the issue in itself' at all, but merely a minor symptom of bad traffic planning in the wider area, which is really the issue in itself. As has been pointed out by many (both here and on T******), they don't really have a choice. If they stayed in the main carriageway lane, they'd have to stop every few metres and there would be a huge queue behind them very soon. This is because the design is very inflexible and fails to accommodate what they need to do.

That's exactly my point - it's an infrastructure problem. That doesn't change the fact that as a cyclist, you encounter the issue of a large oncoming vehicle blocking your lane, which is completely unacceptable, full stop.

Honestly, this sounds like mountains out of molehills. It's a stationary vehicle and not there all day.
Yeah, London roads are shit for cycling, but this hardly seems like it warrants all the rage.

It's not just a stationary vehicle, obviously they drive along there to collect the bins. Not that it matters, it shouldn't be there and that's that.

"It's not there all day" is not a good excuse either, the same goes for all the parking in cycle lanes all over the place.

Lorry driver should stay in the general traffic lane.

“As the bin man suggests, if they block the road they still have to drag the bins across the cycleway, therefore still creating a hazard for cyclists.”

Much less of a hazard and easier to navigate than a lorry. If people try to use the cycle track to overtake the lorry they are also wrong. They could add wands to prevent this, for example. Hopefully when the area is upgraded this problem will be reduced.

But yeah long term what Oliver said is really the approach Camden needs to be taking. Tavistock should never be a through route, it should be part of a LTN with the zonal boundaries being Euston Rd, Gray’s Inn Rd, Wolburn Pl, and perhaps Theobalds or Guildford Rd.

If they drag the lorry bins over the cycleway, they should still give way to the cyclist, at least here in Belgium. Not that they do it, but hey. The vehicle should stay in the road and the other cars should stay behind it. An inconvenience, yes but safer than blocking a cycleway.

It's quite common in this country for dustbin lorries to hold up traffic. There are plenty of double-parked single track urban terraced roads.

Should bin lorries not service these areas? It's clearly not ok to block any part of the highway you're not allowed to use, or is the footway also fair game?

I hope this embeds!

A bit of fun from my morning commute (no bin lorries, sorry).

https://gfycat.com/dishonestcorruptamoeba

City Maintenance has been providing commercial customers in London and within the M25 region with an unrivalled service for 20 years. The company offers a level of service and professionalism not usually associated with the maintenance sector...

All of our operatives are CITB, CSCS and Human Focus (RoSPA accredited) trained in Health and Safety Awareness...

Send them a strongly-worded e-mail.

I should do, shouldn't I?

Silly question, but are there templates for things like this?

Radar gun action on outer circle, thank ya very much. They didn't stop the BMW that close passed me though.

An inline skater on CS8 today... not a huge issue in itself, though they tend to take up a lot of space due to the movement required. But he was also looking at his phone for extended periods of time.

I tried chasing an electric longboard. Didn't work.

It was national running out into the road day on cs7 today, extra points if you’re clutching a coffee as you dart in front of cyclists.