This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Riding home yesterday & a driver undertakes again, without looking, leaving me nowhere to go so had to slam into a skid. Caught the driver up at the lights this time & he acknowledges that it was awful driving (then why the hell did you do it?!) while trying to conceal the fact he'd been eating a sandwich while driving. Shocking, but really, not at all shocking.

Vauxhall Walk

I've been meaning to write something on this but didn't have time. You'll know this, obviously, but Vauxhall Walk (one-way southbound) is one of countless local streets that is part of a one-way system. Its other arm in this case is Tyers Street (one-way northbound). While I don't know for what reasons exactly this one was put in, usually it was to address rat-running, but in a rather ham-fisted way--the upshot being that rat-running continued in one direction (and was often worse for that).

Here, Glasshouse Walk would originally have continued to be two-way, but it would later have been made one-way westbound (with a cycle contraflow). This means that southbound rat-running from Black Prince Road to Albert Embankment continues, and that Vauxhall Walk is affected worse by this than Tyers Street, as it is one-way southbound and therefore part of the rat-run. Tyers Street isn't necessarily better, being unfiltered all the way from Kennington Lane to Black Prince Road, although that is probably a slightly less convenient rat-run. The car parking in Vauxhall Walk may have been there from the beginning when it became a one-way street (and its existence or introduction may have been one of the reasons why it became a one-way street), or it may have been introduced later in a vain attempt to 'calm' traffic there.

As ever, the reason why these rat-runs exist is because despite a lot of past work on the area that's evident from street photography, the local highway authority still hasn't trammelled up the courage to filter it. Were one to think of the area bounded by Albert Embankment, Black Prince Road, Vauxhall Street, and Kennington Lane as a small cell (although a larger one incorporating the area to the east of Vauxhall Street is conceivable), one would need a grand total of two filters to remove all rat-running from the cell, and all streets could be made two-way without any problems.

tl;dr The reason why you encounter such bad driver behaviour is because these people are rat-running. They are very keen to save time and not to get stuck in the narrower streets they're rat-running through. Naturally, as you're on a bike you're a spanner in those works. The situation isn't likely to improve unless there is actual filtering.

Burst water mains! Green Lanes and Great Portland Street. Very busy

Was there any significant press coverage of these? I can't seem to find anything other than a link to a video. Were they not as spectacular as, say, the Finsbury Park mains burst recently?

Green Lanes definitely wasn't. Just a big puddle round the drains at the junction with St Anne's Rd. It had gradually been getting worse for a week or so.

Fuck me, today is Sunday. Move along, nothing to see here.

Regent's Canal: what do people think, if you use it for a short bit rather than the roads? Cycling steady and keeping a careful watch on everyone else, and has a bike that makes enough noise by itself; or blasting along, dinging your bell at everyone and than blaring 'ring your bell when you pass someone' as you go by?

Green Lanes just closed bus lane, works still going at the moment. Great Portland was a bit more dramatic, regents park gates closed and police helping with traffic.

Dramatic sounding pinging from BB area on the way in this morning. Turned out to be my shoelace aglet pinging against an empty bottle cage...

aglet

How've I got past 44 years old without knowing those things had a name? Why don't we use it for the things on the end of bike cables?

ferrules isn't it?
or is the ferrule just the end cap bit at the end of cable outer that the cable passes through?

or is the ferrule just the end cap bit at the end of cable outer that the cable passes through?

This, I reckon.

Correct.

Ran into work today, there was a rider down on Grosvenor Rd next to the Shell petrol station. Looked to be in one piece, but seemed a bit dazed; his Brompton front wheel was well taco'd, there were some glass bits lying around as well which I don't know whether they were related - not sure what actually happened. Several people taking care of him, I stopped to listen in just long enough to make sure things were under control, one lady apparently was a nurse, so I concluded my coding skills were probably not going to add much and carried on. Hope he's fine though!

He might've had a memory leak!

Rep

Or depended on an injection.

Or he might have needed some codeine.

Thanks Oliver! Extremely interesting, as always.

Some textbook taxi shithousery last night. Extremely close pass on tight road with traffic oncoming. Pull up to his passenger window when i (obviosuly) catch up to him at some stood still traffic down the road for him to berate me for doing 15mph in a 20 zone!!! God Forbid! He topped it off with a 'well i didnt hit you did i' at which point i gave up and rode on...unreal

That shit boils my blood. It's a speed LIMIT not a speed requirement. Everyone is always in a rush to go nowhere fast.

Pulled up behind a black cab on the way home last night with traffic going nowhere; saw him chuck his half-finished fag out the window, just missing me as I go to overtake him. His window's still down, so I remark, "That's a £50 fine y'know?" He mumbles, "Umm, ah, sorry mate" just as the unmistakable whiff of the Devil's Lettuce reaches my nostrils. Smoking a powerful zoot at 5pm on a Tuesday whilst piloting Hackney's finest? Annoyed I didn't get his number alas but am guessing he'll probably fuck himself into a bollard (or worse) sooner rather than later.

Awesome

Took the lane to turn right a fraction too early for the big grey car driver behind me who delivered a punishment pass for my troubles. Ban cars.

Almost deliberately knocked off for the first time in a while this morning - driver decides to deliberately swerve inwards towards me at speed before over swerving back and nearly into oncoming traffic near Highbury corner. The crime - cycling in primary for a few yards due to parked cars. No footage but my first report to roadside -will they do anything?

Perhaps time for a camera!

Not worth reporting without video evidence or an independent witness, unfortunately.

I had a similar thing recently and was told they wouldn't do anything about it without an independent witness. I asked if that would also be the case if I'd accused someone of trying to assault me with a knife, rather than a car, and was told that was a different department so they couldn't comment...