This morning's commute and other commuting stories

I haven't tried the new slalom version of Wightman but the old layout just used to be a constant game of chicken as drivers decided whether, after overtaking you with not enough space before the traffic island, to:
a) slow down
b) crash into the island
c) go on the wrong side of the road
d) pull in on you

Wightman on the way back for sure!

Great fun. I can be kissing the bumper of the car in front and people will still want to try overtaking.

I used to come up wightman (from clissold park) to take the left on to hornsey high st where I ~live but it feels so aggro and so narrow for 2 way traffic.

Oliver’s knowledge of London road layouts never ceases to amaze.

Makes sense, it all has the same feeling as the low effort metres of cycle infrastructure in haringey - i mentioned one a few weeks ago in this thread.

Well done on being alive and stuff. Bad roundabout to get stuck cleats on, first sure. I always had trepidation entering it.

You did well to find somewhere to stop - a slightly lower speed lower octane version of Speed :D

Indeed - I had 8 years of commuting from The Avenue and back every day, don't miss that!

I used to come up wightman (from clissold park)

Do you mean Finsbury Park?

to take the left on to hornsey high st where I ~live but it feels so aggro and so narrow for 2 way traffic.

Yes, it is obviously not designed to be the effective by-pass for Green Lanes, the busy, multi-functional high street which should really be the only through motor traffic route in the area. (It wouldn't get more congested if it were, overall through motor traffic in the area would just go down a lot.)

Oliver’s knowledge of London road layouts never ceases to amaze.

*bows* It's really just area-wide traffic management, which anyone can understand by looking a map and a bit of StreetView or checking in person where the banned turns etc. are. My interest is mainly in what happens when you make rat-running impossible rather than just slightly more difficult, which used to be the default approach and which can be seen all over this area. It was nonsense even when people didn't all have satellite navigation devices and is obviously now completely absurd.

A very large proportion of the problems caused by through motor traffic are related to rat-running, e.g. side street junction crashes, the vast majority of which are caused by drivers making injudicious turning manoeuvres in their attempt to shave a few seconds off the time it takes them to drive through a residential area between main streets.

I just heard from someone I know tonight that she was knocked off in a hit-and-run last year by a rat-runner turning right across her into a not-quite-filtered street (a point-no-entry plus banned turn at the bottom, but no consistent filtering and a couple of well-worn rat-running routes through the area). Typical scenario, she suffered a broken collarbone and a frozen shoulder, which apparently won't heal completely, she did everything right, got the number plate, got legal representation, the registered driver refused to name the person who was driving, and that was apparently the end of that--she didn't know why it wasn't pursued further.

The more areas that rat-running can be cut out of, the better. Those few drivers who need to access and deliver and things like that aren't so much of a problem. It's people recklessly speeding through who cause most of the crashes.

I hate that feeling. Glad you managed to wriggle out of it.

If the new crouch end traffic proposals and all the housing developments up in wood green go through Wightman is likely to get worse rather than better.

I've been cycling my laptop to and from work for three years now (i work from home twice a week). In a carradice but without the laptop I would probably only need a small handlebar bag. So glad it's not my own laptop. Would be lovely to be able to leave it at work but working from home is a bliss.

I used to lug my laptop back and forth (2 days WFH, 2 days in the office) but then I got a desktop in the office and leave my laptop at home.

Luckily any meetings I have to host are all through Webex so I can do them from either (I don't need my laptop to go to a meeting room in the office). For meetings hosted in the office by others it's fun turning up with a pen and paper whilst everyone else is sat there tapping away on their laptop (drives me nuts).

It's national SMIDSY / overtake a bus on the wrong side of the road day. Stay safe out there folks.

I'm still trying to find the best way to approach those sort of situations, used to get angry, tried to ignore them for a while and now I'm experimenting with having a more level-headed discussion kinda vibe. I would've liked to have offered to buy him a pint or a coffee and to chat about it some more, he seemed like he was just having a bad day.

Awesome post. More of this from me, I've been getting into more argy bargy lately for some reason.

Ah that's a bit of a precarious situation. What was that movie where there was a bomb on a bus and it would go off if they go slower than 30mph or whatever? Kind of like that. "Sorry, can't stop, need to keep going!"

Speed.

https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15142079/

Aha! Now to find out whether it's the English 'great minds think alike' or the German 'zwei Dumme, ein Gedanke' (two idiots, one thought).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIrIvKKT_nk

Lol just came to post exactly that

Can't believe no-one's mentioned Father Dougal in the milk float yet. Philistines, all of you.

Well, to be fair, that movie wasn't really good enough to properly stick in my mind :D

I saw the Simpsons episode long before I ever saw the film. So I remember the film mostly because of the Simpsons reference rather than the film itself. See also: Citizen Kane.

that movie wasn't really good enough

the fuck it was!