This morning's commute and other commuting stories

That was the hardest commute I can remember in a long time. Constant shitty headwind, plus uphill. Still beats the tube/bus.

School holidays, so all the cretins who drive their kids 1.2 miles to school are off the roads.

I'd say the majority aren't driving their kids to school. The majority just happen to be parents who, for some bizarre reason, drive their 4x4s to work in London; dropping the kids off on the way is incidental for the minority.

It's just when the kids are off school they all swan off (en masse) to Meribel / Sharm El Sheikh / Rock / etc, so they don't need to be commuting any more.

If we're going full stereotype then most of the children will be driven to school by the nanny in the family runaround (a Mini Cooper Countryman).

Who's seen the forecast for tomorrow? 44mph westerly winds, which is crosswind city for me coming in from the north - any west londoners should be looking to smash Strava records in the morning.

Sweet - looking forward to jet propulsion on way to work tomorrow.

Oh fuck that shit. I'm taking the geared.

I know 'the school run' often comes in for a lot of attention, but it's really not the most deserving target of disapproval. It's just another case where the chosen target of attack are people who seem easier to attack than those, a larger number of people, who don't drop their children off at school and still drive in, usually one person to a car (on average, it's mostly about 1.2 or so).

While the latter don't turn up at the school gates or pick fights with dancing james, and so their behaviour isn't as evident, they are actually a more important focus. As Greenbank says, 'school run' parents often drop off their children at school on the way to work. That's the underlying cause; the 'school run' is a mere symptom. Tackling the wider cause will also include the 'school run' without letting the others off the hook.

There are plenty of sensible reasons to drive--carrying heavy loads, carrying people with mobility difficulties, travelling very long distances where there aren't train connections, and so forth--and, surprisingly enough, carrying your children can be one of them. The issue is one of risk perception and management.

A lot of people genuinely, if perhaps mistakenly, believe that their children will be safer if they carry them in a car. Now, we know all about inactive children and child obesity, and there are numerous other reasons to disagree with these beliefs, but attacking a group which most definitely includes people who drive their children because they want to keep them safer, even if some among the group are likely to do it mainly for convenience and not so much out of consideration for their children, isn't such a good idea. After all, if you thought that your children might be at greater risk if you walked with them to school (and most primary schoolchildren in Inner London live within easy walking distance of their schools), or if you allowed your teenager to cycle to their secondary school, which is often more than walking distance away, you would act in the same way.

The reason why the 'school run' gets so much attention is because of the resulting pressure on the very limited space outside schools. I've seen it made a topic for more than a decade now, and I've seen it obscure several other, related issues like the above that are much more important.

With positive measures and better education, I've also seen driving rates to school fall:

http://www.hackney.gov.uk/stp.htm

http://www.hackney.gov.uk/Assets/Documents/School-travel-news-January-2013.pdf

These are successful programmes, but let's not forget the large amount of work on other causes of driving that cause considerably more problems than the 'school run'.

Fucking immigrants: coming on here and winning our arguments.

#rep for Oliver

That was the windiest I have ever experienced I think. My cap nearly came off!

44mph winds, less busy roads, I might just drive the 3.9 miles to work.

That wind. Oof

Yep hardly any other cyclists. Very nearly dismounted and jumped on the train after nearly ending up under an 18 wheeler

A tad breezy out there this morning, but lack of nodders made the ride a very creditable....

7/10

so windy i even managed to keep up with dammit for about 4 minutes.

i say 'keep up' i mean neil was forced to slow down to a crawl on account of the fucking headwind. wsw my arse.

^ wow. you must be so OG it hurts.

A few sketchy moments when crosswinds appeared out of nowhere, but riding into the headwind from Forest Hill this morning was mostly OK. I was able to blame my lack of speed on the wind rather than facing up to the fact I am middle-aged and overweight and unfit.

That fucken wind.

To anyone that has deep sections, my thoughts are with you at this difficult time.

Y I got 60 front and 40 rear and I found it difficult enough. Wonder how 88 front and rear would have coped!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1v60FITAfY

looked 3 layers cold when I left

cycling through treacle=getting hot

"I'll just unzip my raincoat"

My house feels like its moving with the wind. Good sign

if the cyclist is moving straight on in the bus lane and the car is only indicating to turn left across the lane then the cyclist has the priority.

I know this is correct, and I'm not having a go at DJ at all (just using his post as a handy summary of the correct position), but when I'm driving, I often see cyclists going down the bus lane, come towards the back of a stationary bus, stick their arm out and sail out of the bus lane and into regular traffic with the absolute conviction that the arm gave them priority to do so.

On a slightly different note, at Vauxhall roundabout, there are two lanes of traffic, and often a stationary queue of traffic in the right hand lane. Cars try to move from left to right and get stuck not quite in the right hand lane.

This means there is a slow moving queue of cars in the left hand lane moving across to the left to get around the stuck car. Yet so many cyclists seem so delirious in their happiness at going faster than prevailing traffic that they don't think about the risk of undertaking this queue. Again, they seem utterly convinced of their own priority.

Sometimes I regret using more than one form of transport. It makes it hard to get properly zealous.

It was only about as bad as last night. Crosswind < headwind.

#itsallrelative

What's all the fuss about? A bit blowy but nothing a dose of HTFU wouldn't sort.

Northern line. Ugh.

Tailwind.
For almost the whole way in.
1:15 commute becomes 1:00 commute.
Nobody tried to kill me, or themselves.
Finishing in blazing sunshine.
9/10, but only because of all the crud being blown in to my eyes.

Serious wind all the way a mix of head wind to sneaky cross wind. A delight.

Accidentally cut up very understanding lady on a nice Peugeot single speed, was going round a hybrid and got a wind punch across the lane right into her path. She had top skills to dodge the oncoming idiot (me). If you are on here I apologise for bad bike skills.