J.Clarkson & the law

Quoted message said:

I just read a report in Cycle last night about some article J.Clarkson
wrote in the Sun, where he threatens to run down any cyclist running a
red light in front of him. CTC say that they couldn't make any
complaint about this as it didn't contravene some press ethics code or
other (now there's a laugh).

Try writing in a magazine an article advocating blowing up a policeman
and the full force of the new anti-terror laws will be brought down on
you.

What's the difference?

Roberto

sothach said:

I just read a report in Cycle last night about some article J.Clarkson
wrote in the Sun, where he threatens to run down any cyclist running a
red light in front of him. CTC say that they couldn't make any
complaint about this as it didn't contravene some press ethics code or
other (now there's a laugh).

The point is, it *is* a laugh...Clarkson's laughing at all the numpties
who take his 'threats' seriously. Loosen up before you make a fool of
yourself in front of people who have a sense of humour.

sothach came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

its easy to get stuck in a junction after a light has changed, as they are
set-up for
motorised traffic

Only if you're riding / driving like a numpty.

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!

Paul - censored said:

Only if you're riding / driving like a numpty.

Or the induction loops under the road are not set up to detect cycles.

iakobski came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

Paul - censored said:

Only if you're riding / driving like a numpty.

Or the induction loops under the road are not set up to detect cycles.

Why would that matter?

If the light is anything but green, then don't proceed over the stop line,
which gives anything time to cross correctly. Simple as.

I also say the same to drivers ...

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!

OK, your come up to a traffic light controlled junction, the light is
green and you want to turn right.
There are vehicles already in the junction (no yellow box) waiting to
turn right (exit is blocked somehow).
What do you do? Enter the junction or wait behind the white line?
As I understand the HC, you should move into the junction and wait to
turn, your priority over the other traffic established on account of
being in front of them.
But what often happens is the lights change when you're in the junction
and the traffic coming the other ways starts to move, and as likely as
not, starts a horn recital. This is a common enough occurance in
London and other busy cities.

Must be a pretty serious blockage if you can't just nip around it one way or
another on your bike, smirking quietly to yourself as the sound of horns
recedes behind you.

"sothach" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

OK, your come up to a traffic light controlled junction, the light is
green and you want to turn right.
There are vehicles already in the junction (no yellow box) waiting to
turn right (exit is blocked somehow).
What do you do? Enter the junction or wait behind the white line?
As I understand the HC, you should move into the junction and wait to
turn, your priority over the other traffic established on account of
being in front of them.
But what often happens is the lights change when you're in the junction
and the traffic coming the other ways starts to move, and as likely as
not, starts a horn recital. This is a common enough occurance in
London and other busy cities.

I submit that on or about 4 Oct 2005 03:01:55 -0700, the person known
to the court as "el_oscuro" <[email hidden]> made a
statement (<[email hidden]> in
Your Honour's bundle) to the following effect:

Quoted message said:

The point is, it *is* a laugh...Clarkson's laughing at all the numpties
who take his 'threats' seriously.

Just like Jim Davidson is laughing at all the "darkies" who take him
seriously.

Bigotry is not usually amusing to its victims.

Guy
--
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

"To every complex problem there is a solution which is
simple, neat and wrong" - HL Mencken

On 4 Oct 2005 03:01:55 -0700 someone who may be "el_oscuro"
<[email hidden]> wrote this:-

Quoted message said:

The point is, it *is* a laugh

Mr Clarkson may think it is funny, so may some of his audience.
However, not everyone thinks he is funny. That is partly because
some people seem to take these "funny" writings seriously and partly
because not everyone thinks that advocating violence is funny.

I have no idea whether Carl Baxter is/was an advid follower of Mr
Clarkson, but I suspect that he views the world in the way the
"funny" remarks of the likes of Mr Clarkson do.

http://therockzone.co.uk/motorcarnage/baxter.html

--
David Hansen, Edinburgh | PGP email preferred-key number F566DA0E
I will always explain revoked keys, unless the UK government
prevents me by using the RIP Act 2000.

POHB said:

Must be a pretty serious blockage if you can't just nip around it one way or
another on your bike, smirking quietly to yourself as the sound of horns
recedes behind you.

I certainly use an elongated junction which you can easily set off
through on green but has turned to green in the other direction before
you have cleared it, and that is without delays and me being a fairly
fast cyclist. Remember it can be less than five seconds from green one
way to green the other and that is 25yds at 10mph

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

el_oscuro said:

sothach wrote:

<snip>

Quoted message said:

The point is, it *is* a laugh...Clarkson's laughing at all the numpties
who take his 'threats' seriously. Loosen up before you make a fool of
yourself in front of people who have a sense of humour.

It is a laugh. Clarkson means it to be a laugh.
Most people who read it take it to be another example of deliberate
hyperbole for the amusement of the reader.
Clarkson is annoyed by cyclists who break red lights - fair enough, it
annoys me too, and threatens to run them over.
Clarkson is annoyed by the design of the indicators on the BMW 5 series
- threatens to string up the designer if they are not improved in the
next model.
All a bit of a laugh, the reader gets a smile, Clarkson makes a mint
out of his "larger than life" personality, and "strongly expressed"
opinions. No harm, eh?

Well, and I can feel my preachy whining voice coming on even as I type,
while the BMW designer will not be strung up, there is a small but
finite chance of us being run over deliberately by someone in a car.
While 99.99% of people will recognise the exageration for comic effect,
a couple of numpties may not, and may be inclined to take an "I'm mad
as hell, and not going to take it anymore" attitude to the next cyclist
they see.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Why would that matter?

There's a set of traffic lights I go through every night. There are a
set of induction loops to detect the cars, but they are not sensitive
enough to detect bikes.

What is supposed to happen is: light for northbound goes green,
vehicle(s) go through. Southbound vehicles are held at red. Induction
loop at Northbound stopline detects no more cars, light goes red.
Induction loops detect cars heading North - when no cars detected,
southbound light goes green.

If you drive a car through as slow as 10 or 15 mph the southbound light
does not change until it is clear of the junction.

When I cycle through, even at 30mph, if I'm the last in the queue the
southbound light will go green long before I clear the junction.

When that happens, there's often a Jeremy-Clarkson-Lover who wrongly
assumes I must have jumped a red and drives straight at me as some kind
of enforcement by intimidation.

in message <[email hidden]>, Paul - [censored]

(') said:

iakobski came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

Paul - censored said:

Only if you're riding / driving like a numpty.

Or the induction loops under the road are not set up to detect cycles.

Why would that matter?

If the light is anything but green, then don't proceed over the stop
line,
which gives anything time to cross correctly. Simple as.

I also say the same to drivers ...

Yes, but after you've sat for three hours at a sensor controlled traffic
light waiting for it to change, what do you do then? Although I haven't
ever sat that long at it, the traffic light at Craignair bridge,
Dalbeattie (which, incidentally, the Tour of Britain went over this
year)

* is sensor controlled
* defaults to red in all directions
* does not register cycles
* is often red continuously from shortly after midnight until about 5am
for the simple reason that there often is no motor traffic

So I say again, what do you do?

Oh, and the next bridge up river involves a detour of some ten miles.
There is no other crossing down river.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

The Conservative Party is now dead. The corpse may still be
twitching, but resurrection is not an option - unless Satan
chucks them out of Hell as too objectionable even for him.

"el_oscuro" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

sothach said:

I just read a report in Cycle last night about some article J.Clarkson
wrote in the Sun, where he threatens to run down any cyclist running a
red light in front of him. CTC say that they couldn't make any
complaint about this as it didn't contravene some press ethics code or
other (now there's a laugh).

The point is, it *is* a laugh...Clarkson's laughing at all the numpties
who take his 'threats' seriously. Loosen up before you make a fool of
yourself in front of people who have a sense of humour.

Unlike many on the group Clarksons opinions haven't bothered me, in fact
until recently I found many amusing. However, this changed recently when I
read his comment re. overtaking other vehicles on SC roads where he claimed
he got a buzz from pulling in at the last minute in the face of oncoming
traffic. The trouble is he may be expressing a truth, and after many years
of having this type of moron scare me, witnessing them scaring others and
latterly helping mop up after one of them left it too late I fail to see
anything funny and as others have implied some brain dead moron might think
Clarksons opinion is an endorsement of the practice.
Anyone who travels on roads like the A47 Leicester-Kings Lynn or the A5, eg,
will know what I mean.
--
Pete
http:[email hidden]/P

iakobski said:

There's a set of traffic lights I go through every night. There are a
set of induction loops to detect the cars, but they are not sensitive
enough to detect bikes.

They're faulty within the meaning of the Act. Report them.

Colin McKenzie

Simon Brooke came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

in message <[email hidden]>, Paul - [censored]

(') said:

iakobski came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

Paul - [censored] wrote:
>
> Only if you're riding / driving like a numpty.

Or the induction loops under the road are not set up to detect cycles.

Why would that matter?

If the light is anything but green, then don't proceed over the stop
line,
which gives anything time to cross correctly. Simple as.

I also say the same to drivers ...

Yes, but after you've sat for three hours at a sensor controlled traffic
light waiting for it to change, what do you do then? Although I haven't
ever sat that long at it, the traffic light at Craignair bridge,
Dalbeattie (which, incidentally, the Tour of Britain went over this
year)

* is sensor controlled
* defaults to red in all directions
* does not register cycles
* is often red continuously from shortly after midnight until about 5am
for the simple reason that there often is no motor traffic

So I say again, what do you do?

Oh, and the next bridge up river involves a detour of some ten miles.
There is no other crossing down river.

Complain and get them to make it work correctly.

An induction loop system _should by law_ work for all forms of traffic from
bicycle to Lorry. If it isn't working it's wrong.

--
Paul ...
(8(|) Homer Rules ..... Doh !!!

Paul - censored said:

Complain and get them to make it work correctly.

An induction loop system _should by law_ work for all forms of traffic
from bicycle to Lorry. If it isn't working it's wrong.

Is it possible to make an induction loop system sensitive enough to work
for modern mostly carbon bikes?

Jon

At uni we used to carry a metal baking tray to wave over the car park
barrier sensors.

Quoted message said:

So I say again, what do you do?

Oh, and the next bridge up river involves a detour of some ten miles.
There is no other crossing down river.

At 12:14:13 on 04/10/2005, Paul - [censored] delighted uk.rec.cycling by announcing:

Quoted message said:

iakobski came up with the following;:

Quoted message said:

Paul - censored said:

Only if you're riding / driving like a numpty.

Or the induction loops under the road are not set up to detect cycles.

Why would that matter?

If the light is anything but green, then don't proceed over the stop line,
which gives anything time to cross correctly.

Dontcha just love blanket statements? The above is not true for every set of
lights in the UK. I know this since it's not true for several sets of lights
within a mile of my house, even when your method of transport is a car.