Designed for Speed

I am interested in the prevalence of speeding amongst motorists, particularly in the light of statistics and common sense relating to potential harm and the dangers inherent in this activity. Many people, including myself, have previously highlighted the role played by the design of the highway environment itself. I am a firm believer that arbitrarily low speed limits applied to urban motorway-style highways rely almost exclusively on motorists internal "moral compass" for compliance. Obeying the law is one thing, but doing it in the face of constant temptation is quite another. Others have discussed a cultural desire for speed and the power of marketing to create and then reinforce this.

I seem to be test driving a considerable variety of cars at the moment. Not because I have a cool Top Gear type of job (that is cool, right?) but rather because I have a building on site at present and I need to lug a large amount of drawings and PPE around with me when I visit. It is also a 500 mile round trip. I get a different hire car each time, and so I am able to compare and contrast in some detail.

This ad-hoc experiment of dubious scientific quality has clearly demonstrated another conclusion we need to add to the motorist's woes when it comes to controlling the need for speed. The design of the car cockpit itself is quite terribly poor when it comes to communicating to the driver basic information about how fast they are going.

Our everyday family car is a Honda Civic. Actually, "everyday" is a misnomer, as it mostly spends its days quietly depreciating outside the house, stationary. But no matter - the key point here is that it has a "heads-up" type digital speedometer that sits in a binnacle (see, I've got the terminology sorted too) above the steering wheel. This is not why we got this car, but is turns out to be a brilliant feature - knowing how fast you are actually going. This is important, as modern cars seems to go nicely just above 35mph in 4th gear. You can hardly hear the engine at 40mph. The road you are on in the centre of town is barely discernible from the 70mph M25, but has a 30mph limit. In other words, the sensory information and feedback from the car and the environment is providing a false reading which makes the speedo a useful point of reference, bearing in mind the damage a speeding car can do.

Interesting therefore that the vast majority of hire cars I drive have the standard rotating needle-type speedo. Unchanged probably since Herr Benz thought it would be amusing to see how fast he could go, and stuck an adapted pressure gauge next to the steering wheel. They truly are appalling. They are inaccurate, illegible and mostly stuck BEHIND the steering wheel - which themselves have become bloated with paraphernalia, making it even harder to see through them to the vital information beyond. Looking frequently down behind the steering wheel isn't much of a safety feature either. A final ignominy is that the speedo is often the same size as the rev counter, despite most normal people having no use for this information whatsoever.

It is almost as if car designers would prefer not to remind their eager customers that they are actually just crawling along in a massive traffic jam at a snails pace, rather than bowling along in the manner beloved by car advertisements worldwide.

I am intrigued why this issue has not been more consistently addressed, as a vital safety feature. Maybe fewer drivers would then zoom past me in an unholy rush as I pedal serenely onwards.

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Obligatory Snowy Scene

 

St Fagans in the snow, a welcoming plume of smoke rising gently

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Palimpsest

 

 

This is a photo taken in the Coal Exchange building in Cardiff Bay. This is one of the most important buildings in the history of Cardiff and is testament to the City's rise and fall as a pivotal part of the world economy. This particular image taken on an upper floor seems to show a signboard highlighting the offices and organisations that would have had space in this part of the exchange building at the height of its activity.

Over painted, scuffed, altered, recovered and faded. A beautiful and poignant artefact, displaying the layers of history.

 

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Walk in the Woods

 

 

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Practicalities and Functionalities

 

Cycle rack in Oxford

 

We have been visiting a friend in Oxford, and I have been impressed as usual by the genuine cycling culture that exists there. Bike shops everywhere, bikes everywhere, hire bikes available everywhere. Even out of term and without the critical mass that must be provided by the students, it was still a vibrant and delightful scene.

The sight above, just a typical rack in a back-lot, is nothing unusual for Oxford, even though it would be unheard of in Cardiff if there were no students around. But I was interested in a particularly geeky and anoraky fact after I made a quick study of the form. Not a single bike here had a fully enclosed chain. Not one had a hub brake. Not a single hub dynamo, or any other form of non-battery lighting. Only one of all the bikes here had hub gears.

There is a lot of terraced housing in Oxford. For the first time, I have seen front gardens turned into bike parking areas with cycle racks, which is a welcome change from being turned into a car park as is the norm in other cities. There are lots of student flats and student accommodation. In other words, bikes are stored outside day and night. I would have thought therefore that basic bike practicalities and functionalities such as the enclosed chain and hub brakes I mentioned above would have impacted on what is available for sale in the myriad of bike shops, or perhaps coloured the advice that new students are given when purchasing their new steed. But apparently not yet.

We may be seeing the re-emergence of "utility cycle culture" (that sounds frightening) here again in the UK, but are the manufacturers and retailers keeping pace? They seem to be able to follow the fixie trend well enough for instance, so why can't they make practical features more normal as they are in other countries? Perhaps the mountain bike aesthetic that kept so many small retailers going throughout the wilderness years is too hard to shake off? Perhaps the costs of things like hub brakes mean bikes jump out of an acceptable price range? Perhaps the customers have not yet learned to demand these things? I'm not sure, but it will be interesting to see how the trends develop and how the manufacturers and retailers react, or if they choose to lead instead.

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Lots to Talk About

It is true that I have been neglecting my blog for some considerable time now. There always seems to be something more important to do, and it is always nice to be able to relax safe in the knowledge that there are plenty of people saying what needs to be said. Carefully, eloquently and passionately. However, perhaps it is time to pass comment on the many months since I attended the inaugural Cycling Embassy of GB policy bash.

Some highlights for me have been:

• The CEofGB follow up session in Bristol, which I was unable to attend, but which was excellently blogged. Great to know that the momentum is maintained and that more people are picking up on the ideas that the Embassy was set up to promote.
  
• A recent discussion on the Radio 4 Today program about public health and transport policy, where the expert being interviewed explicitly mentioned the importance (well, in fact the absolute undeniable logic) of providing good cycling infrastructure as a way of encouraging cycling. I was driving (bah!) to a site and nearly crashed cheering.
• The Tour. Ah, the Tour. Once I discovered that I could follow the tour on the ITV iPlayer and wasn't stuck with watching the 7pm highlights or seeing nothing, the possibility of a three week obsession first emerged and then became a magnificent reality. Although I had followed it before, it was the daily ebb and flow that I was able to get to grips with that made it special. Despite Lesley Garret's dreadful intervention at the awards ceremony, Bradley Wiggins saved the day on being handed the microphone by noting that it was now time to draw the raffle numbers. Genius.
• Having to queue at the traffic lights on the way to work behind OTHER BIKES. This really is quite a welcome inconvenience. Although I can't help feeling annoyed when these newby upstarts go twice as fast as me. It's not a race. I've been ill. My bike is heavier. Ah, the nonsense you tell yourself while at the back of the peloton.
• Following Dave at 42bikes on his LEJOG efforts. Mainly because, halfway through his epic rain sodden journey, I had a flash of inspiration. A blinding light if you will. Having laboured under the assumption that "Le Jog" was some kind of traditional French amateur cycling race, I suddenly realised the true significance of the acronym. Le idiot.
• The Cycle to Work challenge organised by Cardiff Council. Credit where it's due, they did a fantastic job and many commercial and public sector organisations seemed to get behind it. I really hope that the many additional cyclists seen out on the streets of Cardiff keep the momentum going.
• Attending a lecture about the connection between planning and public health. The premise here was that the origins of planning lay in the desire to improve public health - sanitation, slum clearance, model towns, garden villages etc all connected the emerging discipline of town planning with the concerns of public health to improve peoples lives. The speaker described how this connection is in danger of being forgotten and that we are creating environments that do not promote activities such as walking or cycling, which is a real problem when you consider that obesity is like a menacing shadow gradually creeping across our communities. I felt there was some real possibilities for research to be done on the impact of decent walking and cycling infrastructure on levels of activity. The notion that good planning could have public health benefits is perhaps an idea whose time must come again.
• The Olympics. You've heard of that I presume and that there were bikes?
• Bradley and the helmet thing. Awesome fun, as it encouraged my ill-informed workmates to pile into the debate, and thus allowed me to cunningly demolish their pathetic puny arguments. All hail me!
• Finally getting round to complete the cycle route right around Cardiff Bay. Twice in fact in the same week. First time was for curiosity and second time was with the family in tow (literally in the case of No.1 son). I will attempt to do this again and write a photo essay about the route as it pretty much sums up cycling infrastructure in this country; a mix of the sublime and the ridiculous, the beautiful and the depressing, the inspirational and the downright bloody dangerously frustrating. Good afternoon out though.

 

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Capacity

I have been quiet on the blogging front lately, for several reasons. Firstly, I see others pushing the infrastructure argument very successfully and eloquently and it is often difficult to add to the debate in a meaningful and original way. Secondly, my two jobs have been taking up all my time, leaving precious little space for thinking about bikes.

However, "write what you know" must be the mantra for those whose inspiration has gone missing, so on the eve of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain AGM and policy bash in Bristol, I thought I would return to the theme of capacity. We often hear the politicians talk of the need to start spending money on infrastructure. One day, they'll mean what I wish they'd mean and be referring to cycling infrastructure.

When that day comes, we need to be prepared with the technical knowledge and capacity to deliver. I see this as a key role for the CEoGB, forging partnerships with enlightened consultants and engineers, shining a light on solutions already tried and tested elsewhere and even delivering training itself. People like David Hembrow and his cycling tours, plus the Embassy's own infrastructure safari's are the foundations for such an enterprise.

Good luck to the policy bashers on the weekend.