Jeremy Vine caught speeding (on a Bicycle)

[Guest sibon]

Says who

 

 

Isaac Newton.

[tzijlstra]

16 mph is easily enough to cause a serious injury to a pedestrian in a park. He shouldn't be doing it.

 

I'm not sure why you are defending his actions. If he wants to cycle at that speed, the road is the place, not a park.

 

I'd have nicked him for offences against broadcasting anyway. He is the least talented of the brothers.

 

Sorry, it really isn't. The only party likely to be injured doing that sort of speed is the cyclist. I have frequently had run-ins with cyclists (it is part of life in the Netherlands, especially when you are a drunk student in pedestrianised areas) and never got seriously hurt - only once did I fall to the floor, and that was more to do with the inebriated state I was in.

 

A cyclist crashing carries the momentum and is likely to be flung off the bike at that sort of speed (and let's be real here, SPEED is a very relative term in this case) which usually results in cuts and bruises and occasionally in a broken bone.

 

Newton explains that mass is a force and it depends on the other forces how that force behaves. A cyclist on an unsteady bike with a lot of forward motion will transfer that force by being propelled forward, a pedestrian receiving the mass whilst planted on the floor will largely absorb that force.

[RootsBooster]

Sorry, it really isn't. The only party likely to be injured doing that sort of speed is the cyclist. I have frequently had run-ins with cyclists (it is part of life in the Netherlands, especially when you are a drunk student in pedestrianised areas) and never got seriously hurt - only once did I fall to the floor, and that was more to do with the inebriated state I was in.

 

A cyclist crashing carries the momentum and is likely to be flung off the bike at that sort of speed (and let's be real here, SPEED is a very relative term in this case) which usually results in cuts and bruises and occasionally in a broken bone.

 

Newton explains that mass is a force and it depends on the other forces how that force behaves. A cyclist on an unsteady bike with a lot of forward motion will transfer that force by being propelled forward, a pedestrian receiving the mass whilst planted on the floor will largely absorb that force.

 

Just which direction do you think the force is coming from?

By "planted" on the floor do you mean someone who is sat or someone who is stood upright?

[tzijlstra]

Just which direction do you think the force is coming from?

By "planted" on the floor do you mean someone who is sat or someone who is stood upright?

 

Serious question, have you ever watched Rugby?

 

When a guy tackles another guy after a 15 mph sprint, do they carry on flying or does the guy receive the tackle cancel out the sideways force.

 

This really isn't difficult to understand, is it. Newton understood it centuries ago.

[Cyclone]

Isaac Newton.

 

Isaac Newton says he shouldn't be doing it... No, I think it was you.

 

And even if a dead physicist says it, it holds no legal weight.

 

---------- Post added 21-11-2014 at 12:12 ----------

 

Re: rugby tackling cyclists.

 

I think it's worth bearing in mind that cyclists don't often crash into things, because it hurts them. More or less, or sometimes just as much as the thing they crash into (depending on what that is).

So in an effort of self preservation, cyclists generally cycle at a speed at which they feel comfortable in the situation they are in.

[Guest sibon]

Serious question, have you ever watched Rugby?

 

When a guy tackles another guy after a 15 mph sprint, do they carry on flying or does the guy receive the tackle cancel out the sideways force.

 

This really isn't difficult to understand, is it. Newton understood it centuries ago.

 

We should test your theory. I'll email Jeremy Vine and ask him to nip up here. You stand in Endcliffe Park and let him smash into you on his bike at 16 mph.

 

You can then report back to us. If you can still type.

[RootsBooster]

Serious question, have you ever watched Rugby?

 

When a guy tackles another guy after a 15 mph sprint, do they carry on flying or does the guy receive the tackle cancel out the sideways force.

 

This really isn't difficult to understand, is it. Newton understood it centuries ago.

 

Are you really comparing a sport, where the players train to expect, anticipate and brace for the impact (not to mention knowing how to fall/roll and minimise impact.... on a surface generally softer than tarmac or concrete) with a cyclist hitting an unsuspecting pedestrian?

 

If you're going to make comparisons then they should be like for like.

I've accidentally bumped into someone before (at walking pace) and they've gone tumbling straight to the floor.

If they'd been unlucky and landed wrong they could have broken a limb or even cracked their skull.

[Obelix]

Sorry, it really isn't. The only party likely to be injured doing that sort of speed is the cyclist. I have frequently had run-ins with cyclists (it is part of life in the Netherlands, especially when you are a drunk student in pedestrianised areas) and never got seriously hurt - only once did I fall to the floor, and that was more to do with the inebriated state I was in.

 

A cyclist crashing carries the momentum and is likely to be flung off the bike at that sort of speed (and let's be real here, SPEED is a very relative term in this case) which usually results in cuts and bruises and occasionally in a broken bone.

 

Newton explains that mass is a force

 

Er no. Mass is a fundamental unit like force. Weight is a force due to acceleration from gravity.

 

and it depends on the other forces how that force behaves. A cyclist on an unsteady bike with a lot of forward motion will transfer that force by being propelled forward, a pedestrian receiving the mass whilst planted on the floor will largely absorb that force.

 

I my case I absorbed the force by breaking my femur when the bicycle hit me. The energy contained in the bicycle was more than sufficient to also knock me out.

 

An elderly citizen can break a hip or collarbone merely by falling over. Add the impact of a bicycle at speed plus the subsequent fall and it can get very unpleasant.

 

---------- Post added 21-11-2014 at 12:28 ----------

 

Serious question, have you ever watched Rugby?

 

When a guy tackles another guy after a 15 mph sprint, do they carry on flying or does the guy receive the tackle cancel out the sideways force.

 

This really isn't difficult to understand, is it. Newton understood it centuries ago.

 

I've played it. I've seen broken bones after those sorts of tackles too, even when all parties were expecting it.

 

Not withstanding this recent news story either....

 

http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/bicycle-crash-kills-another-pedestrian-central-park

Edited November 21, 2014 by Obelix

[Stoatwobbler]

We should test your theory. I'll email Jeremy Vine and ask him to nip up here. You stand in Endcliffe Park and let him smash into you on his bike at 16 mph.

 

You can then report back to us. If you can still type.

 

Sounds like a premise for an item on Jeremy Vine's terrible Radio 2 show.

[RootsBooster]

Says who or what? Not the law.

I don't think the law is supposed to be the go-to authority on physics and health/safety. They are supposed to enforce the speed limit though.

 

Because he was commuting to work and staying out of the busy London traffic, where many cyclists are killed

That doesn't quite justify breaking the speed limit though, I mean it's not like there was no way he could avoid it, he could have got off and pushed.

 

'That speed' - on another thread motorists are complaining that 20mph is impossible to stick to and he wasn't even achieving that.

Sounds like they were talking complete cobblers then, do you have a link to this thread?

 

---------- Post added 21-11-2014 at 12:50 ----------

 

He won't.

 

I looked up the Road Traffic Act

 

Reading the act, it appears to apply because it's a public area. But equally, since cycles are not "motorised vehicles", speed limits do not apply.

Also, if you had a motorised vehicle in that park, there would be no order for a speed limit in place. So whilst you'd be breaking many parts of the act, speeding would not be one of them I suspect.

 

Whatever 'speed limit' exists in that park, is not one covered by the RTA (I suspect)...

 

Interesting points about it here

http://www.astounding.org.uk/ian/cyclelaw/speed_limits.html

 

Particularly this

"However, The Royal Parks and Other Open Spaces (Amendment) etc. Regulations 2010 include a definition of vehicle that applies only to motor vehicles, here, suggesting that everything which applied to all vehicles in the royal parks SIs now only applies to motor vehicles. Thus, speed limits would not apply to bicycles in royal parks, just as they do not in general elsewhere. "

 

Assuming that Hyde Park is a Royal Park. (It is, I checked that as well).

 

There may well be a bye-law restricting speed to 5mph. But it isn't enforceable by the RTA, so he won't get a ticket, or indeed any punishment.

 

I don't really see why the police are wasting their time in a park, they have better things to do than to sour relations with the public in this way.

 

---------- Post added 20-11-2014 at 14:15 ----------

 

Enforcement of byelaws[edit]

Breaches of byelaws are prosecuted in a magistrates' court. The punishment is a fine, the maximum being generally between £500 and £2,500.[2]

 

From

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byelaws_in_the_United_Kingdom

 

---------- Post added 20-11-2014 at 14:16 ----------

 

Royal Park Bye-Laws

https://www.pnld.co.uk/docportal/content/@1241.htm

 

---------- Post added 20-11-2014 at 14:18 ----------

 

And finally (I hope)

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2010/1194/pdfs/uksi_20101194_en.pdf

 

Speeds at which a vehicle may be driven or ridden on a Park road

1. On a Park road in The Green Park, Hyde Park (other than the Serpentine Road), St

James’s Park or The Regent’s Park, at a speed not exceeding 30 mph.

 

According to that, the speed limit in Hyde Park is 30 mph.

Cyclists can be and are 'done for speeding' under the laws governing "furious cycling" and "dangerous cycling", this also covers drunk cycling.

 

EDIT: Not that it sounds like he was cycling furiously OR dangerously.

Edited November 21, 2014 by RootsBooster