Archive for bike safety

dammit!!

Posted in pictures, Running, Travel, University life with tags , , , , , , , , , on February 11, 2025 by xi'an

When I arrived (from Paris via B’ham airport) at the University of Warwick this morning, I went directly to the secure bike shed where I store my bike between my visits. Except it was no longer there and the shed was strangely barely occupied. I immediately suspected a commando action from the dreaded Warwick Estates, who permanently chase abandoned bikes and tag them with threatening red tags for incoming removal (of said bike) if no removal (of said tag) within two weeks. And indeed when contacted they replied that

The records have been checked, and I can confirm that the bike was removed by Estates following all bikes in the secure storage over at University House being tagged as part of the abandoned bike process, due to a report of abandoned bike/s. The tags were in place for 2 weeks allowing owners to remove these before Estates collecting any bikes with tags remaining.

although the bike was still in storage with them and I thus managed to recover it… Along with a replacement, top-quality, massive D-lock. Now looking for a long-term solution that does not involve buying a Brompton!

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another round of mostly useless road death statistics [and a terrible graph]

Posted in Books, pictures, Running, Statistics, Travel with tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on February 16, 2023 by xi'an

Another terrible report on (French) road accidents and deaths Le Monde pointed to. The entire analysis does not consider once the number of people on the roads or the death per kilometer ratio. Which makes the absolute figures as those represented in this ugly graph hard to comment. For instance, the number of persons cycling to work has increased more than the number of bike deaths. (And, contrary to a urban myth, cycling in Paris should not be considered as a extreme sport: only one  [too many] cyclist died there in 2022.) I also find surprising the (a)symmetry in the age distributions of (overall) road deaths,


since the percentages of evolution between 2019 and 2022 almost exactly compensate for one to the next across the age groups. Any significance in these figures? The statistics that makes the most sense in the report is the comparison of counties where the 90km/h speed limit was reinstated and those where it stayed at 80km/h: an increase of 1% versus a decrease of 2%… As signaled by Le Monde car doors are bike killers: when getting off a car, use your right hand to open the driver’s door (except in Australia, Britain, Japan and 72 other left-hand driving countries!!).

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