A cool bike

Never use a very cheap D-lock on such a lovely bicycle (no cycle parking in these parts, evidently). In the background of the photo a multi-millionaire’s 4X4 gets a parking ticket.

In other footballing news, serial offender Joe Cole has been caught again

The 28-year-old Liverpool player was driving his Audi A4 on a dual carriageway in Surrey when a police officer spotted him breaking the 70mph limit.

He trained his laser device on the black car and it showed Cole to be driving at 105mph, Staines Magistrates' Court heard.

The footballer already has six points on his licence

The harassment of women cyclists

Dawn Foster writes about the aggression and abuse which she receives as a woman cyclist, which she now blogs about:

Hundreds of women wrote me emails, responded to my blog and spoke to me on Twitter and told me they'd had identical experiences. They didn't tell me of every incident – they were too numerous – but they told me about their worst ones.

I told people about the time a pedestrian pulled my top down at a traffic light; they told me of people spitting at them and throwing building braces at them as they drove by. A dozen women told me they'd had their backsides slapped by drivers and passengers. I'd opened the flood gates by daring to speak out and say that enough was enough.

One example:

He hit his horn whilst behind me, whilst I was waiting in the cycle box at the traffic lights. As he turned at the junction alongside me, he continued to use his horn. At the next traffic lights, he rolled his window down to shout “You stupid fucking slut, get off the road and onto the pavement, you stupid bitch”. He was in his company vehicle, so rather than rise to his bait, I took my iPhone out and openly took a photo of his registration plate. For some reason this shut him up.

The company in question is Cannon Hygiene. I’ve written to them to tell them about their driver, and will update if they get back to me.

The company’s website is coy about supplying contact information but fortunately it can be found elsewhere. Wouldn’t it be just awful if senior staff at Cannon Hygiene were deluged with emails from cyclists?

Meanwhile Gutter Bunny writes

My friend Julia and her friends have also started blog Hollaback London with motto "If you can't slap them, snap them!" where girls are encouraged to take photos of drivers and their registration plates and openly ridicule them on internet and calling up their companies (more often than not, the attackers would be van drivers) to complain. If you have a story to share, send it to Julia

R295GDA

R295 GDA large white space wagon-type hybrid with a notice on the back about leaving space for a wheelchair to be removed, the male driver going south along Hoe Street while chatting on a handheld mobile phone, August 19, 1.14 pm.

Cycle lane improved on High Road Leyton!

Resurfacing the cycle lane in pink asphalt and refreshing the white cycle logo has really made all the difference to the pedalling environment, wouldn’t you say?

And that new advertising panel on the footway really ties it all together, does it not? A year ago this was just wasted space, full of pedestrians. Now it generates income.

But, hey! It's about creating an environment in which people can make healthier choices.

Ascham Homes van driver on a mobile phone

Ascham Homes runs social housing on behalf of our glorious council (how well, you can read here). Or as one tenant remarked the other day “Ascham Homes are a joke. It takes a month, sometimes two months for repairs to get done

Yesterday afternoon I spotted the white male driver of an Ascham Homes van driving along Hoe Street in the direction of the Baker’s Arms, steering with his left hand while engrossed in a conversation on a mobile phone which he was holding in his right hand. Reg KW53 KRE, time 3.45 pm.

‘Street rangers’ will crack down on central London ‘rogue cyclists’

Businesses have ordered their street “rangers” to stop rogue riders amid fears that the Mayor's bike hire scheme will increase problems in central London. People in Holborn and Bloomsbury are being encouraged to report bad cycling to the wardens

The initiative has been launched by “inmidtown”, a business organisation representing 550 firms between the West End and the City of London.

Inmidtown, which is funded by a levy on the business rates of its members, works with Transport for London and Camden council.

Last year 200 cyclists were stopped over four days during Operation Responsible Cycling. Business leaders fear the arrival of Boris bikes — there are seven docking stations, holding up to 176 bikes, in the area — will make matters worse.

Its “Considerate Cyclist Code” has 10 tips for better cycling, including:

* Don't cycle after drinking.
* Use back streets to avoid traffic.

Or to put it another way

This business organisation, which is a public-private partnership with Camden Council, is making up its own rules of cycling conduct and not based on recognised authorities. Not only is this organisation allowed to part-privatise public space, it is also creating its own private rules of conduct.

In effect, they are making up their own rules, enforcing them with the use of a private quasi-police force.

There is the usual, er, robust commentary on London Fixed-gear and Single-speed.

The rangers will not, of course, be cracking down on rogue drivers (a phrase which, curiously, no journalist ever uses). I was in this very area on Monday and snapped a few examples of rogue drivers who deliberately drove into Advanced Stop Lines at red. Funnily enough they were all drivers working for businesses. Could we please have a list of the 550 firms involved in this, so that we can check on their drivers and the amount of clutter they may put unlawfully across pavements?

























(Above) A law-breaking B&Y Express Couriers van driver reg. KR05 KHY alongside a law-breaking Addison Lee cab driver reg. LT59 WKN on New Oxford Street
(Below) A law-breaking BTU-group driver, reg. RE10 XAN, on Bury Place.

The war on the motorist – shocking new development

Hundreds of average speed cameras could soon be installed on roads in London. The devices would be used to enforce 20mph zones and may even replace speed humps.

TfL is planning a two-year trial in one street in each of four boroughs – Camden, Hackney, Southwark and Waltham Forest.

There are already more than 100 cameras in the four boroughs and Waltham Forest agreed to the trial despite recently cutting road accidents by 21 per cent — the best performance in London.

[That’s the fabulously safe Waltham Forest where There were a total of 93 bicycle casualties in the borough in 2009, compared with 65 in 2008 - a rise of 43 per cent - according to the data from Transport for London (TfL).]

Dylan Sharpe of Big Brother Watch, said: “Average speed cameras are just a new form of surveillance and now there's nowhere you can escape their beady eye.

[A ludicrous exaggeration.]

"Average speed cameras on London's back roads will massively increase the opportunity to charge motorists.”

Only if drivers massively ignore 20 mph speed restrictions, which have a proven record of success in massively reducing deaths and serious injuries in urban areas.

A journalist who has presumably clocked up a few tickets in his or her time sputters indignantly in the form of an Evening Standard editorial:

There is by no means universal compliance with the normal 30mph speed limit, and no one suggests a comprehensive system of speed cameras to enforce that.

[They do on this blog, ducky.]

Speed cameras are not the way to enforce the new limits. A traffic police officer can allow motorists leeway in some cases; a machine has no such recourse to common sense. Most drivers can be persuaded to reduce their speed.

What motorists resent is the notion that they are simply being used to generate a new stream of income. Stricter speed limits will save lives; speed cameras are an unnecessarily draconian way of ensuring they are complied with.

Savage repression indeed.

Needless to say there’s a road-tax-dodging cyclist who thinks the idea is brilliant.