An alternative possibility is that the cycling infrastructure there is woefully inadequate (as it is in most places).
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It is and is often full of walkers not paying attention.
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Infrastructure! Ha! Solihull council spent a fortune setting up segregated cycle paths through the Shirley shopping parade. The cyclists prefer to ride on the pavements! That, incidentally is forbidden by bye-law, they could be fined for it - but arenât.
And since weâre never going to resource nationwide separation of users this brings us back to our theme of attitudes to shared resources. While many motorists believe they have a superior right of access to public roads over cyclists and pedestrians, the âThey shouldnât be in my wayâ attitude will persist. Itâs exemplified by the mindless âThey donât even pay road taxâ - wrong on at least three levels.
But I also condemn wrongful behaviour by any of these three groups of road users.
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I think it very much depends upon which part of the country you are in. In my former life as a DJ & sound engineer (which I stopped doing a few years ago), I have driven all over the country
This sentiment may ring true in certain parts of the country. In London it certainly isnât the case.
Having driven into Central London for many gigs, I have to say that Iâm absolutely stunned if I do see a cyclist stop for a red light!!!
If they canât go through the junction due to other traffic, they normally ram the bike up onto the pavement and send pedestrians fleeing for their lives!
When Iâve been to London as a pedestrian, Iâve nearly been taken out by a cyclist numerous times while attempting to cross the road when the green man is showing on the traffic lights.
Where I currently live (in Swindon) we have a lot of cyclists who donât use lights at night time, and insist on riding at high speed on the pavement. This makes pulling out of my driveway (which is on a slightly blind bend anyway) a bit of a liability.
To be completely fair, I will say however that I have driven to other parts of the country (notibly Yorkshire, The Lake District, parts of Wales, The West Country) and been absolutely amazed that all of the cyclists show so much courtesy to other road users (waving you past when the road is clear for you to overtake, stopping at all of the red lights, pulling over if the road is narrow to let you pass even though they are not obliged do so etc).
Totally agreed. whatever the politics of who paid for the infrastructure through their taxes, as the rules currently stand, we all have just as much right to be on the roads, and we should all do so within the rules.
Iâd like to share an incident which I had a couple of years agoâŚ
Our Raynet group does the communications for a marathon in Richmond Park every year. If youâve ever driven in Richmond Park, you will know that itâs a daunting prospect as there are literally hunderds, if not thousands of bikes tearing up the place. They also tend to be your lycra wearing speed demons as depicted in the tabloids.
Bearing in mind the 20mph speed limit within the park (my speedo said that I was going marginally under 20mph, probably around 17/18), I had a cyclist came hurtling up behind me and attempted to overtake on a blind bend, he realised at the last minute that there was something coming in the opposite direction & tried to pull back in behind me but was unable to stop in time.
He crashed into the back of me. He had a few cuts & scrapes. There was some damage to his bike (I think his front wheel was bent).
He must have been going at least 30mph. I was absolutely stunned when he told me that the accident was my fault because I was going too slow!!!
My point is that I donât think that all cyclists are lunatics, but I donât think that they help themselves sometimes.
As I said, I think it very much depends on which part of the country you are in.
Around 20-30 years ago, my geography teachers in school were promising me that by the time I reached my mid 30âs, this country would be as hot as Ibiza.
It hasnât happened yet. I think I need to drive a few more miles in my gas guzzling 4 litre Jeep Grand Cherokee!!! 
Never the less, a big change has happened if you look carefully. A case in point: about 25 years ago I planted a small Chusan palm (trachycarpum fortunei) expecting to lose it, it is now about five metres high. There are others around Birmingham up to that size - but no bigger. In gardens on the south and west coasts you can see them up to 15 or 20m high but in older gardening books thay are classed as âtoo tender for inland gardensâ. For less exotic examples you can now leave dahlia tubers and gladioli bulbs in the ground over winter with a good chance of having them come up next year. A few decades ago that was unthinkable. You donât need melting glaciers, the evidence is here in your own garden.
To be fair, confirmation bias is incredibly popular at present. All the leading successful politicians have recognised and utilised this.
Anyway, I liked Waltâs post - and now I know whyâŚ
Btw, donât know if anyone else noticed this (it would appear not) but Waltâs mention of climate change was enclosed in inverted commas, implying that it came from the unique mind of Mr Jeremy Clarkson, and as such was far removed from Waltâs own personal opinion.
And even Jeremy has now admitted that climate change is real!
Very observant of you, Tom, and perfectly accurate in your deduction.
Having said that, the increased incidence of flooding in the Tewkesbury area is less to do with climate change than to do with the continuing, mindless, unrestricted building on the flood plain.
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
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Excellent news! Perhaps, therefore, I can look forward to a less extortionate annual VED on my filthy, 15-year-old diesel Land Rover Defender!
Then again, perhaps not.
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
Makes me wonder how long electric cars will be exempt from paying road tax?
They keep trying to push them as a cleaner alternative, although Iâm not sure if they considered the huge great dirty power station 50 miles down the road which has to power all of the vehicle charging points?
They keep going on about cleaner/renewable power stations (wind farms & solar farms). If everyone goes electric, our power consumption will sky-rocket as it takes a lot of power to charge these electric vehicles. If youâve got a big city like London with a large population where everyone wants to charge their cars overnight ready for work the next day, Iâm not sure how well renewable power stations would cope with that demand, but weâll gloss over that for a moment.
If as they keep telling us, almost everything on the road does go electric (which I suspect it will sooner or later), then they will have to start charging electric cars VED, or finding some way of funding the up keep of the road network (maybe by taxing electricity via the electricity charging points).
It wouldnât be the first time that a cheap & fairly easy to obtain fuel has suddenly doubled in price due to the government tax when you decide that you want to use it for road transport!!! Sound familiar?
And it appears the CO2 emissions during manufacturing of EVs is higher than for fossil-fuelled vehicles - the lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt-oxide battery being the biggest factor.
The often environmentally disastrous consequences of the lithium and cobalt extraction to make all the batteries seems to be ignored at the moment⌠Someone will realise eventually⌠could be Diesel all over again :-s
Easy - they build huge banks of lithium-greedy storage batteries 
If you want to store energy from renewables then you have to store it in something you have lots of and is cheap. A possible idea is to use the renewable energy to heat a gas such as Nitrogen or Argon (you get it for âfreeâ from the atmosphere) to several hundred C. Then you have a big, big insulated pit with tens of thousands of tons of gravel in it and pump the heated gas to heat the rock when you have surplus energy. When you need electricity, you use the heated rock to heat the same gas and use that to drive a heat pump to drive a generator. You cannot use batteries because you cannot build enough of them. But rock⌠well we have lots of that.
In addition you need proper smart meters. Where they can cause power demand to be shifted. i.e. if my fridge needs to run to cool down, delaying it starting for 10mins doesnât have much effect on the internal temperature but it may run a little longer when allowed. By allowing large amounts of loads to be bumped off from running for a few minutes you can spread out peak demands to meet available generation.
Can be done given desire. Desire can be instilled into those who lack desire to change energy consumption plans by making current consumption plans unaffordable. I know this. You know this. Politicians know this. Politicians, however, want to be re-elected so they may not be so keen to implement the changes.
Yes. This.
In the last 12 months the new (Manchester) airport road has been badly flooded. The weather certainly played its part, no doubt. But the road constructors cutting costs by opting not to install drainage didnât help.
âHaving said that, the increased incidence of flooding in the Tewkesbury area is less to do with climate change than to do with the continuing, mindless, unrestricted building on the flood plainâ
Having lived in the Severn Valley for a few years Walt, I would point to the flood defences around Worcester, especially around the river Teme confluence contributing to the problems at Tewkesbury. The water has to go somewhere 
.
Absolutely. Also the flood defences recently put in place at Upton on Severn have simply pushed the problem downstream. Because of the local geography in the Tewkesbury area (2 rivers converging, and a large marina) it has not been possible to construct any flood defences here. We are entirely reliant on the flood plain and that has been significantly reduced in size by building. Furthermore, the widespread paving-over of peopleâs front gardens and lawns to provide added parking space has had a seriously adverse effect on the drainage in the area.
73,
Walt (G3NYY)
Tewkesbury, 2007
For most of my life southern England had a benign climate. This ânew normalâ could just get worse and worse.
Merry Christmas, Andy
In a warming world, water is likely to become the new âgoldâ. We just havent recognised it yet.
That means that up here in the Peopleâs Republic of Jockistan we will be rich beyond our wildest dreams 
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