Fonant's Thoughts

Bicycle Safety: Arms Race, or Disarmament?

2011-05-19T13:54:00.024+01:00

I've been thinking about the "war on the motorist" and the terrorising of our residential streets by motor vehicles, coupled with a media interest in cycle "helmets" and the dangers of cycling in the UK. What are we doing? I think there are two different ways of approaching the problem.

Increased Safety for Cyclists

A large amount of effort is being focussed on increasing safety for cyclists, without making any changes to motorists at all. We see strong campaigns for cyclists to always wear "helmets", high-visibility clothing, and to take BikeAbility training courses to learn how to deal with motor traffic. The emphasis is entirely on getting cyclists to make changes.

Here is a cause-and-effect diagram I created to show how this creates an "arms race" between the danger caused by the motor vehicles, and the safety measures required by cyclists:

Here, we get perhaps some benefit from giving cyclists more protection, but we don't actually get very many new people cycling. In fact the safety equipment and training we're encouraging makes it clear to non-cyclists that their fears about the dangers of cycling are completely justified.

The reduction in danger possible by wearing polystyrene hats, or flourescent clothing, is minimal. These won't protect you if a distracted car driver drives into you. The benefits of training are also, I think, overstated. Even experienced cyclists are being killed on our roads, not just novices.

The diagram shows several vicious circles, that keep the cycle going:

Perceived danger → More calls for safety equipment → Increased perceived danger.
Real danger → Fewer people cycling →More cars →Increased real danger.
Calls for safety equipment → Perceived danger → Fewer people cycling →More cars →Increased real danger → Increased deaths and injuries → More calls for safety equipment.

The main benefit of this approach is that it's very cheap. Cyclists actually pay for their own protection, and keeping children indoors doesn't cost anything.

This is an arms race, just like those between warring nations, and like our "war on terror" where every action prompts a bigger reaction. There is no way this can lead to more people cycling as a normal mode of transport. It results in people's freedoms being restricted, and much pain and suffering.

Reduced Road Danger

The opposite way of approaching the problem is to focus on the causes of the danger, rather on the safety of the victims.

Here is a similar cause-and-effect diagram:

Here we have fewer circles, and they're no longer vicious ones. In fact, the whole effect is remarkably more pleasant.

The only problem with this approach is that it's more expensive and time-consuming than getting cyclists to protect themselves. However the Dutch and Danish have shown what can be done with the right political will and a decade or two of time. Cycle facilities are orders of magnitude cheaper than motorways, and 20's Plenty for Us is extremely cost-effective.

This is disarmament: everyone lays down their weapons, the two sides talk to each other, and peace prevails. What's more, there are no vicious circles: once we've removed the danger we can relax and enjoy life!

Brake, RoadPeace, and Cycle "Helmets"

2011-04-30T10:53:00.016+01:00

Norman Baker, Minister for Cycling, has had to defend his decision to ride a bicycle without a "helmet", as he doesn't think that these polystyrene hats are of any use to him.

Oddly, rather than congratulate him on cycling, rather than driving around inside a dangerous tonne-and-a-bit of metal, "road safety charity" Brake said that they were "frustrated" about his lack of polystyrene hat. Their arguments are based on discredited and old research and they ignore other evidence - even the statements made by helmet manufacturers themselves. To their credit they do give advice about how to wear a helmet, something that really needs a lot more publicity given the number of people riding with loose-fitting and tilted back ones.

In comparison, the "national charity for road crash victims" RoadPeace, has a well-informed and fact-based policy on cycle helmets. They have clearly read the evidence for and against, and have decided that their policy should follow logic, and the policy of the CTC and the European Cyclists' Federation: cyclists can wear "helmets" if they like, but they should be aware that they provide only limited protection.

Cycle "Helmets" are in fact a dangerously misleading red-herring, perpetuated by mis-informed safety people and by the industry that makes a fortune from selling these cheap-to-make polystyrene hats at highly inflated prices. The real cause of danger to cyclists isn't cycling itself, it is sharing the roads heavy fast-moving motor vehicles.

Some people think that training cyclists to ride "defensively", to wear bright clothing, and to wear polystyrene hats will stop the deaths and injuries we see. But sadly this is wrong: even experienced cyclists wearing hats and high-viz are being killed and seriously injured on our roads. In fact training might make things worse, as experienced cyclists are more likely to ride on busy roads than novices are. No amount of cycle training and polystyrene will help if a car driver on a mobile phone fails to avoid you.

I've tried to appeal to Brake to look at all the evidence, including the actual tests that "helmets" have to survive to be certified. But sadly they continue to peddle their misleading advice, which can only lead to fewer cyclists, more motorists, and more deaths and injuries on the UK's roads.

I think the difference is this:

Brake want to increase safety

while

RoadPeace want to reduce danger.

I know which I prefer.

Lovely peaceful morning

2011-02-08T09:12:00.003Z

Today was a lovely morning: we woke to the sunshine, and after the seemingly endless days of windy damp days it's lovely and still.

The daily bike ride to school was almost perfect: a little chilly but no wind and lovely sunshine. People all seemed happy and enjoying the first hints of spring.

But then the grumpy, angry, pushy, annoyed car drivers start to appear, like vastly-oversized steel wasps on a pleasant summertime picnic. Engines roar, wheels spin, and there's an overall smell of burnt fossil fuels in the still air. The normally-invisible exhaust fumes are visible as steamy clouds that hang pungently in the air.

But we're not in a car, so the cars don't bother us. Life is good, and before long the cars will be extinct.

New membership marketing training site

2010-12-21T10:46:00.005Z

A good friend of mine, who knows his stuff, has recently launched a new service. He is offering professional training for people who would like to market membership organisations more effectively. The training is directed specifically at the particular needs of membership organisations, and covers such aspects as:

How to recruit more members
How to manage membership recruitment
How to measure membership recruitment performance
Recruitment techniques and processes
Targetting the most interested potential members
Membership retention techniques

For more information, and to book onto any of his courses, see his website: http://www.membership-matters.co.uk

U-plus 2 tandem trailer bike stolen

2010-08-13T09:16:00.008+01:00

STOP PRESS: Word went around locally, and our U-plus 2 was eventually returned by someone anonymous. It had been damaged a little, but is still in working order. Mindless joy-riders, we think. The mountain bike, complete with rare mount for a Miklink trailer, has disappeared forever.

Sadly someone has ridden off with our red Creswell-made U-plus 2 tandem trailer bike. Stolen in the night between 10pm Wednesday 11 August and the following morning, from our house in Lancing, West Sussex, UK. The trailer bike is large, and would need a large car or van to transport it inside, and needs a lot of space to store it: much like a tandem tricycle would.

The trailer bike was attached to my old-and-rusty pink and turquoise mountain bike, as pictured. The U-plus 2 is getting tatty (it has had several owners) with battered rear mudguards, but is in good working order. The rear handlebars are a bit loose, with a rubber shim inserted to try to keep them straight.

This is pretty-much the same bike as the Pashley U-plus 2, but the earlier model made by Creswell Engineering.

Note that we know of one other family in Lancing who own a read U-plus two, but otherwise these trailer bikes are rare (and desirable for cycling families) as Pashley no longer make them. They only appear on eBay at the rate of one a year or so.

Grubtown Tourist Board site goes live!

2010-05-06T14:23:00.004+01:00

Well, after only a week, the new Grubtown Tourist Board's web site (http://www.visitgrubtown.com) is picking up nicely. We have 90+ registered users and lots of nice new news stories and reviews to add to the Grubtown Daily Herald newspaper.

The site really benefits from the ideas of Six to Start (the folk that managed the project and came up with the design), and the lovely illustrations from Jim Paillot. Not to forget, of course, the wild imagination and writing techniques of Philip Ardagh (aka Beardy Ardagh).

For the technically-minded, the site was built using Drupal 6, with some custom maps using the Google Maps API. While Drupal and various contributed modules have provided much of the functionality out-of-the-box, there were still plenty of minor changes and customisations to make.

I've enjoyed creating this site, though: my first one with a falling cows option on every page!

Regnum Blinds website re-design

2010-03-01T10:49:00.006Z

Just been working on a very nice new design for the Regnum Blinds website (http://www.regnumblinds.co.uk) - suppliers of sun blinds and awnings to homes, businesses and schools in the West Sussex area.

Used Drupal as the framework, with a custom theme based on the Zen starterkit: homepage has a separate template to get the custom layout. Might think about using Panels next time.

Barclays Business Savings rates!

2009-10-08T12:24:00.002+01:00

We've recently opened a Business Savings account with Barclays. Today we received a nice letter from them telling us about the fantastic feature they offer: a tiered savings rate that pays a larger percentage if we have more money in the account.

Sadly, it appears that we need to deposit £1million before our rate will rise from the current 0.05% to the impressive 0.15%!

The horrible effect of Big Business

2009-10-08T12:20:00.004+01:00

Recently had this interesting post about how Royal Mail (now a big commercial enterprise, and no longer a public service) is treating its staff and customers:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n18/maya01_.html

Sad to see a so-called "left wing" government presiding over the death of another public service that the UK used to be so proud of.

Promises of a decent Transport Policy!

2009-06-26T17:55:00.003+01:00

The new Secretary of State for Transport, Rt Hon Lord Andrew Adonis, made one of the best-informed speeches on government transport policy for years last Wednesday.

Lots of good aims, including:

In promoting low carbon transport, there is no lower carbon or healthier means of getting from A to B, besides walking, than cycling. Cycling has for too long been the Cinderella of transport policy – adored but neglected, when in fact it ought to be central to our thinking and planning if we are serious about a low carbon and healthier future.

and:

I am looking forward to discussing with Philip Darnton of Cycling England how we can bring about a step-change in numbers getting their bikes out of the shed or the garage and into use.

The full speech, including encouraging sections about the railways, is here:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/press/speechesstatements/speeches/transportmanifesto

Sadly the current government is forced to have an election in the next year, and it doesn't look likely that Lord Adonis will be around long enough to do what he wants to. It all eerily echoes the aims of Sir George Younger (the "bicycling baronet") at the end of the last Conservative period in power: it seems that just as government realises what a good transport policy looks like, it loses power. Let's hope that this time the incoming party don't forget the lessons learnt.

AVG causes web pages to fail

2008-11-03T21:00:00.005Z

Had a fun time this afternoon diagnosing a problem on my father's WinXP laptop. He could send and recieve e-mails, and connect to secure (https://) websites, but not plain websites (http://). It looked like something was blocking port 80, but Windows firewall wasn't and there didn't seem to be any other firewall software installed.

He is using AVG AntiVirus, paid for, but not with the firewall component.

Eventually tracked it down to a process called avgnsx.exe which seems to be the thing that both LinkScanner and Web Shield use in their work. Turning off both these protections and suddenly we could browse the web again!

AVG have some comments, and a possible fix, on their FAQ pages:
http://www.avg.com/faq.num-1561#faq_1561

Interestingly, and perhaps related, we also saw repeated requests to reboot following AVG updates. This might be related to the above problem, and is also dealt with in the AVG FAQ:
http://www.avg.com/faq.num-1444#faq_1444

For those who are interested, I found out what was blocking port 80 by installing the excellent, and free, TcpView from Microsoft Windows Sysinternals:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897437.aspx

Run this with "Always on Top" selected, and see which processes do things when you try to navigate to a web page.

Search things: https not http, port 80 blocked, AVG, no firewall, many web pages not found.

Two-part business site SEO

2008-10-09T11:41:00.003+01:00

Well, the changes to Bell Leisure's site seem to have helped a great deal with their Google listings. The site is now split into two sub-domains, one for swimming pools and one for the snooker and pool tables half of their business.

This has also made it possible to list the two almost-separate businesses as separate items in Google's Local Business Centre. This means that Bell Leisure appears nicely for relevant searches for either part of their business.

However, even with the subdomains being listed separately, Google was still returning the "top level" page for searches. I've now moved the descriptive text from this page, and into the two sub-domains, in an attempt to make the subdomain home pages be listed first.

We'll see what happens!

Spamhaus bullies

2008-10-09T11:33:00.003+01:00

Yesterday Spamhaus decided to block a whole 254 address range of IP addresses, owned by Netrino who host my server, because they didn't consider that Netrino had taken suitable action against a spammer.

Today they have relented a little, and only a 16 address range is now being blocked. So e-mail from hundreds of innocent businesses is now able to flow a little better again.

It would have been nice if Spamhaus had done a little more homework before blocking such a large range of addresses. The addresses clearly come from a server hosting company, with only a few IPs allocated to each of their customers.

At least it has prompted me to find out how to relay outbound e-mail via my other server, hosted by Clustered.net. This worked fine while it was needed, and I've updated all my customers' SPF records to allow either server to send out mail for their domains. MailScanner's watermarking also proved useful in this situation, as each message only needed to be scanned by one of the servers.

So while Spamhaus' bullying action certainly annoyed, it has resulted in a little more resilience against potential spam blacklisting for Fonant e-mail services if this sort of thing ever happens again.

Thanks Spamhaus!

Verified by Visa, Barclays style: zero additional security!

2008-06-20T11:08:00.012+01:00

How secure is the additional protection provided by Barclays Bank's Verified by Visa system? Here's what I have to do if I've forgotten my VbV passphrase, which is needed to use my card to shop on-line:

Step one:

Step Two:

Step Three:

All done:

So the answer is: not very much at all. The only thing someone who has my card needs to find out is my date of birth, and with that they can then use my card for online purchases that are protected by Verified by Visa. They even get told my VbV username (blurred out in the image above), which allows them to log into my VbV account and see all my transaction history. Not good.

I particularly like the bit where it says "Your password will be used on all future purchases at participating online stores". What it really means is "You can forget your password, as you only need your card and your date of birth to set a new one", and this is, in fact, what I always do.

Reducing car fuel prices

2008-06-10T14:04:00.007+01:00

You may have seen the lovely "pyramid" e-mail doing the rounds, telling you:

For the rest of this year DON'T purchase ANY petrol from the two biggest
oil companies (which now are one), ESSO and BP.

If they are not selling any petrol, they will be inclined to reduce
their prices. If they reduce their prices, the other companies will have
to follow suit. But to have an impact we need to reach literally
millions of Esso and BP petrol buyers. This is really simple to do!!

Sounds an excellent way to reduce the price of fuel, and perhaps almost anything else! However this doesn't stand up to much analysis.

Starting Point

As a starting point, we have this situation:

Petrol price around £1.20/litre
People buying petrol from their nearest or cheapest petrol station

Stage One complete

Assuming that car drivers in the UK boycott Esso and BP in their millions (perhaps chosing to run out of fuel rather than buy their petrol) we would, apparently, end up in this situation:

Very few people buying petrol from Esso or BP.
Normal petrol price £1.20/litre.
Price at Esso/BP reduced to 69p/litre to encourage people in.

So far so good, we've forced Esso/BP to reduce their petrol price. But we do have an awful lot of people who are now deliberately choosing to buy more expensive petrol than they could do.

The plan is that the other petrol stations will then reduce their prices to match Esso/BP. But of course there's no need for them to do so, as people are buying their petrol at the higher price already!

Stage Two complete

Anyway, assume that all petrol stations now charge 69p/litre. We all return to buying petrol at any garage. Guess what? The very next day all the garages will have put their prices back up again!

After all that effort, we have this situation:

Petrol price around £1.20/litre
People buying petrol from their nearest or cheapest petrol station

The Answer

What we are talking about is Market Forces, and they already work, assuming competition between petrol stations, to keep the price of petrol as low as is possible without making a loss (although I suspect supermarket stations do sell at a slight loss, to encourage people to shop for their food, clothing, etc. there too).

The only ways to reduce fuel prices in a Market economy are:

Reduce demand by getting everyone to buy less petrol and diesel.
Increase supply by finding a massive crude oil field with good quality and easy-to-extract oil in it. Or perhaps invade and take control of any countries that have (a) oil and (b) no nuclear weapons.

Even reducing tax would probably have little effect on prices, as the current situation shows that you can sell petrol and diesel at £1.30/litre without too much loss in business. A tax reduction would therefore result in increased profits for the oil companies.

More Database madness

2008-06-05T21:18:00.007+01:00

Another attempt to introduce the impossible National Identity Database by the back door:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/06/04/government_database_volunteers/

And they wonder why no-one is willing to organise events on a voluntary basis if there are people under 18 involved...

I wonder if running a Dr. Bike bike checking session counts as "working with children"? How about leading a family cycle ride when the children's parents are present?

The requirement to pay £60+ for registration on this massive database, plus the new need for stupendous levels of public liability insurance, will kill off so many useful and pleasant activities for children to take part in.

It we don't bother asking our fantastic baby sitter to register, are we breaking the law? Does it matter whether she's a personal and trusted friend of ours?

Complete madness...

IE6, AlphaImageLoader, and links

2008-05-27T11:24:00.000+01:00

I too have hit the problem where links, that are inside elements with (a) absolute positioning, and (b) a background image loaded using AlphaImageLoader, are unclickable. Yet another annoying IE6 bug! The sooner that browser is dead, the better...

Anyway, I seem to have fixed the problem (thanks to others out there, especially Stu Nicholls and Drew McLellan, with their fix descriptions) by adding another div within the original absolute-position-and-semi-transparent-background div and to contain the link(s). This div has no use in other browsers, but in IE6 I apply the AlphaImageLoader background to that one, turning off the background-image on the original div. Since the AlphaImageLoader background is no longer applied to an absolutely-positioned element, all is well again, and links are clickable in IE6!

<div class="withbackground">
 <div>
  <a href="http://www.example.com">Link here<a>
 </div>
</div>

The normal style sheet has what you'd expect for absolute positioning and a semi-transparent PNG background image:

.withbackground {
 position: absolute;
 top: 10px;
 left: 20px;
 background-image: url(images/semi-transparent.png);
}

and then, in an IE6-only additional style sheet, we turn off the original PNG, and apply it using AlphaImageLoader to the child div, which isn't positioned:

.withbackground {
 background-image: none;
}
.withbackground div {
 filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='images/semi-transparent.png', sizingMethod='image');
}

and with all that in place, the page works in every decent browser, and also in IE6!

Eco-Eye Mini electricity consumption monitor

2008-05-21T13:36:00.000+01:00

I have just had delivery of an Eco-Eye Mini electricity consumption monitor, and I'm very impressed.

The monitor is easy to install, just insert the batteries and clip the sensor wire around the live wire in your electricity meter cupboard. You then have a very clear read-out of your current electricity consumption in KW. You can enter the current price per unit for your electricity, and the monitor will then also be able to display the current cost per hour (or day, week, month, or year).

The monitor's output has a resolution of 10 watts, so you can see the effect of turning lights on and off, even low-energy ones.

The range of the monitor is reasonable. In our house with solid internal walls it works in most places apart from the furthest points from the transmitter. The range seems similar to that of our Speedtouch 585 v6 wireless router.

The Eco-Eye is made in the UK, and much more information about the unit is available from the manufacturer's web site: http://www.eco-eye.com

The unit is competitively priced too, and if you order from the Good Energy Shop soon you can get a 25% discount, making the monitor £33.94 including postage.

Later in the summer there should be a USB-interfacing receiver available too, with battery backup and data retention for when your computer is switched off. This listens to the same radio signals as the standard monitors, so will work nicely in parallel. Should make analysing trends in household electricity usage easy.

SEO for business with two sides

2008-04-09T12:03:00.001+01:00

I've been looking into how best to optimise the search engine results position for a local company called Bell Leisure. They have two quite distinct sides to their business: one half is selling pool and snooker tables, and anything related, and the other half sells, installs, and maintains swimming pools and hot tubs.

Their current site is all under the single www.bell-leisure.com domain, with two sub-directories for the two halves of the business. The effect seems to be that their site is listed well in pool and snooker table categories, and also appears well in search results for these types of product. However the swimming pool side of the business doesn't appear well in search results, presumably because it doesn't fit within the categorisation of the site as a whole.

If the company agrees, I'm going to try splitting the site into two separate sub-domains, one for each distinct part of their business.

So http://www.bell-leisure.com/swimming will move to http://swimming.bell-leisure.com, and http://www.bell-leisure.com/tables will move to http://tables.bell-leisure.com. I'll leave the existing "home" page at http://www.bell-leisure.com, and will put in permanent re-directs for the other pages, so previously-created links will still work.

Local Post Office Closures

2008-04-09T11:58:00.000+01:00

Following closure of many of the small local Post Offices here, we now have a terrible situation and dramatic loss in service. The central Post Office in Lancing is now always heavily congested, with long queues and waiting times even at off-peak times.

The net result is that what used to be a ten-minute job, to walk to the local Post Office to post a parcel, now takes more than an hour.

Yet another case of corporate profit taking precendence over public service.