one way ticket

Big news really. I’m going to be heading to London for a junior role in the Product department.
I have an impressively short space of time (just over two weeks) in which to pack, move almost everything I have into my parents house and then pack two bags and head south sometime in early September. I have only nine more days to spend with my colleagues in the branch I have known as work since April of 2002, I’m going to miss a lot of things, but in truth I could do with moving to at least a different city to Edinburgh if not a bigger one, so I’m looking forward to it all.

Between this and the bike ride earlier in the year I’ve pretty much covered my aims for the year, and it’s only August.

found some old schoolwork…

Was raking through the boxes of stuff I left at home today (not a lot left, but still a fair chunk), and I found the box containing all my old school work.

By far the best teacher comment is as follows:

Not really up to your usual standard, Alex. Signs of being very rushed and doesn’t hang together – why the bunnies? Where, in school, did you find a cage?

Cycle Safety and Burden Of Proof

Guardian Unlimited Observer | UK News | Driver fury over Euro cycle laws

This has actually been in the pipeline for sometime… but of course, being the UK, the media and policiticans have sleepwalked into this.

Personally, I think it would be good if you went nearly the way this legislation goes and place the burden of proof on the driver of the largest vehicle in any accident to show they were driving responsibly.

Look at it this way, a car jumps a red light, and hits a bike, the cyclist gets injured, and the car gets damaged. A cyclist jumps a red light, and hits a car, the cyclist gets injured and the car gets damaged….

The European Commission document says: ‘Motor vehicles cause most accidents. Whoever is responsible, pedestrians and cyclists usually suffer more. In some member states the cyclist is covered by the insurance of the vehicle involved in the accident irrespective of whether the driver is at fault.’

The really impressive thing at the end of the day is that by the very nature of the feriocious storm the majority of car drivers are bringing up they are showing precisely how much they despise a group of people on the roads merely for riding bikes.

Of course, the only real reason the car drivers are scared is because it would cost them an extra 50 quid a year. And this talk of cyclists as mass law breakers is more than a little bit rich when most drivers on the road regularly break speed limits that cyclists have to work damn hard to reach anywhere near.

This idea sounds interesing…

Guardian Unlimited Observer | Leaders | Traffic calming