Dave Holladay - Enthusiast

Member since 01 Jan 1970


  • Recent comments

    • IAM boss hits back at BA's claim that red light release was "bogus"

      The statistic of what drivers 'say' about running through lights showing one of the 3 stop aspects (amber, red, and red with amber) and surveys of actual locations holds up that a substantial number of drivers run red lights in the most dangerous way - by making a deliberate decision not to stop and in many cases accelerating. It is thus no great surprise that pedestrian casualty figures for serious injury collisions at traffic signals in London are split 4% for cyclists and 96% for motorists and motorcyclists. The safe filtering-in for a left turn or crossing the top of a T junction on red with a cycle, does not need special legislation either, just a small bit of road redesign, already in place in York. The stop line is simply shortened, and a gap left with a lead-in cycle lane - no stop line to cross = no offence to proceed when the light is red (this also applies to traffic CONTROLS used at road works where no traffic order or stop lines are in place). A give way control may be applied, and indeed already is at some signal controlled junctions as a provision for all traffic to turn left on red On the equally contentious issue and offence of driving or riding a carriage or animal on the footway (Highways Act 1835 s.72) we find that for London just 2% of pedestrian casualties involved collision with a bicycle but 98% involved a motor vehicle. I recall a note that Police drivers alone had been involved in fatal or serious injury crashes on the footway at around 10 times the count for cyclists. The extent to which motorists commit this offence to levels far in excess of cyclists is clearly evident from the sheer number of motor vehicles which are parked with 2 or more wheels on the footway, as quite clearly their driver has not lifted the car into that location. Let's get this loophole closed. If a picture of a car speeding , or passing a stop signal, gets the registered keeper held to account then a picture of a car with wheels on the footway should deliver an FPN to match the zeal with which cyclists are prosecuted for the same offence. I've had an IAM 'review' drive (decided not to join), an incident-free trial on a bus driving simulator, and a voluntary course with the local Police Class 1 instructors, all of which make the comments directed at me when cycling, by motor vehicle drivers whose driving is of a less than ideal standard, rather ironic.

      Dave Holladay 19/05/2012 08:44:53

    • Market report from Mintel measures the UK bike boom

      I looked up an earlier Mintel Report on cycling a few years back, and wondered if they were researching the market in a different universe. Brompton were already up past the 5-figures in annual production but didn't appear to feature at all. Go count at most main London rail stations and between 25% and 60% of the bikes flowing through are compact folding ones, so potentially a reportable impact on bike sales - does the current report mention this? (sadly I'm not intending to spend £1750 on it) Look at Andreas' pictures on London Cyclist of city institutional cycle parking - one big bank has 600 spaces next door to a major London Station, others have converted car parks. This is the beautiful insidious factor of cycle transport - it vanishes from sight when not in use, and also its downfall - this lack of visibility does not do justice to the extent of cycling on many city streets, until suddenly you find that 50% of the vehicles moving at peak time on a couple of streets in the City are bikes!(yes that's from a City of London traffic count). Rail operators are perhaps buying the Mintel report to set their policy from rather than opening the window and looking at the real world outside.

      Dave Holladay 11/05/2012 11:14:20

    • Grand Scheme: bike share for the rest of us

      This is the newest iteration of the Call-a-Bike scheme which has been owned and operated by DB (German Railways) since 2002, when they bought out the original operator (started 2001). The original system had one key flaw, in the flexibility of places that bikes could be put off-hire, so that cunning user would use a bike and conceal it when they parked up so that they could return with the certainty of finding a bike for the return trip. This was remedied by Call-a-Bike'fix' in Stuttgart where there are defined places to park a bike when you've finished using it. A competing variant is Nextbike, which had a very limited number of locations where bikes could be found and hired and charged you relative to distance if you left a bike off-hire away from the official parking area. Scratchbikes have the added glory of being the UK's first bike hire scheme which is fully integrated with the local bus and car sharing schemes through a single point of 'access', thanks I suspect to the efforts of the late peter Huntley who had the foresight to offer free memberships of Scratchbikes and Commonwheels to anyone who bought the Go Northeast Keycard (40% discount on bus fares through paying electronically), and topped off the deal with putting credit to twice the value they got if you decided to scrap your old car and buy in to a bus, car or bike ready to go whenever you need one. Word is that Nexus Metro will soon be linked in to the Keycard payment system so that you can travel throughout Tyneside free from the burdens of car (and bike) ownership, yet enjoying all the benefits of their use. The neat detail about the bike mounted schemes is that they can be rapidly commissioned and reconfigured, and even placed temporarily for a big event. The downside is that the bikes are (or were) substantially more expensive than the dumb bikes with a chip identity plugging in to smart terminals, but in specifying the bikes as 'different, with features that keep maintenance costs down, you also reduce their value for theft, and the obvious misuse when a bike is seen outside its operating zone (which has been the detail of Copenhagen's scheme now in its 17th year - with maintenance funded by sale of the bike branding. Would be useful to talk to you guys next time I'm passing through Newcastle, given that I'm aware of a nuimber of places looking at Bike hire and Bike share schemes (Scratchbikes being more the latter) of various types. Dave H PS for you and other bike hire companies I've commented to several Train operators, about the page on the National Rail website "Cycling by Train" and the pressing need to completely revise the bit about bike hire and cycle hubs to reflect delivery of schemes like this in London Newcastle, Dumfries and Blackpool, with joined-up hire facilties (Oban-Fort William & Inverness rent here-leave there) and the commuter oriented Brompton Dock soon to be operating at around 15 'rail' locations

      Dave Holladay 03/05/2012 22:23:04

    • People on bikes stage huge protest rides in Edinburgh, London & Rome

      Unfortunately I could not be at either of the UK rides but a very telling point - if those 10,000 or 3,000 on bikes had been in cars, and typical occupancy levels, just imagine how much longer it would have take to move them on those short rides, and how less sociable the participants would have been - less smiling, no one talking to the others etc.... Now with the Westminster hall ride, and these two, the next question is "When can we start doing this every month?" Do this on a Sunday and London could become the place to flock to for a sociable mass bike ride - but don't sell it exclusively to just one sponsor this should be free from the commercial pressures of exclusive sponsorship - London 2012 already throws up examples of this (Barclays bikes cannot be located on the Olympic park through clash of sponsor interest).

      Dave Holladay 29/04/2012 12:24:06

    • Hit 'em where it hurts, urges #boycottaddisonlee

      Addison Lee also hold a restricted PSV operators licence - approved in March 2010 (N&P 2183)for 2 vehicles which are not to be limousines or novelty vehicles (I thought I had seen an Addison Lee bus or coach) Licence registration PK1091902 R Licences are issued by the Traffic Commissioner for metropolitan & South East who may wish to comment on whether the company can remain 'of good repute' when the CEO instructs staff to commit traffic offences.

      Dave Holladay 21/04/2012 12:00:33

    • The Economist spells it out: driving ain't gonna get cheaper

      One might look at the bigger corporate and economic picture. many sites - rail stations, workplaces, retail parks, hospitals etc have a greater area provided for parking cars than thay do for their actual operations. Indeed the employee provided with the 6 sq m typically offered in an open plan office might consider moving in to the car parking space provided by their employer instead as this (at typically 12.5 sq.m) is more than twice the space provided as a work-station. This is also a wasteful use of space for all concerned in many cases, as it is often occupied by just one vehicle for 8 to 11 hours of the day and then empty for around the same time, and the owner of the car has a costly asset which is used for barely 20% of the total time. Retail research indicates that per sq.m of parking space cyclists actually spend 20% more than motorists, and the employer GSK calculates thet every employee they don't provide a car park space for saves the company £9,900. A few inspired operations have expanded by building on their car parks, and converting their car commuters to park & ride or cycling using existing bus services and roads networks. The options are many and easily accessible but fear of the unknown and operators with no vision combine to suppress the change. It could be a real and revolutionary option for George Osborne to unlock a massive boost to consumer disposable income, - an estimated 20% boost for households which give up the burden of owning a car, and potentially giving the motor industry a benefit of dealing with car hire and car share operators who renew their cars on a regular basis and require no massive promotional costs. It could drive the growth of the electric car fleet as a car hire operator or more likely a car club would have the costly vehicles more intensively used, and more effectively managed (battery renewals, and recycling etc). Cycling has a role too - for the corporates the cost of a 1 ton van capable of carrying 1 ton and 3 people at 70mph is a gross waste of resources when for 90% of city and campus site deliveries the packages weigh under 30Kg, and can be delivered at 10-15mph (faster than speed these vans normally average) by one person on a cargo cycle costing between £500 and £3000. Proof of the pudding is in York where blue chip van courier operators sub contract to cycle freight delivery which delivers faster, and with substantially lower costs for the final mile. Home delivery is also a major aid to living without car ownership, and not just for groceries. I had a site supervisor running a 90 man 6 mile long site with just a single 12-seat minibus. All suppliers were given the option - deliver to site or we find a supplier who does, and the workforce staggered their shift starting and finishing times, to make most efficient use of the minibus - may had bikes to get up and down the linear site. Many trades contractors working in a congested city could use bikes, carrying their tools, if they got materials delivered, making them more efficient through not having to leave the job for every part or product they needed - the motor trade has done this for years, keeping a mechanic working on the vehicle and getting the supplier to deliver the parts called for as the job progresses. I'd love to do some TV make-overs along the lines of those already done for homes and lifestyle, but with individuals and companies who can seriously cut the one area of resource consumption they have to date ignored - transport. We have established regimes that seek out best deals and lowest consumption kit for energy, and likewise for telecommunications, and no UK Public Transport conglomerate has seriously tackled becoming a single point of purchase for rail, bus, car, and bike as travel choices, for a single all-in monthly payment. Brian Souter has dipped a toe in the water, but the London bike hire scheme that began running in 2004 (and was not invited to tender in 2009, despite having the backing of Veolia, one of the major world players) was offered to the UK but eventually sold to France, with operators in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany all offering car club, car hire, and bike hiring as part of their total door to door journey product, often with a 100% stake in these complementary modes, and thus winning the revenue from selling them. Investing in that final mile delivery can pay-back both ways - car club members make more than 6 times as many rail journeys as the National average, and use buses and bikes twice as much, thus a car club member is a key market for rail and a rail season ticket holder a prime recruit for a car club. Will a UK operation wake up to this?

      Dave Holladay 18/11/2011 10:55:09

    • Edinburgh: bike use on the rise, car use on the wane

      Pity no one got to ask this question of the Minister at the Cycling Scotland annual conference yesterday. We were pressing on integrating with bus and rail, as revised ways of funding bus services are in the pipeline, and it makes great sense to make cycle carriage on buses and coaches a 'score' point for getting the cash back on fuel & running costs. Edinburgh might also reflect on the justification that David Begg used for creating the bus Greenways by taking 2 of the 4 lanes on main arterial routes - 50% of the people travelling on the road corridor (at that time) were on buses, so buses got 50% of the road space. Now if TfL allocated 30% of the road space on Blackfriars bridge to cycle traffic we might see a much more civilised river crossing.

      Dave Holladay 17/11/2011 06:24:07

    • Motoring lobby furious about EU plans to protect cyclists; British media runs wild stories about 'bicycle guerrillas'

      Guns are dangerous too - they kill, maim and cause damage less often than cars but the parallels of a device that has an inherent facility to do such damage requiring the owner to take the liability for any events of that nature involving the gun that they own, regardless of whether they are ultimately 'at fault'. It is this presumed liability for a gun causing injury or damage, which should also be directed to the driver (and owner) of a car involved in any collision. Unlike cyclists and pedestrians, cars are highly likely to kill or injure and thus the presumption of liability rests with the driver for failing to drive with due regard for the danger the car presents to its occupants and other road users. Unfortunately we seem to have messed this one up in the translation and it should be presumed liability rather than strict liability, and as my Police Class 1 instructor pointed out to all on the advanced driver course. In all crashes with another road user both parties carry liability, even if technically not at fault as you should have seen the potential for the crash and acted accordingly. For the user of a large and heavy motor vehicle with its known potential to kill or maim that liability is substantial and most countries across Europe have clearly recognised this by the presumption of liability in the proposed legislation.

      Dave Holladay 31/10/2011 17:23:44

    • BMW dealer opens bike store

      Worth noting that as BMW has the transport concession for London 2012 they are supplying the bikes (although I'm not sure what BMW has in its range of pedal cycles) Thus makes sense to have a BMW bike shop in London? Needless to say this doesn't align with fine words about putting the best of British products & services into the London 2012 delivery - apparently ignoring 2 UK manufacturers with very suitable products to service a large site using cycles. then again if Land Rover and Jaguar and Porsche can brand engineer their way in to having bikes for sale who will be provide BMW range?

      Dave Holladay 28/10/2011 15:52:14

    • How did the Dutch get good bike paths?

      Personally I think the word Stricter is a poor choice and possibly a failing in the translation process. Gun owners have a presumed liability for any action in which that gun causes damage, death, or injury, even if they are not the person who discharged that gun. THe same should translate to a motor vehicle and this aligns well with the employer liability - for example an employer who employs a driver who has no HGV licence to drive HGV's and requires the driver to work outside the constraints of law, or even commonsense is not the driver of the vehicle but potentially carries a greater guilt, as will the client who demands a continuous pour of concrete but cuts corners by not having a batching plant on site or sufficient holding area for a fresh 'jigger' load of concrete (6-10 cu.m - around 20 Tons typically), so the trucks have to run against the clock to keep the pour fed with concrete. So can we use the term presumed liability - you are driving a vehicle which can cause damage and injury and there is a presumed liability that you will address by driving it with especial consideration for slower and lighter road user who will suffer serious consequences of a collision. In the event of a collision with a lighter and smaller road user you will be presumed liable for this unless the action of that road user is show to have contributed to the outcome in a way you could not have allowed for.

      Dave Holladay 22/10/2011 17:19:34

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