A question from a motorist

[The 2nd Womble]

The OP has emailed me and asked that I give you his response in his absence, as he won't be able to reply to your comments personally for fear of further deliberate and resultingly hurtfull derailment of the topic from the hyothetical.

"Dear 2nd Womble (if that is your real name - without registration it's hard to be able to verify this),
I appreciate all of your responses and the well reasoned debate that you have continually engaged me with over the last few days.
"Can you please pas on my congratulations in particular to those who repeatedly humoured me by supposing hypothetical senario's so maturely and without unnecessary verbal banter. The fact that you have all been so measured in your counter argument is refreshing.
"However it does seem that there is an underlying resentment to motorists who do not share your seemingly congruent OR collective POV. So in conclusion I would just like to say please get the **** off my roads!"

I trust we can now leave the matter where it died - under it's rock - now.

[rkelsen]

[The 2nd Womble]

Good taste there buddy.

[KonaCommuter]

I lifted this from somewhere else but can not vouch for the accuracy as it was an anonymous post and I'm not a civil engineer.

Road engineers & freight managers use a rule of thumb to calculate wear by a vehicle (The Generalized Fourth Power Law). Holding speed and tire width constant, road damage is a function of vehicle weight to the fourth power. That's a big exponent.

For example: the cost to build & maintain a piece of roadway for a 200lb bike+rider is something on the order of 1/160,000th the cost of doing the same for a 2-ton car. When I first read this I was incredulous. That seemed so unlikely: my bike uses 1/160,00th the road as my car?

But consider this mental experiment: your neighborhood builds a separated bike path in a park. You & your neighbors could build it in a single weekend, with donated materials & labor. With minimal maintenance (again, volunteered, or nearly as cheap) it could support almost unlimited pedestrian & bike traffic. So: free, basically.

But just one yahoo driving on it with snow chains could ruin it forever.

[jules21]

kona, that's correct. the power figure is actually higher than 4 for more fragile pavements, such as spray seal rural roads.

the cost is not just wear either - it's cost of construction. roads capable of supporting motor vehicles must be built with far more reinforcement than those for bicycles. while cars don't really impact on construction of roads built to handle trucks, they do on roads not meant for trucks (local roads). we pay for the extra few inches depth of whatever they use to strengthen, so that cars can drive on them.

the argument that car drivers pay for the roads and cyclists don't is completely wrong.

[Mulger bill]

Thank you Dave for posting that thoughtful and well reasoned response on Mr Watsons behalf.
Methinks we all believed it until it got to the bit about "your well reasoned debate".

I think we have sufficient consensus that Mr Watson has said his piece and having nailed his colours to the mast has chosen to fight through the traffic into the sunset. It's time to go lads...

Shaun

[find_bruce]

You can't finish without a song

Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me
M-U-L-G-E-R B-I-L-L-Y

Hey there hi there ho there
You're as welcome as can be
M-U-L-G-E-R B-I-L-L-Y

Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree
M-U-L-G-E-R B-I-L-L-Y

Now it's time to say goodbye
To all our company

M-U-L, L cause we're laughing
G-E-R, R like a pirate
B-I-L-L-Y

[Marto]

Perfect cyclist was more fun.

[ColinOldnCranky]

You can't finish without a song

Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me
M-U-L-G-E-R B-I-L-L-Y

Hey there hi there ho there
You're as welcome as can be
M-U-L-G-E-R B-I-L-L-Y

Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree
M-U-L-G-E-R B-I-L-L-Y

Now it's time to say goodbye
To all our company

M-U-L, L cause we're laughing
G-E-R, R like a pirate
B-I-L-L-Y

Lyrics look like a good fit but I suspect that few here would be in a position to recognise it. I think few here would know about the mickey mouse club song or Bobby or Annette or Doreen or ...

[Mulger bill]

Nice one Bruce, I d.
Now I have coverage again...

Shaun