These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear
 

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:00:56 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, Just zis Guy, you know? wrote:

The great joy of London is that it's a human-scale city, you can walk
from St Paul's the the National Gallery, wander round for a couple of
hours then walk on to the West End for a show. Bendy buses are out of
scale, designed for a Continental model which Wren, Hooke and others
failed to have applied to London after the fire.

You bloody what? When you say 'Continental', is the continent in question
North America, or have you just lost your marbles? Or, perhaps, never been
to a European city?

tom

I understood him to mean a European city such as Paris (where I am
now) with it's long straight & comparatively broad streets (boulevards
& such like)

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear
 

Bruce wrote:

I write complete, over-emotive nonsense.

yea plonk

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear
 

bod43 wrote:


I have commuted daily by bus on a bendy route and
they have approximately zero seats. I think that this may
have figured into the calculation to phase them out.



Tommyrot.

Old 507 bendy - 441 seats across 9 buses (49 per bus, 2.04 standees per
seat)
New 507 rigid - 315 seats across 15 buses (21 per bus, 3.6 standees per
seat)

[the reason being to keep the extra cost down to a mere £214k per annum
- obviously you could have gone on adding buses, drivers and taking more
roadspace but it would just become even more ridiculous than it already is]

Your point being thus eradicated, kindly go away and have a rethink.
Londoners tend to prefer getting on their form of transport rather than
having a seat, as the experience of the Class 313s on Overground will
attest, not to mention a century or so of underground rail use, which
has evolved vehicles designed for high standee use without anyone
particularly complaining beyond the usual complaints of British people
in cities. Anyway, standee buses on the Red Arrows came in the late
1960s, for much the same reason the bendies came in - high and
increasing peak demand, and you can either propose a better way of
dealing with that or a way to reduce demand or sod off, frankly.

Tom

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:47:02 +0100,
Tom Barry wrote:

The dreaded 'common sense' of the selfish individual, as expressed by a)
I don't like waiting at traffic lights b) therefore I should be allowed
to ignore them c) therefore I shall arrive at my destination faster d)
therefore the world is a better place.

As opposed to the bendy bus drivers, as expressed by a) I don't like
waiting behind a cyclist b) therefore I should be allowed to ignore them
c) therefore I will turn left across them before I've even got the
articulation of the bus level with them d) therefore the world is a
better place.

One is stupid and puts themselves at risk. The other is reckless and
puts other peoples lives at risk.

http://www.woodall.me.uk/journey/20081212/avi_0002.mpg

Tim.

--
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = - @B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t,"
and there was light.

http://www.woodall.me.uk/

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time.
 

Tom Anderson wrote:

Axe Greater London, i say. Let's have a mayor of London elected by people
who live in London, not some transcluded home counties buffoons who mostly
still insist that they live in 'Metropolitan Kent' or some such nonsense.

As one who grew up in north east Surrey can I say that Croydon, Sutton and
Kingston are London far more than they are Surrey!

And how would you decide who does and doesn't "live in London" - do I,
living in Forest Gate in Newham, "live in London"? It sure feels that way,
bendy bus & all.

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear
 

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:56:33 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, Bruce wrote:

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:59:59 -0700 (PDT), "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:

Do you cycle much in central London? I'm not the only cyclist to find
bendy buses to be disproportionately problematic.

I'm sure I'm not the only London road user to find cyclists to be
disproportionately problematic.

It is difficult to imagine a group of road users who are more
anti-social, showing, as so many do, scant regard for the Highway Code
and complete contempt for other road users, especially pedestrians.

I'd be veryr interested to hear why you don't consider cabbies to be road
users.


I apologise. I also excluded motorcyclists, coach drivers, operators
of street cleaning machinery and those brave people who wash
windscreens and sell newspapers and bunches of flowers at traffic
lights. Plus there's Plod, ...

It wasn't intended to be an exhaustive list, just one that would
illustrate the point.

Note how I neatly avoided mentioning ca ... (blue screen)

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear
 

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:52:00 +0100, Marc
wrote:

Bruce wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:59:59 -0700 (PDT), "Just zis Guy, you know?"
wrote:
Do you cycle much in
central London? I'm not the only cyclist to find bendy buses to be
disproportionately problematic.


I'm sure I'm not the only London road user to find cyclists to be
disproportionately problematic.

It is difficult to imagine a group of road users who are more
anti-social, showing, as so many do, scant regard for the Highway Code
and complete contempt for other road users, especially pedestrians.
No it's not difficult at all!

Van drivers
Lorry drivers
Bus drivers
Taxi drivers
Private hire drivers
Postmen driving vans
Police drivers

I have witnessed all of the above show "scant regard for the highway
code, and complete contempt for other road users, especially pedestrians."

This afternoon I drove 3 miles on B and A roads then 3 miles on A dual
carriage way then X miles on the motorway and then 4 miles on A and B roads.

I saw....

at least 2 vans ( that I can remember) parked on pavements.
1 lorry mount a kerb a corner
1 bus splash pedestrians
1 taxi driver stopping on the zigzags of a zebra crossing
1 Private hire vehicle turning right at a "Buses only" right turn rather
then going around the roundabout.
1 post man parken on a brow of hill
1 police car in a yellow box junction.

Want a score tomorrow?


No thanks. I'd like a cup of tea, though. ;-)

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rearends round our corners for the final time.
 

On 28 July, 17:16, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, James Farrar wrote:
Offramp wrote in news:603ac8ce-e923-4513-acbe-
:

On 24 July, 23:41, Richard

I feel unusually annoyed about this... They are some of the best buses
ever to be used in London or anywhere else, in my controversial
opinion.

I agree entirely. I think it is odd and very wrong that one man's
fatwa could get rid of them.

He's the Mayor; we elected him.

I bloody well didn't.

Axe Greater London, i say. Let's have a mayor of London elected by people
who live in London, not some transcluded home counties buffoons who mostly
still insist that they live in 'Metropolitan Kent' or some such nonsense.


The concept of a Mayor is undemocratic and intended to allow unelected
political party officials to override the views of elected council
members (and those they represent) while hiding behind the figurehead
of the Mayor.

Of course, Ken spoiled this for New Labour, but he was pretty much
unique.

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear ends round our corners for the final time.
 

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:23:39 +0000 (UTC), Tim Woodall
wrote:

On Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:47:02 +0100,
Tom Barry wrote:

The dreaded 'common sense' of the selfish individual, as expressed by a)
I don't like waiting at traffic lights b) therefore I should be allowed
to ignore them c) therefore I shall arrive at my destination faster d)
therefore the world is a better place.

As opposed to the bendy bus drivers, as expressed by a) I don't like
waiting behind a cyclist b) therefore I should be allowed to ignore them
c) therefore I will turn left across them before I've even got the
articulation of the bus level with them d) therefore the world is a
better place.

One is stupid and puts themselves at risk. The other is reckless and
puts other peoples lives at risk.

http://www.woodall.me.uk/journey/20081212/avi_0002.mpg


The bendy bus driver saw you, gave you a wide berth, almost stopped,
and only made the turn when he saw that *you* had stopped. Yes, he
saw you too late, and should have made his turn after allowing you to
clear the side road, but having made a mistake he corrected it and
made the turn safely at no risk to you.

These writhing whales of the road have swung their hefty rear
 

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009 21:16:32 +0200, BIG_ONE
wrote:

Bruce wrote:

I write complete, over-emotive nonsense.

yea plonk


Thanks for reminding me to add you to my kill file. ;-)