Parent needs modding up! Again, PHP wouldn't be my cup of tea but if it gets you to market faster then use it. You can always reimplement in C++ once you've got the users.

Sorry, this is off topic but hopefully still interesting...

I've often wondered how language shapes how we think about corporations. In the American dialect of English corporations tend to be treated as nouns where as in the British/Commonwealth dialect of English they are treated as collective nouns.

E.g. Microsoft is doing something - we're talking about the legal entity Microsoft vs Microsoft are doing something - we're talking about one of the company (employees) of Microsoft doing something.

It's a small but, I think, interesting difference. At what point would can a corporation be blamed for the actions of it employees? This case involving Microsoft will probably be sorted out without much fuss but in other, more serious cases, such as corporate manslaughter it's a much stickier issue.

I don't know there's plenty of other drivers I've seen who think they have sole right to the road regardless of whether I'm driving or cycling. That high ground works both ways but in a car they're far more likely to kill through stupidity. On a bike they're more likely to only be a danger to themselves.

This thing is mainly to give the inexperienced a helpful guide rather than confer or claim any extra rights for the cyclist. You could put something similar on parked cars as a guide for drivers too. It's nothing to take offence at as an experienced driver or cyclist would leave the correct amount of space anyway.

Seems a little harsh and sweeping. I've always enjoyed my visits to the US. I find American people particularly friendly even though I currently have no plans to move there. I really don't think there's an excuse for generalisations and racism.

The problem of bad drivers is the same as the problem of bad cyclists giving me a bad name.

This "them and us" is of no help to anyone.

An asshole on a bike in a hurry annoys an asshole on the pavement who then gets in his car. Now said asshole, because he's angry, is driving without his normal due care and attention scares the crap out of the first asshole on the bike.

The upshot of which is that both assholes are now in cars and taking it out on my bike, not because they're drivers (so am I when I'm not cycling) but because they're both assholes, regardless of mode of transport. But in cars they're deadly even if you're also in a car!

We who follow the law need to stick together regardless of how we get about 'cause the assholes are forming a union!

How does this lead to that? It only highlights how much room to leave for inexperienced drivers.

A bad cyclist, who doesn't follow the law would ride the same without this. Just as they probably break the law when they're in their cars too, regardless of whether their tail lights are working.

This is just a guide for inexperienced (but law abiding) drivers to help them to judge the same amount of passing space as we'd both probably leave already.

Well put. In short people need to obey the law.

But even paying taxes, doesn't give motorists the right throw things at cyclists, use their horns in appropriately, DUI, run red lights whilst on the phone or threaten other road users just because they're cycling today. None of which I'm sure you or any other responsible driver would do.

This thing is only a guide for new drivers so that they can judge how much room to leave, nothing else. It's not supposed to be in your face or anything.

The outliers always grab the attention. I don't assume you are a dangerous driver please assume that most cyclists like me (when I'm not driving) are not outliers either. Thanks.

Well said!

Further to this, what if I also have a car, which I pay VED on, and still choose to use my bike which I also have CTC insurance on?

Does this mean other road users treat me differently? If I ride responsibly and to the highway code does that mean that other road users treat me differently?

The answer to both is no, they don't.

This gadget is designed to help the inexperienced motorist correctly judge safe overtaking distances. Which I think it could, with some development, do quite well. The people this is aimed at aren't malicious, they're just in need of a helping hand, especially if they've just passed their test.

No one is say we can't drive our cars or that cyclist can ignore the highway code just because someone is trying to make the roads safer for a vulnerable group. It's even like this would cost anything to other road users. So the GP, can clam down and stop generalising about all cyclists by talking bollox about tax, etc. as this laser thing probably wasn't design with him in mind anyway.

LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE! :P
An hour!
At 20mph?
For one cyclist?!

Oh, come on, you must be able to safely overtake 1 cyclist in less time than that. I don't believe you've ever been held up for a whole hour by one cyclist, what a load of old bollox!

I highly doubt anyone who can hold 20mph+ average for an hour is not to give you safe pace to pace in one whole hour. For starters, they'd have been run off the road years ago.

Just YOU wait till this happens to you 'cause it aign't happened yet!

I hate seeing bad cyclists riding on pavements or jumping lights as it winds up other road users (pedestrians or motorist) and then they'll seem to take less care following the highway code when I'm out on my bike.

The only thing is, if people are inconsiderate around these assholes they'll get intimidated and either ride on the pavement more or worse get in their cars; they'll drive really badly there too. And when they're in their car they're much more dangerous to all of us, whether we're driving walking or cycling. When they're in they're cars the same people are injuring and killing far more people than when they're on their bikes.

Just think how often you see these same guys cutting you up in their cars or blocking you in when drove somewhere. At least they don't do that with their bikes.

An asshole is still an asshole, no matter what transport he uses and crucially he'll probably be part of that grid lock next time you want to go into town.

But if he's on a bike he's less likely to kill your wife and kids whilst he's on the phone and cities with more cyclists have less traffic jams so you'll have to spend less time in the company of that fucker.

That seems like a fairly reasonable point.

However, most cyclists, in my limited, experience are also drivers and so do have some idea of the view point of the motorist. However, sadly, it doesn't follow the other way around. I've met many fellow motorists who have no idea what it's like on the roads to be either a cyclist or a motorcyclist.

Now I realise that most people who make jokes about running cyclists over and hosing their cars down are just being flippant (They wouldn't want to dent their cars! :P ) but it feels completely different when I'm passing through a constricted piece of road and a less experienced driver tries to squeeze through for the sake of 20 seconds rather than wait for me to pass through first.

Something like this lane painting gadget would be useful not because cyclists own the roads (we don't) but because it would give a guide to less experienced drivers of how much room they need to safely perform an overtaking manoeuvre.

By the way, not sure about the US but in the UK the motorist specifically doesn't own the road either. The tax disc we buy is Vehicle Excise Duty not road tax. This was changed sometime ago (1940s I think) so that motorists couldn't make that claim. Nominally, our roads are paid for out a different pot of tax (what we call council tax). I only mention this as in this thread I've often seen replies from fellow motorists that seem to think they have a priority on the roads.

QD you're wanted on the phone.....

For gods sake sootman you're hysterical. Get a hold of yourself. [SLAP]

You've got to calm down.[SLAP].....

Airplane Clip

LOL I'm choosing to blame Apple because that's where the blame lies!

When someone sends me an MMS picture I don't think "why are they using MMS when email is so much better" (and I would agree with you that email is better but MMS is a fact of life).
Instead I think "I wonder what that is, bugger, bloody iPhone. Why doesn't it support MMS ...or some simple way to view this ...or even just cut and paste so that I can paste the SMS details into Safari".

It's going to take an awful lot of spin to change that.

And if you really think that MMS was left out for design simplicity rather than either marketing or budget reasons then please explain the design genius behind leaving SMS forwarding out too.

Actually, I do take the position that Apple is at fault here because the functionality is not replicated by email.

It's all very well invoking some hypothetical Q application but that wouldn't be in almost every other phone in the market anyway. How, exactly, do you use email to receive an MMS message someone has sent to you? Apple/$PhoneCompany could set up a gateway to forward your MMS to you email account but they don't.

Email doesn't replace MMS because MMS is a more widely distributed standard (WRT mobile phones), available to many who don't have access to email on their phones.

I don't control the way in which other people send me images. I knew the iPhone didn't support MMS when I bought it and my next phone will probably also be another iPhone it but it's still a PITA that Apple could easily fix if they weren't they weren't trying to force the market to abandon MMS.

One software update would solve the whole problem.

Well I really miss MMS on my iPhone especially as I know people who don't have email on their phones.

I miss it every time someone sends me an MMS message and I have to go to a webpage to view it.

Doesn't sound too bad does it? Except that the person in ivory tower who decided that the iPhone won't do MMS also decided that it can't do cut and paste, so I have to remember two long, cryptic strings to type into safari to view picture messages. Hardly friendly.

Also, why can we still not forward SMS messages? These are basic features but you never no what a pain in the arse it is to not have them if everyone you know has a blackberry, iphone or other phone with email support.

In the real world email support is sadly only setup in a minority of products.

So, sorry, but fewer feature is still worse.