The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars
| |

The Luxury of Walking Paths Away From Cars

Byrichard

I love to walk and cycle every day. I love to walk from home and not touch the car. This morning I refuelled the car and it cost 90 CHF for 44 litres or so. Every single time I refuel the car I get a shock. Petrol is expensive, and yet people drive every day.

Usually I go for five days per week without touching the car. I walk from home and back. This saves on driving time, parking and petrol. I come up against a clear frustration.

The Need for Foot Paths and Cycling Lanes

When I drive by some communes and villages, for example between Gingins and Cheserex, or between Reverolle and Hautemorges I see a wide pedestrian band where people can walk, far from cars. Imagine the luxury of walking two or three meters away from a road, rather than in the wet, muddy grass.

Consistently Endangered

Yesterday on a stretch of road that is no more than 700 meters long I had three, not one, not two, but three cars that drove too fast, and too close. They did this without needing to. If a car is coming towards them, and they can’t avoid me, then I will walk into the grass, because there is no choice in the matter.

Veiled Threats

Yesterday, a nun, I believe, a white van driver, and a third person drove too fast, too close, without driving to the other side of the road as they passed me. European law says that people must give one and a half meters between cars and cyclists, but also, by empathy, with pedestrians. These people don’t. They just drive on top of you. They want to scare you off the road, and it worked. I did step into the mud when one homicidal person endangered my life.

Give Space and Slow Down

When I drive I always treat pedestrians and cyclists as I would like to be treated. I give them one and a half meters, as required by law, but I also slow down to a humane speed, as I pass them. I don’t want to intimidate people. I want to show empathy. The more people walk, the fewer cars are around, and with fewer cars, so traffic decreases.

Overtraining

I have been frustrated with how cars behave around pedestrians and cyclists for years, so it can’t just be fatigue and overtraining. I still think that fatigue and over-training play a role. If I was less fatigued, if I was going for shorter walks, then the selfish behaviour by car drivers wouldn’t be so toxic. Of course it’s not just physical fatigue.

Exposure Toxicity

Often when I hear a car I go half a meter to a meter into the grass, or even muddy fields, to give space for cars to pass. They thank me but I very often want to flip them the bird. I’m not giving them space, out of empathy. I’m giving them space because I am tired of having cars driving too fast too close, on agricultural roads. It’s not that these people are fast on main roads. They’re fast on agricultural roads, where cars should not be. There is nowhere you can walk, in Switzerland without escaping from cars.

A Desire For More Paths Away From Roads

There are two awful roads, for pedestrians. On one road there is plenty of space to walk, but rather than place a walking path they put bushes, to stop people from walking. This forces people to walk on a busy road where people are driving above the speed limit. If you walk on the foot path you have your back to the homicidal drivers.

On the other road there is plenty of space where a foot path could be added, for pedestrians to walk comfortable between two villages, without being exposed to homicidal car drivers. Yesterday on one bit of road three cars in a row drove too fast, and too close. If I slipped and fell, or fainted, they would run me over.

I saw a woman walking down that road with a pram yesterday. There should be safe options for people walking between villages.

Invest in Walking and Cycling

With a small investment farmers could make walking between villages more pleasant. We could walk away from busy roads and farmers could benefit financially from turning a metre wide band of land into a walking path for pedestrians and cyclists. The space is there, if only someone had the vision.

And Finally

The walks around where I live are nice, but there are two roads that feel really dangerous, especially when the grass is long, and after a few hours of heavy rain. It’s unpleasant to walk half a meter from where people are driving at 80 kilometres an hour. It might not be intimidating for the cars, but it is for pedestrians. I want car drivers to be aware that they can drive more empathetically.

Cycling from L’Isle to RomainMotier

Cycling from L’Isle to RomainMotier

Byrichard

Although the ride from L’Isle to Romainmôtier feels easy because I’m cycling slower than my maximum it is still tiring, as is illustrated by two points. The first is that the trip burns 800 kilocalories according to the Apple Watch, which is significant, but also because by the end of the ride I feel tired.

Pace Setting

When I cycle by myself I ride to my maximum, and eventually by the end of the ride I hit the wall, and then I make an effort to make it home. When riding with people on electric bikes, the theoretical limit is 25 kilometres per hour but the practical speed, at the moment is 14 kilometres per hour, including the stop for coffee and more.

Gradual Progress

As people on electric bikes get fitter, so they can pedal with more force and reach a higher speed on their electric bikes, which results in someone on a normal bike having to make more effort. You go from a gentle ride with an effort to keep an eye on the people behind, and allowing them to keep up without straining too much. As they get fitter, the speed increases, and the effort on the normal bike increases.

Racing E-Bikes

Although I am not racing the e-bikes, I am pacing myself according to their capabilities, rather than my own. When I was riding up a hill yesterday I noticed that I was breathing quite heavily and that my heart rate got up to 130 to 150. That is not my maximum, but it is an effort. As those on e-bikes get faster, so the effort I will put out will increase. Eventually I might need an e-bike to keep up.

And Finally

Using Saturday as a rest day made sense. It allowed me to recover for a day, before making a large effort once again. With 400 meters of climbing this is not an easy route and should be treated with respect.

An Interminable Pandemic

An Interminable Pandemic

Byrichard

At the same time as the number of active strains of Covid-19 are increasing governments in England, Switzerland and other countries are pushing the narrative that this summer will be normal, that we may no longer need the Covid passes and other such news. We are at a point where there is discussion about lifting restrictions at the same time as cases are going up. Some officials say “we will know whether this strain is dangerous to children in a month, so that’s when we will respond.


For people who see pandemics as serious this is a despairing time. In some cantons they are saying “we don’t have the capacity to test everyone so we will only test symptomatic people” or “We can’t test everyone so people can leave quarantine without a test.” In these scenarios the attitude should be to go into a soft lock down and to get the number of infections to go down.


One of the biggest issues we are phasing is that governments, because we are vaccinating are thinking of it as a miracle solution rather than being combined with other measures. In some countries they spoke of Covid+ approaches, where vaccination, along with virus spread mitigation measures, were used.


Another issue we are facing is the “this variant is mild and people aren’t being hospitalised so we don’t need to worry” group of people. People are actively ignoring the dangers that this virus may present. They are also glossing over the risks posed by long covid.


I stopped writing about the pandemic after 120 days because I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I thought that governments would try to end this pandemic. Now, two years in it feels as though the opposite is true. Some speak of eugenicist policies. We are now in wave five or six of an unlimited number.


As society opens up, it forces those who want to stay clear of the virus, to stay away from society for an ever-increasing period of time. Two years in self-isolation is a long time. It is impacting the mental health of children and young people, who can no longer see an end to this pandemic. I can’t see an end. I can just see wave after wave, as lessons are not being learned.


What is worth noting, is that New Zealand, South Korea, China, Australia and many Asian countries are working hard to stay at covid zero, or get back down to Covid-Zero. It seems that Europe and the US are giving in to fatalism. The pandemic could have been ended within half a year. Now it feels as though we have to either wait a human generation, for it to end, or wait for better leaders to take power. Either way it is discouraging to see countries open up while a wave of infections grows.


I right this for posterity, not for today’s readers.


A Flawed Approach To Ending A Pandemic

A Flawed Approach To Ending A Pandemic

Byrichard

Switzerland is currently following a flawed approach to ending a pandemic, because rather than taking a pro-active approach to preventing outbreaks in various communities across Switzerland they are doing the opposite. They are ignoring the problem until it flares up enough that they can no longer pretend to see it. Today the number of cases has reached 6000 a day for the whole of Switzerland.


A rational and moral government, within a healthy democracy, as we have seen in pandemics since the SARS crisis and others, have done everything to contain the threat, but also to prevent it from spreading. They have done everything they could to contain the threat, and to keep people safe.


During this pandemic it feels as though countries have failed to have the foresight to keep people safe, but also the political strength to resist populism. This pandemic feels as if it is as much about populism, news as entertainment, as it is about a pandemic that could be controlled, if only governments could stand up to pressure groups. In a healthy democracy, and I’m speaking about the issues across Europe, England and other countries, we see that politicians let the virus spread, without seeming to fear that they will lose power, and this seems absurd.


I would expect politicians, in healthy democracies, with healthy media landscapes, to do everything that they can to ensure that their citizens are safe, and that their economies return to normal. By normal I don’t mean with masks, distancing, and covid passes. I mean that the virus is eradicated, and that life is back to the pre-pandemic normal.


For now it feels as though we are stuck in this pandemic for seasons, or even years more.


An event sent an e-mail today, about needing volunteers for an event in January but I don’t see how it will be able to go ahead when we have gone from 1000 cases, to 2000, to 3000 and now to 6000 within a few weeks. Politicians in Switzerland refuse to commit to vaccinating people beneath a certain age, and refuse to acknowledge the trends that we see in other countries. They are benefiting from people’s habit of not reading international news like some of us do.


If I thought the Swiss government was trying to end I would still not be traveling, and I would still be using the pandemic as a reason not to travel, but as things stand, and with the current Swiss attitude, we stand no chance of the pandemic ending for a while, so we might as well take liberties that would be absurd under a different government.


Liberties like road trips.


We need a change of leadership in Switzerland, to include people who use science, and have the courage to stand up against interest groups, to ensure that Switzerland may exit the pandemic sooner, rather than later.


Day Fifteen of ORCA in Switzerland – Pandemic Fatigue

Day Fifteen of ORCA in Switzerland – Pandemic Fatigue

Byrichard

Now that we’re in week 5 of self-isolation and Day fifteen of ORCA I am getting pandemic fatigue. As it’s Monday I could make the effort of going to the shops to get fresh food rather than deplete the reserves I have but my motivation is not there. It has come cold and windy and the rate of infection is still high. I expect that by the end of today Vaud will hit the three thousand case mark.


Yesterday I didn’t feel like watching television series, didn’t feel like listening to podcasts, didn’t feel like walking or studying German. It might just be because soup is the crappy lunch that I always thought it was. I will not be making the mistake of eating something so light.


It could also be due to walking 300 kilometres in a little less than a month. It was two or more hours of walking almost every day. Now I think being lazy is good, for my body to refresh and get ready for indoor cycling. At the beginning of the pandemic I wanted to cycle outdoors but as I broke my arm once I think it might not be worth the risk, however, low the probability is. Low temperatures and wind are good reasons to stay indoors.


In theory, Sunday was a rest day intellectually. I played more than two hours of Civ VI for the first time in months or even years. I did better this game, than I did in the last two or three attempts in precedent days. I managed to found a few cities and keep the barbarians under control.







Another reason for playing a computer game is that I don’t want to spend time on social media. A few days ago I thought that with the pandemic, and with people being trapped at home, people would return to socialising via Facebook and Twitter. Twitter and Facebook are still ghost towns where people share links as there are no conversations to join.


Although I titled this blog post Pandemic fatigue I do not believe that this is necessarily the case. I studied German in the morning, I wrote this blog post in the morning. I spent less time procrastinating than I did on other days and I looked for and applied to at least one job. By this notion, I’m making progress. I also thought about adding item six to my daily task list. Skim through at least ten Linkedin pages to see what opportunities exist.


In normal circumstances, this would be normal, but during a pandemic, where there is no timescale it is hard to plan for the future. We’re living a single day at a time. I saw a joke on Twitter about how March was long but that April will be even longer with an anime gif from groundhog day.


And now to get on with the post Meridien part of the day.

Without Instilling Fear Fire Alarms Are deafening But No More.

Byrichard

I’m suffering from complete apathy for fire alarms. I really hate them. I’ve been hearing idiots make noise till 3 am but thought that I could attempt sleeping. Wrong at 0340 AM there was noise, then for at least 20 minutes at four am. Now it’s 5:52 and I’m awake but this time due to the ineffective fire alarm.

I might go so far as to say pointless and potentially dangerous fire alarm. A fire alarm that makes you clasp your ears to dull the pain of how loud they are is going to prevent you from getting out of bed and to safety. A fire alarm is designed to instill fear, not pain. Fear makes you rush.

This fire alarm just angers me and wonder which moron set it off this time. Rather than fire alarms, an outdated warning system should have flashing lights or a twitter-like system. It could say something like “Fire in block L”, or “smoke detected in Block P” but unconfirmed as of yet. It could say “device fault”.  It could also say “Fire in Kitchen” which did occur two days ago.

A few months ago it was a candle in a room burning through onto a towel and potentially turning a small problem into a life-threatening situation.

None of these matters. If I hear an alarm my first thought is “Who’s the idiot that set it off”, not “ah, maybe I should evacuate”.

Day two of editing

Byrichard

And there we have it. Day two of editing is over and we’re up to five minutes with a script that’s ready to be fleshed out by a variety of interviews. I love editing and whilst writing this I’m beginning to look forward to tomorrow’s editing. The problem is that I was getting a little tired of being in the same room for so many hours in a day. That’ll change tomorrow as new things occur.

We’ve added the sequences to the timeline and it would seem that things are progressing nicely.

I have captured the making-of footage for the multicamera project and that should be fun to edit. It will wait until later in the week when the Documentary edit is closer to completion.