Playing In the Snow with Sherlock Holmes

The snow can both hide things and give clues.

The first picture shows a taxi on the sidewalk.  I thought it'd make a nice pic for my "naughty drivers" collection. Ok, taxis stop everywhere when they stop to pick or drop someone. Usually it's only temporary. But was that the case here?

What clues does this picture give? Two very obvious ones: no tyre marks in the snow means the snow came later, and huge snow free blot where the taxi was parked. Both mean that the taxi was here for a while. And because there was some snow on the roof but the windows were clean, the heat (and the engine) must have been on while the car was parked there. If there's no heat, the snow will freeze on the windows. So, parking in the sidewalk and idling the engine for who knows how long.

Well, Watson, what can we see in the picture below?

First, the snow banks on the sides are only knee high. That's because they've been pushed further away, under the trees. Looks like they've done it on both sides of the street, but it's more obvious on the left. We consider that as proof that the bikeway maintenance crew expects the snow melt this year, too.

Unfortunately I left my kneepads home, so I didn't examine the tyre tracks on the snow more closely. Therefore I can't tell you that ten minutes earlier a man weighing so-and-so many kilos rode south and returned  six minutes later after dropping of a letter at the post office. Why, there are sixteen new snowflakes on the tyre tracks, which gives the time difference. Also the tyre marks were 0,1 millimeter narrower on the back, so it's obvious he delivered something lightweight, under 50 grams, and the post office is in that direction.  Elementary, Watson!

Here the bikeway looks pretty smooth, and for the most part it is. There are just a little annoying things hidden under the snow. Old tyre marks left in the softened ice yesterday, and now they've frozen. The grooves here weren't very deep. Maybe an inch in the worst places. When they're up to four five inches in intersections where the snow plows fail to do the work properly, that's practically nothing.

Still, the grooves made the ride feel wobbly. It made me think I should go see if the studded tyres are on an end of icy season sale? Too early for that, yet. Maybe in June. Although the supermarkets have already started stocking their bike displays.

Part of the reason I felt so wobbly was very high pressure in the tyres. I have pumped them up to make the bike roll better. High pressure means smaller part of the tyres touch the ground, or ice in this case. The tyres aren't so elastic and will stay round, which means that they'll be more likely to get caught in the grooves instead of rolling over them. No, the tyre will actually seek the grooves.

So I decided to try if it would be better if I lowered the pressure. Here's a 'before' picture of the front wheel with approximately the right weight on the wheel. Leaning forward to take the picture changed the balance a bit but there's hardly any give in the tyre.

Watson, tell me what is that? --------^

There isn't an after picture, because after I deflated the tyres a little I had to re-inflate them again to stop the wall of the tyres touching the ground. Then I started riding, thinking I'd take the after picture if the pressure was right. Well, by the time I arrived at my destination I had forgotten about it. Sorry.

I wasn't so wobbly. It worked.

My Lucky Day

I guess I'm lucky I'm not a witness to car crashing into half dozen pedestrians, though it certainly was close.

As I got closer to the traffic lights I saw them blinking yellow. I thought "That's cool, I haven't seen that often. Now lets see what kind of mess the intersection is without traffic lights."

Blinking yellow means the lights are temporarily not working, proceed with caution. There might be an emergency vehicle coming through, so let them through, otherwise follow the traffic signs and basic yielding rules. Or it might be blinking yellow due to a burnt (red) light bulb.

Car drivers are supposed to yield to pedestrians crossing the road on the zebra lined crossing. It's also marked with traffic signs. Disturbingly many drivers pay no attention to them, or at least thinks that pedestrians should not step on the road if the car driver has to slow down or stop for them. One such driver makes his displeasure known, as he forces through the pedestrians almost hitting them.

Naughty, naughty!


Some google catch phrases in Finnish in case someone is looking for it: Tervahovintie 15.2.2012 puoli viisi auto ajoi melkein jalankulkijan päälle liikennevaloissa keltaiset vilkkuvalot

Pileups in southern Finland

Based on the news, there were hundreds of fenderbenders and crashes today. On "Lahdenväylä", a motorway, about 200 cars had been in crashes and pileups. Driving conditions have been horrible. As far as I've heard, nobody has died.

Was I amazed when I heard of huge pileups in Helsinki. Not because of the numerous crashes (they happen when you got lots of idiots driving too fast on slippery roads/bad visibility), but because the weather has been fine all week. At least here it has, but I haven't been paying very much attention in the weather forecast once I've saw -25°C to -30°C until Monday when it warms up to -15°C.

It seems that wind brought moist sea air over Helsinki, where it cooled and started snowing. When it's cold enough (around -15°C in Helsinki today) the snow is very fluffy and fast moving vehicles with cause a "dust cloud" of snow.

Also when it's cold enough salting the road does not help, the ice will not melt. I think that in such circumstances the salt actually might make the roads more slippery. On cold days the ice on the road is pretty hard and gritting sand doesn't stick on it as well as it would on warmer days.

Combine bad visibility, slippery roads, lots of cars, and the bad habits of tailgating and driving like it was summer (=too fast) and you'll get lots of insurance paperwork to fill out. ABS and ESP and whatever can only do so much, driver must be aware of the road conditions too.

See what I mean near the end of the video of the crashes as they're happening

Afterwards, lots of wrecks and a queue of cars .

It wasn't just private cars that were in trouble. Buses crashed too. Trams had trouble getting up hills and snow was clogging the rail and tram switches causing further delays. The police suggested taking public transport, and HSL, the public transport authority suggested walking. :-)

Taxi rat running on the bikeway: OYP-317

I was testing out my bike camera today and took a circuitous route to a supermarket. I've been trying to do a 'underpass galore'-video to show the underpasses I've told about before, and add some others. The camera keeps shutting down, and I'm not sure if it's because of the camera or the batteries or what. Today was a warm day, almost +0C, so it couldn't be the cold, could it?

Anyway, I had finished taking the video, or in other words, the camera stopped working, and I was almost at the supermarket, when a taxi arrived there. What happened next amazed me and made me curse the bad luck that the camera was dead. It was good youtube material, and might even get mentioned in local yellow papers. I could be famous in youtube. Damn.

The taxi driver did not turn to the parking lot, but drove past it to get to the bikeway. Then he drove along the bikeway to the front door of the supermarket. The passenger left the taxi, and the driver decided parking rules do not apply to him. He decided to wait for the passenger right there.
 
A car driving on the bikeway is pretty rare. Off my head I can remember two cases where I saw a car (not belonging to maintenance crews) on the bikeway in the last 10 years. They teach you in the school that bikeways are not for cars, in the drivers ed they teach you are not to drive on them, in the drivers lisence test driving on one means you failed. Maybe taxi drivers know better.

I took a picture of him and the car. I guess I had a smile on my face when I took that, because the driver smiled and waved. Did he know my smile was a evil smile because he was going to be in the internet? ;-E

Taxi OYP-317 drives on bikeway, illegal parking.

Sure, the taxi driver is in a customer service business. They are there to transport people and they are "competent, professional drivers". The driver just wanted to get his client a little closer to the door. He's just trying to do his job and be nice to the client.

Nope. I'm not buying that. The real reason why the driver broke the law?
He felt entitled to use the bikeway as a rat run, because there were other cars in the parking lot in the way. They'd block his way and make him wait. He was driving on an important business!

Another real reason is avoiding work. He would have to park the car in the back rows, as the closest ones were full. Then he would have to wait there and hope the client finds him again. Or he could wait standing outside for hours, in the freezing blizzard- errm , a few minutes in balmy +0C weather, for the client to come back. Or maybe he could have waited inside, there's even benches to sit on there. But then he'd have to help carry the awfully heavy shopping bags back to the taxi. That sounds like work, can't do that!

And for Finnish readers using search engines:

Taksi, mersu rekisterinumerolla OYP-317 ajeli pitkin Oulun pyöräteitä marketin etuovelle ja jäi pysäköintikieltoalueelle parkkiin. Mersumies ajaa autolla pyörätiellä kun ei viitsi ajaa parkkipaikalle :-/