What's new at drianwalker.com?

Reminder: this news page has moved

This is just a quick reminder to let any remaining subscribers to this news feed know that this will not be updated any more. From now on, all my updates are on my greatly more interesting and frequently updated blog.

As this was such a boring, housekeeping message, I’ll compensate with my favourite joke:

A: Look! There’s a flock of cows over there.

B: Herd of cows.

A: Of course I’ve heard of cows: there’s a flock of them over there!

A man can wait a lifetime for a chance to use comedy gold like that.

My news has now moved!

For those of you who follow my website’s news with a feed reader, please note that this feed will no longer be updated. From now on, I’m keeping my news up to date - more often - using my new blog, which can be found at bamboobadger.blogspot.com. You can find a new feed if you visit the site, and I promise to make it all rather more interesting and newsworthy.

Got a Twitter account

I’ve opened an account on Twitter as an experiment. My thinking is that that this could be particularly useful for my students to know whether I’m in the office or not. My updates on where I am and what I’m doing can be found at http://twitter.com/ianwalker

Walking in North Wales

I’ve just got back from walking the northern section of the Cambrian Way, through Snowdonia from Cadair Idris to Conwy. Tough walking, but fantastic views. You can see some photographs, if you like

Creativity survey

One of my masters students is doing a survey on how people perceive creativity in drawings. If you have a minute or two, please visit the survey. It takes anything from five seconds to as long as you like, so no matter how much time you can spare, you can help her.

Please do tell other people about the survey

Got spare time? In the middle of nowhere? Play HAMBACK!

Recently, whilst doing some solo wild camping, I realized it would be useful to have some simple entertainment for evenings spent alone. I have therefore created a game derived from backgammon and called Hamback. Read all about it.

About the logo

Various people have asked me about the logo at the top of all the pages on this site. The original picture was taken by a photographer called Graham Quick when we were in the Maldives together just after the 2005 Asian tsunami, distributing aid around one of the outlying atolls. After a week on an amazing old Indian Ocean cargo ship, we returned to the capital, Male, for a couple of days, and for something to do Graham and I took a ferry to Hulumale, a newly constructed island next to the capital. Male, despite being a capital city, is situated on a tiny island which is quite literally full, and Hulemale had been built as an overflow for new developments. When we were there, the building had only just begun and it was the strangest experience. The island had much of its infrastructure in place — it was full of roads, lamp-posts, and so on — but hardly any buildings, giving it a baked, baren, almost post-apocalyptic feel.

Impressed with the feel of the place, Graham took this photo of me using a (working) telephone booth which stood all alone in the middle of a vast nothingness. I doctored the image slightly to emphasize the emptiness of the scene (originally the picture did not extend so far to the left), but it’s still a meaningful representation of a very hot, memorable day on a very strange island.

Cycling Plus - the full references

Cycling Plus Magazine number 194 (March 2007) has a feature based on my research, mostly the really exciting stuff on how the tendency for some road users to remain looking human whilst travelling can affect their safety.

The list of references in that article is slightly curtailed, so here is the full list:

Walker, I. (2005). Signals are informative but slow down responses when drivers meet cyclists at road junctions. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 37, 1074-1085.
Walker, I. & Brosnan, M. (2007). Drivers’ gaze fixations during judgements about a bicyclist’s intentions. Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, 10, 90-98.
Gale, A., Spratt, G., Chapman, A.J., Smallbone, A., 1975. EEG correlates of eye contact and interpersonal distance. Biological Psychology, 3, 237�245.
Walker, I. (2007). Drivers overtaking bicyclists: Objective data on the effects of riding position, helmet use, vehicle type and apparent gender. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 39, 417-425.
- Fantz, R.L. (1961). The origin of form perception. Scientific American, 204, 66�73
- Goren, C., Sarty, M. & Wu, P. (1975). Visual following and pattern discrimination of face-like stimuli by new born infants, Pediatrics, 56, 544-549.
- Johnson, M.H. & Morton, J. (1991). Biology and Cognitive Development: The Case of Face Recognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Walton, G.E., Bower, N.J.A. & Bower, T.G.R. (1992). Recognition of familiar faces by newborns. Infant Behaviour and Development, 15, 265-269.
Driver, J., Davis, G., Ricciardelli, P., Kidd, P., Maxwell, E., & Baron-Cohen, S. Gaze perception triggers reflexive visuospatial orienting. Visual Cognition, 6, 509-540.

I can provide copies of my own papers on request if they’re for research purposes. The slightly less serious (although still accurate) analysis of white van overtaking can be found on Philica.

Finally, there’s an interesting little study of what people’s descriptions of road scenes tells us about their perceptions of different types of road user in Walker, I. (2005) Road users’ perceptions of other road users: Do different transport modes invoke qualitatively different concepts in observers? Advances in Transportation Studies, A6, 25-33.

On the News, Stateside

A few days ago I went to New York. Sadly this wasn’t to stroll around Manhattan sipping cocktails and getting into scrapes, like whenever Bertie Wooster used to pop over there. Instead I was there to appear on an ABC News 20/20 programme about how people perceive and respond to risks. I believe it’s due to the aired around the end of February, so make sure you don’t miss that one, Merkins. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of me and interviewer John Stossel freezing our butts off (I’m allowed to say that, as it’s in an American context) near Central Park as we do an outdoor interview before filming some cycling footage.

Incidentally, if the taxi driver who took my wife and I back to the airport happens to see this, I left the brown hat you see below in the back of your cab and would really be most grateful for its safe return. By way of a reward, I’m prepared to stop loathing you to the very depths of your soul for lying to me when you said I was obliged to pay the bridge toll as well as the fare.

Oh, and so the South Americans don’t feel left out, I also did an interview on Columbian radio last Saturday to mark Bogota’s annual day of banning cars from the city. What a great idea - do it on a weekday next year!

I’m in the New York Times again

For the past six years, the New York Times magazine has summarized the past year in terms of the ideas that emerged. This year they included my research on bicycle overtaking - hurrah! You can read the article here. On the same day, I was covered quite a bit in the Financial Times too by Dominic Swords.

The Great Apostrophe Mystery solved

We all see words with apostrophes missing, as in “Whats the problem with my punctuation?”, as well as words with extra apostrophes, as in “My word’s have extra apostrophe’s”.

For a long time, I’ve been wondering if there is a fixed number of apostrophes in the universe, such that the extra apostrophes exactly balance out the missing ones. I’ve just tested this idea, and the results are all here. Enjoy.

Bicycle overtaking project

It is Wednesday morning, and I’ve spent pretty much two days solid being interviewed and answering emails, and it’s not over yet. My findings that wearing a cycle helmet makes drivers get closer wheras women get more space from drivers than men (as well as other aspects of the same study) have produced an astonishing amount of interest all over the world. I’ve added a list of media coverage to the bottom of this page, and that’s only the ones I know about.

I’d like to thank the hundreds of people from over a dozen countries who have emailed me with their questions, comments and general messages of support. I’ve had a lot of people say that these findings back up hunches they’ve developed over the years, and many others tell me that they’ve learnt something new from them, both of which are great things for a scientist to hear. Especially for one like me, who is passionate about making science relevant and accessible to the public.

Finally, a note for people in the US: I’ve heard various comments pointing out that as the furthest into the road I travelled was 1.25m, it’s no wonder people got close as I was riding in the gutter. Far from it! Here in Britain our urban roads are usually about 5-6m wide, so 1.25m from the edge is pretty much in the centre of the lane. It’s definitely enough to force vehicles into the opposite lane.

Safe cycling, everyone - remember, for all this talk of accidents, it isn’t really a dangerous thing to do: your life expectancy goes down much more if you don’t cycle than if you do. And the more of us who do it, the safer we all are.

White van media frenzy-ette

When the university press office put out a media release describing my finding that white vans get closer than cars when overtaking cyclists, the intention was to keep it as a local news story.

Some chance.

Since Wednesday I have been on over a dozen national and local radio stations, several TV stations and most of the national newspapers. You can see most of these here.

The Times (and some Guardian columnist a day later, tut tut) made the point that because van drivers are useful to us I shouldn’t criticise them for poor driving. What an odd thing to say. Doctors are useful; refuse collectors are useful; shopkeepers are useful. Half the people in the country are doing something useful to other people, but we can’t criticise them when they threaten to kill people? How weird. I can only assume the journalists in question have been having trouble finding reliable plumbers recently and had to do some grovelling. Ah, the problems people bring on themselves by living in London…

I love flat tyres

Click here

I’m speaking at the BRLSI

The Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution have invited me to talk about road safety and my research on 11 July. I’ll be giving a presentation entitled: “Mixing it up: What happens when pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists interact with drivers?” starting at 1930. See you there!

White Van research?

Did you come here because of my white van research? If so, you can read all about it here at Philica. In short, UK white van drivers get somewhat closer to cyclists than car drivers.

Got Google Earth? Download this file

This is the full route of my John o’Groats to Land’s End cycle ride, downloaded direct from the GPS receiver on my handlebars. You can see every twist and turn of my 1900-km bicycle journey. Amazing. And if you fancy a laugh, look for Broadway in the Cotswolds and see my hopeless efforts to find the campsite (thanks mainly to the receptionist I called, who apparently had very little idea where she worked).

New online journal to be launched

I’ve had a hand in a new online academic journal called Philica. Philica takes a completely different approach to the publishing and peer-review of research works which encourages freedom of information and protects the efforts of researchers. It also make the peer-review process much more transparent and fair than elsewhere. Visit Philica.com to learn all about it. If you are a researcher yourself then feel free to sign up and start using the site.

A public announcement

I, Ian Walker, hereby acknowledge that any organization I telephone may record or monitor the call for training, quality, and/or security purposes. Now please stop telling me this every sodding time I call.

I’m writing a book!

I’ve just been contracted by the lovely people of Ashgate Publishing to write a book called Vulnerable Road Users: Themes in Safety, Psychology and Behaviour. Assuming I get it written in time, it’ll be published some time in summer 2007 - no doubt they’ll want to get it in the shops for the Christmas market…

Apptils and gravy!

My wife and I have been enjoying the following animations a great deal. You probably have to have a cat to fully appreciate them, but they are magnificent pieces of work and almost impossibly cute:

Apptils and Gravy
All about Mannirs
All about Sceince

Edit: Oh, and this

I am going to be SO RICH

This may be the last you hear from me. I’ve just received this email:

Dear friend,

I represent WFS INC based in Finland. My company markets and exports cotton,cocoa and other products for world trade. We are searching for representatives who can help us establish a medium of getting to our customers in Europe and America as well as making payments through you as our payment officer. It is upon this note that we seek your assistance to stand as our representative in your country. Note that, as our representative, you will receive 5% of whatever amount you clear for the company and the balance will be paid into an account we will avail to you [etc. etc., I just need to provide a few personal details to get the ball rolling]

Very Respectfully,

Mr Sauerwald Wilhelm Fridrich. President,
WFS INC.
Finland.

Well, I clearly stand to make a sodding FORTUNE. And don’t come asking for any of it. So long, losers.

Jolly and Useful

I’m involved in a new online shop! Selling lovely things for children and the home, including the amazing Crumb-pets, JollyAndUseful.co.uk is well worth keeping an eye on!

Incidentally, J&U also has a lovely affiliates programme. Put a link to our website on yours and you get a percentage of anything we make from the customers you send. This is a very easy way of making money if you have a website.

I don’t normally do this

but some things you just have to respond to. Councillor Terry Kelly from Renfrewshire council felt the need to write to the Guardian’s letter page to say this:

“Congratulations to the scientific community…. Back in January they fired a bullet on to a 280m-mile space journey, and it has now smashed through a comet travelling at 23,000 miles a minute. Now they can try something really difficult, like feeding a starving third world child.”

Coming from anyone else, I would have just shook my head at the naivety. But from a wannabe politician this was too much, so I had to email him:

Dear Cllr Terry,

I read your letter in today’s Guardian with interest. I know how easy it is to be shocked by spending in one field of human activity when one perceives a need in another; I frequently find myself in the same position*. However, you surely can’t believe that the existence of starving people in the Third World is the result of scientists lacking the necessary knowledge or desire to help.

If children are starving in Africa then this is the result of politicians’ decisions: they are the ones who not only impose trade restrictions and subsidies and do little to calm the continent’s conflicts, but who also hold the strings of the scientific purse in the West. There are any number of crop scientists and irrigation experts who would gladly feed the starving, but politicians feel that the money is better spent elsewhere; the world’s scientists didn’t sit down around a table and choose between investigating a comet or feeding the poor, you know.

You might remember the importance of politicians in choosing the direction of scientific activity if you ever rise to a position of proper power in the political world. I suspect you might go far; you have, after all, already mastered the delicate art of scapegoating.

Yours,

Ian Walker

*For example, I’m currently staggered that we’re prepared merrily to fritter away billions on hosting the Olympics when with only a tiny amount of that money I could carry out research that would save people’s lives.

I will be interested to see if he replies.

Update: He did reply, which was nice given that I’m not in his constituency and so bothering with my opinions is outside his balliwick, as it were. His reply said that despite my “jaundiced” view of politicians, I shared his concerns. He went on to say that his letter was not an attack on the scientific community but was instead saying there was no technical reason we cannot solve the problems of the planet, which rather makes it sound as if he hadn’t read his own letter. “Whether you like it or not it is the politicians who will solve this” he informed me leadenly, which was precisely my point in the first place and so it was nice to see he had come round to my way of thinking; I must be a more persuasive writer than I give myself credit for.

I turned down his kind offer to send me a Labour Party membership form.

The Oxford and Cambridge Cycling Survey

I’ve been hard at work with Oxfordshire County Council surveying the experiences of almost 5,000 cyclists. The results, which you can download from this page make for some interesting reading, especially the stuff on accidents.

Thinking of buying an SUV?

I’ve just been looking at EuroNCAP’s website. Bearing in mind that NCAP are hardly the sworn enemy of the motor industry, the comments from the pedestrian safety bits of their 4x4 SUV reviews make interesting reading:

Range Rover (6/100): “This is dire, and Land Rover needs to improve matters.”

BMW X5 (6/100): “High vehicles pose problems for pedestrians, especially children, and the X-5 is no exception. Its front is unfriendly and its bonnet top little better; a poor rating”

Jeep Cherokee (8/100): “The results were poor. Jeep says it has not attempted to incorporate pedestrian protection in the design” [the mind boggles at Jeep’s comment]

Kia Sorrento (8/100): “Only the part of the bonnet where an adult�s head might strike offered cushioning. Otherwise, the Sorento�s front end scored nothing. This is a very poor result”

Mercedes-Benz M class (11/100): “a dismal performance”

Vauxhall Frontera (6/100): “Protection offered for pedestrians by the Frontera proved to be dire”

Suzuki Grand Vitara (0/100): “Protection was dire and scored no points”

Volkswagen Toareg (19/100): “This does not match the protection provided to occupants. The front gave some cushioning where an adult�s head would most likely strike. But the child head impact areas and particularly the bumper and leading edge of the bonnet were very unfriendly”

Volva XC90 (28/100): “The bumper and bonnet leading edge were unforgiving. But the top of the bonnet protected children�s and adult�s heads to give the XC90 a two-star rating. Volvo needs to work harder to improve pedestrian safety.”

Land Rover Freelander (19/100): “The bonnet leading edge and bumper were particularly unforgiving”

Mitsubishi Pajero Pinin (3/100): “The Pajero came close to scoring no points and no stars. Of all the areas tested only one site on the bonnet gave any cushioning at all for a pedestrian in a collision. Euro NCAP criticised this poor showing and has urged Mitsubishi to do more to protect pedestrians”

Nissan X-trail (28/100)

Even the very “safest” star performer, the Honda CR-V, only scored 53/100 for pedestrian safety. This is all thoroughly depressing reading, and suggests that, despite the loud insistence of certain folk, drivers should be free to choose whatever car they want without suffering criticism at around the same time I’m free to walk down the street without my life being put at risk by their choices.

I can only hope that the people who bought these things to make their children safer are planning to drive their children around for the rest of their lives.

Updated boat page

I finally managed to get myself, my boat, and a decent camera all in one place, so have some lovely new photographs of Chota Peg II, the narrowboat I have for sale, as illustrated to the right. Buy her now. Go on, you know you want to.

They’ve made a doll of me

Like Evil Kenevil and H out of Steps, I too have now had a doll made of me. That this appeared in the shops so soon after my attendance at a wedding disco cannot be a coincidence. Click here to see the video (3gp format) (if it doesn’t work, right-click to save the file and then load it)

My narrowboat is for sale

My lovely 45-foot narrowboat, Chota Peg, is for sale. She’s priced to sell, so if you’re looking for a boat for leisure or liveaboard use, get in touch. There is a page full of details here

More on the World Lying Championship

Trawling through my hard disk this morning, I came upon a bit of old writing. When I entered the World Lying Championship and the World Wife Carrying Championships I was planning to carry on entering such events and to have a stab at writing a book about it. This plan became, as Inspector Morse would say, OBE (overtaken by events), but I re-discovered the first chapter of this putative book, describing the dramatic events of the lying championship, and thought I might as well stick it up here. Enjoy.

How people find this website

I’m always interested to look at my site statistics and see how people find this site. A good number are specifically looking for me, searching Google for “Ian Walker” or the title of one of my papers, and that’s all fine and dandy. The more interesting thing is how people find my other pages. “Evil vegetables” is the third most common search term used by people visiting my page, and all sorts of other people search for related things like “are vegetables all evil?” (yes), and “evil broccoli”. Even more entertaining are the people who find the evil vegetable page by searching for things like “Lady of Shallot analysis”. I get a lot of these, and it amuses me a great deal to think of these English Lit students learning more than they bargained for.

But it’s not all about informing student essays: the Evil Veg page also serves a useful purpose as a historical document. I’m proud to be the one of the web’s main sources for information about George Bush’s infamous banning of broccoli from the White House, for example.

But enough of this! The point of this entry is that I am amazed to find that five (yes, five) different people have searched the web for the term “poo calculator”. Yes, I have one on the site, but that’s no excuse for people to be searching for one. The weirdos. What is the world coming to?

The rise and rise of Monster

Monster now has a ratemykitten.com average rating of 8.9. Surely it’s only a matter of time until he’s in the top 20. This would make me very happy. You can see and vote for him here

I have a world-leading cat

Our cat, Monster, is getting amazing ratings at www.ratemykitten.com. At time of writing, his second picture has an incredible rating of 8.83! You can see his gallery here

Done some updating

I’ve reorganized and updated the work page and personal page of this site. Enjoy.

Find your own news references

I’ve just come across a site called Eliyon.com where you can find all the references to yourself in the media. Searching for myself I found several references to the Reuters story on the World Wife Carrying Championship last year.

Gone to Asda Asia

On 30 January I’m off to the Maldives for two weeks to help, if I can, distribute tsunami aid there. I’ll be fairly unobtainable in that time, but will post updates here if I can get hold of a computer. Bye!

Can you do a quick survey?

If you are a regular driver, can you spare 2 minutes to fill out this simple survey. Your help will be really appreciated.

Tsunami relief fund

I’ve been involved a bit recently with the Salisbury-based group Friends of the Maldives, who are providing relief aid to the islands after the Asian Tsunami. They would be very grateful for any help you can give them.

The newest member of my family…

is Monster, a brown spotted British shorthair kitten. All together: awwww…

New Rockall Times articles

I’ve got a couple more articles in the North Atlantic’s favourite newspaper. UK Government scoops top international award and Government foils new wave of al-Qaeda terror attacks