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Vandals attack Brighton cycle counter

Hi-tech, grant-funded machine disabled

It’s a British cycling first, but not one that we can be proud of. Vandals have attacked and disabled a Danish-made machine which counts cyclists in real time in Brighton.

The £25,000 cycle counter located at Surrenden Park on Brighton’s London Road is one of two installed in the town last year using European Union and Cycling England cash, reports the Argus.

The machines update the number of cyclists passing them in real time, with the figure for the day and the year-to-date total being visible to all on the manufacturer’s website. But while the counter located at Mouselcoomb continues to rack up rider numbers, the Surrenden Park machine’s readout is frozen in time at 23.01 on June 25, presumably the moment it was attacked.

The counters made by Olsen Engineering of Roskilde are installed across northern Europe from Dublin to Tampere in Finland by way of the Low Countries, their native Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

It seems, however, that our near neighbours are somehow able to resist the temptation to render them inoperative through physical attacks. Road.cc understands that this incident is the first in which one of the counters has been damaged to this extent through vandalism.

A spokesman for the council told us that data from the counters is used to help the organisation make decisions about where best to allocate funding to improve cycle facilities and to monitor how effective improvements have been. He added that the number of people cycling in Brighton & Hove has increased by 27% since 2004.

As for the task of repairing the counter, an engineer from the council's Highways department is due to carry out an inspection today to see if the machine can be fixed by the council itself. The repair costs will be borne by either the council alone or using money from the EU and Department for Transport 

UPDATE:Brighton and Hove Council tell us that they have now repaired the counter and that it is fully functional once more.

 

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10 comments

Avatar
rootes | 13 years ago
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well now it has a new life as a vandalism counter...

~1 and counting

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fluffy_mike | 13 years ago
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Maybe it was a public-school educated, workshy undergraduate who smashed it.

We don't know, of course... but surely vandals come from all social classes and income brackets?

Well done to the council for repairing it so quickly; maybe it was a seagull?

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Coleman | 13 years ago
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The counter stopped at 23:01. Some idiot missed last orders.

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downfader | 13 years ago
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Some pleb probably thinks he's "getting back" at all those "horrible cyclists."

Its the same mentality that keeps trying to boobytrap the cyclepaths around Southampton.

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Opismath | 13 years ago
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Alternatively some of us imagine the slope headed, knuckle dragging,work dodging council estate resident. Walking home after 10 pints of wife beater, kebab, having urinated into that machine thingy on Brighton sea front at 2300hrs.

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joemmo replied to Opismath | 13 years ago
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Opismath wrote:

Alternatively some of us imagine the slope headed, knuckle dragging,work dodging council estate resident. Walking home after 10 pints of wife beater, kebab, having urinated into that machine thingy on Brighton sea front at 2300hrs.

come on man, this isn't the daily mail.

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handlebarcam replied to joemmo | 13 years ago
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joemmo wrote:

come on man, this isn't the daily mail.

It certainly isn't, otherwise it would look like this.

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joemmo replied to handlebarcam | 13 years ago
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handlebarcam wrote:
joemmo wrote:

come on man, this isn't the daily mail.

It certainly isn't, otherwise it would look like this.

oh how true. is that your work?

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handlebarcam replied to joemmo | 13 years ago
0 likes
joemmo wrote:

oh how true. is that your work?

No.

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handlebarcam | 13 years ago
0 likes

I imagine a group of engineers sitting around a modernist table, built from wood that has been sourced from sustainable forests, a neat pile of pastries sat in the middle which everyone is too polite to reach out for and grab, in some carbon-neutral office building in Roskilde, quietly shaking their heads.

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