[Closed] Police in enforcing road rules in Edinburgh shock horror - bikes as well!

I guess they will allow a lot of appeals but its only a guess

Cheers druidh 🙂

Aye, she is probably exaggerating, or loads of people would be contesting on those grounds.

I suspect I have some hate mail on the way, I have always flouted the "buses and cycles" only street that joins Nicholson Sq to the Bristo place after parking at the Mosque, without even thinking about it. (it's the dumbest bus only street in history, I checked the bus timetable at the stop and there is ONE BUS AN HOUR, and the alternative is a series of tricky right handers across 2 lanes ot traffic)

Mind if the cameras are as unsubtle as you say they are Al I am sure I would have spotted it !

Copper at southwark bridge a while ago had a go at a cyclist who was in front of the ASL, but had no interest in having a similar go at the lorry that was blocking all but the front 3ft of the ASL, even though we were all shouting at him.

I have yet to be convinced that that the traffic police don't have an upper limit on the IQ level they recruit...

@Myopic, go to the local press and ask them if one of their reporters and a cameraman wishes to cover the story and attend a certain time where you are willing to drive your car past several times to prove it's flawed. When they expose it, it should give greater weight for appeal since it will make the situation public and more drivers may come forward, including those who are vulnerable and have just been paying up immediately to avoid trouble.

That could work ! The Eidnburgh Evening News loathe and despise the Edinburgh City Council, they may well be up for it.

Great idea - though maybe better if I get one of them to drive their car up and down it a few times, just in case 😀

So far the local papers have not been very sympathetic to the people caught. Been one heck of a lot tho

I'd agree that quite a few bus lanes run up far too close to left turns. Turning left into minor roads can get quite dangerous as well as sometimes the speed differential between traffic in the bus-lane and semi-stationary traffic in the other lane can be a lot.

police were setting up on glasgow road with cameras for the old bus lane abusers today.

Nice to see some ction by the police and balanced reporting on [i]all[/i] traffic.

bus lanes around here seem to have breaks for left turn or left exit slips, roundly ignored by drivers as a rule, just pull into bus lane as soon as they fancy, well before the broken line.

Plenty of motorbikes in bus lanes in Manchester, not sure if it's legit or not.

Any decent driver would find turning left across a lane a weird thing to do - most people are trained, or experienced, in filtering before making a turn. Certainly turning across a lane must be more dangerous for cyclists than having someone filter [i]then[/i] turn.

I don't think people should be penalised for doing this, as it's probably safer and keeps traffic moving better (i.e. you're not stopped in the outside lane, waiting for the stream of buses to go past on the inside before making your turn). However...I guess if the cameras only take snapshots of each vehicle then there's no way of telling for how long that car/arse****taxi has been driving down the lane for. Tricky!

I think your friend should challenge it though - maybe needs testing in court or an almighty media backlash to clarify the rules.

Looks like some other people agree with me 🙂

http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/transport/bus-lane-and-cameras-add-up-to-a-left-turn-for-worse-1-2297671

Whinge whinge winge from the paper

How so?

I find this hard to believe. A cyclist getting caught by a policeman after jumping a red light? How useless a cyclist must one be to get caught by a [s]policeman[/s] Babylonian?

Heh, the other day I saw a policeman on a bike waiting at lights, and then pedalling off after people on bikes who went through on red.

It was really very tempting to jump the light and see if he could catch me 🙂

TandemJeremy - Member
Whinge whinge winge from the paper

The tone Kit. there is a point to it yes but

it was unsafe especially with a child in the back.

AA have warned drivers to stick “blindly to the rules”

etc etc

Fairy Nuff.

That junction could do with 10 ft taken off the bus lane before the junction for sure.

BBC reporting issues with the cameras as well now:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-18104573

"Edinburgh bus lane cameras to be reviewed
Only buses and black cabs are allowed to use the greenway Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
Taxi clocks £1,800 Greenway fines
Councils set for bus lane powers
Edinburgh Council is to carry out an "urgent review" of a controversial camera system set up to monitor illegal use of the city's bus lanes.

The move follows complaints that some motorists were being unfairly fined after being caught on camera driving in one of the green lanes."

I'm not sure I see what the problem is with the "hard left turn" into a minor road. If the white line separating the bus lane from the main carriageway was a bit of kerb (as it would be if the bus lane was a Dutch-style cycle lane) the drivers would have no choice. I suspect that the main problem is folk going so fast that a driver executing this left turn will be slowing down fairly rapidly and a following driver might run in to the back of them. The answer for this is surely to reduce speed limits to 20mph.

One other risk might be that vehicles turning left across the bus lane could swipe a passing "undertaking" cyclist"?

I'm not sure I see what the problem is with the "hard left turn" into a minor road.

See above from a few days ago.

Any decent driver would find turning left across a lane a weird thing to do - most people are trained, or experienced, in filtering before making a turn. Certainly turning across a lane must be more dangerous for cyclists than having someone filter then turn.

I don't think people should be penalised for doing this, as it's probably safer and keeps traffic moving better (i.e. you're not stopped in the outside lane, waiting for the stream of buses to go past on the inside before making your turn).

Anyway, the Evening News is all a-froth on the front page today:
http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/transport/city-orders-buslane-fines-probe-1-2300118

FFS. Though there do seem to be a couple of genuine issues with the bus lane cameras, most of the stories seem to be people whining that they can't break the law any more without getting caught. 🙄

This one was particularly good: [url= http://www.scotsman.com/news/transport/driver-gets-buslane-fine-before-enforcement-period-started-1-2293487 ]Driver gets buslane fine before enforcement period started [/url]

Apparently this photograph:
[img] [/img]
was taken precisely [u]three seconds[/u] before the enforcement period started so it shouldn't count. I'm sure she was well clear of the lane 3 seconds later. 🙄

Fitting the cameras with atomic clocks is going to be expensive!

GrahamS - Member
was taken precisely three seconds before the enforcement period started so it shouldn't count. I'm sure she was well clear of the lane 3 seconds later.

Fitting the cameras with atomic clocks is going to be expensive!

I think that scanned B&W photos nicely shows how shite the tarmac is around Edinburgh! No wonder they're driving a 4x4 😉

That's not shite tarmac.

It's a secret form of hieroglyph to be used by the lizard aliens when using the roads as landing strips.

I'm sure she was well clear of the lane 3 seconds later.

It looks like there might well be a junction on the left a few yards beyond the car, so the driver may well have been clear of the bus-lane 3-seconds later. Plus it also looks like that camera would pick people up who were crossing the lane to get to the junction.

I'm not sure I see what the problem is with the "hard left turn" into a minor road. If the white line separating the bus lane from the main carriageway was a bit of kerb (as it would be if the bus lane was a Dutch-style cycle lane) the drivers would have no choice. I suspect that the main problem is folk going so fast that a driver executing this left turn will be slowing down fairly rapidly and a following driver might run in to the back of them. The answer for this is surely to reduce speed limits to 20mph.

I was in a car that executed a "hard left turn" into a minor road on Saturday. Unfortunately, as this car slowed down in the RH lane in order to make the turn, the car behind us decided to nip into the bus lane and try to undertake us, rather than slow down itself. Thankfully the driver of the car I was in avoided turning into the car but it was alarming.

So you're pretty much right, other drivers not respecting/understanding the need for hard left turns is probably the main risk/problem...

hels - Member

That could work ! The Eidnburgh Evening News loathe and despise the Edinburgh City Council, they may well be up for it.

I don't want to be on the same side as the Evening News tbh.

D0NK - Member

Plenty of motorbikes in bus lanes in Manchester, not sure if it's legit or not.

IIRC Manchester was pursuing a PTW-in-buslanes approach but I don't know what the current situation is. The recent London studies indicated that it should be allowed- surprisingly, PTWs in buslanes seems to reduce the incidence of cycle accidents in buslanes. Maybe because people are less likely to step out/pull out blindly if there might be a deranged courier on 250kgs of Bandit 1200 travelling at the speed of light in the buslane.

But, unfortunately Boris didn't like the idea and the CTC opposed it as they consider motorbikes competition. Boris's gone for what seems to be infinite trials, with each trial leading only to another trial.

The date/timestamp on the photo showed that it was taken 3 seconds early. There's no need for atomic clocks, the argument is about when the bus period operating hours actually start and why the camera should have gone off before the 7:30 advertised on the bus lane sign.

It is conceivable that the internal clock on the camera is not kept [i]precisely[/i] synced with the clock that controls whether the system is active or not.

It looks like there might well be a junction on the left a few yards beyond the car, so the driver may well have been clear of the bus-lane 3-seconds later. Plus it also looks like that camera would pick people up who were crossing the lane to get to the junction.

Yeah, if people can't turn into that junction without crossing the bus lane then [u]that[/u] does seem like a bit of a daft situation. But looking at Google Maps for Willowbrae Road I can't see any where that is the case.

So either the lanes have been redone since Google did its last flyover, or it's not actually a side street at all.