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there's no justification for trying to run a cyclist off the road. EVER
Nahh, but it hones your reflexes in the morning and keeps your blood boiling when it's cold..... 🙂
I was a little amused and felt sorry for his dog, bouncing into the roof of his car as he fly over the speed bumps....
[i]Because its near a school and full (and I mean full) of kids so its almost impossible to ride at any reasonable speed.
[/i]
fair enough, i'd have ridden on the road too, worth pointing out the children angle when explaining the motorists speed and lack of care to the rozzers
Good point rocket dog
The Government advice IS! to use the road when exceeding 18mph
+1 brooess
BB=Cock +1
I ride to work on a cycle path for 12 miles which is segregated from the road. It's great and there is no way I would ride on the road alongside the path in the dark. But in summer when I do occasionally ride the road it's a whole lot faster - smoother tarmac and no need to look for glass. But I'm lucky in that the path goes from a town to a city with nothing but a moor in between and there are only 2 junctions on the path which are easy to negotiate and only the occasional broken bottle thrown from a car (which says a lot about what the public think of cyclists).
[i]What was the reason for not using the cycle path?[/i]
Well for a start there is freedom of choice, if it’s the usual path it will have lots of junctions where the joining road has right of way, be covered in glass and a crap surface. I occasionally see someone riding on the moor road in the dark and wonder why they bother with the stress and danger but it’s up to them. I wouldn’t do it where a decent path is available but that’s my choice.
What was the reason for not using the cycle path?Just because you're a **** and you wated to cause that exact reaction?
I rarely use cycle paths because they are, pretty much without exception where I've seen them, more dangerous than the road. Even the off-road paths I used to use to get to work (after being repeatedly "bullied" into using them by drivers throwing bottles/food/rubbish at me and yelling) were/are dangerous - broken every 2-300 yards at times by a side road/slip road from an NSL road, even if you weren't almost taken out by traffic flying up to/off from the NSL road you'd spend at least 20 minutes longer on the commute just standing and waiting for traffic to pass and half the time when you were half way across someone would wazz round a corner and beep at you. Of course you have to dismount at each of those junctions too - pain in the neck when it's over 10 miles long. Then of course you still get spat out onto the NSL road part way along anyway, where cars have not been used to there being bikes for the previous 10+ miles so aren't expecting you. In town there are 2-300 yard strips of green lane, parked all over meaning you have to pass the parked cars, nip in and out of the green laned area effectively leaving and entering the main traffic all the time - it's nearly as bad as hopping on and off the kerb for drivers.
Cycle lanes are not the way forward IMO. They may work nicely in the odd circumstance, but for someone wishing to commute a distance with them rather than just tootle 1 mile to work in a city centre with stopped traffic. Even at rush hour I'd rather ride the NSL dual carriageway than on the cycle lane, if there was a little more tolerance and respect.
We need to promote tolerance and respect, not segregation. The reason we have so little respect is because car-only drivers think we are not traffic and should be out of their way on our own little lanes. Get bright lights (they're cheaply available) and get on the road, IMO.
We need to promote tolerance and respect, not segregation. The reason we have so little respect is because car-only drivers think we are not traffic and should be out of their way on our own little lanes.
Here, here. Well said that man! 🙂
On a similer note, do you have to use a pavement if one is provided. I hate running on pavements and will often run on the side of the road. Now that really winds up motorists !
Come on now, none of this sensible talk, you'll kill the thread! 😉
"You're assuming that everyone who owns a cycle is a cyclists. I own a dishwasher, I'm not a **** dishwasherist "
Does that mean you don't use your dishwasher? In the same way you don't use your bike?
On the commute from my old house i didn't use any cycle paths as they made you give way at all junctions and even some of the private drive ways which means that you can't get into any kind of rhythm and the road is a 2 lane one that the traffic doesn't move that fast on. On my new route there are a couple of paths that i use that are fine in that you can ride them with out having to stop and they keep you off fast moving busy roads so do use them. the rest of the time i ride on the road which is the right place for a bike.
We need to promote tolerance and respect, not segregation. The reason we have so little respect is because car-only drivers think we are not traffic and should be out of their way on our own little lanes.
+1
We need to promote tolerance and respect, not segregation.
I dunno about this; tolerance and respect, great, but a decent off road cycle path can't be a bad thing. The one I commute on most of the time is infinitely more pleasant and much safer than the horribly congested road alternative.
Cycle lanes are not the way forward IMO. They may work nicely in the odd circumstance
Like a lot of major towns in Belgium, Netherlands & Denmark?
Like a lot of major towns in Belgium, Netherlands & Denmark?
aye, where they are designed well....a bit like Stevenage if you ever have the pleasure. Cycle Paths in Stevenage are absolutely fantastic but in most other places over here they are crap.
Its not "cycle lanes bad" its "badly designed roads bad" and that includes badly designed cyclepaths.
Well designed roads and cyclepaths / lanes could easily improve safety at little or no cost.
Today is feed the trolls day! Yippee! 🙂
Ricochet rob - is that the stretch before you get to the mini roundabout where you go left to the moors estate? Or through the estate before you turn onto lower way. You mentioned speed humps so i'm assuming the former.
Like a lot of major towns in Belgium, Netherlands & Denmark?
Although you'll notice that some of the research that found cycle lanes to be more dangerous than riding on the road was actually in the Netherlands. When they were proposing forcing people on bikes to use cycle lanes if available - which they in the end decided not to do, given the evidence that it was more dangerous to use cycle paths than roads even in the bike friendly Netherlands.
Its not "cycle lanes bad" its "badly designed roads bad" and that includes badly designed cyclepaths.Well designed roads and cyclepaths / lanes could easily improve safety at little or no cost.
Is that really true - if they designed places with cyclist priority, ie. designing the cyclepaths before the roads, then maybe they could do things better, but that would require zillions of pounds, and would generally only work in new towns. Otherwise they'll still have the problem that people on cycle-paths crossing side roads / junctions are way less safe than people on the road riding past the side road.
Joe
Beej,
Yep, the former. Station Road I think...
Does that mean you don't use your dishwasher? In the same way you don't use your bike?
It means I don't define myself by a possession or feel any kind of affinity for other users of a similar possession.
And... I immediately assume anyone who does define themselves by a possession is a mindless peer-pressured cock.
my commute is about 6 miles. roughly the first half is an off road cycle path - away from traffic, along side a river and a new build estate. it's not as quick but it is very pleasent. the three miles go by without incident.
then a one and a half mile hill, on the road 40mph/nsl - the road is wide and i rarely hold anyone up as there is normally room to go by me - i only occasionally have problems here.
final 1.5 miles shared use pavement - with 3 side roads - loads of wet leaves - it is crossing the side roads here that is dangerous - i know of two people who have been injured on here.
IMO the separation/ shared space of cars& bikes is not the problem but when the two meet.
I wish there were more facilities like the first 3 miles of my commute.
I think we should immediately divert all funding for cycle lanes in the edge of the road to a massive publicity campaign informing drivers that cyclists do NOT belong in the gutter and the default is NOT that cars come straight past them.
Drivers, and quite a lot of cyclists for that matter, simply fail to understand. Do not ride right in the edge of the road, and do expect plenty of space to your right. Cars can come past when the rider decides it is safe to let them.
(Chambers)cyclist noun the rider of a bicycle, motorcycle, etc
Sorry 5th you are a cyclist, just as when you are driving a car (presuming you do) you're a motorist. Interestingly chambers don't have dishwasherist maybe they think it's a bit silly.
No-one expects all cyclists to be of one mind but I think aP was pointing out that one cyclist slating another for legitimatley using the road is a bit out of order.
5thElefant - MemberDoes that mean you don't use your dishwasher? In the same way you don't use your bike?
It means I don't define myself by a possession or feel any kind of affinity for other users of a similar possession.
And... I immediately assume anyone who does define themselves by a possession is a mindless peer-pressured cock.
What a load of tosh - all those folks sat in their cars are, by definition based on their possesion, DRIVERS..... oh, hold on, perhaps I do agree with you - in a convoluted way.....
DailyMail.com must be down today..... given some of the tripe posted on here.
My commute includes about 6 miles of off road cycle lane - and very pleasant it is too, provided you remember to dodge the dog walkers, extending leads and piles of dog turd.
However, the last 2 miles are in city centre traffic, and the cycle lanes are an absolute joke - far safer to be in the traffic flow taking a visible presence in the centre of the lane.
As has been posted - more cyclists in the traffic flow = more driver awareness (hopefully)
Some of Cardiff's cycle lanes are actually narrower than the width of my bars, and have been robbed from the traffic lane - in a car, it is simply not possible to drive within the marked lane without encroaching on the marked out cycle lane.
There are some places where the cycle facilities are very good - I used to live in Lancaster which has good sections of well signposted, completely separate cycle lanes alongside the river. As a result people used them regularly and there was safety in numbers.
Unfortunately most councils don't put cycle lanes there for the cyclists, it's done to use up the last bits of the "green transport initiative" budget before it gets taken away at the end of the year.
There's no legal requirement to use cycle lanes even when they are there. If you take that argument to it's logical conclusion you could point out to motorists that they're not using the motorway that's been so thoughtfully provided for them.
I don't define a cyclist by ownership more like the actual action of cycling. But then what would I know, as I've commuted by bike since 1986.
In addition to the yellow button above, stw seems to have acquired a cock detector. It's working very well...
Sorry 5th you are a cyclist, just as when you are driving a car (presuming you do) you're a motorist. Interestingly chambers don't have dishwasherist maybe they think it's a bit silly.
No-one expects all cyclists to be of one mind but I think aP was pointing out that one cyclist slating another for legitimatley using the road is a bit out of order.
I'll play along with your enthusiasm for classification.
What you appear to be forgetting that cyclist and mountainbikists are different. Mountainbikists don't ride in traffic and don't necessarily see road cyclists as anything other than a suicidal road hazard. Which might put into context "slating [i]another[/i] for legitimatley using the road".
Not that I have a problem with the OP or how he was riding. It's the [i]we're all cyclist and think the same[/i] crap that gets on my tits.
Well it's all those audi driving IT middle managers. 😉
Mountainbikists don't ride in traffic
I think you're confusing people who ride exclusively at trail centres with mountain bikers.
[i]I think you're confusing people who ride exclusively at trail centres with mountain bikers. [/i]
I think you're ignoring the fact that, to the general public, we're all CYCLISTS. Everyone from the chav on the BMX skidding round the shopping centre car park to the granny on the shopper to the besuited businessman on a Brompton to Chris Hoy on the Bran Flakes ad and every possible niche in between.
I think you're ignoring the fact that, to the general public, we're all CYCLISTS
Never said we weren't.
I think one of the big differences between the UK and Holland is not so much the bike-friendly infrastructure, but the default assumption in law that in a bike-car incident, the driver is automatically wrong. Even if he isn't.
So Dutch cyclists can behave like cocks (which they do) and annoy the hell out of people, but at the end of the day drivers have accepted that that's the way it is, like the weather - crap, but you can't change it.
UK drivers, with the active help of the police, assume that the cyclist is always wrong, and if he's dead under the wheels of a white van, no big deal.
Hi everyone, I bought a Highway Code, just so I could look this point up? (Sad, yes, I know). It says we don't HAVE to ride on bike paths. It says that where they have unbroken lines cars should not pass over the line onto the bike path, and where there are broken lines cars can cross the line "when unavoidable" - although I would say that parking directly outside a nail bar probably counts as "avoidable" lol (not me BTW).
Anyone been on the cycle lane which goes under the A10/M25 roundabout? It's dark, flooded and has its very own tramp!. My fave is the one by the Tottenham Hale one way system; isolated, underground, dark, flooded, bestrewn with shopping trolleys and other council estate ephemera... nice.
I bought a Highway Code, just so I could look this point up
It's available online for free...
[i]It's available online for free... [/i]
Graah. Worst grammar offence EVER. 😉
AndyP - Member
It's available online for free...
Graah. Worst grammar offence EVER.
:WTF?:
great trolling BlingBling
Graah. Worst grammar offence EVER.
❓
'for free'. Hideous.
I'm sure their are worser offences of grammar.
Just to jump back in - sure in utopia we could have totally dedicated infrastructure and perfect cycle lanes etc, the link above with "this, not this" pictures illustrates the point that causes it's own downfall - ignoring the fact that there are studies showing cycle lanes in NL are more dangerous than the road, just look at the buildings and roads around the "good examples" - in the good examples (tend to be newer cities/towns etc) there is a lot of space, the existing roads are not clogged with cars (partly due to the bikes!) and it's a perfectly acceptable solution if you can have 50% extra road width to start with. Most roads/roadworks in the UK knit around existing towns, anchient buildings and fit down narrow lanes. In order to provide things like the good examples in the UK would require a rip up and redesign of the roads, pretty much from scratch. Where they try to combine off-road cycle paths with existing carriageways in the UK they tend to cram both parties into too small a space respectively.
Knowing you're starting from a position of few cyclists and little space, surely the way forward is to teach people how to tolerate and respect rather than accepting people are idiots and having to rip up and rebuild (or at least moan because they don't) half of the roads in the country?
There's plenty of space out there, cyclists just need to obey the same rules as everyone else and tolerate drivers, drivers need to accept that bikes require a bit more care and take a few seconds longer to get past, but both can share the roads safely if we don't act like idiots. What happens when people get onto roads where there can't be extra lanes - like the thousands of miles of country road - do we widen all roads? Outlaw cyclists on such roads?
I feel all kinda hippy now <shudder> - but at the end of the day it just seems like common sense to me. Pay billions for a compromise of roads infrastructure or millions on teaching a little more respect and tolerance and making the roads a nicer place to be for all.
Thanks al 😉