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Raced against him the previous year, sadly he died training for the next race...
[url= http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9093758/RAF-officer-killed-as-he-cycled-home.html ]Cyclist killed by van driver [/url]
Very tragic indeed
very sad 🙁
Best wishes to his family.
Shame the driver's denied the charges really and put the family through a trial. He's clearly not [i]that[/i] distressed.
very sad. that stretch of road is not one i'd want to cycle, i have to say.
......He's clearly not that distressed.
What makes you say that ?
What makes you say that ?
A knee jerk reaction probably. Everyone knows every van driver is evil and out to kill you, just as every cyclist jumps red lights.
RIP, let's keep the 'trial by STW' comments away from a thread clearly to honour a true professional....... for once.
[i]A knee jerk reaction probably.[/i]
one last post on this thread. He couldn't see where he was going but chose to carry on regardless. If it was me as a driver and I'd killed a cyclist under those circumstances I'd say 'Yep, I should have pulled over and made sure I could see so I was being careless/driving without due care and I won't contest it', particularly if I felt any guilt at all about what happened (which I would).
usually i would be in agreement with geordiemick00 - however STW paid its collective respects at the time. Ride In Peace GC Barrett.
As i had a friend hospitalised last year by 'low sun' and have recently been knocked off, im interested to see how the "its not my fault, i couldnt see where i was driving" defence works out
If you can't see where you're going you really shouldn't be travelling at 50mph.
tragic... Served all those tours and then gets knocked off his bike by some douche..
I've picked a couple of people off the road where the driver has used this as an excuse. IMO it isn't an excuse. If you can't see that it is safe to proceed, you don't, and it doesn't matter whether it's 50mph or 5 mph.If you can't see where you're going you really shouldn't be travelling at 50mph.
Admits driving when he couldn't see in front of him, but denies that is careless driving? 🙄
"The sun was very low at the time and my sight was pretty bad." is an admission of guilt, not an excuse.
Perhapse he came round a corner and faced the sun, perhapse he creseted a hill, or somethign similar which meant he was suddenly faceing the sun and doing 50mph.
Ever driven on the motorway at night? Seeing as you can't use main beams on account of oncoming trafic you use diped beams right? You realise they're designed to imluminate the approximate stoping distance from 30mph? So, ever driven over 30mph on the motorway at night?
Not saying he's inocent but there are nowere near enough facts in that article to conclusively pin the blame on him.
tinas - true, we don't have all the facts. What we do know is that a cyclist was killed after being hit by a van travelling at 50mph.
You are only talking about the level of blame as nothing short of a catastrophic mechanical failure or driver having a sudden health problem eg. heart attack or fit, would be any excuse.
Real shame to hear of this loss. Heart felt condolences to family and friends.
I am not familiar with the section of road but I would have to ask was this after a bend or similar so that the driver could not see far enough up the road. If you come round a bend, get blinded by a low sun then this could happen. Not sure it should happen on a clear road though as you will get moments of vision so that you can see what is ahead.
If you are driving along at say 50mph and you become blinded by the sun you do not do an emergency stop, it would not be safe to do so. I would expect you to slow down as you try to get clear sight of what is in the road in front of you. You should have a good idea as to what was in front of you and roughly when you would expect to reach it before you were dazzled.
Given that this is the A40 at rush hour I would kind of expect there to be a fairly steady stream of traffic. Further up the traffic I would expect to see cars braking and then pulling out to pass the cyclist. This should have been sufficient warning I would have thought. But how many are looking that far up the road when driving??
[i]I tried to move over but there was oncoming traffic[/i]
lovely. Don't want to damage our paintwork more than we have to, do we. Hit the soft target.
Very sad .
I leave most mornings to the sound of "Careful on the bike dad".
"Always" I reply .
I can understand why people get angry about stories like this.
In all my years of cycling I had hoped for a more aware generation of road users,to somehow see a change to more considerate driving,giving people space and an appreciation of how vulnerable others can be(especially as there appears to be more cyclists around than ever).
I know this may be pie in the sky ,but can it really be so hard for people to understand,maybe there will always just be a high proportion of selfish ,bad and inconsiderate drivers following on from the last wave.
It's a bit early to say exactly what happened. According to the news report it happened near the Polish War Memorial. At this bound the road is going through sweeping bends and under an overpass. It is possible the driver came into the sun suddenly.
I wouldn't have been cycling on that road in the first place - a six lane dual carriageway. Much of the time I wouldn't be surprised if everyone wasn't doing 70mph. The scariest bit of cycling I ever did was a couple of miles of the A74 south of Gretna Green.
Many drivers suddenly hitting the low sun would be concerned about not braking suddenly unless they were rear ended on a fast road like that.
It's another reminder to me of the risks of cycling towards a low sun. Not unlike James Cracknell being hit by a truck whilst cycling east at dawn in Arizona. Knowing I was in the right wouldn't be much consolation to my relatives at my funeral.
Happened to my old OC..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6616507.stm
But the cruel irony of the location etc....
Very sad, what a waste of a life.
How many people have you ever seen pulling over due to a low sun impairing visibility? Not wanting to jump on the bandwagon as I don't know the road and how quickly the conditions changed (eg round a corner, sun came out from behind a cloud) but felt it went from a tragic accident to a bit of a wooly story when he said he couldn't swerve as there was oncoming traffic - so what? Hitting a cyclist gives them no chance at all, hitting a car has to be better...
One of my mates managed to hit a bus due to being blinded by low sun, very easy for visibility to be impaired but that was completely ridiculous!
For clarification when heading west the A40 becomes national speed limit (70mph in this case as its a three lane dual carriageway) right at the underpass under the roundabout at the Polish war memorial, tragic loss but certainly not somewhere I would choose to cycle either.
If you come round a bend, get blinded by a low sun then this could happen.
Not if you were driving at a speed that allowed you to stop in the distance you could see to be clear. At the point that you get blinded, you slow down, using the space that you know to be clear, until you can once again stop in the distance that you can see to be clear. If you couldn't see your stopping distance around the bend, you were going too fast.
Unfortunately, we accept a low standard of driving in this country. The behaviour described above isn't taught in the driving test, and the typically lenient sentences handed out in similar cases are a reflection that society accepts that such accidents are an unavoidable side effect of "normal" driving.
Driving on a motorway at night is a bit different, as it is a road designated for motor vehicles, and so you can reasonably expect to not encounter pedestrians, cyclists or slow moving traffic. It also has a hard shoulder which means that breakdowns should be off the carriageway. This is significantly different to a dual carriageway. It's unfortunate that we give these two classes of road the same speed limit as it encourages people to treat DCs as motorways, and as such, to not anticipate the type of hazards that you will encounter on a DC.
RIP Tom.
I've been taken off thanks to 'low sun'. Luckily I escaped with my life, but my bike was written off for me, and the motorist scarpered once he'd made sure I was still alive.
Flipping flip, I work opposite that airbase (final approach is over the business park) and wont ride it because I thought it was too dangerous. One of the guys here got crushed by a dustcart squeezing past him at a traffic island along there a couple of years back.
Sadly its a common excuse to say you couldnt see as the sun was low, despite sunglases, windscreen washers, brakes, and common sence, if you cant see slow down or stop.
Let us hope that Justice is not as poorly sighted as the driver.
Sad for the cyclists family.
🙁
Most important time to use a flashing rear light is when the sun's bright, IMO
RIP, I live near there, and it would not be somewhere I'd want to cycle. In fact I've never seen a bike on there before.
Most important time to use a flashing rear light is when the sun's bright, IMO
Let me know when you find one brighter than the sun 🙂
Seriously, when competing with a low sun a rear light will be invisible.
My suggestion would be a mirror and being ready to ride off the road to the left.
irc - of course it's possible to be bloody unlucky
However, since cars move and roads turn, stationary or "slow" objects aren't directly in line with the sun for more than a second or two unless you're on a dead straight road (in which case the "sudden appearance" of the sun doesn't apply and you ought to be driving slowly anyway). The light gets me noticed before I become invisible
More commonly, if you're approaching tree cover (relatively thick) but the sun catches dust on yr screen, any objects under the cover are pretty much invisible - unless they have a light source attached
As soon as I saw him I tried to move over but there was oncoming traffic
Has nobody else noticed this statement by the killer? Oncoming traffic. On a DC. It seems when making up his story he got a bit confused.
From another forum discussing this. The route home.
"There was actually a safer option, which was to head up via Harefield avoiding the worst of the A40 and then either via Denham on the A40, or through Chalfont Saint Peter avoiding it entirely. Adds less than a mile onto the 13 mile journey in the worst case."
http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=60597
The driver may have been culpable. I'm not saying he wasn't. The cyclist of course had every right to ride there.
My approach to cycling is to reduce every risk I can though. I use three rear lights on my commuting bike. I used to turn a 9 mile each way commute into a 12 mile commute to avoid a dangerous road. When I read any account of cyclist crashes I try and think what I could have done to avoid that situation. IMO for 70mph dual carriageways with no shoulder the best thing to do is not be there at all if there is a reasonable alternative route.
Agreed on the reducing risk thing. No way would I ride a 3-lane road or any 70mph stretch
to get onto a nice road route I have to ride about a mile and a half on the A36 between Southampton and Salibury. It's heaving with lorries from the container port and a couple of big warehouses pretty much all day as well as plenty of cars and the odd tractor, plus loads of caravans etc in summer. Really pretty narrow considering the size of the wagons
I almost always ride on the glass-infested path as the road scares the shit out of me when there's any level of traffic on it, but you see plenty of bikes on there even at prime-time.
Dreadful. RIP. I used to bus and bike commute along the A40 and would ride home to Oxford of an evening. Whilst there is a good cycle path along much of that stretch, unfortunately the section across the Grand Union Canal further down really isn't feasible any other way, so I suspect he was used to riding on the A40 at that point. There is a MUCH longer detour via Harefield, but I never took it either.
Playing Devils Advocate here:
What are you supposed to do if suddenly blinded by an exposed sun? Hard to know without seeing the road conditions but there are certain times where you can get hit by a blinding bit of sun and there's not much you're able to do but flip down the visor and make sure your windscreen is clear to give you the best possible view. One of those few moments you could, I suspect, end up missing something in the shade.
That said, I suppose if it's intermittent sun you should be looking far enough in advance, but there are some occasions in bendy regions where that's getting a bit blurry.
Hang on, from earlier posts...
It's a 6 lane duel carriageway at that point....
I tried to move over but there was oncoming traffic...
Something doesn't add up.
T
[i]Most important time to use a flashing rear light is when the sun's bright, IMO [/i]
or, even better, a constant one. Unless you're running a mobile disco, I guess.
I think the oncoming traffic statement simply means traffic passing in the next lane.
If the sun was bright and low down, its likely that drivers ahead were also only seeing the cyclist at the last minute, and we all now that even in good conditions, most drivers do not signal or move out appropriately to pass. So it wouldn't be unreasonable to consider that there was little warning of the cyclist as he approached.
I'm sure every driver on here has come round a bend or over a crest to be faced with the sun right on the horizon, too low for the sunvisor to be of any use. You don't just brake in these instances, it would be insane to do any more than feather the brakes at a point where following drivers are equally blinded and are at a very high risk of running into you. Sure, you slow down safely, but most people wouldn't just stand on the brakes.
I'm not trying to defend the driver at all, just even up the argument a bit. For all I know, that section of road is probably flat and straight, the driver may well have had a dirty windscreen which would make the sun worse, and could have been watching his mirrors to try and overtake slower traffic ahead.
or, even better, a constant one. Unless you're running a mobile disco, I guess.
Worse. The point is to get them to notice you, not to see you (which they should be able to cope with once they've noticed you in bright sunlight).
I think the oncoming traffic statement simply means traffic passing in the next lane.
You're rationalising that on the basis he's telling the truth, rather than it being the first excuse that came into his head...
Given how clearly the following car managed to see what happened, I think it's necessary to point out that we only have the driver's word that he was distracted by the glare of the sun rather than something else, or just simply not paying proper attention.
Here's the driver:
[img] 
[/img]
Also more here:
http://www.bucksfreepress.co.uk/news/localnews/beaconsfield/9545641.Van_driver_describes_aftermath_of_fatal_collision_to_court/
"I weren’t even looking for a cyclist." well that explains it then.
I have stopped and turned round when on a pleasure ride due to low sun.
I couldnt see that much and it quickly dawned on me that if I couldnt see fa , then neither could the cars behind me .
A lad at works step dad used 'low sun' as a defence to causing the death of a fellow motorcyclist . Got away without charge despite the fact the accident happened at 2 in afternoon . I think they were racing and the first bike slowed faster than expected appraoching a 30 limit, and was punted from behind by the other bike.
I commuted (motorcycle) on the A40 all last year, the sun is in your eyes in the morning and then in the evening.
Now and again you'd see a cyclist on various bits of it, god knows why - its a minimum of 50mph and then hits 70mph as it gets further out.
Its always busy and (not sure why) gets more than its fair share of middle-lane drivers.
I can easily believe his story, that he wasn't able to see - but if so why not just admit it. But again, why would anyone cycle there...
Driver convicted.
Judging by some of the comments on here we shouldn't ride on country lanes either, as the speed limit is 60 mph. Some of you need to get a grip ffs. Hope this w@nker gets a long jail sentence, but it'll probably be a 12 month driving ban, licence endorsement, community service and suspended sentence.
It's sad for both families what a tragedy
Most of you lot have the driver hung drawn and quartered after reading a newspaper report. Instead of posting remarks and pictures on here of him why don't you all gang up and lynch him in the street?
Nah - I'll just knock over your strawman instead.
Reporting of court proceedings tends to be fairly accurate, if not necessarily telling the whole story - you only have to read the different versions of the driver's story to realise he's being at the least economical with the truth at various points.
Judge John Anderson said: ‘It is common ground in this case that this was a momentary lapse of attention.
For the last 4 yrs I have driven the EXACT route that bloke took - I work opposite the airbase. That bit of A40 is 3 lanes and just before it becomes the M40, it is used by the traffic just like a motorway at motorway speeds. Right alongside is a first class dedicated cyclepath intended to keep cyclists safe and away from dangerous fast traffic.
Instead of using the cyclepath, he was cycling on what is in effect a motorway which the law says he can cycle on. If we change the law so that we can cycle on all motorways. Would you? Or would you think that was plain crazy.
Momentary lapse of attention plus a plain crazy place to be cycling will eventually lead to disaster. But it doesnt make the driver some hateful character. Show me anyone who hasn't suffered this lapse of attention and I will show you a liar, there but the grace of god.
Save your misplaced vitriol for the like of Carl Whant, who truly deserves it.
Instead of using the cyclepath, he was cycling on what is in effect a motorway which the law says he can cycle on. If we change the law so that we can cycle on all motorways. Would you? Or would you think that was plain crazy.
In fact motorways would be safer as there is a hard shoulder. Some states in the USA allow cycling on the freeway. I've done it. Sometimes there is no alternate route. It is noisy but feels safer than many other roads. I still check my mirror constantly though.
you only have to read the different versions of the driver's story to realise he's being at the least economical with the truth at various points.
Exactly. The initial Telegraph article reports his initial statement to police officers as
He told the officer: "I literally saw the cyclist before impact and tried to move out of the way. "
and yet the Uxbridge Gazette article quotes him as saying (not sure if this was in court or just to the paper)
"I thought I hit a deer. I never saw anything."
Thread resurection, the driver was sentenced today:
[url= http://www.chichester.co.uk/news/regional/driver-sentenced-over-officer-death-1-3666542 ]Driver Sentence[/url]
Hmmmmmmmmmm..................
Community ******* service. Unreal.
100hrs of comunity service and 12 month ban. ****ing great.
"I was very short-sighted, I was struggling to see the brake lights of the car in front of me, so I decided I needed to slow down."At that point I was in the middle lane and the sun got worse, so I put a cap on but it didnt help much.
"The sun was as low that day as I have ever known.
"The only way I could get the sun out of my eyes was to put the sun visor fully down, but I would have been blinded by that, so I put it on an angle.
"I could see people flashing me for going too slow so I decided to go into the inside lane and remember looking in my mirror for motorcycles.
"All of a sudden I felt a bump."
What a complete crock of shit. I'm not one to get emotional about these situations and I'm family of a victim in similar circumstances. But I hope the fat **** has a ****ing heart attack and dies.
The self-employed delivery driver told how the crash had left him needing counselling and had stripped him of his happy-go-lucky personality.
****
"The sun was as low that day as I have ever known"
Did the Earth shift slightly on its axis that day then? 😕
After what sugdenr wrote, I thought I'd look on streetview. Whatever the rights and wrongs, I don't think I'd cycle on that bit of road more than once.
[url= http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?&hl=en&ll=51.54895,-0.427051&spn=0.02271,0.041242&sll=52.903518,1.108932&sspn=0.088112,0.164967&t=h&hq=A40&radius=15000&z=15&layer=c&cbll=51.548949,-0.427228&panoid=sWFOQmxTOmr8CVrbECzCXA&cbp=12,253.52,,0,24.44 ]A40 street view.[/url]
sentencing is the minimum penalty for causing death by [u]careless[/u] driving.
I wouldn't ride down there, wonder if the judge took into account the cycle lane he could have been using.
tragic.
Just because there's a legal right to be there doesn't make it sensible. Bikes should be banned from DC's, we've no use for them and drivers on the whole aren't expecting cyclists to be there. If that means you're 30 seconds slower in the tuesday night TT*, or have to find a quieter route home so be it. You wouldn't tell a kid to go play football in the road, so why do cyclists seem to think it's sensible to ride down what are essentialy motorways in all but name? Argueing that cycling on DC's is fine, it's car drivers who are at fault sounds like argueing that Ammerica's gun law's are OK because gun ownership doesn't kill, idiots do. So the sensible thing to do is ban the thing that's a stupid risk.
Sory to hear someones died but riding on DC's is like playing Russian roulette with someone else shooting, only they don't know the rules, the guns loaded, the bullets weigh several tons and you're just hoping they miss.
There are some bits of DC on otherwise unassuming road we would be banned from though e.g the B4100:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=gaydon&hl=en&ll=52.123656,-1.402574&spn=0.014202,0.024676&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=7.063324,12.788086&t=v&hnear=Gaydon,+Warwickshire,+United+Kingdom&z=15
There are some bits of DC on otherwise unassuming road we would be banned from though e.g the B4100:
Possibly, but;
* Someone behind a desk in some council department has decided that the road is fast enough and busy enough, etc, to justify making it DC. Which are probably criteria that would justify not cycling on it.
* [u][i][b]IF[/b][/i][/u] cyclists were banned from DC's, or at least a review of roads from which bikes hsould be banned was carried out, then the same review could highlight which DC's need a cyclepath bypassing them.
Most of the sections on the B4100 (just sticking with an example I know) are there because it used to be the A41 and it went DC on some hills to allow safe overtaking of slow vehicles. As it's now been effectively bypassed by the M40/A34 traffic levels are much lower (and safer)
[i]Just because there's a legal right to be there doesn't make it sensible. Bikes should be banned from DC's, we've no use for them and drivers on the whole aren't expecting cyclists to be there. If that means you're 30 seconds slower in the tuesday night TT*, or have to find a quieter route home so be it. You wouldn't tell a kid to go play football in the road, so why do cyclists seem to think it's sensible to ride down what are essentialy motorways in all but name? Argueing that cycling on DC's is fine, it's car drivers who are at fault sounds like argueing that Ammerica's gun law's are OK because gun ownership doesn't kill, idiots do. So the sensible thing to do is ban the thing that's a stupid risk.
Sory to hear someones died but riding on DC's is like playing Russian roulette with someone else shooting, only they don't know the rules, the guns loaded, the bullets weigh several tons and you're just hoping they miss. [/i]
the key to the above basically sounds like this bit 'drivers on the whole aren't expecting cyclists to be there'. So drivers need to get used to cyclists being on the road, in a nutshell. Your 'analogy' of kids playing football on the road is just comedy.
The principle is correct, of course. Drivers should be better at driving and anticipating hazards. All efforts should be made to make them better.
But we can only work on the basis that this isn't the case, and isn't likely to be the case in the immediate future.
I'm teaching my kids to cross bigger roads safely at the moment. One of the key things I keep saying is to assume that every car driver they encounter is an idiot who hasn't seen them, unless proven otherwise, and make decisions accordingly.
The same applies to us.
Theres already a framework for banning bikes on dual carriageways in the form of motorway restrictions, which also bans 50cc scooters, horses, mobility scooters, pedestrians and other slow moving things.
Plus DC's covers everything from 30mph urban roads to 70mph ones almost identical to motorways.
the key to the above basically sounds like this bit 'drivers on the whole aren't expecting cyclists to be there'. So drivers need to get used to cyclists being on the road, in a nutshell.
I think there's a risk of some sort of circular argument here, if cyclists don't normally cycle somewhere (irrespective of if they have the right), then by default then drivers aren't going to expect them (however much we'd like them too). In much the same way as I'm sure most drivers wouldn't expect say a horse rider on a dual carriage way.
Of course that doesn't absolve drivers from being attentive though, and I disagree with the concept of a ban on dual carriageway access.
the key to the above basically sounds like this bit 'drivers on the whole aren't expecting cyclists to be there'.
No. It doesn't. The whole sentencing is a disgrace and there is no excuse for the driver not paying attention, but to not comment on why the rider wasn't using the purpose built cycle path would be one-eyed.
I don't think that bikes should be banned from DCs personally but I do think that they/we should be forced to use cycle lanes if they are there.
I don't think that bikes should be banned from DCs personally but I do think that they/we should be forced to use cycle lanes if they are there.
I think I'd also require such legislation to state what standard the cycle lane was. Plenty of them are pretty rubbish.
Fair point. Further to this, legislation should also severely punish drivers for parking on cycle lanes. Cycle lanes should never have a bus stop on them either. That's not a cycle lane; it's a gutter.
I don't think that bikes should be banned from DCs personally but I do think that they/we should be forced to use cycle lanes if they are there.
Not my local one, but not too dissimilar;
[img] 
[/img]
Where are the 'cyclists remount' signs? surely one can't just keep dismounting.
That's just poor planning which probably doesn't surprise any of us and why cycle lanes aren't taken seriously. Let's be fair though, they're not all like that. Also are cycle lanes seen as a bit "wussy" by roadies?
Also are cycle lanes seen as a bit "wussy" by roadies?the usual arguments are that they generaly follow the pavement not the road, so as in the photo above have 101 give way lines and driveways to negotioate. And where they form part of the carrigeway they tend to fill up with all the detrius that car wheels brush off, but puncture bike tyres.
Absolutely tragic loss of human life but as others have said you wouldn't catch me riding that stretch of road in a month of Sundays, let alone at rush hour cycling due west into a low sun. Fair enough if the cyclist was not local but commuting from Bucks to RAF Northolt he must have known what the road was like & that there was a perfectly good cycle lane there too.
Wish they'd give it a rest with the over emotive reporting too, I mean what does "was hit with such force he was propelled into a cycle lane on the other side of the road" mean? - the cyclist certainly wasn't thrown across 6 lanes of traffic & there isn't a cycle lane on the north side of the road, so knocked across the verge & onto the cycle lane would do.
TINAS - I wouldn't advocate any sort of banning or forcing the use of cycle lanes as there are plenty of cycle lanes that are more dangerous than using the road.
I've only just seen this thread and I'm disappointed with the sentence the driver received but to be fair I don't know all the facts presented at the court case to make an informed judgement of my own.
I was unfortunate enough to be at the scene of the accident less than a couple of minutes after it happened although I didn't actually see the impact, it was obvious that the rider had been hit with a tremendous amount of force so I don't go with the "over emotive reporting". FFS someone died on their way home from work!
Of course the rider could have used the cycle path, I would not cycle on that bit of road, but the driver should have paid a lot more attention and the court backed that up with the verdict of "death by careless driving". It was the drivers fault.
I spend many hours a week driving in London due to my job and the standard of driving that I witness at times can be appalling and IMO a lot of drivers see cyclists as an inanimate obstruction to squeeze past if they believe the gap is big enough rather than a living father/mother/daughter/son that they will seriously hurt or worse if they clip as they try to squeeze past. Sometimes that gap is just not big enough and drivers need to show more patience (half the time there is a queue of traffic a couple of hundred metres up the road to stop their progress). It isn't cyclists that should be changing the way or where they ride, it is attitude of drivers that need to change.
To change the attitude of drivers and improve standards of driving would take years and years even with a government that would support such a campaign. Will it ever happen, I doubt it. I'm far from anti car and just my t'penth worth.
My sympathies go out to the family and friends of the deceased.
Also are cycle lanes seen as a bit "wussy" by roadies?the usual arguments are that they generaly follow the pavement not the road, so as in the photo above have 101 give way lines and driveways to negotioate. And where they form part of the carrigeway they tend to fill up with all the detrius that car wheels brush off, but puncture bike tyres.
Not seen as wussy, I don't think. Just woefully unsuitable for riding a bike on. On the couple of road rides I've been on with ERC, the cycle path alongside the A198 NSL dual carriageway between Port Seton and Longniddry ignored completely because it is in such bad condition.
Also, how come double quotes come out fine in the preview, but look pish on when posted to the thread?
piha,
+1, well said.