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Cycle paths vary a lot. Some aren't really cycleways at all, more for children. Many do have lots of tiny bits of glass that cause punctures, the sort of grit you find at the side of the road. Some are shared with peds and they are dangerous to both.
Some are just unrealistically planned for serious cycling, i.e. getting anywhere. Would you use a cyclepath that, like a pavement, required you to "cross" at every junction on a main road?
I can't imagine more than a tiny proportion of cyclists would actually put themselves in danger to be "defiant". It's dangerous enough.
A pal of mine was knocked off his bike by a car entering a roundabout last week. Broken pelvis, wrist and concussion. He was wearing high vis, a white helmet, and had a big falshing light on the front. The driver said she never saw him, though she had plenty of opportunity, with a very good open view in daylight.
The police report in the local paper says "minor injuries". The car (Hyundai Trajet) is badly damaged, she hit him that hard.
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, and had a big falshing light on the front.
I hate those on bikes - a light should be on or off not flashing unless it's an emergency vehicle or breakdown/roadworks orange lught
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I hate those on bikes - a light should be on or off not flashing unless it's an emergency vehicle or breakdown/roadworks orange lught
Some sympathy with that pov. While flashing lights draw attention it's much more difficult to get a handle on speed and convergence of a bike such as the 'Boris Bikes' with a flashing headlamp, particularly on a busy London street.
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A pal of mine was knocked off his bike by a car entering a roundabout last week. Broken pelvis, wrist and concussion. He was wearing high vis, a white helmet, and had a big falshing light on the front. The driver said she never saw him, though she had plenty of opportunity, with a very good open view in daylight.
The police report in the local paper says "minor injuries". The car (Hyundai Trajet) is badly damaged, she hit him that hard.
That is terrible, hope he is soon alright. Some people just aren't cycle aware................not good enough. I don''t cycle much these days as IMO it is so dangerous.
Thanks for the cycle path comments.
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Some cyclists are on a death wish too.
Older one at Swindon today rode blindly straight out onto the roundabout i was negotiating in the lorry, never so much as swivelled his eyes (so definately not a Kipper) or seemingly even noticed the tanker taking evasive action in order not to clean him up....one good thing about him being oblivious was that he couldn't abuse me for being there, every cloud etc.
Some cyclists only survive due to the care and lookout for their idiocy shown by the vast majority of drivers of all vehicles.
Edited by gordonbennet on 28/10/2014 at 20:31
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I'm a cyclist.
I wear hi-viz and a helmet.
At night I've dynamo lights and flashing, bright LEDs.
I don't use a cycleway that's parallel to a road locally, because I'm also allowed in the bus-lane (one bus every ten minutes!). If I use the cycleway I have to give way at every road it crosses and share it with pedestrians and they get annoyed at cyclists on 'their' path.
I also don't use the cycle track through the local park at night, because I can't see the extending dog leads that are stretched across it. I learnt this lesson after nearly killing a 'rat-on-a-rope' type dog one evening.
Edited by bathtub tom on 28/10/2014 at 20:34
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Hi, I cycle to work and back every day, part of the way there is a cycle route that meanders along the side of the road. It switches from by the curb to by the hedge it runs through the bus pullins where you run the gauntlet of school kids not mention dogs being walked on extending invisible dog leads with owners who growl if you go near their "pets" nope its definetly safer on the road, I do have all the gear and lights which appears to please lorry drivers who always give plenty of room. Why any cyclist would get on a bike dressed in black is beyond me but it does seem a popular colour for those on a death wish.
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- We don't have to use it.
- cycle lanes are always full of glass or debris.
- There is no law that says we have to.
- It doesn't go where we want to go. (even though it runs parallel to the road they are using)
Personally, I think alot of it is just being defiant.
Manatee has already provided a comprehensive response but I'll expand a bit.
Lights we couldn't dream of thirty years ago are now available for under £40 a set. There's no excuse for not using them. Neither, without need to wear head/toe dayglo, is it difficult to keep visible. I will though bite on the issue of using what are termed facilities bit might better be called farcilities.
Of the reasons above 1&3 are same thing. The HIghway Code makes clear that use is not mandatory and that those wishing to progress might be better off on road.
This example is near me tinyurl.com/pohljuz it's alongside the road but the surface is loose gravel top dressed with glass and doggy doo. It's OK on a tractor tyred mountain bike and passable at reduced speed and with care on a Brompton. Unuseable on a trad British tourer (27*11\4) never mind a really narrow section tyred road bike and using cleats/clips.
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Isn't it still officially illegal to ride bicycles on the pavement? Those idiots who persist in doing so at 20 mph and swerve to miss (with luck) pedestrians ought at least to fit and use a bell to give some warning of approach.
(One nearly got me this morning as he rounded a corner in town - general traffic noise meant you'd not hear a bike approaching from behind even if you had ears like a dog or cat)
Edited by galileo on 28/10/2014 at 22:22
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I am a keen cyclist but do it for leisure rather than commuting. We have three cars in the household so I am a committed petrol head too. I think the latter helps me when I'm out on my bike.
Whenever I am out on my road bike I ride defensively as if every driver pulling out of a junction is out to kill me. Touching wood, I have not had a serious accident on my bike in 25 years so it is possible to cycle safely. I constantly cover the brakes, always wear yellow (yes, the black Sky team gear is nice but b***** all use on a daily basis) and anticipate way, way ahead. And that's riding predominantly in the countryside using cleets (which aren't easy to get out of) never mind in town where they would become impractical to use.
When I do cycle in town all of the above applies times about ten so we don't all have a death wish! Having said that, one thing that annoys me is that people park in the cycle path we have near us in Leeds so I am forced to pull out into the dual carriageway. So overall yes, there are many inconsiderate cyclists who give us sensible ones a bad name but equally as many inconsiderate drivers too.
Having lived in Germany where they have dedicated cycle lanes and cycle signals and the cyclist always has right of way it just shows how backward we are in this country. We pay lip service to cyclists with the odd cycle lane but we're just playing at it so cyclists will continue to get hurt until we do a proper job of planning separate routes for them.
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Isn't it still officially illegal to ride bicycles on the pavement?
Yes, it's a criminal offence (as is paedophilia), but be careful, I've been officially warned against such comparisons by the BIBs!
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Cyclists are road users, they risk being victims of or the cause of accidents. They should have number plates and insurance should be compulsory.
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I'm with dadbif on the insurance / registration front. A neighbour of mine recently had a run in ( literally ) with a cyclist whilst she was stopped at a set of traffic lights. Cyclist was filtering through the line of stopped vehicles, weaving from the inside to the outside of the queue when he caught the mirror on the nearside of her Avensis and broke it. The glass was knocked out and smashed on the road, the colour coded cover cracked and a small scratch on the wing was the result.
The cyclist just carried on to the front of the queue where he rode through the red light and disappeared down a side road. She was left with a £150 repair bill for the damage and no way of finding the culprit who had no intention of stopping. If this had been a motor cycle or another car, there was the possibility of at least noting the registration number to report to the police regarding the incedent.
Cyclists should at least have some form of public liability insurance as a bare minimum due to the fact they're using the same roads as motorists and pedestrians and invariably they can and do cause damage / injury to other road users.
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Not excusing behaviour of run aways but you need to better than isolated egregious incidents to justify the practical problems of registering every bike on road. The odd country that's tried, like Switzerland, gave up. Japan has plates but they're just tags for anti theft purposes, no use for identifying miscreants.
Insurance comes with membership of any of cycling bodies like CTC or LCC. Most others have it as part of household insurance.
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I imagine very few of the huge numbers of people whose mirrors are smashed by people in cars, vans and lorries ever get paid for the damage either.
There's no comparison between bicycles, and motor vehicles in this respect. I actually think TP/public liability insurance is a good idea for anybody, cyclist or not.
Sad to say there is a massive amount of hostility to cycling based on not very much in the way of reasoning. I'm shocked by it quite often, and the sheer ignorance of many of the critics.
I'd like to see much more enforcement against riding on pavements, and parking on them too.
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Cyclists should at least have some form of public liability insurance as a bare minimum due to the fact they're using the same roads as motorists and pedestrians and invariably they can and do cause damage / injury to other road users.
Well following that reasoning pedestrians also need registration plates and insurance. I suppose we'd better look at push chairs, roller skates and wheel barrows too.
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Cyclists are road users, they risk being victims of or the cause of accidents. They should have number plates and insurance should be compulsory.
Why? Cycling has numerous proven benefits for health. The measures suggested would, like helmet compulsion Oz, reduce significantly the numbers participating. And that's before actually looking at practicalities of reg plates and insurance.
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Boris bikes have numbers, but apparently not one incident has been reported with the bike number. Very few incidents reported at all as far as I know.
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I live near the A570, a dual carriageway with a new cycle path on both sides built to the most extravagant EU standards. Smooth, wide, white lines and so on. About 50% of cyclists use it. The ones on the road are the wannabe Wigginses and are more numerous just after a major cycling event. They even bunch up in a pretend peloton sometimes.
I just assume that they think they are too "bad" to use the path.
TP insurance won't work on bikes. I live near some crash for cash hotspots. (Being v careful with the description of the areas in question, but YKWIM). Just imagine how that "industry" would blossom in the cycling world!
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Where Dad lives his neighbour has a very high wall, when you are pulling out of the drive you cannot see if there is a cyclist (or a pedestrian for that matter) coming down the pavement until you are well out of the drive. This issue is compounded by the fact that the road has quite a slope on it and cyclists are going at quite a speed as they pass. Pedestrians are not normally an issue, most see you and stop, but some who have a death wish continue to walk in front of a moving car.
This is not a cycleway or combined pavement, its only for pedestrians. There have been several occations when I have had near misses with cyclists but what can you do. Neighbour is unlikely to lower the wall if I asked him since its not a problem for him. His neighbour has a low wall on the up hill side thus his vision of the pavement is fine when he pulls out.
At the weekend I was pulling out when Wiggly Braggins came down at the speed of light. He had to swerve out into the road to avoid me, if a car had been coming past at that moment the consequences are obvious.
But obviously not to him. I passed him about 1/2 a mile later swerving in and out of parked cars, on and off the pavement and when we got to some red lights another 1/2 mile further on he just went across at full speed causing one car to take avoiding action.
And this was no kid on a BMX bike. This was an adult on a full sized bike.
One colleague recomended that I contact the local councillor and police so that the problem is recorded should something happen but I would expect no interest would be shown since so far there has been no injury.
Edited by skidpan on 29/10/2014 at 11:23
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@banastand,
Could you provide a streetview link for the bit of the A570 you mention. It would be interesting to see if other reasons such as sharing with pedestrians, discontinuity at junctions and frequent imprecations to dismount are a factor.
Groups on a club ride, presumably the wannabe Wigginses you mention, may find it slow going and feel their skill/experience is such that the highway code's caveat (rules 61 & 62) apply.
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This amazes me every year. We get to this point and there's always some cyclists who simply forget it'll be dark when they leave work at 5pm. It does it every year and presumably cyclists have access to calenders but it still takes them by surprise.
Speaking of lights, has anybody noticed a trend with some very new cars? The new Fiesta for example has the dashboard lights on all the time, so driving on a lit street it's possible you won't realise you're driving without lights on.
I've seen two very new Fords this week driving along with no lights at all.
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All very primitively tribal some of the above. "Cyclists", "motorists", "pedestrians"...as if they all were not just "people" who happen at a given moment in time to be propelling themselves in one of those ways in a shared space.
In the course of any day I find myself moving about in all of the above categories and have all my adult life. So far anyway, I've never come into involuntary conflict or contact with anyone no matter which tribe they were currently a member of.
Takes two to tango and a minimum of two to conflict.
It is though necessary to accept that by default there are stupid, arrogant individuals in any sub group and the biggest favour you can do yourself is to at least try not to be one of them however you are choosing to be moving about among others at the time.
It reminds me of the mindset of football "supporters" who seem to genuinely believe that those who don't follow their team are by default to be reviled.
Caveman / primitive primate stuff frankly. Hate the other monkeys.
Put your clubs down and accept that others will be there and some of them are going to do things you don't approve of. Most of the time if you decide not to let things affect you they won't.
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If you live in the London area you may have heard the new TFl adverts on the radio about cyclists. It puts a human edge on them and make you think of them as someone's mother, sone, husband ect. It may help with persuading drivers to be more vigilant plus. It would be nice to have advert in the same style aims at the cyclists to show how there actions cane have on a driver if they run a red light or jusy jump of the pavement.
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