I heard an item on radio 4 this morning proposing a trial of this.
The guy in favour seemed to be all for it regardless of any arguments against.
Tiff Needell put up some very good points against it.
I'm a cyclist, and to think of cycling the wrong way against traffic on the roads around here terrifies me, but I understand it's quite common on the continent.
I vaguely recall seeing such an arrangement once in Streatham, and we do have a cycle track on the pavement, the wrong way on a one way street, around here, but I'm against sharing pavements with pedestrians - I find it just doesn't work!
BR opinion?
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Sounds like a recipe for mayhem and huge resentment from car drivers who may be tempted to extract fatal revenge from the perceived wrong-doing of a cyclist.
I've cycled the wrong way on a one way street before but have taken the responsibility of cycling on the pavement, subjecting myself to prosecution and riding slowly if pedestrians are there to avoid any harm to them.
I'm a 51 year old cyclist with years of road experience on cycles, motorcycles and cars and the idea worries me.
I often see younger people cycling in a crazy manner, I don't mean 5 year olds but late tennagers and those in their twenties. I often se them cycle against the traffic on a 2 way road for no apparent reason than laziness. How would they cope with cycling against the flow on a a one way street.
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It's probably being promoted because the law isn't being enforced anyway due to lack of police numbers on the streets.
How long until burglary, mugging and vandalism become legal too? It would all save so much taxpayers money!
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Over most of London, road law doesn't seem to be enforced on pushbikes and they simply do what they like. A good proportion run red lights, transform themselves into pedestrians and back to traffic whenever they feel like it, and so on. A minority of these are inconsiderate of pedestrians and insolent or aggressive with cars. Others of course ride on the road carefully and legally, a quarter or so being extremely brisk and generally outpacing the motor traffic.
However I have seen in the Holborn area, a gathering place apparently for urban cyclists, a squad of special bike plod riding herd on some gathering of cyclists at night (they completely filled one of the carriageways making it necessary for the bike plod to direct traffic). Perhaps that is an expanding section of the Met traffic division?
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If this is done with properly marked cycle lanes, that's OK. Where I live there is a short stretch of one-way street where pushbikes are allowed to go the 'wrong way' along a marked cycle lane. When I'm on my bike I like to see the expressions on the faces of motorists who think I'm doing wrong when I'm not!
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It seems to be the norm in mainland Europe. Reduced casualties apparently, at least in Bruges. Whether that would hold true in up-tight London is a moot point.
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I think it depends on the ratio of bikes to motorised vehicles.
In Bruges you probably get a 1 bike to 5 or 10 cars ratio, so there's a constant stream of bikes and they share the space.
In London it's more like 1 bike to 50 or 100 cars, so cars take up the whole width until - whoops - there's a single bike coming the wrong way. Squelch.
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On roads with no footway, pedestrians are advised to walk facing the traffic. There is no outcry regarding that, is there? Cyclists are no wider than pedestrians, probably less so on average, but would be wise to keep speed down in contra-flow. The same applies to the driver. The ratio is changing, and probably will increase in favour of cycles, whatever the current ratio is. As motor users become accustomed, and dare I say it, use bikes themselves, the risk will probably be very low. I'd advise helmet-cams to London cyclists: an anti-squelch measure. But its a trial, and not assessed.
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At the moment all road users are intended to obey the same laws/rules, and be singing from the same hymn-sheet. Everyone knows what's what. If different groups of road users were given different rules it could be chaotic.
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Apart from vehicle speeds, a one way street is similar to one carriageway of a dual carriageway. And you know what happens when people drive the wrong way on a dual carriageway.
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Lud - that'll be Critical Mass who ride out on the last Friday of the month "because they can". Stuff other road users on buses. Grrrrreat. As pointless as the lorry drivers who protest against the Government because world fuel prices have risen.
(Personally I think fuel prices would be higher; we do only have a limited quantity of oil and it should not be squandered.)
As for 1-way streets, sometimes these have contra-flow cycle lanes anyway. Very useful they can be too - provided people don't park in them...
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If the authorities allow this kind of thing then I suggest that they make it compulsory for every cyclist to wear a fluorescent bib or jacket. And to take out some form of insurance.
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Not national, not all streets, just some designated ones in LBK&C (is that Lud's stomping ground?). Story from the Standard here tinyurl.com/3u8wn4
Designed to keep David Cameron legal??
Edited by Dynamic Dave on 04/06/2008 at 22:57
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>>And to take out some form of insurance.
My household insurance covers me for cycling. And I don't (usually) start sentences with a preposition ;>)
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No need for that. I'm just putting my view point over like everyone else. But you have to make an issue on grammatical grounds. Get a life.
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Take it easy Ben, he put a smiley.
But I start sentences with prepositions all the time. And I'm a professional writer.
:o}
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I have very mixed feelings about this - that is the cycling not the prepositions. Whilst it seems a reasnoble idea the majority of urban cyclists seem to neither have respect for the law nor pay due regard to other road users. On a visit to Germany pedestrians/cyclists/motorists blended together with no problems. The main difference compared to the UK is that they obeyed their equivalent of the Highway Code. Cyclists do not ignore red lights and pedestrians the 'green man'. Until there is a change in attitude by many cyclists I have to vote against this idea!
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And the majority of drivers have respect for the law I suppose? The number of drivers accelerating to pit lane speed down Cromwell Road must be approaching 100%:) To some motorists cyclists are an "out-group" and there is a mixture of scorn at their apparent poverty, resentment at their relative freedom and attribution of all societies ills. The view of cyclists as a homogenous group, posing a threat which has to be "squashed", whilst elevating the "in-group" beyond criticism, is rather typical.
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The main difference compared to the UK is that they obeyed their equivalent of the Highway Code. Cyclists do not ignore red lights and pedestrians the 'green man'.
The issue with pedestrians ignoring the green man is often caused by light cycles that favour drivers. At one three-way junction I'm familiar with in Liverpool pedestrians have to wait for all three lanes to get green in turn before they cross, but there is a crossing 'window' in between each green. The effect of this is that thirty or forty pedestrians often have to wait for 15 or 20 single occupancy cars to pass. Of course they cross when the green man isn't showing, but to discourage this the planners recently removed a traffic island where pedestrians could shelter half way across. All it does is leave slower pedestrians--old folk and people with children mostly; the kind of people who won't risk crossing out of turn--stranded in the middle of the road because the 'green man' cycle is too short. This is just one example. If you walk a lot as I do you'll find it's very common. Pedestrians in cities get a terrible deal compared with drivers.
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The effect of this is that thirty or forty pedestrians often have to wait for 15 or 20 single occupancy cars to pass.
What's the relevance of how many people are in the cars? Just curious.
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>> The effect of this is that thirty or >> forty pedestrians often have to wait for 15 or 20 single occupancy cars to pass. What's the relevance of how many people are in the cars? Just curious.
The reason it's relevant is that 40 people are waiting for 20 people. The priorities are skewed in favour of cars at the expense of pedestrians, even though the greater volume is foot traffic. This is like the main carriageway of a motorway having to give way to the slip road.
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Cycists should also have a loud bell and use it! Legal requirement isn't it? Rarely fitted in my experience.
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Legal requirement on all new bikes for the last year or so.
Nothing to stop the owner removing it for street cred.
My bell's got a picture of a teddy bear, it was the only one I could find at the time that sounded like a bicycle bell.
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I wonder how many thousands of taxpayer's cash is being squandered on another "trial", another "consultation". What is the estimated cost of changing the law for this relatively pointless cause? Maybe another 1p a litre on petrol ought to cover it.
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Ben Elton once came out with a very amusing tirade about what life would be life if pedestrians behaved like drivers. Cutting each other up, tailgating, whipping a torch out of their pockets and flashing it in each other's faces along with gesticulating and yelling blue murder.
There will always be conflict between different classes of road (and pavement) user, and forcing them to share the same space is ludicrous. Cycle lanes in towns like Milton Keynes and Stevenage work a treat as cyclists are physically separated from pedestrians. (Except where pedestrians choose to walk on cycle lanes.)
P.S.: Bathtub Tom: detention, Monday afternoon in the Head's office: "and" and "but" are conjunctions, not prepositions. (Pedantic, moi?)
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"and" and "but" are conjunctions not prepositions. (Pedantic moi?)
Guh. Doh.
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Just trying to put things right, m,'Lud :-) Ben10 had been erroneously accused of a horrendous capital crime, so I felt I could not stand by and watch an innocent blogger be shackled up in the hulls of the prison ship and off to Botany Bay...
Following the success of the light hearted and very readable grammar book "Eats shoots and leaves", perhaps it is time for a similar one for motoring bloggers. How about "Ignites, tyres and exhausts" as a working title?
:-)
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Now I've been firmly put in my place, I'll stop trying to be clever ;>)
Who said the mods sometimes treat us like naughty schoolkids (I wouldn't want it any other way)?
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I'm all in favour of cyclists riding the wrong way down one-way streets. It's a welcome step forward, i particularly likes the "well they're doing it already" justification of the scheme.
Given the current administration's habit of back-dating laws I'm gleefully awaiting the time when being snapped by a gatso is no longer admissable evidence if your vehicle happens to be on the wrong side of the road...
f2
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Give it time and there will be reports of circus clowns riding (maybe even driving) BACKWARDS past a Gatso to avoid recognition and prosecution.
Mind you, they would hardly be noticed with so many other clowns on the roads... :-)
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