Bucks: Petition to ban cyclists from 'high speed' DC's

[jgurney]

If you wouldn't, then what do you see as the significant difference between motorways and trunk dual carriageways that makes the latter suitable for cycling?

Motorways always started life as new constructions in addition to the existing road network (except where they severed back lanes, etc), and had no local traditions of being used by non-motor traffic. Many A-roads are not new supplements but are the neighbourhood's long-standing main roads and the only reasonably direct route from A to B, and in some case the only possible access to places located on them.

Similarly, motorways had practically no harmful impact on bus routes, but conversions of rural main roads with unrestricted side turnings into grade-segregated ones with motorway-style junctions has sometimes played havoc with rural bus routes where busses can no longer make the turns they used to for gaining access to villages and hamlets, or passengers cannot safely cross roads to access bus stops.

[meic]

If you wouldn't, then what do you see as the significant difference between motorways and trunk dual carriageways that makes the latter suitable for cycling?

Their designation. I could take my motorcycle on a good many footpaths but I am only allowed to do so on those which are designated as BOATS. If we decide that any footpath where motorcyclists have driven off walkers by the "right of might" should just be re-designated a BOAT, that would just encourage motorcyclists to misbehave.
Same goes for dual carriageways, if motor vehicles are seeking to finish off the job of displacing cyclists through legalising what was established by "right of might" that should be opposed not appeased.

[Bez]

Motorways always started life as new constructions… (snip)

Right. That's the only real difference: the lack of even a tolerable-quality alternative.

Motorways were laid down around the existing network, generally retaining something vaguely usable and reducing the rate of traffic growth on it; whereas some A-roads replaced existing single carriageways (albeit ones which would have been seeing already uncomfortably high traffic volumes), and that was done with a disdain for cycling that meant the provision was homicidally dangerous.

But if the cry from the cycling corner is "people must be allowed to cycle on that road!" then this is what must inevitably result. There's simply no way to build a road like that to accommodate cycling in any remotely safe manner.

The cry should be "people must be allowed to cycle that route safely and efficiently!" then it opens up the possibility of a motorway-like road with separate cycling provision.

Sadly the dogmatic view that cycling must be ubiquitous can only lead to carriageways which are completely unsuitable for almost everyone to cycle on.

[meic]

But if the cry from the cycling corner is "people must be allowed to cycle on that road!" then this is what must inevitably result. There's simply no way to build a road like that to accommodate cycling in any remotely safe manner.

All shared use (motor and cycle) involve some risk. There are plenty of 40mph single lane roads in England that make the Welsh trunk road A40 or A48 seem like paradise. It is the overcrowding of our shared use roads which creates a greater danger than their design and designation. A blanket ban on trunk roads would apply to the very pleasant A48 to St Clears at 2am just as much as it applies to the A1 at rush hour.
As it is cyclists have already applied the "discretion is the better part of valor" to the latter.

[brooksby]

According to road.cc, the petition was raised because that time triallist was killed by a motor vehicle running into the back of him in the middle of the day and so the obvious response should be to ban cyclists.

[reohn2]

According to road.cc, the petition was raised because that time triallist was killed by a motor vehicle running into the back of him in the middle of the day and so the obvious response should be to ban cyclists.

And not to seek better driving standards and harsher penalties for offenders.

[meic]

You have to be realistic in your expectations.

[reohn2]

You have to be realistic in your expectations.

Sorry I appear to be out of step,I'll have a rethink.........



.....I've thunk and decided I prefer being out of step and unreasonable

[horizon]

Why is it that I feel little but disdain for people who cannot even use the correct grammatical form for their petition or haven't even researched the issue properly?

Stop cyclists using the counties dual carriageways

Local transport agency?

In case you are wondering why it matters, it does so because it shows that a complex issue (and in this case one associated with a tragic accident) hasn't been thought through properly - the least one could expect in the circumstances. It's an insult to the victim and bereaved.

[meic]

You may have to look on the counter-petition with similar disdain.
Does bad grammar and spelling disqualify a legitimate case in the same way that it disqualifies one which we dont like?

[Tangled Metal]

It seems to me bez isn't aware that there is a big range in dual carriageways. You get almost motorway style with motorway style design/Jacobs, which in several cases have been designated with restricted use for non-motorised vehicles/carriages, even as motorways themselves (usually with a letter M afterwards). Then you get some very winding dual carriageways with many side roads joining them. Blanket ban is not a good idea for any type of road that's developed through use and.need.

Round here there's a single carriageway road that's not that nice to cycle but it's the only reasonable road to get from one place to another. Smaller roads would take ages with a car let alone a bike. I can think of similar with dual carriageways. To me there isn't a quick fix answer, which a blanket ban is one option. It needs.considered solutions not knee jerk reactions to one tragic accident.

BTW was it an accident as in unavoidable? I suspect the driver who killed this guy made some decision in his driving that caused it. A different decision at that time and no death of a cyclist. Perhaps the originator of the petition should consider that idea somewhat before coming up with ridiculous solutions (mostly ridiculous because there is no component to offer.cyclists a safe alternative).

[Bez]

Mohammed Ali was dyslexic; clearly nothing he said was worth listening to

[meic]

It seems to me bez isn't aware that there is a big range in dual carriageways. You get almost motorway style with motorway style design/Jacobs, which in several cases have been designated with restricted use for non-motorised vehicles/carriages, even as motorways themselves (usually with a letter M afterwards). Then you get some very winding dual carriageways with many side roads joining them. Blanket ban is not a good idea for any type of road that's developed through use and.need.

Round here there's a single carriageway road that's not that nice to cycle but it's the only reasonable road to get from one place to another. Smaller roads would take ages with a car let alone a bike. I can think of similar with dual carriageways. To me there isn't a quick fix answer, which a blanket ban is one option. It needs.considered solutions not knee jerk reactions to one tragic accident.

BTW was it an accident as in unavoidable? I suspect the driver who killed this guy made some decision in his driving that caused it. A different decision at that time and no death of a cyclist. Perhaps the originator of the petition should consider that idea somewhat before coming up with ridiculous solutions (mostly ridiculous because there is no component to offer.cyclists a safe alternative).

The wording of the petition is poor and I sort of assumed that it referred to Trunk Road dual carriageways. Which is what many of us probably had in mind.
Of course out in the wilds trunk roads are frequently single lane single carriageways.
Having the odd half mile or even hundred yards of dual carriageway in the middle of that with a ban on would make local cycling very, very difficult.

[horizon]

You may have to look on the counter-petition with similar disdain.

You're right, it is depressing.

However, I think I am right in saying that it's a complex topic and we are all agreed that this simple knee-jerk response doesn't get us very far. One glimmer of hope is that a dual carriageway does indeed have two lanes and that gives us something to play with. This is a view along the A379 from Plymouth. I don't know the road well but AIUI the two lanes have been converted into one with a cycle lane:

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.36709 ... 312!8i6656

My contention is that reducing a dual carriageway from two lanes to one won't adversely affect traffic flows in the longer term but I might as well wait until hell freezes over before anyone reads the studies (or I find the links ).

[Bez]

I sort of assumed that it referred to Trunk Road dual carriageways. Which is what many of us probably had in mind.

Mm. I've been using the phrase "trunk dual carriageways" pretty much throughout, so I'm not sure why TM is accusing me of not understanding that some roads are different in nature to others.

There's a dual carriageway I use when I ride to work, which has side roads and relatively reduced visibility, and which is tolerable* because traffic is light; and the reason the reason for that is that although it was previously a main road, the rise in demand for car travel means it's now been superseded by the trunk dual carriageway that runs nearby, on which you'd never see me cycling in a million years.

* Tolerable it may be, but I still find the sound of any approaching vehicle on that road, where drivers can just point-and-go for a stretch, more disconcerting than nearly all approaching vehicles on nearly all single carriageway roads, where drivers have to keep some degree of their wits about them (and are more likely to be travelling below the speed limit) even if they don't think there might be someone on a bike ahead.