Looking & not seeing - interesting perception article

[thirdcrank]

Highway Code

General rules, techniques and advice for all drivers and riders (103 to 158)
The Highway Code general rules, techniques and advice for all drivers and riders, including signals, stopping procedures, lighting requirements, control of the vehicle, speed limits, stopping distances, lines and lane markings, multi-lane carriageways and general advice.
This section should be read by all drivers, motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders. The rules in The Highway Code do not give you the right of way in any circumstance, but they advise you when you should give way to others. Always give way if it can help to avoid an incident.
(My emphasis.)

[mjr]

This is a lot of what's going wrong on the roads: people have the right of way, so they'll find any excuse for not using a bit of courtesy and common sense and giving way.

This is a lot of what's going wrong on the roads: people expect others to give way to them regardless of law, rules or common sense, so they'll find any excuse to blame others for not using a bit of courtesy and common sense and giving way or waiting rather than driving out blind.

Shared space schemes operate by taking away the slavish observance of rules and making people use their own initiative.

...which the Manual for Streets says only works well below 100 motor vehicles per hour and LTN 1/11 says shared space should have a design speed under 20mph and preferably under 15mph. It's nice when it works but that's a small subset of roads.

[Cyril Haearn]

Shared space is rubbish. I believe it is a ploy by the moton lobby to ensure access to every last corner

Went to look at Bohmte, Germany, a shared space town. On the way from the station into town there there are tactile strips to guide visually handicapped people on both sides of the road. On both sides they were blocked by parked vehicles

Enough said

[axel_knutt]

This is a lot of what's going wrong on the roads: people have the right of way, so they'll find any excuse for not using a bit of courtesy and common sense and giving way.

This is a lot of what's going wrong on the roads: people expect others to give way to them regardless of law, rules or common sense, so they'll find any excuse to blame others for not using a bit of courtesy and common sense and giving way or waiting rather than driving out blind.

Shared space schemes operate by taking away the slavish observance of rules and making people use their own initiative.

...which the Manual for Streets says only works well below 100 motor vehicles per hour and LTN 1/11 says shared space should have a design speed under 20mph and preferably under 15mph. It's nice when it works but that's a small subset of roads.

Cyclists will whine about impatient motorists overtaking when it's not safe rather than waiting, but you want to claim your right of way rather than have the patience to let a motorist pull out when his view is obscured. Why not just crash into the car deliberately, and then you can sit in your wheelchair and say "I had right of way, it's all your fault".

[mjr]

Cyclists will whine about impatient motorists overtaking when it's not safe rather than waiting, but you want to claim your right of way rather than have the patience to let a motorist pull out when his view is obscured. Why not just crash into the car deliberately, and then you can sit in your wheelchair and say "I had right of way, it's all your fault".

I've already described that I ride well away from such dangerous parking spaces. However, that doesn't mean that I feel that motorists should be excused for reversing out blind into other road users - if a road design is dangerous, we are expected to deal with it accordingly when driving, not carry on regardless and expect others to take avoiding action for fear of being put into a wheelchair. Why won't you apply that to motorists? Why's it only cyclists who should have to stop regardless of who is performing the dangerous manoeuver contrary to the highway code and road markings?

Overtaking is a different situation, but do you feel that cyclists are to blame if they get side-swiped during an ill-considered overtake, because they should have emergency-braked to allow the motorist to pull in?