What's with cycling on the RIGHT of a path?

[mjr]

What I see all too often is lines of traffic caused by some <moderated> plodding along and not bothering to pull over to let others speed off. Tell me what the problem is with letting people pass you whether you are motoring, walking or cycling? By obstructing people who want to get past encourages conflict. If its reasonably practical and safe, then leave em go I say.

It depends what you mean by "pull over". As in pulling over to the side and allowing room for passing, while still making progress - I don't think there's any problem with that. I think some people are just thoughtless or careless or maybe aren't used to the continuing increase in cycling in some areas meaning that they no longer have sole use of the cycleway.

But pulling over and stopping has an obvious problem of wasting time and wasting energy getting going again, so I can understand if people don't want to do that.

Also, faster-in-a-straight-line isn't always faster - I can't be the only person to play leapfrog with faster-in-a-straight-line cyclists who take slower routes through a junction complex, possibly due to unfamiliarity. I defy anyone to pick the fastest route along the roadside cycleways of this bit of A149 in each direction on the first attempt! Streetview so you can see the available crossings more clearly - there are staggered Toucans across each arm of the western crossroads, an uncontrolled crossing with a mid-carriageway island roughly halfway between the crossroads, staggered Toucans across the western arm of the eastern crossroads, a single toucan across the south arm and another across the east-to-south filter.

[Vorpal]

What I see all too often is lines of traffic caused by some <moderated> plodding along and not bothering to pull over to let others speed off. Tell me what the problem is with letting people pass you whether you are motoring, walking or cycling? By obstructing people who want to get past encourages conflict. If its reasonably practical and safe, then leave em go I say.

People used to have to get off the roads for important folk, but I thought we were more egalitarian these days.

[Ric2013]

What I see all too often is lines of traffic caused by some [right honourable gentleman?] plodding along and not bothering to pull over to let others speed off. Tell me what the problem is with letting people pass you whether you are motoring, walking or cycling? By obstructing people who want to get past encourages conflict. If its reasonably practical and safe, then leave em go I say.

People used to have to get off the roads for important folk, but I thought we were more egalitarian these days.

Yes, pulling over is fine in theory, but doesn't really work in practice. Old electric milk floats will do 30mph or even more, but take an age to reach that speed, by which time there is another queue behind them (according to a milkman I had the pleasure of chatting to), slower cars often have poorer acceleration with similar result, and getting back up to speed wastes fuel or precious human energy. Walking along the side of a road could be impossible if you inevitably had to step off into the ditch or verge for every vehicle. Imagine if bikes had to pull over for cars on narrow roads!

Obviously, a considerate slower means of travel will pull over occasionally - and Vorpal has a point here: after all, most pedestrians will single out if you ask them politely, as will most cyclists to cars - but there are times when the slower traveller cannot reasonably be expected to pull over, and actually expecting someone going to work to stop on a regular basis is too much. As Vorpal says, 'when reasonably practical and safe', and I agree that a bit of courtesy extended both ways helps a lot.

Personally, I like the French attitude to driving I once saw travelling through France from Dunquerque to Italy, which seems to be symbolised by a sign on a French motorway that read something like 'remember: this road is for everyone'. Basically, I would plod along in my 602cc 27bhp Citroën 2CV and cars would wait patiently behind, keeping a safe distance. Usually, overtaking vehicles would scream past me at a rate of knots (they certainly knew how to drive), but the practice never felt aggressive or unsafe. Cross the border to Italy, and it is a whole different story. What I also noticed was, however, that Italy has safer roads, Draconian speed limits, and crazy drivers constantly being told what to do and what not to do and ignoring most of it, while France had a limited number of overtaking and speed restrictions, unbarriered roads, and that French drivers did seem to obey the restrictions and were, as a generality, calm and considerate drivers.