Hi, Simply bananas, I would rather walk than attempt to move up the inside, I use extreme caution when using cycle lanes next to kerb, preferring to wait in line, while not illegal, if it ends badly and your bad judgement you should face the costs, as she has. No mention "DO NOT DO IT!" the media are just as bad with there lack of understanding of safety, poor old Tesco driver.
"She told of how she had approached the lorry from the left side because she didn’t see any indicators,"
An expression I normally save for disgust or banter at someone I know on the road
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope You'll Still Find Me At The Top Of A Hill Please forgive the poor Grammar I blame it on my mobile and phat thinkers.
Undertaking unless in a dedicated lane designed to route traffic, is discouraged as a dangerous manoeuvre - except for bicycles. Painting a narrow red area in the gutter is supposedly making "a dedicated lane" (for cyclists) but as every cyclist knows they are wholly inadequate and downright dangerous.
They're inadequate because they're nowhere near wide enough; easily entered by motorised traffic; badly maintained and often so poorly designed that they have road furniture in them or stop/start at random.
I go through Lancaster down the A6 from the south. There is a lot of very narrow gutter "cycle lane" which terminates repeatedly to allow car parking where there are houses, with rubbed-out road markings the norm and an endless series of parked cars or unloading vans in what cycle lane areas are still visible.
In the one-way section through town there is often stationary queuing traffic. I tend to avoid overtaking it in the cycle lane except at 5mph or less since there are constant door-openings as passengers get out when car queues are stopped; and lots of pedestrians crossing between the vehicles composing these stationary queues, which one cannot see until the pedestrian pops out from in front of a van or lorry.
It's always necessary, when traffic is moving, to come out of the cycle lane as there's a series of vans or even big lorries unloading at the kerbside. There are many small left-hand junctions down which some cars will go with no signal or look in their mirror. Emerging cars usually stop across the cycle lane to wait for a gap in the traffic, forcing one to move right or stop.
Who thought up these stupid and dangerous cycle lanes? It was far easier to cycle through Lancaster before they were there, as part of normal traffic, rather than "separated-but-not-really" from the traffic, which now pretends you aren't there.
The whole notion of a separate infrastructure for cycling is based on the notion that we should get cyclists off the roads, which are meant for use solely by dangerous and inept drivers piloting inherently dangerous machines in what should be a public space safe for everyone. When the cycling infrastructure is itself inherently dangerous too, this is all unintended consequences (more danger) without any of the intended consequences (less danger).
Cugel
Last edited by Cugel on 20 Oct 2018, 5:18pm, edited 1 time in total.
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
Hi, Yep that's it, no mention of cycle lane in article so assume that there was none? My mention of cycle lanes, and my local ones are simply.......NOT FIT for purpose and Bloody Dangerouse....no wider than my bars in places
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope You'll Still Find Me At The Top Of A Hill Please forgive the poor Grammar I blame it on my mobile and phat thinkers.
I ride up the left, or the right, or the middle, or wait in line. Depends on the circumstances, types of traffic, type of junction, familiarity, time of day, direction of sun...
As a hard and fast rule "don't ride up the left" is fine but in the real world sometimes its the best option.
If there was no cycle lane she shouldn't have gone down the inside. I never do it, simply to avoid that sort of situation. If there was a cycle lane the discussion is a different one.
I ride up the left, or the right, or the middle, or wait in line. Depends on the circumstances, types of traffic, type of junction, familiarity, time of day, direction of sun...
As a hard and fast rule "don't ride up the left" is fine but in the real world sometimes its the best option.
+ 1
Treat each situation on its merits.....in some circumstances the left can be safest. In others just waiting in line can be best, etc. The worst thing to do is to blindly follow advice without considering whats actually there on the road with you, and what threat it might offer.
pwa wrote:If there was no cycle lane she shouldn't have gone down the inside. I never do it, simply to avoid that sort of situation. If there was a cycle lane the discussion is a different one.
pwa wrote:If there was no cycle lane she shouldn't have gone down the inside. I never do it, simply to avoid that sort of situation. If there was a cycle lane the discussion is a different one.
So how do you get to advance start boxes, then?
All the ones I have seen are fed with cycle lanes or cycle paths drop onto them, though I am sure that councils differ. I am not saying they are safe either.
NA Thinks Just End 2 End Return + Bivvy - Some day Soon I hope You'll Still Find Me At The Top Of A Hill Please forgive the poor Grammar I blame it on my mobile and phat thinkers.
pwa wrote:If there was no cycle lane she shouldn't have gone down the inside. I never do it, simply to avoid that sort of situation. If there was a cycle lane the discussion is a different one.
So how do you get to advance start boxes, then?
If there is no cycle lane you don't. Whatever the advantage of being at the front is, it isn't worth putting yourself in that death zone.
ASL boxes are popular because they're cheap and councils can say, "Look, cycling infrastructure, hurrah!", but they're not actually that much use a lot of the time.
The issues of getting to them has already been highlighted, but there's also the way they may be full (either bikes or, round here, most likely taxis) when you get there leaving you trapped beside traffic you'd be better off in. And if the lights change while you're on your way up to the box that can be dangerous, because everyone will be worried about getting a move on rather than checking for over/undertaking bikes.
You might get a few tens of meters ahead of where you'd otherwise be. Wowza. ASLs are symptomatic of thinking yo can achieve much of note with just paint. IME that's not actually the case.
One day the human race will invent some amazing technology that will allow lorry drivers to see back down the left side of their vehicle. We've put man on the moon, traveled to the depths of the ocean, discovered amazing medical cures, we've got vehicles that drive themselves (and can already see down their left side) so visibility down the left side of a lorry must be coming at some point when our technology progresses. And I'll even give the device a name "the mirror" - at least that way the marketing departments wont be delaying it's production when we get to invent it.
I think it's worth noting that this is London, where the flow of cycling traffic is changing the dynamics.
We did have an undertaking thread a little while ago where a mini peloton swept up the inside of a truck at a junction and the driver - from somewhere out in the sticks - was eventually berated by one of the riders for not understanding the system in the metropolis.
pjclinch wrote:You might get a few tens of meters ahead of where you'd otherwise be. Wowza.
IME more likely you'll actually get through the lights, so depending on how far back you're prepared to sit that could be one, two or even more cycles of them.
And then if you sit behind in a queue you've still got to put up with traffic trying to get in front - in fact the only time I've ever been knocked off at a set of lights I was actually queuing and the driver behind tried to get in front.
The sensible thing is to make an informed decision at the time rather than have a "never undertake" rule you apply regardless.
pwa wrote:If there was no cycle lane she shouldn't have gone down the inside. I never do it, simply to avoid that sort of situation. If there was a cycle lane the discussion is a different one.
So how do you get to advance start boxes, then?
Overtake normally on the right. The few local ones we have don't have lead in lanes worth the name.
As for gutter lanes: scrub 'em. Whole lane or none, please, not a third of one.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
NATURAL ANKLING wrote:Hi, Yep that's it, no mention of cycle lane in article so assume that there was none?
It says Clapham Common South Side which is a bit of CS7 that has those horrible first-generation blue gutter lanes. It's not even bus lanes. TfL should be on trial.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
