Parking in Cycle Lanes

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mjr
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by mjr »

Pete Owens wrote: They are not intended to save anyone - their sole purpose is to prevent us from obstructing flow of motor traffic.
You keep making that claim: so I challenge you to prove it. You may feel that it is the case and it may even have been the case for a few incompetent motorist highway designers, but cycle lanes done right have other purposes, including allowing cyclists to bypass queues of motorists (and the signals motorists require because they will not share nicely with each other, let alone any other types of road user), preventing motorists from hogging the whole road with their overwide machines and making navigation easier.
Pete Owens wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 12:07pm The only abuse I have suffered in half a century of cycling is for not using cycle paths.
For that to be true, I think either:
a. all roads you have ridden in half a century have cycle paths (and you have probably misinterpreted some of the abuse);
b. you are not riding centrally in narrow lanes because that frequently brings abuse even when done absolutely textbook; or
c. all motorists you have ridden near are a bizarre mix of too timid to abuse a cyclist in primary position yet aggressive enough to abuse a cyclist for not using a cycleway.

Surely almost all road cyclists of much distance and years have had at least some abuse from motorists for simply riding on a road where the road is all there is, not even a footway or shoulder?

As mentioned previously, I've been abused for all sorts of stuff, including many motorist-fantasy rules, including being told to get on the cycleway on a bridge with no cycleway, and being shouted at to get on the road when I was quite happy on the (3m, flat, smooth, kerbed from the carriageway) cycleway!
Last edited by mjr on 30 Nov 2021, 3:00pm, edited 1 time in total.
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mjr
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by mjr »

ChrisP100 wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 12:42pmSome drivers wrongly believe the highway code compels us to use cycle paths, and it's their ignorance of the rules that causes the problem.
Motorist ignorance of the rules probably causes more than 90% of all problems on the roads, regardless of whether cycle paths are involved.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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reohn2
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by reohn2 »

mjr wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 3:00pm
ChrisP100 wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 12:42pmSome drivers wrongly believe the highway code compels us to use cycle paths, and it's their ignorance of the rules that causes the problem.
Motorist ignorance of the rules probably causes more than 90% of all problems on the roads, regardless of whether cycle paths are involved.
I agree,there are some truly ignorant and downright arrogant and malicious car drivers IMHO.

===================================================================================

Pete Owens
I disagree with you entirely about abuse from motorists,my experience riding in the same area you ride for as long as you and averaging 7,000 to 9,000 miles per year,I've suffered abuse on numerous occasions,some with quite violent intent,so much so I've felt concern for my safety on more than one occasion and on one occasion needing to defend myself physically by hitting my attacker with the bike.
I've been driven at,punishment passed(almost daily),had missiles thrown at me from cars,gradually and deliberately forced into the kerb,shouted abuse at,even had one driver threaten to kill me and all for just riding my bike or the tandem whilst minding my/our own business,not tomention the many,many SMIDSYs.
It's been same story for the many people I/we've ridden with over the years

I can only conclude you must lead a very sheltered life.

Reporting such abuse to Cheshire and Greater Manchester Police has proved to be a complete waste of time.
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Pete Owens
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by Pete Owens »

mjr wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 2:58pm
Pete Owens wrote: They are not intended to save anyone - their sole purpose is to prevent us from obstructing flow of motor traffic.
You keep making that claim:
It most certainly was the original intention of segregation to clear us from the roads. Traffic engineers used to be open about this - seeing cyclists as an inconvenient anachronism to be cleared of the roads in the name of progress. Unsurprisingly it is certainly the observed effect of cycle lanes to reallocate space from cyclists to motors.

Back in the 1930s they assumed that use of cycle facilities would be made compulsory - as it was in the rather more authoritarian regimes on the continent. It is only fairly recently that it has been considered politically correct to promote cycling - and it is an impressive feat of propaganda to try to persuade us that the same measures they had been using to supress us for decades were supposedly for our benefit.
You may feel that it is the case and it may even have been the case for a few incompetent motorist highway designers,
It is the only way to make sense of cycle facility design. Take a look at any road and imagine which part of the road Jeremy Clarkson would want us us ride on - and then look where they put the cycle symbols.

It is only incompetence if you fall for their propaganda and assume they are trying to help us. Once you understand that the overriding objective for traffic engineers is to optimise the flow of motor traffic then it all makes sense. These are after all skilled professionals we are talking about. They fully understand what they are doing and are capable of designing in great detail for the complex needs of motorised traffic. They are not actually trying to kill us or even inconvenience us - just keep us out of the way of the all important motor traffic.
cycle tramp
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by cycle tramp »

reohn2 wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 8:58am Cycle tramp
You seem to forget that the police don't give monkey's unless someone's injured or killed,it's what you get with an undermanned politicised police force,struggling with an overwhelming workload in a land that thinks cycling and cyclists are nothing but a nuisance at best and should be banned from the roads at worst.
I have every sympathy for the Police, and whole heartedly agree that they need more staff in the same way the the NHS needs more staff.
I'm also a great believer for the police to take on more petty crimes, if only to perhaps because it may stop some people's behaviour escalating from minor ignorance to deliberate acts of anti-social behaviour..
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SupermanVsSnowman
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by SupermanVsSnowman »

reohn2 wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 3:47pm
mjr wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 3:00pm
ChrisP100 wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 12:42pmSome drivers wrongly believe the highway code compels us to use cycle paths, and it's their ignorance of the rules that causes the problem.
Motorist ignorance of the rules probably causes more than 90% of all problems on the roads, regardless of whether cycle paths are involved.
I agree,there are some truly ignorant and downright arrogant and malicious car drivers IMHO.

===================================================================================

Pete Owens
I disagree with you entirely about abuse from motorists,my experience riding in the same area you ride for as long as you and averaging 7,000 to 9,000 miles per year,I've suffered abuse on numerous occasions,some with quite violent intent,so much so I've felt concern for my safety on more than one occasion and on one occasion needing to defend myself physically by hitting my attacker with the bike.
I've been driven at,punishment passed(almost daily),had missiles thrown at me from cars,gradually and deliberately forced into the kerb,shouted abuse at,even had one driver threaten to kill me and all for just riding my bike or the tandem whilst minding my/our own business,not tomention the many,many SMIDSYs.
It's been same story for the many people I/we've ridden with over the years

I can only conclude you must lead a very sheltered life.

Reporting such abuse to Cheshire and Greater Manchester Police has proved to be a complete waste of time.
Bloody hell! If I had suffered half as much torment as that, I would end up taking less than favourable or legal measures to try and protect myself. How do you deal with that level of <i>[inappropriate word removed]</i>?
OH CACK! I just dropped my d-lock, shattering the JWST primary mirrors! I'll just say I was on the toilet when I heard something smash.
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mjr
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by mjr »

Pete Owens wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 4:33pm
mjr wrote: 30 Nov 2021, 2:58pm
Pete Owens wrote: They are not intended to save anyone - their sole purpose is to prevent us from obstructing flow of motor traffic.
You keep making that claim:
It most certainly was the original intention of segregation to clear us from the roads. Traffic engineers used to be open about this -
And yet you don't have a single example to show us? No historical notes dug up by someone like Carlton Reid? Nothing from Hansard when the first laws enabling cycleways were debated?

And there is a big difference between "original intention" and "sole purpose" so you appear to be backpedalling furiously from the outset.
Unsurprisingly it is certainly the observed effect of cycle lanes to reallocate space from cyclists to motors.
Some cycle lanes. They can definitely have the opposite effect if done well, reallocating space to cyclists on roads that had become no-go zones for all but the most stubborn riders... and those stubborn few can continue to ride on the road too, because it is very rare for cycling to be banned on a carriageway due to the provision of a cycleway. Indeed, it's far more common for cycling to be banned without providing a cycleway (locally, parts of A14 and A45 spring to mind — the cycleway bypass of that bit of A45 came years later, the new bit of A14 still has none in sight).
Back in the 1930s they assumed that use of cycle facilities would be made compulsory - as it was in the rather more authoritarian regimes on the continent. It is only fairly recently that it has been considered politically correct to promote cycling - and it is an impressive feat of propaganda to try to persuade us that the same measures they had been using to supress us for decades were supposedly for our benefit.
There are at least two obvious major flaws in that reasoning:
1. cycling has not been suppressed in continental countries which stupidly (I agree!) made cycleway use compulsory, with most seeing far more cycling than the UK, although we may differ on how much of that we think is due to the cycleways; and
2. the UK has used far more straightforward methods to suppress cycling, including outright bans, pseudomotorway relief roads and fast gyratories and other motorist-favouring road layouts. Sure, the rubbish narrow shoulder cycle lanes built by the Highways Agency 1970-2010 didn't encourage cycling, but they were largely irrelevant to the suppression because almost no-one would have ridden the 70mph carriageway if the cycle lane hadn't been there... and of the few who did ride dual carriageways like the A11, deaths were reported widely with an undertone of "he should not have ridden there".
You may feel that it is the case and it may even have been the case for a few incompetent motorist highway designers,
It is the only way to make sense of cycle facility design. Take a look at any road and imagine which part of the road Jeremy Clarkson would want us us ride on - and then look where they put the cycle symbols.
I don't think Clarkson would care much where we rode as long as it wasn't near him and I bet he would dislike us riding along the side of a road too, now that he'll need to give way to us when he turns. Anyway, who cares what he thinks? I don't ride a bike to spite the likes of him.

Reasoning like that is working backwards and making too many assumptions in order to reach the desired conclusion. It's not evidence for "sole purpose".
It is only incompetence if you fall for their propaganda and assume they are trying to help us. Once you understand that the overriding objective for traffic engineers is to optimise the flow of motor traffic then it all makes sense. These are after all skilled professionals we are talking about. They fully understand what they are doing and are capable of designing in great detail for the complex needs of motorised traffic. They are not actually trying to kill us or even inconvenience us - just keep us out of the way of the all important motor traffic.
I don't assume they are trying to help us. I've often written that I feel cycling is popular here despite government more than because of it, and that the engineers being instructed to maximise throughput of Passenger Car Units is a major problem... but I also suspect that if engineers were instructed to maximise throughput of People instead, then we would see a lot more cycleways built, in order to get the overwide obstructive motorists and their disruptive traffic signals out of our way. Cycleways built to maximise throughput of People would actually join up and flow better, instead of the discontinuous crap we often see, some of which does do the job you accuse it of (avoiding motorists slowing from 30-70mph because they are behind 10-15mph cyclists). We'd also see a lot more bus lanes, because bus lanes also have a far higher throughput of People than lanes mixed with cars, as do cycleways.

But agreeing with you about some nefarious past uses of cycleways is a long way from you having any justification to say that it is always the "sole purpose".
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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thirdcrank
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by thirdcrank »

This thread was a couple of years old and was restarted with links to a new civil enforcement scheme for parking offences, which is not, in itself new, although in the linked scheme it seems to have been extended to take advantage of new powers available to local authorities.

I'm not so good as I like to think I was once on attention to detail, but I didn't notice anything specific in either link about cycle lanes.

One hobby horse of mine is that the linked scheme will cover pedestrian crossings. imo, There are two ways of looking at this:
  • Is it right that "parking" offences related to pedestrian crossings, which carry an endorsement on conviction, should be subject to a civil penalty? ie No endorsement.
OR
  • Is any enforcement of this better than almost none?
Back on parking in cycle lanes, I found and linked official guidance on camera enforcement ie in much the same way as some authorities enforce bus lanes.

IMO, whatever anybody may think of cycle lanes, I get the impression that in some urban areas, particularly in London, the sheer number of riders has created informal cycle lanes, where riders assume drivers in congested traffic will leave room near the kerb for cyclists to ride. (Some time ago, we had a vid of a rural lorry driver being harangued by riders for not appreciating this.) If traffic authorities continue to create cycle lanes, then measures to keep out motor traffic may be a good idea, not least because they may give this more thought before installing cameras
VinceLedge
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by VinceLedge »

Whatever you think of marked cycle lanes they are of little use if parking is allowed on them, which often seems to be the case!
thirdcrank
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by thirdcrank »

Since you echo my wording, I'll link to my earlier post with the link to camera enforcement

viewtopic.php?p=1656483#p1656483
reohn2
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by reohn2 »

SupermanVsSnowman wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 8:42am
Bloody hell! If I had suffered half as much torment as that, I would end up taking less than favourable or legal measures to try and protect myself.
How do I do that?
I reported such abuse to the police on a number of occasions without success
How do you deal with that level of <i>[inappropriate word removed]</i>?
Simple,I don't any more,such abuse eventually took all the pleasure out of cycling on the road for me that and a failing body due to age.

The bottom line is,being a cyclist in the UK is be a second class citizen and after fighting my corner over the years I became worn down by it all.

My return to motorcycling OTOH has given me a new lease of life without the abuse :)
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Pete Owens
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by Pete Owens »

VinceLedge wrote: 1 Dec 2021, 6:50pm Whatever you think of marked cycle lanes they are of little use if parking is allowed on them, which often seems to be the case!
Not at all from the POV of the highways engineers who install them.

The purpose is to prevent anything impeding the flow of motor traffic.
So cyclists are directed to ride in the gutter to prevent them from impeding the flow of motor traffic.
If someone wants to park - then if they park in the cycle lane then they are not impeding the flow of motor traffic.
If a cyclist approaches a parked car in the cycle lane - then in order to change lanes they have to give way to to traffic in the main traffic lane - again ensuring that they are not impeding the flow of motor traffic.
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Re: Parking in Cycle Lanes

Post by peetee »

I can’t comment on the skill of highway engineers today but I was working in a highway planning office in the mid nineties and it was certainly the case then that there were engineers tasked with integrating cycle provisions that had not a clue what was expected or needed. Back then cycle segregation was becoming much more widespread but there didn’t appear to be any uniformed approach to training the people who were expected to include it. And that is just looking at it from a practical perspective. As well as integrating these facilities engineers were expected to think too about the cost.
I mention this because even now this appears to be the case with many cycle facilities. There are a huge number of poor and dangerous routes that have been shown to be inadequate but are not being altered because... well, who really knows? Is it cost, prioritising vehicles, refusal to accept their practical shortcomings, refusal to accept their poor design?
It’s easy to look at the excellent facilities in, say, London and wonder why the whole country can’t follow suit but I’m not sure that all the planning offices in the rest of Britain can boast the design skills that have been applied in London let alone dish out the cash to make it happen.
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