Cycling in narrow lanes

[hamster]

I've had the odd occasion of the same problem. The best way to think about it is whether you would have done anything different driving a bin lorry. If not, relax.

The last case it happened to me, I pulled over and the driver wound down his window and started monologuing.
I then remarked that:
1. I realised that he must indeed be an extremely important person as not everyone gets to drive a 16 year old VW Passat, and
2. anyway, wasn't he in a hurry, so why waste time talking to me? Because why else all the honking?

[Cyril Haearn]

There have been complaints about thread drift elsewhere, but: driving a 16 year old vehicle would indicate a sensible person, to me
Mind, the Passat 1988 was better, there are still a few around

[DaveBeck]

It is really best not to acknowledge or thank with a hand gesture
Taking a hand off the bars cool lead to loss of control with disastrous consequences
Likewise when letting them by, best to stop

It's this kind of expert advice which makes this forum such a valuable resource. I, for one, shall, from now on remain grimly clamped on to my bars, lest my hand slips off one and disaster ensues. I'll have to adapt my riding style a little - remaining in the same gear for several miles until I find a safe place to pull in where I can safely take my hand off the bars to operate my frame-mounted gear-levers. Far better to do this than take my hand off the bar for a nanosecond and instantly go flying off a cliff.

Well said. But it's not just that. Only one position on the bars, because moving between them is just too risky, no more shoulder checks, we should just drift out to the R without looking, and no more hand signals, which is nicely topical so that we can respond to the current consultation on the Highway Code and have that advice removed.

And it shouldn't be limited to cycling. In fact on this morning's walk I raised my L wrist to tell the time and, sure enough, immediately fell over, taking my companion with me. It's lucky it was just the two of us!

And I wonder if an analogous effect could explain something else that many of us will have observed.. Does the distraction of lifting hands to a computer keyboard cause some people to post utter nonsense in web forums?

Jonathan

Well said.

Far from being dangerous, taking a hand off the bars is an essential skill, for all the reasons you've listed.

I just hope any beginners that read this treat that misguided advice with a pinch of salt!

[Cyril Haearn]

There are plenty of situations where it is best to keep both hands on the bars, going up or down hill for example, besides, it is not necessary to thank people for simply obeying the law
Perhaps one could nod ones head in thanks while keeping both hands on the bars
A friendly gesture of thanks may be interpreted as an insult or challenge, as reported elsewhere on these fora

Worth mentioning again that one should never trust other road users, drivers especially
Often one thinks they have stopped and are waiting, but they move off a moment before one is clear
NEVER trust a morton!

Other opinions are available
..
What a shame my opponents do not Argue Nicely (© Vorpal)

[Jdsk]

There are plenty of situations where it is best to keep both hands on the bars, going up hill for example...

Which is a completely different assertion from:

Taking a hand off the bars cool lead to loss of control with disastrous consequences

...

... it is not necessary to thank people for simply obeying the law

I haven't seen anyone ever say that it is necessary to thank people for anything: lots of us think that it's courteous and friendly, and might even help others to think more sympathetically of people riding bikes.

Jonathan

[DaveBeck]

There are plenty of situations where it is best to keep both hands on the bars, going up hill for example besides, it is not necessary to thank people for simply obeying the law
A friendly gesture of thanks may be interpreted as an insult or challenge. Virtue is its own reward

Worth mentioning again that one should never trust other road users, drivers especially
Often one thinks they have stopped and are waiting, but they move off before one is clear
NEVER trust a morton!
..
What a shame my opponents do not Argue Nicely (© Vorpal)

You are giving out advice which is just wrong.

Yes there are times when it is better to keep both hands on the bars. But there are many times when not only is that not necessary but a requirement. Signalling your intentions is the most obvious. If it was as dangerous as you say, why does the Bikeability scheme have a lesson where you teach people to take one hand off the bar?

The trouble with giving out advice like this is that beginners may believe it is correct, not indicate and therefore end up causing a crash, which may hurt themselves, or worse still, somebody else.

That is why some of your "opponents" are "not arguing nicely". Personally I think we've been quite restrained.

[Cyril Haearn]

There are plenty of situations where it is best to keep both hands on the bars, going up hill for example besides, it is not necessary to thank people for simply obeying the law
A friendly gesture of thanks may be interpreted as an insult or challenge. Virtue is its own reward

Worth mentioning again that one should never trust other road users, drivers especially
Often one thinks they have stopped and are waiting, but they move off before one is clear
NEVER trust a morton!
..
What a shame my opponents do not Argue Nicely (© Vorpal)

You are giving out advice which is just wrong.

Yes there are times when it is better to keep both hands on the bars. But there are many times when not only is that not necessary but a requirement. Signalling your intentions is the most obvious. If it was as dangerous as you say, why does the Bikeability scheme have a lesson where you teach people to take one hand off the bar?

The trouble with giving out advice like this is that beginners may believe it is correct, not indicate and therefore end up causing a crash, which may hurt themselves, or worse still, somebody else.

That is why some of your "opponents" are "not arguing nicely". Personally I think we've been quite restrained.

Sarcasm and 'humour', changing my user name when quoting (why?) do not count as arguing nicely

It is best to keep both hands on the bars at much as possible
Thanking others for obeying the law is not necessary

[Jdsk]

I quoted a quote which had changed your username and I didn't spot it.

Sorry

Jonathan

[Jdsk]

The trouble with giving out advice like this is that beginners may believe it is correct, not indicate and therefore end up causing a crash, which may hurt themselves, or worse still, somebody else.

Agreed.

Jonathan

[Cyril Haearn]

Why I do not gesture to thank drivers for moving over to let me by: I did this once. A moment later, before I was clear, he moved off and nearly hit me
NEVER trust a m..!

One should keep both hands on the bars as far as possible. I once indicated to turn left. An old wise clubmate told me off, he explained that this was generally not necessary and could lead to drivers risking overtaking in inappropriate circumstances

[Jdsk]

One should keep both hands on the bars as far as possible

Do you think that it's acceptable to take a hand off the bars to signal right, to change gear, to change position on the bars, or as part of a shoulder check?

Thanks

Jonathan

[DaveBeck]

Why I do not gesture to thank drivers for moving over to let me by: I did this once. A moment later, before I was clear, he moved off and nearly hit me
NEVER trust a m..!

One should keep both hands on the bars as far as possible. I once indicated to turn left. An old wise clubmate told me off, he explained that this was generally not necessary and could lead to drivers risking overtaking in inappropriate circumstances

You are now making a distinction between a courtesy signal; where if done may encourage a road user to do something you don't want them to do, such as indicating turning left into sideroad and having the road user overtake and turn in front of you. Which is not what you want. And an information signal, which serves to help other road users make progress. Again, turning left into a side road, but in this instance it is to a road user waiting at the junction for you to pass, but can see your intentions and pull out without harming you.

There are situations where signalling left is very helpful. It is a sign that you are stopping at the side of the road. That will help anyone, from a cyclist right through to an HGV driver.

You are also quite correct, it is not a legal requirement to thank somebody. But, why not thank somebody for waiting for you? If they've waited for you to go through a pinch point, or not forced past you but waited until the road was clear before overtaking properly. That's just another form of courtesy signal isn't it? Doesn't matter if you are in a car or on a bike, if it helps us all get along better, that's only a good thing!

[DevonDamo]

Just to explain why I changed Cyril's name when I quoted him:

When you quote someone, they get a notification so they can respond. I absolutely did not want Cyril to respond to my sarcastic put-down of his "dressing up encouragement of discourtesy to other road users with a bogus safety argument" post. As happened repeatedly with his "let's all push zebra crossing buttons and run away" thread, he will consistently argue that black is white in order to avoid admitting what everyone else can clearly see - i.e. he has 'othered' an entire class of road user and is exhorting the rest of us to join his campaign of antagonising 'them.' I've no intention of getting tied up in a discussion with someone who won't talk straight with me and takes advantage of these boards' politeness rules to the extent that people get censored for providing a suitably robust response to what are clearly duplicitous posts. I've learned my lesson there, so I always content myself with a sarcastic snipe but no further discussion.

[jgurney]

Just as well your driver didn't find himself in the situation I was in a couple of weeks ago, Visiting Cornwall my other half decided he wanted to see St. Enodoc church.... as John Betjeman is buried there. This is somewhere I knew well from my cornish family holidays as we frequented Daymer Bay regularly and often visited the little church. I had forgotten just how narrow the approach was....
Turned into said road to go to the car park, as we had had a full day out on the Camel trail is was 5:30pm so of course everyone was leaving the beach.
Car in front had pulled into a passing place, and I pulled into the nearest one to me... it was big enough for following vehicle to pull in behind me... no problems so far.

Car ahead continued, I pulled forward slowly saw his brake lights on and further vehicles coming up, so pulled into the now vacant passing place, closely followed by the lady behind who could not get into said passing place, blocked the road and was terrified of reverse / her electronic hand brake and rolling into me.... We now had 3 vehicles in front of us none of which could get passed her.....

It can be very entertaining, if you are not in a hurry, to be sat near the front on a rural bus in such an area in the tourist season. The looks of horror on some of the drivers faces when they find they are head to head with the bus, and they are going to have to be the one who reverses.....
I recall one such who shouted at the bus driver that he was not allowed to bring a bus down such a narrow road and they would report him to his company for doing so - to which the driver replied that of course "moi boss" knew where he was, as he had driven the bus there every Wednesday for the last 15 years.

[thirdcrank]

Just to explain why I changed Cyril's name when I quoted him: .... .

There are a couple of ways you can quote somebody without their name appearing at the head of a quote. I don't know if using the "post quote" option still sends a notification, but I doubt it. The other is to cut and paste what you want to quote into your post, then highlight it and click on the "quote" button between the underline and code buttons in the POST A REPLY screen.

Somebody possibly meic, recommends leaving the other person's name out because it seems less threatening.

Alternative, use the USER CONTROL PANEL to mark anybody you consider a pita as a Foe. AKA ignore them. Unfortunately, you will still see anything they post which others quote. So, "Ignore him, he may go away" does not apply.