661-Pete wrote:And another thought which some may deem 'insensitive'. This tragedy can only have a negative impact on the popularity of cycling. The "it's too dangerous" mantra continues to be expressed far and wide, and gets reinforced every time something like this happens. If we persist in making that connection, can we complain when news articles constantly refer to "traffic being held up for hours by the road closure" after a fatal accident involving a cyclist?
Meh, it's too dangerous, but still not as dangerous or harmful or disruptive to traffic as motoring. Near me, a road was closed for
two days after a motorist made a huge hole in a 400-year-old building (the owners say it can be repaired). That sort of stuff is going on almost every day but cyclists being killed is exceptional, so the cyclists make the news and the motorists don't.
Pete Owens wrote:In terms of the increased danger that segregation (whatever the currently fashionable euphamism is) causes at junctions, it make no difference at all whether the cycle path is shared with or separated from pedestrians on the approch.
The problem here is that it is a very very bad idea to ride to the left of left turning motor vehicles (which of course is where a segregated facility would be put). This leads to inevitable conflict where the paths cross at junctions. Whichis why such things have such a poor safety record - increasing the collision risk by a factor of 3 for same direction traffic and a factor of 10 for bi-directional paths such as the new super-duper highways that all the facility fanatics are raving about at the moment.
Are those factors still the oft-cited ones from the debatable 30 year old Lund data that is rather hard to obtain? The headline figures draw no distinctions for cycleway types, junction layouts and so on and are used to wrap it all up into one answer which is "clear, simple and wrong."
I agree that there is inevitable conflict where carriageways and cycleways would cross at junctions, but it should be easier to manage, so in a well-managed junction, the tipper truck driver would have had the truck crunching on bollards or similar, rather than a person. The current approach is that we have avoidable conflict all along the route, it becomes less obvious to most people where the most dangerous points are and it seems like no-one is trying to manage the conflict or reduce the danger.
There are other approaches possible too, like saying HGVs are welcome on one street, but cyclists are encouraged to use another nearby street where at least HGVs are only allowed for deliveries or at best it is closed entirely as a through route... but so far Boris and the boroughs have lacked the backbone to do that and have left those alternative streets open as mostly nasty narrow rat-runs.
Normally, this sort of stuff is justifiued on the grounds that it is needed by slow timid cyclists who are too scared to obey normal traffic rules - (at this vehicular cycling is dismissed as only suitable for high speed, brave, agressive, testoserone fueled males). But as we see from this example the sex of the witness and victim are the only features that conform to the steryotype. The vehicular cyclist was waiting patiently in line while whetever attributes the victim had, she showed abundance of bravery and confidence.
Huh? Surely one needs to be braver to hold a vehicular space in the line, rather than be bullied to the kerb out of flow? Also, the vehicular cyclist was going straight ahead, not turning left, so filtering on the left wouldn't be an obvious thing to do anyway.
reohn2 wrote:Whilst I agre the STAY BACK sticker isn't helpful,I've seen similar signs on the rear nearside of HGV's that read:- CYCLISTS DON'T OVERTAKE ON THIS SIDE or similar which is perfectly acceptable advice IMO.
Nope, that sticker is still evil, bad and wrong. Cyclists are expected to overtake on the left in many multilane systems - you would cop a hell of a lot of abuse if you don't overtake on the left when your lane is clear just because there's an HGV with that sort of sign in a lane to your right. A sign like "Don't Overtake In The Same Lane" may be better but I've never seen one of those.
Last year there was a thread with linked video footage of cyclists riding badly in York,one incident showed a cyclist in a cycle lane(solid white line IIRC) riding up the inside of a left indicating car approaching a (near)side road,the car turned into the cyclist and the cyclist was lucky not to be taken out but remained in control.
Whilst the driver should have given way to the cyclist on his nearside,force of habit meant that he didn't.FWIW,at the time I blamed the cyclist for being stupid enough believe that something that could potentially do serious harm or worse in such a situation could be trusted not because of a painted line on the road.I've no reason to change my mind.
That's a shame. The cyclist should have not overtaken an indicating vehicle (Highway Code rule 163), but if any road user moves or turns to their left, they should wait for a gap in any lane to their left that they're joining or crossing (Highway Code rule 133) and still beware even if there's not a lane (rule 157) - the described situation sounds like it was probably both to blame.
It's simple,I treat every other road user as a potential lunatic who may,at any given time perform stupid or unpredictable manoeuvres that could kill me,it causes me to walk,ride,and drive defensively.
It works,or has done upto now.
Expecting others to look after my welbeing is folly in the extreme IMHO.
I understand that,that's not the way it ought to be,but that's the way it is,unfortunately.
I share your caution and I'm often thinking "if something does a surprisingly stupid movement now, what's my emergency exit?" but there are limits. If you really didn't trust other roads users to generally behave and not leave their lane abruptly heading towards you, you'd never use any road that had any other traffic. You'd be safe but you might as well be dead.
reohn2 wrote:beardy wrote:But in Germany and France such a manoeuvre would be perfectly safe as the French and German drivers have been trained how to do this. They are also held responsible for their actions when they dont do it correctly.
But this isn't Germany or France,much as I wish it were in this (and many other) context!
There are many problems with UK roads(and indeed society,aggression being another) this is just one,as I said things need to change until they do we have to accept the way it is.
No. We don't have to accept this any longer. Come to the vigil on Monday 2nd March, 6pm for 6.30pm at Westminster City Hall, Victoria Street, which is near Bressenden Place.
https://www.facebook.com/events/774881565935532/