Cycle Paths

[fatboy]

People who discriminate against cyclists but claim to be one are especially irritating! My worst road rage experience was from a motorist who claimed to be a Cat C racer (might have been something else, it meant mother to me) who took offence to me shouting and gesticulating after he nearly knocked me off! Another one that annoys me is those in a hurry but not in a hurry motorists (will overtake when not safe (so in a hurry), but if you so much as wave at them they'll stop to be threatening (so can't be in a hurry after all).

[Cyril Haearn]

She is a 'cyclist and a driver', in that order
So am I and many others here one imagines
Hope she is back soon to read the answers

[mjr]

People who discriminate against cyclists but claim to be one are especially irritating! My worst road rage experience was from a motorist who claimed to be a Cat C racer (might have been something else, it meant mother to me) who took offence to me shouting and gesticulating after he nearly knocked me off!

Well, what do you expect? People who race cats are clearly a bit cruel.

[Lance Dopestrong]

Well, what do you expect? People who race cats are clearly a bit cruel.

[NickWi]

Can anyone tell me, why cycling uk is not promoting the compulsory use of cycle paths? I’m a cyclist and a driver and have just seen the new laws regarding close passing of cyclists. There is nothing more irritating than cyclists on a narrow road when there is a cycle path next to it. I believe there were campaigns for years to get them across the uk? It should be a legal requirement to use them where available!

Alternatively:- Can anyone tell me, why the AA is not promoting the compulsory use of Trunk Roads, Dual Carriage ways and Motorways? I’m a cyclist and a driver and have just seen the new laws regarding these new speed limiters. There is nothing more irritating than dozy motorist on a narrow road when there is a perfectly good motorway next to it. I believe there were campaigns for years to get them across the uk? It should be a legal requirement to use them where available!

[Postboxer]

One simple answer to the original query is that the road has priority over all of the side roads where as on the cycle path you have to stop, check and give way at every side road, then there is the added danger of driveways, dogs, pedestrians etc. I roughly calculated that I could cycle around 200 metres for the effort of getting going again after stopping for a side road, so you lose a mile for every 8 stops, not to mention the time. Cyclists are traffic. Deal with it.

[mjr]

One simple answer to the original query is that the road has priority over all of the side roads where as on the cycle path you have to stop, check and give way at every side road, then there is the added danger of driveways, dogs, pedestrians etc. I roughly calculated that I could cycle around 200 metres for the effort of getting going again after stopping for a side road, so you lose a mile for every 8 stops, not to mention the time. Cyclists are traffic. Deal with it.

Cambridge cycling campaign reckoned 100m and the side road priority thing is slowly changing, despite the opposition from anti- cycleway groups.

[JohnW]

This is an enormous question, and if we all relate our experiences this will run and run and run. I could go on for ever. However, I'll limit this post to one aspect, and concerning the main (A-class) road through my area - the road is now horrendously busy. There is a cycle lane along both side of our (what used to be a) village main-street, but there are vehicles parked on much of it all the time. The road gullies are badly laid and deteriorating into large and dangerous potholes. Two utility companies have concentrated their access manholes in the cycle zone*, one on each side of the road, and the fitting. Laying and reinstatements have been done by contractors who wouldn't even qualify as cowboys. The Council aren't interested - they used to be, but the one highways officer who knew right from wrong and saw cyclists as valid human beings retired a few years ago. There is one short stretch where, to stay alive, it's necessary to ride on the pavement - but not always possible because there are often cars parked on the pavement.

* by "cycle zone" I include that apart of the highway alongside the cycle lane, where parked cars in the cycle lane force us out into the road.

I don't want to be uncharitable Mrsctbt, but I'm surprised that a cyclist has to ask the question................but perhaps you're not a cyclist, perhaps you're a motorist, in which case you're part of the problem. As for your "legal requirement".............tell your fellow motorists about the idea of adhering to "legal requirements".

[pwa]

Can anyone tell me, why cycling uk is not promoting the compulsory use of cycle paths? I’m a cyclist and a driver and have just seen the new laws regarding close passing of cyclists. There is nothing more irritating than cyclists on a narrow road when there is a cycle path next to it. I believe there were campaigns for years to get them across the uk? It should be a legal requirement to use them where available!

Maybe you have never tried using one to experience the broken glass and other detritus that collects there and never gets swept away, or the necessity to keep slowing and giving way at every minor road or driveway. That can be really irritating if you are on a ride of many miles and are used to being able to cruise at a steady 20mph on the road, not demoted as a second class citizen onto a second class facility to get you out of the way of impatient drivers. Surely it must have occurred to you that cyclists who don't use these paths have actually tried them and found something wrong with them.

[Cugel]

It's regrettable that the issue of road safety for cyclists - and everyone else - has been sidetracked by proposals about cycling infrastructure that is, apprently, only feasible in derisory amounts; and built to a woefully low or even dangerous standard. Cycling infrastructure is so obviously a non-starter; a distraction; spurious to a solution of the problem of dangerous road conditions - which dangerous road conditions are largely due to bad driving (with some to poor road maintainance).

To allow cyclists, pedestrians, horse riders, tractor drivers and (most of all) motorists and their passengers to go about the roads safely, the behaviours of road users must be greatly improved. The greatest offenders (both in terms of numbers and lack of skill or ability) are the drivers of private cars and vans.

Education to better standards is one necessary but insufficient condition of improving driving ability, skill and (most of all) habits. Another necessary condition is the application of effective (i.e. preventative) penalties to those who are dangerous (including careless) drivers. That's the question - the only significant question - that needs to be answered if road safety is to be improved FOR EVERYONE: how to improve driving standars so ALLroad users can be much safer.

Humans being what we are, one part of this prevention will need to be policing and effective application of penalties that prevent bad driving. We already have an infrastructure (the police, courts and law) for doing this but for many reasons have failed to employ them as they could be employed. One major factor is the financial cost. Another (perhaps harder to deal with and therefore deserving of most effort) is the cultural zeitgeist that sees poor driving as some sort of right or emblem of proud individualism (aka as FU).

Cycling infrastructure - like helmets, high viz and all the other victim-blaming stuff - is a distraction and, worse, a signal to bad drivers that society somehow approves of their bad driving and will enable it, rather than prevent it, by shifting impediments such as cyclists to their roaring about carelessly.

Cugel

[reohn2]

The OP hasn't been back since their starting the thread,which says everything IMO
Don't feed the absent troll

[Lance Dopestrong]

I get jolly angry when i'm cycling about town and I get stuck behind all these slow moving cars.

Therefore, I think it should be mandatory that all car drivers use the bus, thus allowing me to avoid being imprisoned for doing something unpleasant to the next self-entitled car driving chump that sits on my rear wheel revving their little planet killing manhood substitute.

[Mike Sales]

I’m a cyclist and a driver

When people who enrol in a cycling website in order to complain about cyclists claim to be a cyclist themselves I always have a feeling that, as far as this claim goes it means that they have a bike in the shed which they rode once in the last couple of years.
I want to ask, if you went out to ride it now, would you have to pump up the tyres? How many times have you ridden this month, or this year?

[JohnW]

................I think it should be mandatory that all car drivers use the bus, thus allowing me to avoid being imprisoned for doing something unpleasant to the next self-entitled car driving chump that sits on my rear wheel revving their little planet killing manhood substitute.

+ 1 to that Lance - would you accept nomination for being our next prime minister?

[sirmy]

I can't honestly think of a single "narrow" road where I live that has a cycle path next to it. The idea that a narrow road would have enough room to either side that had not been used for carriageway widening but had been used to provide a three metre wide shared use footway is, in the UK, very unlikely