Cycling UK Forum

I have to add my experience, recently, on a charity ride.
At some lights at a crossroads, I was sationary, with 2 or 3 others behind me. Four or five cyclists rode up onto the pavement, around the traffic light post, back into the road, then turned the corner, and carried on up the road....

..We were all wearing t-shirts provided by the charity, and I was mortified that this was so visible to others....When the lights changed, myself, and the 3 behind set off, and within 100 yds, ALL who had been stationary cycled past the group whom had not stopped...!

It's a sad shame that some feel unable/unwilling to cycle properly, and reflect badly on those people who LOVE to denegrate cyclists...

patmac wrote: As he got to the other side of the road, and was just about to step on to the pavement, the lights went orange. At that point I moved forward onto the crossing and began to ride away. What I didn't realise was that there was a copper on a motorcycle right behind me. He pulled me over and 'had a quiet word', as they say!

Interesting. When I was training for Part 2 to become a driving instructor I was taught to proceed on flashing amber if there was someone on the crossing - AS LONG AS THEY WERE ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE CARRIAGEWAY FROM ME AND HEADING FOR THE OPPOSITE KERB; in other words once they had passed you. There is no mention of this in the highway code. However after doing this with testers in the car, and whilst being a bus driver (no wise cracks please! LOL) I've never been told to the contrary by anyone in authority.

I think this has nothing to do with cycling but is a manifestation of the stresses and strains of urban living and the brutal city environment most people are forced to endure.

George Riches wrote:It is quite illegal to cycle on the footway under the 1835 Highway Act

Yes, but some city planners just have the signs put up everywhere, not just leading onto pavements.

"Cyclist dismount" signs, IMHO, are usually just a waste of space. They are usually stuck up where town planners can't think of any sensible signs.

I also agree with this and the "cyclists give way" signs - if they are used sensibly.



I have to admit I will go round a pointless or nonfunctional traffic light (for example, a pedestrian crossing with no pedestrians on it or anywhere near it), but don't ever go round ones that are working correctly.

I'm curious why people complain about cycle paths with junctions and give way signs every 5 metres (and ignore them, cycling on the road - as is our right) - but don't seem to complain as much about utterly stupid traffic lights that do nothing that delay you for no good reason (i.e. not ones at 4 way junctions, I'm talking about situations where it would be safe and prudent to proceed if there wasn't a traffic light)

charlieandjody wrote:I live in Bristol, cycle everywhere and don't own a car. This BEP rant, despite its obvious flaws, is centered around annoyance at cyclists not obeying the rules of the road. Now (and I fear for my reputation on this forum after saying this) I can't help agreeing with that sentiment (please note I'm saying sentiment, not agreeing word for word).

I understand the riding experience may be very different outside of Bristol, as not many cities and towns seem to have the sort of ridership (is that a word? if not I claim it!) that we do, but when on the road I am quite honestly amazed by the level of law breaking.

For anyone that knows Bristol, my communte takes me through the Cheltenham Road / Stokes Croft / Asheley Road junction. I stop at the lights at this junction every day and, sometimes, I feel like I'm the only person obeying the rules. Some cyclists don't stop at all, some wait until the pedestrian crossing signal and, what feels like precious few, wait for the green light. On this thread people have been suggesting that it is mainly the 'yoof' that behave like this but that's being unfair to the 'yoof' - cyclist of all ages, sex and social group go past me as I wait.

Further down the road, I often catch up with the people who jump the lights as they pootle along at half the speed of everyone else. This reminds me of a kind of driver I used to encounter back in the days when I did have a car. Others may also have experienced the spectre of the 40mph-ers - the drivers that do 40mph in both 60 and 30 zones. I always put that down to laziness at the time, assuming that the driver couldn't muster the mental effort to change gear. I've been wondering if this too is the case with the light-jumpers. Is it just too much effort to have to push off and get up to speed again?

Perhaps I'm just jealous and the boy inside me doesn't like watching people overtake. Perhaps my mother brought me up "proper" or is it just that there's some loophole that means we don't have to stop at lights?. I don't know, so I am genuinly asking this question of people reading this post: Do you always stop at lights, and if not why not?

I'd say the same thing, word for word, about the Anngel Islington. It's mortifying.

Having said that...the cost to others in terms of injury or even annoyance, is nothing like the cost exacted by drivers running red lights, speeding, turning without signalling and so on.

charlieandjody wrote: Do you always stop at lights, and if not why not?

Now I no longer ride in London it's different so nowadays...

20m from my house is a traffic light controlled pedestrian crossing. The pause time, from pressing the button to the lights going red is upwards of 30 seconds so at quiet times of day pedestrians can't be bothered to wait for the light and just cross on green. If I come along as the light goes amber or red the law says I should stop and wait 30 secs for the light to change back to green by which time the pedestrian who pressed the button is yards away. So I ride through it....

(As it happens this crossing, it's 20m downstream from a roundabout where traffic turning left at 30 mph have no sight line to it. A small % of cars go through the red light even when pedestrians are in the act of crossing - one has even ended up with me on the bonnet when I've been crossing the road. Almost needless to say I was subjected to foul mouther abuse punctuated by the beep beep beep of the crossing)

Other pedestrian crossings in my town, if the peds. are on the other side of the road heading away from me - I go before the lights change. Illegal yes but where is the harm?

Similarly we have a traffic light controlled crossroads in town with fantastic sight lines so you can see for several "seconds" down each road. Often when driving all four sets of lights (five if you include the filter) sit there not moving engines ticking over, drivers tapping their wheels looking right left and across and wondering what is going on, you know the scene and it takes up to three minutes for the lights to fully cycle through their routine. I come along on my bike at the end of a nice spin through the local country lanes. I arrive as the lights go red yet there is often not a car anywhere in sight or maybe one car wanting to turn right onto the carriageway I want to turn left off. The law says I should stop and wait until 'my' lights change. But if it is safe I ride through it.

Once, after doing this, I got stopped by very polite policewoman. who admonished me and asked me how I justified myself - "I take your point I said but surely these traffic lights were not put there to control bicycles but cars". She laughed and told me to "Go steady" and sent me on my way.

Tonight I drove my car back through this junction during the rush hour on my way back from squash (four of us in the car) I counted four cars in front of me going through the amber phase and three more followed them through on red.


As a footnote I only ride on pavement to and from my house (i.e. across pavement to the road) or when bunny hopping up to avoid danger of death - like the guy who came straight at me three nights ago while I'm on a contraflow cycle lane in a one way street!

One junction type that's never made any sense to me is the left turn light followed immediately by a give way.
The junction is set up so that even though the lights are on green traffic can still pass the turn left lane, which begs the question if you have to give way anyway why have lights?
Alternatively why not make the light sequence so that there's no need to give way?
I've seen a few near misses at these junctions because motorists on being given the green light assume they have right of way (obviously they should check regardless) but it seems like a stupid design to me.
I think left turns at traffic lights should be automatic give ways (as right turns are in the states).

workhard wrote:... or when bunny hopping up to avoid danger of death - like the guy who came straight at me three nights ago while I'm on a contraflow cycle lane in a one way street!

Would that be in East Street? I just love how HDC have put concrete blocks on the cycle path, so safe! But that's for another thread...

RLJing, as I've noted before, does cyclists a triple disservice. It seriously cheeses off other road users, it endangers the rider and perhaps most importantly, it means car and lorries never have to know what it's like to have bicycles around them behaving normally and taking up whatever space they require to operate properly.

While ever bikes change status on a whim drivers will dismiss them as toys.

matt_twam_asi wrote:

workhard wrote:... or when bunny hopping up to avoid danger of death - like the guy who came straight at me three nights ago while I'm on a contraflow cycle lane in a one way street!

Would that be in East Street? I just love how HDC have put concrete blocks on the cycle path, so safe! But that's for another thread...

East Street - oh yes! Remains to be seen what will happen now its being
?been? pseudo pedestrianised.

glueman wrote:RLJing, as I've noted before, does cyclists a triple disservice. It seriously cheeses off other road users,

Not our monkey - many road users do many other things that hack others off, that list is almost endless, people don't have a right not to be cheesed off by others - perhaps if we all just chilled out a bit more....

Also many road users ignore whole chunks of road law, guidance (Highway Code) and best practise (Roadcraft) much of the time - why should I as a cyclist carry the burden of expectation of a higher standard of behaviour than is expected of other road users? On a bike I'm a pragmatist - if the "rules" work for me and increase my safety/convenience I'll obey them, if they don't and they can be 'broken' without endangering others then I'll break them.

glueman wrote:it endangers the rider

In the examples I've quoted in my post about my RLJ'ing how so?

glueman wrote:and perhaps most importantly, it means car and lorries never have to know what it's like to have bicycles around them behaving normally and taking up whatever space they require to operate properly.

This surely assumes, falsely in my view, that the drivers of said vehicles actually give a **** about anything other than their immediate needs on their particular journey. Left to many of them the normal behaviour of a bicycle would be restricted to being ridden on cycle lanes and other non-highway situations. Maybe if we all RLJ'd to the extent that doing so became de facto normal behaviour they would treat us better

glueman wrote:While ever bikes change status on a whim drivers will dismiss them as toys.

While bikes don't have internal combustion engines and four wheels they will be always be dismissed as toys and their riders as cranks "with their stupid bells, and their stupid clothes, and their stupid attitudes" as I was told recently.

Just my points of view as an ex-IAM member, and ex-motorcyclist, (30 years on petrol powered two and four wheelers with no convictions/points ever to date), current car owner/driver and keen cyclist. YMMV.

There are some places were it's almost impossible to not RLJ (or at least treat them as give ways).
I don't think anyone would dispute the most dangerous place to be at a junction is at the side of a car/bus/lorry. So ideally if you work your way up to the front of stationary traffic to a set of lights then you would want to place yourself well ahead and get yourself noticed.
However this often places you forward of the traffic lights, if there are duplicates on the other side of the junction then that's fine, but more and more often these days there aren't. Also if you're turning left - well you're pretty much there anyway, and if no traffic is coming...

To me this is more a poor road design issue than criminal activity on behalf of cyclists.
Some solutions are:
Put a bike strip at the front of the lights (this is becoming more common, but in my experience a decent percentage of motorists ignore it, choosing to stop in it leaving nowhere for cyclists to go).
Provide little cycle lanes that circumvent the lights. These can work but they're most useful for turning left - in which case why not just treat the left turn as a give way?

One possible solution that may already exist (I've never seen it) would be to have a 'bike green' light which lights up a few seconds before the main lights change to green, this would give cyclists a few seconds to clear themselves of the main traffic before all the other vehicles start moving.

One of the things I see constantly with comments about RLJ on these forums is safety, in particular how dangerous RLJ is. This seems to be a bit of a generalisation at best. Treating a set of lights as a give way can't be inherently dangerous, if there's no traffic then it's obviously not dangerous.
I should point out though that I do think it shows cyclists up in a bad light (although that's more to do with the mindset of motorists than anything else).

Finally, the rules and regulations that govern our roads exist to promote road safety, most of these rules are applied with discretion, why? Because the authorities realise they're not perfect and there are instances where they might not be in the best interests of you or other road users.
Applying rules in a discretionary manner implies that you're expected to make a value judgement on obeying the rules vs safety. (I can't believe anyone would argue that it's better to put yourself in danger and obey the rules rather than bend them a bit).
Obviously if you bend them all the time then it's probably time to reconsider how you ride.

All IMHO of course.

I never RLJ, and I think anyone who does should be fined on the spot.

The highway code is very clear about a red traffic light. It never means go, unless ordered to do so by an official.

The rules are there for all, not just some. Nobody can lay claim to understanding the knowledge of another road user, so nobody will know if you are fully aware of what you are doing,ie. RLJ'ing safely.

We must all abide by the rules of the road. If you feel a rule is no longer relevant, then have it changed, but no individual should be ignoring the rules or choosing which to follow.

glueman hits the nail on the head perfectly

@Simon L6

I'll steer clear of Anngel Islington then! I have to say I don't like the "ah, but cars are worse" argument but I can't deny the truth in it.

@workhard and Gisen

If a car driver said to you "i can drive safely at 50mph in this 30mph zone" what would you say? Or how about a car driver that feels they can run red lights "if its clear"? Now replace 'car driver' with 'motorcyclist' - do your answers change?

My point is this: we don't get to make those calls. Your decisions are based entirely on a cyclist's perspective and in acting based solely on that perspective you commit the crime that we accuse car drivers of ALL THE TIME.

The biggest beef cyclists have with car drivers is that they drive like there's nothing else on the road other than cars. We ask them to be more considerate of other road users, namely us. How can we as a group ask this when we don't offer the same in return? Everyone on the road needs to be more considerate of everyone else rather than just looking at them as some obstacle that needs to be manoeuvred around.

(Just read this back and it sounds disgustingly preachy but, it’s early and I can't think of another way of saying it - sorry! )

charlieandjody wrote:If a car driver said to you "i can drive safely at 50mph in this 30mph zone" what would you say? Or how about a car driver that feels they can run red lights "if its clear"? Now replace 'car driver' with 'motorcyclist' - do your answers change?

I find it difficult to see how you can draw parallels with speeding, running red lights in a car (usually at high speed) or using them as a give way at 5mph on a bicycle.

Even the term "red light jumping" is chosen to evoke a response, if not then why not say "giving way at red lights" (which is technically more accurate for the majority)

I believe the procedure DOES make us look bad in the eyes of SOME motorists, most don't care (unless asked), but there are a very vocal few who intensely dislike us, but I suspect they'd dislike us even if we all behaved impeccably, there's simply a contingent of people who dislike anyone they consider to be getting one over on them, whether it be morally (ecological), money ("road tax", price of petrol) or even fitness. After all that's exactly why this thread started.

Hands up everyone who having read the article thinks that guy would shut up if cyclists all obeyed the letter of the law...
The real issue is that some motorists consider that they've paid for the roads and cyclists have no place on them.

I for one will continue to ride in a manner I consider safe, according to the conditions at the time, based on judgements that have seen me survive 4 decades of motoring, cycling and motorcycling.