Cycling UK Forum

Here's a useful tip from the HC for everybody from rule 147:

... do not allow yourself to become agitated or involved if someone is behaving badly on the road. This will only make the situation worse. Pull over, calm down and, when you feel relaxed, continue your journey.

https://www.gov.uk/general-rules-all-dr ... 144-to-158

Easy to quote, harder to follow.

Bicycler wrote:

Bigdummysteve wrote: I see the same thing with cycle lanes, there is a great cycle lane and you see someone (usually on an expensive carbon race bike) on the road because it's "His Right!"

I don't believe this. I mean... I can't quite comprehend. Never in my life have I seen such a thing.

Is there really a great cycle lane in the UK?

Lane? I can't think of one - can you? Track? Definitely there are greats:

thirdcrank wrote:Here's a useful tip from the HC for everybody from rule 147:

... do not allow yourself to become agitated or involved if someone is behaving badly on the road. This will only make the situation worse. Pull over, calm down and, when you feel relaxed, continue your journey.

https://www.gov.uk/general-rules-all-dr ... 144-to-158

Easy to quote, harder to follow.

So true - as someone with a short temper I am embarrassingly familiar with this. I want to stay calm and rational, but when treated badly my natural reaction is to respond in the same way. If someone else comes along and then tells you to calm down when you are losing it - well for me it's a bit like pouring water onto a chip pan fire.

Elizabethsdad wrote: ... So true - as someone with a short temper I am embarrassingly familiar with this. I want to stay calm and rational, but when treated badly my natural reaction is to respond in the same way. If someone else comes along and then tells you to calm down when you are losing it - well for me it's a bit like pouring water onto a chip pan fire.

But if you recognise that you have a short temper, you are a good part of the way to dealing with it.

I posted that extract in response to the suggestions for T shirts etc designed to remind other road users of specific bits of the HC. The HC comes as a whole, not pick'n'mix and it's best if people recognise and hopefully deal with their own shortcomings, rather than dwelling on those of others. I don't think anybody would relish white vans with a version of the HC advice to cyclists displayed on the back.

or this ( maybe we could all put them on the rear window of our cars like some other people do to say that their child is more valuable than an adult ) :

The thing is that for some motorists cyclist are a group to be bullied and abused,other motorists simply do not realise the vulnerability of not having protection around them such as a car provides.
From their position of strength and security some motorists don't like being informed of their carelessness around vulnerable road users.
Such vulnerable roads have the protection of the law in name only due to a lack of resources,some motorists know this and play on it.

IMHO the video shows faults on both sides but the main fault lies with the careless,arrogance and aggressive motorist who was all too willing to assault the cyclist who,it has to be said baited him.
Though in the initial sequence IMHO the cyclist was doing nothing wrong and was closely passed.

bikerwaser wrote:or this ( maybe we could all put them on the rear window of our cars like some other people do to say that their child is more valuable than an adult ) :

The typical British "give cyclists space" message is just too vague - motorists are already giving us the space they think they should and it's often dangerously little. We should use either the Irish "Staying alive at 1.5 metres" or the American "Gimme Five (foot)".

Tried a little experiment this morning cycling down a busy single carriageway wide A road. Plenty of room to leave room overtaking even with oncoming traffic but after several close passes at speed I started to just wobble a little between secondary and a foot in from secondary. Tried to keep it random and unpredicatable. Every single car for the next mile gave me a very wide berth. I'll try it some more over the next few days and see if the results are continued.

mjr wrote:

bikerwaser wrote:or this ( maybe we could all put them on the rear window of our cars like some other people do to say that their child is more valuable than an adult ) :

The typical British "give cyclists space" message is just too vague - motorists are already giving us the space they think they should and it's often dangerously little. We should use either the Irish "Staying alive at 1.5 metres" or the American "Gimme Five (foot)".

I agree !
While cycling through Spain I saw adverts on the TV reminding drivers of the law to give cyclists 1.5m
Also on quite a few roads i saw big signs up saying the same.
Bizarre how i felt safer on Spanish roads than i do here.
Tengo ganas a volver.

TonyR wrote:Tried a little experiment this morning cycling down a busy single carriageway wide A road. Plenty of room to leave room overtaking even with oncoming traffic but after several close passes at speed I started to just wobble a little between secondary and a foot in from secondary. Tried to keep it random and unpredicatable. Every single car for the next mile gave me a very wide berth. I'll try it some more over the next few days and see if the results are continued.

Graham Obree said exactly that to counter close passes when he was interviewed a few years ago.

Tacascarow wrote:

TonyR wrote:Tried a little experiment this morning cycling down a busy single carriageway wide A road. Plenty of room to leave room overtaking even with oncoming traffic but after several close passes at speed I started to just wobble a little between secondary and a foot in from secondary. Tried to keep it random and unpredicatable. Every single car for the next mile gave me a very wide berth. I'll try it some more over the next few days and see if the results are continued.

Graham Obree said exactly that to counter close passes when he was interviewed a few years ago.

Used to use it for years. Slightly safer and indistinguishable from a driver's point of view (IMO) is to sway the bars from side to side - not as in TdF hill climbing, but unpredictably (like the wobble) with a tendency to sway towards the traffic. This allows you to keep the wheel track wherever you want it but appears to passing motorists like you are "all over the place" (so they worry about their paintwork).

Of course for the numpty in a battered old whatever who gives not a @@@ about paintwork or other road users, neither tip works .

Maybe when the feeble, overweight Police Officer (the cops in the UK are all becoming like this) gave him the Caution his front teeth were missing from smashing his head into the road when he fell over. That would have been natural justice, that.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this video I find the statements made by the car driver alarming and actually indicate his attitude towards non motorists.
"How $$$$ big is that bicycle?"

.......You're $$$$ lucky I didn't hit you then!"

"Are you a $$$$ taxi? No. Are you a car? No, but you're a $$$$ little bicycle" - driver indicates a narrow width with his hands - "but you seem to want to be in the middle of the road so it's your problem if you get knocked off"

So basically he can drive into anyone who isn't in a vehicle!

It's reported "The video now has more than 3 million views on YouTube and after the incident, Thames Valley Police confirmed an investigation was carried out into the incident. A caution for a public order offence was handed to the driver on Saturday, August 1."

Unfortunately this driver is not alone in his attitude. I had a similar conversation, but not heated like this, with an (elderly) - like me - driver in Tunbridge Wells who had passed me very closer when I was standing with bike at the side of a road. He had exactly the same attitude; if you're in the road you can expect to hit. Amongst his other moans was cyclists hold up traffic on Major York's Road (if anyone knows it) and should be riding on the pavement. That road is narrowed by legally parked cars, but they weren't the problem according to him!

MikeF wrote:Unfortunately this driver is not alone in his attitude. I had a similar conversation, but not heated like this, with an (elderly) - like me - driver in Tunbridge Wells who had passed me very closer when I was standing with bike at the side of a road. He had exactly the same attitude; if you're in the road you can expect to hit. Amongst his other moans was cyclists hold up traffic on Major York's Road (if anyone knows it) and should be riding on the pavement. That road is narrowed by legally parked cars, but they weren't the problem according to him!

I would say that on street parking is now such a problem that it needs a solution. So many roads where I live in Southampton are effectively single track roads due to the seemingly near permanent number of vehicles parked on the streets - even on roads where the houses have driveways. Apart from the congestion it causes, there seems to be a mindset among some drivers that they have right of way over a bicycle in these narrow sections - regardless of which side of the road we happen to be on. But then I have experienced this when driving a car as well - the rule is apparently 'The driver who is driving faster has right of way'

Elizabethsdad wrote:I would say that on street parking is now such a problem that it needs a solution. So many roads where I live in Southampton are effectively single track roads due to the seemingly near permanent number of vehicles parked on the streets - even on roads where the houses have driveways. Apart from the congestion it causes, there seems to be a mindset among some drivers that they have right of way over a bicycle in these narrow sections - regardless of which side of the road we happen to be on. But then I have experienced this when driving a car as well - the rule is apparently 'The driver who is driving faster has right of way'

The solution near where I live (in Norway) seems to be simply to make many areas 'no parking'. We had a problem with parking in my area. My street is effectively single track. Other streets in the area have a little more parking room, but the width varies, and the easiest places to park can block the view of traffic coming out of a junction. Also, it's near a school, and there are several crossings.

The council's solution? They made a large area 'no parking' on the street. I think it's okay, as most people have parking on their front gardens. We have three marked communal parking places in our cul-de-sac, and on weekends, when most people have visitors, the school car park can be used.

I know that residents with lots of cars don't like that kind of solution. And there are places where people don't have access to off-road parking. The best solution, IMO, is to provide people with free or heavily discounted parking at a remote (but not too distant) location, such as a large, public car park with main road access. That's how parking is managed some places in the Netherlands. One of the reasons so many people cycle in some places in the Netherlands and Denmark, is that they have just as far to go to get to the car as they do to get to schools and shopping. Many new housing developments in Scandinavia have only remote car parking. Cars are allowed into the residential area for deliveries and disabled users only. If I can, I will find and add a link later.