Safe Speed Forums

First of all Ken said "cyclists must obey red lights and rules of the road or else be fined."

Comment caused a lycra melt down.. and Ken winced... and decided to ask people to "share the roads instead"

Cyclists - CW and C+ journalists seem to be a very touchy bunch. My lycra does not ladder nor do I start palpitating in gross shock if someone tells me to obey the rules of the road. (Yeah ./. I know the Mad Cats enjoy speedy matters when they think no-one's looking and more than safe to indulge themselves on track and in Germany )

But



I must get Kriss to upload her photos for me or Ted to post up. The roads were re-engineered completely and both driver and cyclist has an adequate space. UK does not have the space and we are talking of four roads in Geneva and NOT the whole city.


Ken is accused of "reinforcing cycling myths" *And the Bath study on helmets seemed to send forth message that children were safer being driven to cars in their Mums' 4x4s per tabloids on Wednesday.

Whereas the twisting of the Bath report on helmets does reinforce a myth to parents in particular.. the share the roads campaign reinforeces "what myth exactly?"

Sharing the roads and negotiating courteously is not reinforcing any "myth". There are plenty of errant cyclists in London and elsewhere. Riding a bicycle does not mean cyclists automatically obey the rules of the road. They are human bings and some of them are .. well - let's be blunt about this - YOBS whatever they do! My team wil target every yob we see on foot,, on bikes.. on motorbikes, quad bikes.. mopeds and in cars/

Now are we clear on this? Break the law big time and be a serious nuisance to a third party and we will feel your collar with one acidic heated breath - discretion - cough - applied to all dependent on what we saw and how we judged in a very professionally objective opinion Grrr!


12 pedestrians over last 5 years died as a direct result of a collision with a cyclist. Established gove stat fact. There are others who died indirectly from the injuries.. they contracted pneumonia, MRSA, heart attack and died from this.. Their death recorded as such.. but the death was an indirect cause of the original incident. (It occurs with cars/motorbikes - so you can question all the much flaunted stats in reality )

For once I think Ken is right when he asks people to share the roads. We have to do this and things can be put right if we concentrate on promoting COAST (Franklin agrees on page 52-54 of his book ). making Bikeability compulsory for all to get the road sense cemented into brains and bring the test to German standards. All very well for CW to congratulate Germany and Switzerland.. but they must bear in mind German infrastructure was rebuilt after the war, that they have a tough driving test (IAM standard) and Swiss are prissy in nature and that road in Geneva they are talking about gives equal space to cars and bikes and was engineered that way in the first place.

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pity he's doing nothing about it though. Haven't seen a single copper since his 'crackdown' commenced although I have seen 2 old ladies nearly killed by a fool who decided that it was ok to ignore the lights on a pedestrian crossing. I've never been so tempted to deck someone - I resisted that urge but the rider - and obviously not smartest of riders as he was also using an ipod - did get subjected to a barrage of abuse from myself when I caught up to him (seems to me red light runners are trying to make up for their physical ineptitude as they're pretty much all slow arses).

I beg to differ. The red lights I jump on my bike are occasions where there is absolutely no reason to stop except for the fact that there happens to be a red light showing. No conflicting traffic or pedestrians.

I do stop at red lights where there is a reason, including pedestrian ones where there are pedestrians crossing assuming they are close to my path (not the other end of the carriageway).

Many pedestrians jump out in front of me regardless of the colour of the light or even whether there is a light there at all.

I don't generally ride on pavements except when it's the only option to pass stationary traffic and then I am very much aware that the pavement really belongs to pedestrians. I have also used the opposite carriageway to achieve this (even passing chicanes on the wrong side).

Allow me to introduce you to the Fleets Bridge Roundabout.
It's midnight. There's no other cars around. It's a f***ing roundabout. If I stop for the red lights I'll end up getting angry. So it's safer to not stop. In my opinion.
Maybe I should actually complain to the council about this...

I saw a cyclist on the road today. There was a lorry behind which couldn't get past. (2 lane single carageway NSL) If the cyclist was on the pavement instead (the pavement which hardly anyone ever walks on) then everyone would have been happier.
So for cycling on pavements it completely depends on the situation. But I find those blue circley "this is footpath and cycle path" signs rather ugly and un-nesecary, the same as pointless lines down the middle of some footpath/cycle lane type pavements. Maybe that's just the way it's done (badly) down here.

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Andrew.

Car or bike - what's the position with pedestrian crossings where somebody either presses the button as they walk on past, with no intention of crossing, or press then cross BEFORE the lights change, leaving an empty crossing on RED. My kids got a cuff around the head for doing this - but clearly not enough got the same!

Both cases, I see frequently, and unless somebody is hovering or moving towards the crossing, I will ignore it, and drive carefully across it.

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Time to take responsibility for our actions.. and don't be afraid of speaking out!

I've noticed that some people walk up to a crossing, press the button and then look to see if the road is clear. I have never understood this! Why would they chose to deliberately inconvenience other people if there's a chance of crossing during a gap?
There is also a crossing near me with sheep pen fencing along side it. This means that I don't bother using the crossing because normally I would look for a gap while walking towards it and cross in the gap if there is one. With this sheep pen fencing you can't get across and you know that any gap you see will be gone by the time you get to the crossing.

The ONLY advantage of these stupid "puffin" crossings is that if a pedestrian presses the button and then crosses or walks off the button press gets cancelled. Except it doesn't work. And they stay on red for much longer than is needed. And most people get just annoyed enough at this pointless extra few seconds of red light to do a drag race style start when the lights finally change. So once the pedestrians have finished crossing I'll start to go through the red light which should be flashing amber anyway. Keeps me calm, means I spend less time sitting idle.
They could make these corssings work so much better by having a normal pelican crossing with the red/green man in the correct place and add on to it the 'puffin style' sensors to detect slow people crossing and people pressing the button and walking off, and keep the flashing amber. Then people would all be happier.

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Andrew.

I'll stop ignoring red lights when all traffic lights are able to detect bikes.

Often I've given up waiting for green after 3 cycles on the other directions.

I set up a cycling Operation on my patch.

We had so many people coming to us over the period of a year telling us “these bloody cyclists” this and that.

I decided we needed this Op when an elderly gent told us about a cyclist that hit him and put him in hospital for seven weeks, he now walks with a stick.

We conducted an Operation on a main high street, fining Cyclists on the pavement, the wrong way down the one way road and threw red lights etc etc.

It was very successful, there appeared less cycle offences over the next couple of months and public perception was that we had a grip on things.


One thing that I’ve noticed about cyclists is that the majority of them felt they were not committing an offence and were pretty rude to us, one even refused to stop for an officer saying “ow get lost, I’m late for work”.
The officer chased after her and grabbed her as she tried to get in to the lift at her workplace, she was a little embarrassed in front of her colleagues to say the least.
She received a fine for failing to stop and a good telling off.

We used to get a rubber hump at traffic lights. This used to detect both cars and bicycles in the good old days My wife reminded me about this in one of her replies on PH.

I've been in my car waiting when they missed out my "turn" in the past.. and sometimes they are staggered that way.

Am thus not prepared to take a chance.

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Trouble is - some of them do seem to think that cycling somehow makes one "law abiding and saviours of the planet " Some of them take slightest criticism of the minority who ride in a shoddy and aggressive manner personally and generally "anti-cycling" when no such thing is written - more a comment on the behaviour of an arrogant and highly aggressive minority who behave (or would behave if licenced to drive) in pretty much the same ill-mannered way if in charge of a car or motorbike

Of course - it does not help matters when you read letters such as the one which appeared in the "Bolton News" (I like this paper - fallen for Angela Kelly's pieces )

But I blame our old pal Al Ramsay for this reply in response to his call to punish the drivers for all ills on the road:


In some ways in tune with our Ken's proposal to fine the cyclists breaking the law on his patch and using the cash to build facilities .. novel idea .. the prats would do the managing of course .. (and since we are against these prats on 'ere )



Whatever you do. d-d-don't mention them helmets LGS!



Ummm.... taxpayer via NHS... and some of the militants have some daft ideas that driver's insurance should cough up as they are "vulnerable" because these aggressively ignorant types misunderstand/choose to misunderstand some Dutch and Danish legislation. on this idea.



Oops.. LGS of Bolton. All taxes go towards paying for the roads, schools and doctors (Heck - I pay me taxes to pay meself )

But am sure that as more of us use bikes and drive less - this would indeed occur. No such thing as a free ride

But then I do pay VED for my cars, VAT on all services, MOTs for the older harem of gorgeous metal shapes and husky, throaty engines in my garage, bits and bobs for my cars and my bicycles - and so I reckon I already pay to ride me bike on the road.

Hmmm!

But then we'd probably fund decent cycle lanes across the entire country just by fining the suicidal idiots we keep reading about in London

_________________
If you want to get to heaven - you have to raise a little hell!

Smilies are contagious
They are just like the flu
We use our smilies on YOU today
Now Good Causes are smiling too!

KEEP SMILING
It makes folk wonder just what you REALLY got up to last night!

Smily to penny.. penny to pound
safespeed prospers-smiles all round! !
But the real message? SMILE.. GO ON ! DO IT! and the world will smile with you!
Enjoy life! You only have the one bite at it.

It’s difficult to implement cycle lanes, not just because many of our roads were built for horse and cart but also because any cycle lane could direct a cyclist to collide with vehicle/pedestrian.

Think cycle lane to the left, car wants to turn left, hit’s cyclists.

I’ve been both a cyclist and 2litre gas guzzling performance car driver (I know which I prefer) but I always had lights a night, never crossed red light’s and never had the front to mount the pavement and ride through pedestrians…

so when all 3 lanes of finchley road are completely blocked what should I do?

1. wait in the queue? But hey, the whole reason I took the bike was so I wouldn't get caught in traffic jams. If I'm going to wait in the queue anyway I may as well take the car.

2. Go past on the right. That means cycling on the hatched markings and sometimes going round chicanes or even small dual-carriageway sections on the wrong side.

3. Pass the offending buses and taxis on the pavement then cut back in front.

Now give me a "cycles only" lane to pass them and I won't need to do any of the above. That's what I need a cycle lane for. Not for when the traffic is in free-flow.

I think I would dismount und walk (or rather MARCH with my bike ) ion the pavement until I reached the ASL lines at the front of the queue (I assume being London und hub of all thing "remotely modern" - they have them und then very cheekily with a flash of my fishnets under my skort .. set the bike down in middle of the ASL in a primary poll postion und get ready to burn off the taxi driver with greatest speed



Ist not possible to jam or filter there? Und despite the idiot in Telford - I think you can ride in hatches unless these are solid whites - in which case - to everyone on wheels.

Ja.. I think perhaps if they could only re-engineer with decent lane for cycles..but I think I know this road und ist a little "Victorian" in lay-out or am I mixing with that other road which ist in congestion zone but lead from M1 into old London town.. (I do not visit London often und when I do .. I get train und hire car... I sometimes get the shuttle .. but ist too much bother to get to Manchester Airport und I have metal pins from incident.. und these days.. ist a little "embarrassing" for me... so am super greeny und travel with Branson ..if I have to.. )

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This stretch of Finchley Road is part of the A41 which is a primary route. It doesn't directly connect the end of the M1 but is the nearest primary route to the end of the M1 that heads in towards the West End.

I use this road because it's relatively flat compared to the A502, the road that effectively follows the route of the Northern Line, and goes up enormous hills around Hampstead. In addition, the A502 is actually very very narrow on North End Way and is also totally congested Southbound at rush-hour, so much so that I'm a lot quicker than the traffic even with the big hill to climb.

There are back-roads in between but with regard to hill-climbing they are just as tough.

The "wheeling the cycle on the pavement past the problem" is a tactic I have used at Kings Cross where the end of the shared bus-cycle lane is always cluttered up by bendy-buses, sometimes as many as 3 of them. On Finchley Road it might be more a matter of running with the bike past the traffic to ensure you get back in to the front before they move off.

Trying to find a path between the lanes is just not possible. I think they have stretched as far as they could to make that road 3 lanes each way. Originally it was just a road that linked Finchley with Regents Park and Hendon Way was built a lot later.

On re-reading my post .. I must apologise to Ed Brain in case he think I mean he ist the "idiot in Telford". I should re-phrase it.. I meant the "idiot cop" who decided to pull for riding in "primary" of course ..

I am sure common sense decision will prevail for him. I hope so anyway Liebchen..

I loathe those bendy buses though. We have them abroad.. had them for years along with .. would you believe bendy trams

They are the just awful.. If you are passenger you feel the sway und it lead to motion sickness in some und for all other road users .. a bit of a nightmare to deal with. ..

I am glad I do not live in London or Paris or even Berne or Basel each time I visit these places though. So busy - und no one can give directions either.. und I do not know if foreign or Northern "prejudice" on my own part.. but they just seem "self absorbed, pomous und cold in manners" to me - und I think I prefer the "sang-froid" of the Parisian - ist less frosty but perhaps I do not notice - so because I speak French anyway (und my French ist better than my English - or so I am constantly told )

_________________
Nicht ganz im Lot!
Ich setze mich immer wieder in die Nesseln! Der Mad Doc ist mein Mann! Und ich benutzte seinen PC!

UND OUR SMILEYS? Smile ... und the the world smiles with you.
Smiley guy seen when you read
Fine me for Safe Speed
(& other good causes..)

Greatest love & Greatest Achievements Require Greatest Risk
But if you lose the driving plan - don't lose the COAST lesson.
Me?
Je ne regrette rien!