Safe Speed Forums

Having just looked at the video of the idiot who jumped in front of the bus, I got to thinking about advance top lines as shown at the junction in the video.

These features for cyclists are, IMO, pointless and dangerous. They encourage cyclists to filter (generally up the inside) of other traffic which, as we know, can be a very hazardous occupation.

It seems very odd to place the slowest vehicles at the front as all the other faster traffic will need to get past thus causing more unecessary and potentially hazardous interactions between these groups of road users.

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Malcolm W.
The views expressed in this post are personal opinions and do not represent the views of Safespeed.

I agree with you. I've no objection to cyclists filtering carefully up the near side of a traffic queue, but the ASL system encourages them to then park themselves in front of other traffic, which seems to me likely to promote conflict. Unless somebody can explain a proper justification for the ASL system I think it should be abolished.

In my more sceptical moments I do sometimes wonder if some of these measures are invented not so much to help a particular road user group, as to serve as a PITA to car drivers, thus discouraging the use of cars etc. Im some areas I have the same feelings about bus lanes.

Best wishes all,
Dave - very suspicious about the true motives of officialdom.

I too have wondered what this is supposed to achieve other than obstruction and conflict. At one time it was considered incorrect for cycles to pass vehicles on the inside, but now it seems anything goes. Mind this is only one of the daft things that seem to be around these days, like corners with hatched white lines. Why? Or an obstruction just before a bend that forces traffic onto the wrong side of the road, so that the sightline is reduced at a point where you are on a head-on collison course with on-coming traffic. Do the people that think up these crack brain ideas really think they are improving road safety?

It can be if you make it so.

The alternative is to sit in line in the traffic I guess, but that would be very selfish.



Ha, where I cycle the slowest vehicles on the road are the motorised ones! Average speed across London in a car is 9mph, my average when I cycle is 16mph.

And even your average cyclist can out accelerate a car being driven under normal careful circumstances, at least across the junction.

All part of the war against the motorist it seems. They are making urban roads more difficult to negotiate (more dangerous) in the attempt to create congestion.
Obviously modern day traffic "engineers" (I use the term loosely) either have very little road experience or are being brainwashed by people with no driving experience or a wish to make driving more difficult....and then they wonder why urban accident rates are twice the rural ones.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Poor lamb.

Doesn't that rather suggest that the "average" cyclist is less careful under normal circumstances than the average motorist? I mean, I'm sure that if one of us wrote about the average motorist being able to out-accelerate the average cyclist, you wouldn't have breathed a word about it would you?

Have you ever ridden a cycle alongside other motorised traffic in one of our towns and cities?

Yes, weepy, have you ever ridden in any other town than London during the rush hour? Get out of that London bubble that you live in and experience the wide open world out there, where traffic doesn't crawl at 2MPH all day long....you might find it to be an eye opener.

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Yes! (Now what does that have to do with the question I asked)?

Did someone say something then...or just break wind?

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Err I think a few very exceptional cyclists might mange that but 'average' cyclist no way.

I have wondered too about this too .... you wait for the collection of cyclist to move and then proceed.
As a cyclist (in London & elsewhere) I have often and deliberately not used them, as I fail to see the point in placing myself in 'harms way' totally un-necessarily. I can wait an extra moment and go after the cyclist in front of me, whilst still beside the line of traffic, or if at the front I can try and set off as quickly as I can when the lights change.
What does it serve for me to be in a cycle-cluster than trail back alongside the pavement? If I have a lorry turning I wait behind them or manoeuvre to his right or if clear go right to the front (if lights have just changed red) and then can be gone asap (when lights go green) ... and give him the best chance to pull off quickly.

I do worry about the cyclists who choose the middle of two lanes, all going straight and so place themselves between speeding cars (just moving quickly not OTL). What purpose does that serve other than to place oneself in harms way?
So I think they do this to get away from the slower cyclists. There is certainly a hierarchy in cyclists.
In the same way there are drivers who go from A to B so there are cyclists. There are the racers who treat the roads like race tracks and insist on being at the front every time, and then everyone inbetween down to the a to b cyclist.

So to my point ... are these green boxes to simply enable all the cyclists to mingle, and what benefit has that offered? Are cyclists safer ? How much has it or not contributed to congestion? Where are the facts & the truth?
For motorcyclists I can see a definite benefit as they are seen more easily, and can shoot off quickly and be out of everyone's way rapidly. If they can manage to filter through to the front that is!

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.

AH- Now back to those unanswered questions Weepy

I did ask the esteemed poster why we have had no answers to questions posed and got the reply


In posting.php?mode=quote&f=34&p=249864

Another one - will we get an answer - I doubt it. Or was that non question statement an echo from under the bridge.

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lets bring sanity back to speed limits.
Drivers are like donkeys -they respond best to a carrot, not a stick .Road safety experts are like Asses - best kept covered up ,or sat on

Yup. London, Birmingham, Paris (I've ridden there twice and ridden around it on my own bike and hire bikes), Amsterdam, York, several cities in the USA (Houston, Portland, San Francisco), Montreal, Toronto, Vancounver. Southhampton, Portsmouth, Gloucester, Liverpool, Dublin, Hong Kong, Rome and Hyderabad (which was the most interesting)! I always make a point of trying to ride a bike whereever I go!

I love the way you make something up and then proceed as if it's true!

Here's a classic that'll show you that we all go the same speed in our cities and towns. OK, it is London, but quiet roads, and the driver that is so keen to get by the cyclist (murderously keen in fact, watch the end of the video) is caught up again no less than three times.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxQuK-v1 ... e=youtu.be

Yes but the cyclist only achieves that by executing dangerous manouvers such as overtaking stationary cars on the left hand side.

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When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. H.G. Wells
When I see a youth in a motor car I do d.c.brown

Again you need to rephrase that statement or get some worldly experience. I've lived in several towns and never been stuck in the sort of traffic that you seem to be linking to "our towns and cities".

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My views do not represent Safespeed but those of a driver who has driven for 39 yrs, in all conditions, at all times of the day & night on every type of road and covered well over a million miles, so knows a bit about what makes for safety on the road,what is really dangerous and needs to be observed when driving and quite frankly, the speedo is way down on my list of things to observe to negotiate Britain's roads safely, but I don't expect some fool who sits behind a desk all day to appreciate that.

Yes. You need to be careful with these. Especially if the hatched section has an unbroken white line surrounding it. No crossing except in an emergency, as I was told.
They are intended to force traffic to slow down and take more care.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

And to my mind an absolute waste of money, seeing we are told that Councils are short of money.

They are used a lot in 20mph zones...they are used to restrict the width of the road......paint being cheaper than kerbstones etc...
And, as you said, on corners, to force an action on drivers; like slow down to negotiate the artificial corner.

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The world runs on oil, period. No other substance can compete when it comes to energy density, flexibility, ease of handling, ease of transportation. If oil didn’t exist we would have to invent it.”

56 years after it was decided it was needed, the Bedford Bypass is nearing completion. The last single carriageway length of it.We have the most photogenic mayor though, always being photographed doing nothing

To ensure greater care and responsibility it is a common mistake to try and 'over control' when one needs to 'remove controls' and allow for the 'thinking caps' to come on and see the obvious dangers ... regularly proved by 'Mondeman' sp?.

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Safe Speed for Intelligent Road Safety through proper research, experience & guidance.