Safe Speed Forums

perhaps not but it seems to be happening all around the country. I haven't heard of it happening on a shared road.

I really don't see why cyclists should be ostracised to second rate facilities because a few car drivers think they are more important. Anyone who is cycling regularly as opposed to pootling about on a weekend on their £99 mtb would find most cycle tracks to be very very inadequate.

If you drive safely, which this organisation believes everyone should, then you will not put a cyclist into danger with your driving.

semitone, if you are really worried about helping groups of people, then campaign for a ban on driving until people are 30. There's ten times as many young people killed on the roads as cyclists. It seems to me that many drivers who want cyclists off the road and who quote safety as the reason actually mean "get out of my way".

The same is true of separate footpaths that are well away from a shared road - at night they're a muggers' paradise. In many New Towns pedestrians feel safer walking on the road than on dark, little-used footpaths.

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"Show me someone who says that they have never exceeded a speed limit, and I'll show you a liar, or a menace." (Austin Williams - Director, Transport Research Group)

Any views expressed in this post are personal opinions and may not represent the views of Safe Speed

B cyclist i am also a cyclist! I admit only at weekends though during the winter - does the fact that I don't wear Lycra disqualify me?. I mostly cycle to get somewhere rather than just for the pleasure of cycling. I prefer walking for pleasure.

I also know how inadequate the cycle tracks are. The start of my nearest one is about five miles away and to get there from my house involves riding along a bad piece of single carriage way A road and then a dual carriage way, neither of which I enjoy.

I don't recall campaigning for anything in this discussion. All I suggested was that I prefer to apply common sense rather than my rights to ensure my safety. I too would prefer it if everybody drove as safely and considerately as I try to. Unfortunately the world is full of dickheads who drive around totally oblivious to everything around them and I would far rather be out of their way. I do not want "He was within his rights to be there" carved on my tombstone.

Not walking on The Meadows in Edinburgh at night because there was a rape/murder there 10 years ago.

People used to say to me 'You are mad to walk there at night, you could get killed'

I used to say back 'the fewer people there are like me waking there the more The Meadows are given up to the murderers.'

There's a parallel with cyclists and not cycling on the road. The fewer cyclists there are on the road the more dangerous it is for those cyclists.

In the instance I have illustrated, the circumstances are not unique, but have a particular set of circumstances.

This is the main tourist route in and out of the Lake District (A591) from the south, and the route is prolonged with few junctions or opportunities to vary the route, so it matters not which side of the road the route is on, except at night when oncoming lights are a problem if they are on your side of the road. However at such times the traffic is lighter, and use of the road not so dangerous.
It is also a very scenic route - which tends to occupy the attention of drivers and cyclists alike!
Crossing places which are provided ARE poor in my opinion - but nothing compared with the risk of being clipped by a car or caravan, and island refuges are provided.

The cycle path itself IS shared with pedestrians, but has no history of this causing any problems - each is usually responsible enough to cooperate.
You can see the bend from where the cyclist originated on his way up the hill, AND the behaviour of the overtaking driver(s).

I am trying to whip up enough response locally to have the road changed to single lane with protective median - but until then, this chap is just needlessly taking his life in his hands. If he is doing it to make a point, and is not just silly, then more fool him - I personally would not want to be saying "I had the right..." from a hospital bed.

My point about the £120,000 is that the Highways Authority could simply have provided a white line cycle path - but they took it seriously enough to dig out, tarmac and fence a separate path.
Not to use it is like going into a burning room with no protection and no fire extinguisher - you can dart in and out and not get burned - but the chances are slim.

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

no, not using it is saying "we don't want second rate facilities." IF it's so vital to have troublesome cyclists off the road and out of the way of our precious motorists then they could have built paths on BOTH sides of the road. It's not as though there isn't enough room there.

"we don't want second rate facilities." .....and are prepared to risk death or serious injury in order to make our protest carry more weight simply because we are right?

Not me, I use the cycle lane as long as the risk on the road is greater than any possible inconvenience. At Ings, where the path crosses over, I cross over and use the road for a short distance to take advantage of any gap in the traffic - where it is straighter, and safer.
I would rather have more cycle paths than have two paths along this stretch - especially since this small stretch apart, there is not so much room further on.
The existing path was ADDED to the road width which narrows considerably at the crest of this hill at a good deal of expense - so why double the cost?
The council actually sweep the cyclepath along the A591, probably also at some expense since there is nowhere else to sweep for some distance.

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

if it's that great a risk then the police need to get involved and start kicking some people - and not the cyclists - off the road.

Jay Walking is an offence in N.I., but then so is excessive smoke and excessive noise...

Does that mean they can nab the boy racers for having big noisy exhausts on corsas?

I repeat my point about the lane appearing to be on the down side of the road, not the up-side. On a good downhill stretch I will do up to 40mph. On an uphill it can be as low as 6mph. What would I need a lane for to go down at 40mph?

It's not the cyclists that should be booted out, it is the people that designed and authorised the lane in the wrong place.

Given the effort expended getting one lane, I would not expect them to provide TWO.
However your post confirms my feeling that the cyclist I pictured would have been safer, and less of a hazard on the path at 6 mph, rather than on the road.

By the way - I hop onto the road at this point to do my 40 mph into the dip, and avoid the turning into the farm.
Conveniently on the uphill side of the dip, there are a couple of dropped kerbs which allow you to hop back on before you run out of momentum.

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

The area Ernest has depicted is known as 'Bannerigg' on the A591 just out of Windermere. The southbound ascent to Bannerigg Summit is risky for cyclists, given the current road layout.



the above picture shows the ascent from the summit of Banerrigg. The bend seen as the road disappears from view is a blind bend, prior to which the road opens into two lanes southbound. What happens is that motorists queue up to overtake slower moving vehicles, and as soon as the road opens to two lanes, they are out to overtake. The slower moving vehicle is then pinned in a fairly tight lane one going round that left hand bend.

This linkgives a little more detail on Bannerigg which was the scene of a fatal RTC two weeks ago involving an overtake on that piece of road.

As Ernest said, many cyclists could be ( and certainly used to be ) round the blind side of this bend doing 5 mph. It was an obvious risk, beyond the cyclists ability to mitigate, and I'm surprised that I have not dealt with a collision there involving a cyclist.

Between 93 and 96 I commuted daily by bike to Windermere from Kendal. At that time there was no cycle path on Bannerigg. One of my regular shift finishing times was 1am, and occasionally 10 pm. My obvious concern for cycling home at those times was the risk from impaired drivers, and I was so concerned at Bannerigg that I would get off my bike and walk up the verge where the cycle path is now. I would definitely have used the cycle path on my southbound return at all times of the day if it had been available to me. I wouldn't have used it at all on my outward trip, although I have used it when cycling with Mrs H at a much more leisurely pace.

And this is where I think cycle paths should fit into the road safety picture. They should be promoted as paths which cyclists can use if they wish - it may make them safer, it may make them feel safer. They may encourage more people to cycle for leisure.
Likewise motorists should see them in that way, and respect the right of the commuter and the serious cyclist to use the road, because in general that will be the safer more convenient place for them to be.

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Fixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot, yet the best remedy is to step on them.

Ian

Know this road - agree 100% with Ern and Ian on this one.

Think MM has tried and tested all the cycle lanes in the area by now. This is one which he reckons "cash well spent" and it should be used and appreciated.

There are others - which he's arguing with the Council over as "waste of his hard earned cash!"

Dare say he'll give his rants over these when he gets back to "Blighty"

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

But what do you do about it?

Critical Mass ain't the way to get things done - all that does is "annoy everyone else and give the militant nutcase image" Nor do rants blaming drivers for everthing which happens on the road do much to help.

If you note - all the motoring sites may have majority of drivers venting spleens over current road safety policy more or less focussed on speeding - minor blip as opposed to the joy riding blatter without a licence Most appear to be asking for a more comprehesive policy and certainly all discuss how to improve standards for selves and encourage others.

Perhaps the CTC etc would be better if they looked at encouraging safe cycling techniques and preaching Cycle Craft and COAST a bit more.

I know the CTC sponsor training initiatives - but they are far too few in number and their rides? 40 miles on a Sunday is not what new riders want.



I would hope any lurker or browser will leave this site a little wiser as to what safe driving and cycling is all about.



Don't be daft. I have middle aged bikers totalling themselves because they see fast bikes as "keeping it yoooffool"

If I were you - I'd campaign for compulsory bike riding lessons for children and then as adults - as commuting as adult on bike is certainly not the same thing as child having a whale of a time at play in the park and other safe areas with parents.

As for young drivers - I have already provided these links

http://www.bexley.gov.uk/service/roadsafety/brag/

http://www.learnandlive.pwp.blueyonder. ... /who2.html


Both of which concern themselves with young drivers and offer constructive advice as to how to try to resolve this problem and motivate to educate

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Take with a chuckle or a grain of salt
Drive without COAST and it's all your own fault!

A SMILE is a curve that sets everything straight (P Diller).

A Smiley Per post
FINES USfor our COAST!

Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon - but driving with a smile and a COAST calm mind.

It's strange how as roads got busier, Cycling Proficiency Tests were abandoned in most schools.

In Windermere, we have a form of cycling proficiency - but only because a few policemen and teachers make the effort to organise it themselves!

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

Just before I had the camera ready, a coach came around the bend, and a lunatic (probable explanation...) came around the outside, with a speed differential which told me he had launched into the bend from some distance back, yet failed to make the overtake before the brow of the hill, because the coach was making steady progress up the hill.
Too late to abandone the manouvre - he carried on over the double white lines. Luckily nobody coming the other way.

As an aside, did you see my letter in the Gazette? I had a response from somebody at Witherslack about the memorials on the A590 who wants them stopped because of the number and the distraction.
He says people park on the side of the road in the evenings to replace flowers from an accident 8 years ago!

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

If I wanted to get from Windermere to Kendal on my bike I think I would give the whole horrible road a complete miss, cycle path or not, and use the B5284 from Bowness via Crook which has a 40 mph limit throughout. Is that right, Ernest?

Ed_M: "to be honest in that scenario i probably would have considered the road option being fairly low risk because there are two lanes and plenty of room for traffic to pass safely.... as risky at least as trying to cross 3 lanes on foot wearing cleats or scoot across 3 lanes without clipping in... twice."

I'm with you on that one, other pet hates on cycling tracks:

Those metal loops to stop you hareing into the road, why not put a decent sign up ?? When I've got panniers on I can't get around the damm things, the normal routine is stop, take panniers off get bike around bars, put panniers on - no fun at all when it's pissing down with rain,

Complete lack of maintenance and cleaning, used to take a cycle route to work after it had been put in, it was poorly lit, was littered with glass and cost me a fortune in inner tubes, after a month thought b ks to this went back on the road,

Tactile paving, given that there is a raised ridge between the ped and cycle sides of the route why put slippery tactile tiles on the cycle side, when these get wet, moss grows in them and they get bloody slippery and just to make sure they do cause an accident, they are put on corners.


As for pedestrians would welcome a jay walking law, had one numpty walk out in front of me and put his hand out as though he was directing traffic, this was on a 40mph road with the traffic running at about 30ish

Had seen him dithering on the edge but judging by some of the peds knocked down there I wonder how many drivers have been as alert as I was ???

Am not impressed with the think advert where the woman steps out in front of a car , is killed and you see the ghost talking to the driver - it's an artificial set up to get the ped, the parked car and the driving car in frame it's well within the stopping distance at 30mph, what does this actually teach peds ?? I suspect that it teaches car should just stop, with that sort of 'safety message' know wonder we are having accidents.

Slightly off topic but does anyone look at the THINK ads for accuracy before they go to air ??

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Gordon Brown saying I got the country into it's current economic mess so I'll get us out of it is the same as Bomber Harris nipping over to Dresden and offering to repair a few windows.

Chaos, panic and disorder - my work here is done.

http://www.wildcrafts.co.uk