h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Now before I start I have to admit, right off the bat, that before I started cycling I was a motorist who used to say these like "I bloody* hate cyclists on the road" and get frustrated at having to slow down a little.

Now in a great case of "Do as I say and not as I do" I have become a keen cyclist and ahh-mazingly have somewhat altered my views. I didn't realise quite how hairy cycling can be on busy roads. Literally no idea whatsoever. And whilst I don't think I was ever aggressive in driving toward cyclists I doubt I was anywhere near as considerate as I now feel the need to be when driving.

Because Jaysus H Christ a very large proportion of motorists are *INCREDIBLY* inconsiderate. And frankly at times dangerous. I drive quite defensively but bloody nora you have to be paranoid at times on the bike.

Plymouth is, by all accounts, actually quite good as far as cities go for cycling on roads; say what you will about the Luftwaffe but Plymouth was rebuilt with car's in mind. Nice wide roads! but I am constantly fearing for my life, particularly when approaching roundabouts.

The worst thing is remembering how impatient I used to get behind the wheel at the minor inconvenience of being held up for tens of seconds while I waited to get around a cyclist. And I get all the more annoyed at the thought of my hypocrisy as I get shirty with the people who have nearly ended my life for the sake of a few seconds.

So anyway ranting aside what to do? I mean obviously cyclists *have* to go on the roads because the risk to pedestrians is pretty high from cyclists. But in most places there isn't the space for extra cycle lanes. Besides I often find the most risky places are where the end of cycle lanes just merge with ordinary roads. I think the growing number of deaths and injuries involving cyclists is very concerning. Especially since I am one now....

Cripes!

A news story that caught my eye t'other day for flavour:-

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/video/2013/aug/08/nottingham-police-cyclist-video

FB

* I might have used slightly bluer language.

When in doubt/discomfort, take the middle of the road. You've got every right to be there and motorists will, consciously or not, be more careful if you're right in front of their faces.

High vis clothes make a real difference: a high-vis jacket with a blue rectangle on the back has a remarkable effect on motorists.

Be friendly and cheerful - wave at motorists, smile, make a point of thanking them when they are polite/helpful: it makes a difference and I think it changes the cyclists mind-set too, relaxes them.

Eastern Massachusetts has become very friendly toward bicyclists. Many communities have carved out bike lanes along the edges of the roads.

Okay, who snuck into my head and put my words into the OP? That absolutely nails my experience and I now reckon all road users should do part of their training and test on a bicycle.

Sorry, but I have no talent for riding bicycles. Never did.

>So anyway ranting aside what to do? I mean obviously cyclists *have* to go on the roads because the risk to pedestrians is pretty high from cyclists.<

Huh. Do you know the statistics? I think there may be one death caused to a pedestrian by a bike on the pavement every three years or so. Many cyclists go on the pavement through the fear you describe and I for one don't blame them. What is the real inconvenience to pedestrians? Not really all that much apart from getting whizzed by from the occasional idiot.

Cyclists on the road however are mown down with regularity and the law does naff all to help them (there are worse cases out there than that shocking Nottingham incident). Hundreds of deaths a year - where would *you* rather cycle? (I hate pavements/shared cycle paths - too slow with all the darn pedestrians getting in the way )

However road cycling isn't that bad - the positive health benefits far outweigh the small risk you will get injured by a car.
The law needs to come down *far* more heavily on aggressive drivers though - cautions handed out for assault and battery with a deadly weapon (re. Nottingham incident) and 30 pound fines and 3 points for running a cyclist over and then driving 90 metres down the road with the dead cyclist still on your bonnet before hitting a tree (! really, in Birmingham) send the message that driving dangerously is socially and legally acceptable. This *does* need to change.

I 600 miles a month currently though and do not feel that my life is in constant danger -you just get the occasional idiot in a car - most are actually quite considerate.
I find taxis and buses to have the worst drivers - which is worrying seeing as they're supposed to be the professionals

My favourite car/bus manoeuvre is to overtake in a mad rush so that you can immediately stop at the back of the stationary queue ahead - or the bus stop.

When I approach a small roundabout wanting to go straight on or turn right I move out towards the centre of the lane so that no-one from behind can think of overtaking me, then it's just a question of watching out for traffic in other lanes. For larger busy roundabouts I will consider getting off the bike and taking the pedestrian route across.

The danger being vehicles overtaking you from behind then immediately turning left across you (uk centric) or not giving you right of way when on the roundabout.

I find the best precaution against mad motorists when out on my bike is to live in a country with a rather good network of cycle paths.

However I do spend some time on the roads because not all roads in the countryside have a cycle path alongside. The scariest thing for me, especially at the moment, are the tractors which are absolutely massive.

HI - what's the significance of the Blue Rectangle on the back of the hi-vis vest?

What a lot of car drivers forget (if they cycle themselves) or don't know (if they never cycle) is that cyclists can't hog the kerb because that's where all the drains and bumps are. The complaint i hear most from drivers is "that cyclist should be closer to the curb" and it's getting tiresome to point out why they can't / shouldn't have to.

I'm not keen on cyclists on pavements. If there is the occasional one or two and they're not going at Mach1 - but any more than that is dangerous. Pedestrians might not, statistically, be at much danger from cyclists but surely that's because most cyclists don't cycle on the pavement?

I didn't say cyclist didn't put pedestrians at risk - there's a significant number of pedestrians who put cyclists at risk - either by walking out onto roads without looking or - when there's a segregated cycle path, walking almost exclusively on that

The clear difference is that in the game of dangers that don't mix - cycle versus car/truck/bus or cycle versus pedestrian there just is no comparison.

Good luck trying to cycle on a pavement at Mach 1 - my experiences is that's impossible because of kids/pedestrians/dogs and kerbstones as path meets road meets path again. I actually quit cycling mostly on cycle paths about a year ago because if wandering pedestrians.

A good solution to our current situation in the UK would be to have the continental presumed liability concept in our law. That puts presumed liability for any collision on the more powerful user. Hence in car v bike - it is the car's fault unless otherwise proven and the same for bike v. pedestrian. This works extremely well.
There is also a law in Spain (maybe elsewhere) where you get a 200 Euro fine for not giving a cyclist enough room on an overtake - a similar fine exists for motorists who do not cede priority to bikes at junctions and roundabouts. About time we adopted this stuff over here - niceway code ideas (if you want a laugh/ google this) are all very well but the carrot also needs a stick. Whilst motorists get away with major offences that kill people with nothing but a slap on the wrist our road culture will never change.

Sho, it makes it look like a police jacket. Won't stand up to any kind of real scrutiny but will make people look twice and be aware of you.

Not cycled myself in twenty years, but we do seem to have a lot of them here, in Cambridge; most of whom try their hardest to get killed and kill other (useually pedestrian) people whilst they're riding about.

Use signals. be in the right place in the road, for what your doing, don't
Don't ride on the wrong side of the road, into oncoming traffic.
Don't read your mobile screen whilst navigating really busy junctions.
Don't randomly stop on major roads, without looking at other traffic behind/in front of you...

Oh, and don't cycle straight into me... trust me, its a bad idea for the cyclist

I'm sure some of the more sensible cyclists in Cambridge get fed up with bad car driving, but really here it does seem to be the cyclists themselves corner the market in driving dangerously and putting their own lives at ris, thinking they can beat a bus, lorry or large taxi in a fright on the road... which they can't

Back from when I was a cyclist, one of the things I thought very important, to increase safety, was to be 'resolute', don't change your mind, whilst making a turning/manoving on the road, too many cyclists seemed to sort of decide they'd go out of a junciton, then change their mind, end up sticking out half over the junction white lines, utterly confuse (and annoy) car traffic at the jucnction, and they would sort of put themselves at ris by their indescision to actually take the corner, make the manova whatever ti might be that they're doing...

I think it's about time they brought back the men with the red flags - it would certainly lower unemployment:

The 1865 act required all road locomotives, which included automobiles, to travel at a maximum of 4 mph (6 km/h) in the country and 2 mph (3 km/h) in towns and have a crew of three travel, one of whom should carry a red flag walking 60 yards (55 m) ahead of each vehicle [wikipedia].

great idea!

As I said, presumed liability would put some responsibility of cyclists to behave better too. It's an enormously good idea and a shame that the establishment/government doesn't seem to be interested - probably because the cat driving lobby is so powerful. Heaven forbid anyone should try and stop them from driving exactly as they want, when they want. Most of those who use a bike regularly are massively in favour of this as far as I can gather.

Cat driving - now *there's* an idea

I really should start cycling again. I miss it. No cycle lanes round here at all, of course.

TRiG.

Cat-driving can be a problem sometimes too... on market day of course.. as they drive them into the market square ...

More citys shoudl probably go the route of congestion charging, like in London, provide decent public (bus/tram/wahtever) transport, and make the town/city centres more favoriable to pedestrians and cyclists alike... Half the traffic clocking the centre of Cambirdge, seems to be people thinking its a handy shortcut to drive through the center, when going form one side of the place to the other Mind, round here, cycle parking is a serious issue, with half the pavements, even on busy roads, being unusable by pedestrians, especially in the evneing, when every little pub has a couple hundred bikes parked outside on the pavement... A local pub, mind, got a news item on it, recently, as it'd come up with an ingenious solution, and converted several car-parking spaces, at the pub, into multistorey cycle parking ; I keep trying to convince the landlor of my local; which is basically a terrace house (well two really), so straight onto the pavement; that he should have some kind of elevated bike storage rack... at the front... so the cycles get lifted up and off the ground, and kinda hang in midair

The scariest parts of any journey for me are roundabouts. I've been clipped once and had two really close calls on roundabouts - I wish they'd sort this out.

the scarietst bit I used to cycle, was a weird junction, with two 'mini-roundabouts' within a few meters of each other; main road, directly coming off the A12, came down, with a junciton onto a tiny side road; one mini roundabout; straight ahead from main road, another mini roundabout, with a fairly* main road in from one side, and a sort-of, straight h ahead bit, almost on directly ahead from the main road off of the A12; The only way to cycle round it, was to keep looking at it, on the approach, and 'just go for it'... ensuring one had enough speed to out manova any cars that happened to be on it at the time; no one, well, drivers of cars at least, had the slightest clue as to how one was meant* to correctly go round teh strange set up, so the only approach on a cycle, was just to be more resolute, (and faster), whilst on the actual roundabout bits of the junction, than any of the car traffic; luckily one could, on a cycle, go over the roundabout bits themselves, were the need to arrise; and also, it was possible, at a couple of the corners, due to 'stop pavements' to quickly hop up onto them, if a car was in the wrong place or on imminant colision... I cycled that junction twice a day (weekdays), for three years to get to High School; plus would often end up going over it at weekend, and in evenings, when travelling to friends... As far as I knwo they've never changed the junction, and its still got the major problem, of cars off of the A12, not slowing down, as they just get onto the 'main road'... lethal and so badly designed... (and still on a major cycle route for kids travelling to at least two differnt schools...)