Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 2 Sep 2004, Dave Arquati wrote:


Tom Anderson wrote:


On Thu, 2 Sep 2004, Dave Arquati wrote:
(snip)
I don't fancy cycling between two lanes of traffic; I get worried enough
cycling in London full stop, which is why I generally don't! I did,
however, experience a variety of cycling environments on a trip from
South Kensington to Canary Wharf and back.

I went via the parks, then Westminster Bridge, cycle route near the
South Bank, London Bridge, Aldgate (where I took a wrong turn and ended
up going round the one-way system, which scared the living daylights out
of me),

Do you mean the big gyratory system thing, which you have to go through to
get from the Whitechapel road to the City? I've been through that a few
times - it's not the best cycling environment, granted. Still, i'd say
it's better than the one at Old Street!

I think that's the one. The route advised to cyclists is (from
Leadenhall St) via Jewry St & Vine St to Crosswall, then eastbound via
Goodmans Yard or westbound via Portsoken St, using toucan crossings at
the subsequent Prescot St junction to reach an on-pavement cycle path
which takes you into Royal Mint St (which was a pleasant route to Canary
Wharf from a traffic point of view).

Unfortunately I didn't approach from the right direction, and since I
had never cycled there before, and ended up on the gyratory, which
seemed to have about six lanes of fast traffic going left where I wanted
to go right! In the end I managed to get to the pavement and walked my
bike round the rest. I joined the "official" route at Goodmans Yard.

then down to the Wapping ornamental canal, Shadwell, the riverside,
Narrow St and then took another wrong turn to end up walking around West
India Quay DLR with the bike and some difficulty.

Came back via a more direct route along Cable St (partly contraflow
cycle lane, partly on-pavement cycle lane), through the City to Fleet St
(got lost again around Fenchurch St & later was following motor vehicle
signs and almost ended up on the Victoria Embankment which I didn't want
to),


Welcome to the club! I usually have a really hard time getting from the
City onto High Holborn, or in fact getting across the city in any
direction; i'm glad it's so small! I once, coming out of Smithfield and
aiming for work (UCL, Eustonish) ended up going down the Farringdon Road,
and by the time i realised, didn't really have any choice except to carry
on over Blackfriars Bridge (this was after the accident, i think), head
along the south bank and go back over Waterloo bridge, then up through the
west end to work. This was all because i'd agreed to go and pick something
up from Charterhouse Square for a friend; the same friend, in fact, who i
had to traverse Old Street and Aldgate to go and visit. She doesn't live
in London any more, which, frankly, is something of a relief!


then straight along to Trafalgar Square. I wasn't brave enough to
cycle across the Square; afterwards I went up The Mall, Constitution
Hill and back along the South Carriage Drive.

The experience was generally very good (although it was a Sunday!) and
would have encouraged me to cycle more in London. Unfortunately right
after finishing the ride, my bike got nicked, so that put me off
again...


That must have been rather irritating. Still, an old saying about falling
off horses springs to mind!

I try hard enough not to fall off my bike, let alone worrying about
falling off horses!


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

John Rowland wrote:

"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...

Wapping ornamental canal


!!!

Why do I imagine that the ornament would be a shopping trolley?


It wasn't too bad! There was a rather fun bit getting onto the canal in
the first place off Vaughan St; a fairly long series of zig-zagging
cycle ramps with very tight turns (to avoid a bumpy ride down the
steps). The canal is a fairly fast route from there to the Shadwell
Basin and thence to Narrow St in Limehouse. The more direct route via
Cable St is faster but involves a horrible crossing of the Rotherhithe
Tunnel approach road; the (heavy) traffic seemed to move relatively
slowly but not slowly enough for someone to let you across.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 00:31:57 +0100, Chris Davies
wrote:

On Wed, 1 Sep 2004 19:34:15 +0100, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 19:25:27 on Wed, 1 Sep
2004, dwb remarked:
I'm a bit confused, what exactly was the bus doing wrong?

Sounds like it was stopped in a mandatory bike lane. A very common
offence.

Something similar happened to me this morning on my way to work.
A fella in a van was dropping what looked like his wife off. He pulled
into the bike(only) lane, then opened his drivers door as I rode past. I
swerved out, narrowly missing his door. Didn't say anything to him, just
went to work. Really, what good would it have done, other than making me
momentarily feel better? It wouldn't have given him a nice image of
cyclists, which ultimately is what we all want.

And another almost related....

I was walking into town yesterday. The pavement has a magic white
line down the middle of it and bicycle symbols on the outer half. The
road has double yellow lines.

So, 7.5T white van knowing it is BAD to park where forbidden (eg
double yellow lines) pulls onto the cycle lane portion of the
pavement, square on, all four wheels. I mean there's no sign to say he
can't so he must be allowed surely. He then gets out of cab, and opens
the near side side door so he can access the pile of mouldering tat he
has to deliver. The open door is _exactly_ the width of the remaining
pavement, blocking it completely. What am I to do? Walking in the A23
didn't appeal, so I walked on the pavement, moving the door to clear
my way. An extra nudge and it closed. I do hope he had a handle on
the inside otherwise he'll be there still.



Tim

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Chris Davies wrote:

On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 08:41:55 +0100, David Hansen
wrote:

On Thu, 02 Sep 2004 23:12:36 +0100 someone who may be Chris Davies
wrote this:-

A lot of practises are institutionalised. To give an example, most
couriers get paid by the number of drops they make. If any driver
consistently took longer to make a journey than the rest of his
colleagues, he would in all likelihood lose his job.

Then they are taking part in a conspiracy with their employer to break
the law.

Let's take this up another level. What do you think would happen to the
company that took longer and cost more for each drop? If it is a
conspiracy, we are all part of it, not just individual companies.

No. We're not given a choice - we have no way of knowing if a delivery
company had law-abiding drivers or not, so we never have the chance to pay
more for safety.

What this is really about is that the costs of breaking the law aren't
internalised; the drivers' illegal actions cost time, money and lives, but
the costs are borne by other road users, the state, and cyclists and
pedestrians. If the costs could be transferred to the delivery companies,
then it would be in their economic interests to have good drivers. This is
well nigh impossible to do perfectly, but covering the country in smart
CCTV with automatic fines for any traffic offence would be a start.

tom

--
Crazy week so far, which at one point involved spewing down the inside of my jeans! -- D

Tom Anderson wrote:

What this is really about is that the costs of breaking the law aren't
internalised; the drivers' illegal actions cost time, money and
lives, but the costs are borne by other road users, the state, and
cyclists and pedestrians. If the costs could be transferred to the
delivery companies, then it would be in their economic interests to
have good drivers. This is well nigh impossible to do perfectly, but
covering the country in smart CCTV with automatic fines for any
traffic offence would be a start.

....and who pays for the 'smart CCTV' system? Answer; road users, the state,
and cyclists and pedestrians.

Tim Hall wrote:

So, 7.5T white van knowing it is BAD to park where forbidden (eg
double yellow lines) pulls onto the cycle lane portion of the
pavement, square on, all four wheels. I mean there's no sign to say
he can't so he must be allowed surely.

Not necessarily. In Greater london it's banned under the Greater London
Council (General Powers) Act 1974 unless there are signs to say that
pavement parkling is allowed. I believe it's also illegal where, as in
this case, there is a yellow line prohibiting waiting on the
carriageway.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004 22:44:29 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:


No. We're not given a choice - we have no way of knowing if a delivery
company had law-abiding drivers or not, so we never have the chance to
pay
more for safety.

What this is really about is that the costs of breaking the law aren't
internalised; the drivers' illegal actions cost time, money and lives,
but
the costs are borne by other road users, the state, and cyclists and
pedestrians. If the costs could be transferred to the delivery companies,
then it would be in their economic interests to have good drivers. This
is
well nigh impossible to do perfectly, but covering the country in smart
CCTV with automatic fines for any traffic offence would be a start.

tom

You said "well nigh impossible to do perfectly" yourself, Tom. I would
love to see measures like this come into place, but I know it will not
happen.

--
|C|H|R|I|S|@|T|R|I|N|I|T|Y|W|I|L|L|S|.|C|O|M|
Remove the bars to contact me

On Fri, 3 Sep 2004, Stimpy wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

What this is really about is that the costs of breaking the law aren't
internalised; the drivers' illegal actions cost time, money and lives,
but the costs are borne by other road users, the state, and cyclists
and pedestrians. If the costs could be transferred to the delivery
companies, then it would be in their economic interests to have good
drivers. This is well nigh impossible to do perfectly, but covering
the country in smart CCTV with automatic fines for any traffic offence
would be a start.

...and who pays for the 'smart CCTV' system? Answer; road users, the state,
and cyclists and pedestrians.

Ah, well, yes, ahem, details, my good man, details.

I don't know how expensive it would be to do, i admit. It will get cheaper
over time, though (information technology is good like that). Also, it
would be raising revenue through fines, so it might be able to pay for
itself after a while.

Incidentally, if we did have something like this, i'd like to see cyclists
display registration plates too, and be policed to the same strictness as
motor vehicles (although i'd hope that the rules they were held too
would be more relaxed where appropriate).

tom

--
GOLDIE LOOKIN' CHAIN [...] will ultimately make all other forms of music both redundant and unnecessary -- ntk

"Paul Weaver" wrote in message
...
IT WAS A CYCLE LANE, NOT A BUS LANE

No need to waste effort shouting. We've already established that some people
can't understand the difference, even though one has a pictogram of a cycle
painted in it and the other has "BUS LANE" painted in large white letters.

"Danny Colyer" wrote in message
...
Anyway, if a professional driver

Regrettably, IME "professional" and "bus driver" quite often don't go
together.