In article ,
Laurence Payne wrote:
but......if your bike lights had broken, you pushed it home, 'cause
the police WOULD stop you. You waited at traffic lights. Is it just
in London that the police have been instructed to ignore violations by
cyclists, or all over Britain? We're only as lawless as we allow
ourselves to become.

The only offences commited on the road that are enforced are those
that can be enforced with a camera. This is true all over Britain.


--
Mike Bristow - really a very good driver

On Mon, 12 Sep 2005 23:16:41 +0000 (UTC), Mike Bristow
wrote:

The only offences commited on the road that are enforced are those
that can be enforced with a camera. This is true all over Britain.

Rubbish. I speak from personal experience :-(

Colin McKenzie wrote:
Martin Underwood wrote:
wrote in message

And how about some cycle paths to encourage cyclists off the roads (on
car and bike) and onto bikes.

Now that I would definitely support. For slow vehicles like bikes, the road,
with cars doing 30, 40, 50, 60 mph is not the best place. Sadly, give the
way that pedestrians have no "lane discipline" and no idea what's behind
them, the pavement is an even worse place.

And any off-road cycle path will be shared with pedestrians. And
almost certainly give way at all side roads, making it both slower and
more dangerous than the road.

Not necessarily. If the pavement is raised above the cycle path, and
the cycle path is seperated from the road by a kerb, then all should be
happy.

This could be achieved in most places by sacrificing a little pavement
width and some road width. In soem places a row of parking needs to be
sacrificed.

The cycle lane should be given the same priority over side roads as the
main road, subject to provisions being made for driver visibility.

(To use Tunbrisge Wells as an example, where the local authorities
would prefer a shoot to kill policy for cyclists, there is a major road
with 4,000 school children, and a dangerous cycle lane consisting of
sporadic white paint, followed by "please cycle in front of the bus".
The road is wide enough at almost every point for a dedicated cycle
path, but in some places parking would need to be removed. The parking
itself is a major cause of traffic congestion).

Key factors in safety and comfort of on-road cycling a
- speed difference (not absolute speed)
- space for overtaking

A speed difference up to 20mph is pretty safe. A road layout that
allows bikes to be overtaken with good clearance without the driver
changing lane is also safe, even with a greater speed difference.

Agree that people like Lance Armstrong are probably better off on the
road than on the cycle path.

On 13 Sep 2005 05:58:45 -0700, wrote:

Not necessarily. If the pavement is raised above the cycle path, and
the cycle path is seperated from the road by a kerb, then all should be
happy.

Until car passengers throw glass bottles out of the window, and you've
got a nice glass trap that's too narrow to use a road sweeper on, so
the glass remains and the cycle path is useless. Not to mention that
pedestrians in many places still don't respect them.

Unless the road is wide enough for a cycle path of at least a normal
lane's width (which most of Milton Keynes' Redways are), there isn't
room for one and the road is a better place for the cyclist. If the
road was a foot or two wider, overtaking by cars would be easier and
less dangerous.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

In message , Neil Williams
writes
Until car passengers throw glass bottles out of the window, and you've
got a nice glass trap that's too narrow to use a road sweeper on, so
the glass remains and the cycle path is useless. Not to mention that
pedestrians in many places still don't respect them.
If you don't respect them by keeping off the pavement why should they
respect you?
--
Clive

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 19:29:44 +0100, Clive
wrote:

If you don't respect them by keeping off the pavement why should they
respect you?

We are getting into the silly emotiveness again rather than discussing
the issues.

I do not ride my bicycle on the pavement. I prefer to ride it on the
road, as you'd well know if you'd read my postings on this subject
correctly. I believe people should be ticketed for riding bicycles on
the pavement, just as they should if they drove a motor vehicle on the
pavement. I also believe pedestrians should not walk onto dedicated
cycle paths unpredictably and without looking, just as they should not
do so onto the road.

On shared paths, I would prefer all users to have consideration of
each other - e.g. cyclists riding on the left where possible and not
riding dangerously quickly, and pedestrians refraining from walking
several abreast and thus taking up the full width of the path, while
not paying attention to anyone who may wish to pass, be they on foot
or on a bicycle.

Is all of this - just down to mutual respect between users of all
modes of transport - too much to ask? I sometimes suspect it is.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

In message , Neil Williams
writes
We are getting into the silly emotiveness again rather than discussing
the issues.

I do not ride my bicycle on the pavement. I prefer to ride it on the
road, as you'd well know if you'd read my postings on this subject
correctly. I believe people should be ticketed for riding bicycles on
the pavement, just as they should if they drove a motor vehicle on the
pavement. I also believe pedestrians should not walk onto dedicated
cycle paths unpredictably and without looking, just as they should not
do so onto the road.

On shared paths, I would prefer all users to have consideration of each
other - e.g. cyclists riding on the left where possible and not riding
dangerously quickly, and pedestrians refraining from walking several
abreast and thus taking up the full width of the path, while not paying
attention to anyone who may wish to pass, be they on foot or on a
bicycle.

Is all of this - just down to mutual respect between users of all modes
of transport - too much to ask? I sometimes suspect it is.
I have always advocated total separation for safeties sake.
--
Clive

iakobski wrote:
I wrote:
So if you cycle at 10mph, stay in 30 or 20mph zones. If you're doing
20, you should be OK on 40mph roads - and won't be welcome or as safe
on the shared path alongside.

So you're basically ruling out cycling on 90% of the country and
restricting cycles to urban areas.

Ouch. That hurt. But you snipped this bit:

A road layout that allows bikes to be overtaken with good clearance
without the driver changing lane is also safe, even with a greater
speed difference.

All I'm saying is that some situations that people find frightening
are not actually particularly dangerous.

Where motor vehicle speeds are high. sightlines are bad, and there
isn't always room to overtake a bike (e.g. when there's something
coming the other way), objectively there is more danger. You run a
risk of being hit by someone who can't stop between the time they see
you and the time they reach you. How high this risk is depends on
traffic density and driver behaviour.

While we're about it, why not exclude horses, tractors, mopeds, and
(god forbid) walkers from any country lane, after all, they are
designed for cars to do 60mph on.

What should happen about that risk is that drivers should be made to
slow down until it goes away.

In the meantime, some cyclists will accept the risk, and some won't.
If you don't like being endangered on the road, probably better to
ride in safer places. Like the A40 in Acton.

Colin McKenzie


--
The great advantage of not trusting statistics is that
it leaves you free to believe the damned lies instead!

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 20:36:49 +0100, Clive
wrote:

I have always advocated total separation for safeties sake.

*Total* separation would be fine. The trouble is, it is both
difficult and expensive to achieve that - you will always have some
interface between the modes. Given that Milton Keynes was planned
from more or less scratch, and while it did get a certain level of
separation between motorised and non-motorised transport, I suspect
that I'm not the only one thinking that.

In the absence of total separation, however, we have roads on which
all wheeled vehicles may operate, whether with two or four wheels, and
whether with engines or not, and we have shared cycle and pedestrian
routes. For this to work, mutual respect and consideration is
required from all parties. Sadly, this does not normally happen.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

On Tue, 13 Sep 2005 20:40:41 +0100, Colin McKenzie
wrote:

A road layout that allows bikes to be overtaken with good clearance
without the driver changing lane is also safe, even with a greater
speed difference.

All I'm saying is that some situations that people find frightening
are not actually particularly dangerous.

Very true. As I posted earlier, the MK grid roads, with their
national speed limit and busy traffic, may seem frightening to some.
As it so happens, though, there is almost always space for a vehicle
to overtake a bicycle safely without conflicting with other traffic,
so it is actually not as dangerous as it may seem.

The roundabouts are probably the most dangerous bit - though this
isn't from traffic on the same or a similar path, as speeds are
suitably low that a bike isn't threatened by it on the roundabout.
The danger is from drivers approaching the roundabout with selective
vision - and this danger applies as much to those who seem not to see
articulated lorries until the last second either...

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.