Why must cyclists behave before they get bike paths?

Agree with Mercury one about the tipping point. Anybody who cycles in London will have noticed a massive change in motorists awareness to us, 20 years ago hardly any drivers checked their side mirrors for cyclists but now I feel drivers are more aware. This has nothing to do with government campaigns but all to do with numbers (critical mass). Maybe dedicated cycle lanes are needed in some parts of the countryside or suburbs but in inner London it's all about bikes on the road (with the exception of dangerous junction etc) not segregated which will keep making cycling safer.

When are motorists going to start behaving? When are they going to stop killing cyclists?

Separate lanes for cyclists is never going happen. We don't have the space or the money. Judging by the numbers I saw out today we are almost at tipping point in the tussle between motorists and cyclists. From years of experience of commuting in London to chain gangs on rural roads the three golden rules for cyclists are:

Don't run red lights ( jumping red lights is a separate issue ) : )

Single out when there are cars behind you.

Wave and smile everytime someone waits for a safe stretch of road to pass you.

It's all about the lost art of mutual acknowledgement of each other's right to be there.

The 20 is Plenty Campaign now has 8.4 million supporters. I suggest you all join as I've done. Once the speed is down the calmer environment will encourage others without the need for expensive road furniture.

This sums up the popular perception of the priority/place of UK cyclists.

Most people don't cycle because they're lazy and scared. They don't realise cycling will boost their health to a degree that outweighs the risks by a factor of 20:1. Cycling isn't all that dangerous, it's just perceived to be. Most motorists don't ride and are ignorant of the risks they cause to cyclists by things such as passing too close or whatever.

But some cyclists do wind up motorists unnecessarily. I was driving back to Lonoion along the A303 last week and at the non-dualled section at Stonehenge, there's always a tailback. It was being made far worse due to four road riders side by side as they pedalled up the hill, and it wasn't necessary or considerate. That's the sort of riding that adds fuel to the fire for overweight cycling haters like potato face Jeremy Clarkson.

On the way home yesterday I saw a guy on a roadbike run three sets of red lights in succession - and he nearly got clipped by a car at one of them.

People do need to ride more consierately and carefully.

But at the same time, the risks to other road users from cyclists are minimal. And this is something that is poorly understood.

Quote:

how about a suspension of the Government's £13bn road building programme until every single motorist in the UK drives below the speed limit, doesn't text while driving and doesn't park on the pavement?

Sounds good to me

A tiny fraction of the money saved could be put into decent cycle and walking infrastructure.

Interesting to see Dr Walker discuss the outgroup phenomenon. I've been one of those accused of overreacting to the "only good cyclist is s dead cyclist" type veiled threats (and I still can't see why such comments are viewed as humorous).

As for "sticking to the cycle path", too often it's unreasonable, for reasons explained here and elsewhere a multitude of times before.

Meanwhile in Shrewsbury a pedestrian crossing point/refuge is being blamed (totally without cause in my opinion) for traffic queues in the town centre. It would be funny if it wasn't so bloody pathetic! However, the drivers will soon find the queues they are in don't get any smaller so they can then find something/someone else to blame.

Carlton +1. Given how everyone from hoodies to athletes rides bikes, its quite odd that we are all seen as one and the same.

it is just an excuse, if cyclists were perfectly behaved there would be another excuse, eg road tax...

Switching motorists for cyclists having to behave correctly before any improvements are made to roads/cyclepaths is an enlightening move.

Many instances of irrational cycling prejudice arise from this weird idea that cyclists are an 'outgroup', not just all kinds of people who happen to be on a bike at the moment. It's as if 'they' (those cyclists) are a particular species who exist only on bikes, are rude yet oversensitive to criticism, arrogant yet poor, think they are above the law but quote it all the time to motorists, etc etc. People, on the other hand, drive cars. Most people, normal, decent hard working people, nearly everyone in fact, get around in cars. So you get things like that recent popular mainstream tv programme, the upadate of 'That's Life' voting one of the most irritating things about modern life as 'cyclists'. Or that terrible event at a Critical Mass ride in Brazil where a motorist drove into a large group of cyclists http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnR2ysyaoH4
- some of the comments were truly shocking, along the lines of this psychopath was right to attempt to kill people because they happen to be on bikes. Turning these things around to motorists is always enlightening. E.g. motorists are the most annoying people in the world, people deserve to be killed because they are in a car, is always enlightening.

Blackpool is supposed to be a Cycling City but the cycle paths round here are downright dangerous. You get segregated paths that start and stop with little warning so you have to nip on and off the road to use them. The surfaces are so rough and patchy that it's dangerous to ride at more than 15mph and you have a good chance of breaking something on a road bike - they are really only suitable for pootling along on a sturdy MTB or hybrid. Plus you get the ubiquitous groups of pedestrians walking line abreast on the cycle path and refusing to make way for you even though there are pictures of bikes painted on the floor every 50 yards.

I stick to the roads as it's the only safe option.

I felt deeply uncomfortable all day Thursday after on my usual commute to work along the CS3 I almost caused a crash trying to overtake a very slow lady on a Boris bike.

I'm not a speed freak and I respect that she wants to go at her pace - I just have to get to work in a rush and I'd only allocated a certain amount of time.

The cycle superhighways are deemed better than 'perfectly good' bike lanes by those in power, and actually, they are unfit for purpose already by virtue of being far too narrow for the number of cyclists.

But after causing a danger to others by trying to go fast along it, I was forced to ask myself if I should be going on the road and putting my own life in danger instead.

My behaviour was 'bad', but bad road planning put me in a position where it was too easy to cycle badly, or too hard not to, or something. Same with places where it's safer and quicker to nip onto the pavement for a few seconds than negotiate a hellish junction etc.

Interesting that these people in authority are not asking why a cyclist would take their chance on the road when there is a "perfectly good" cycle-path near by. Maybe when cycle-paths are cycle-paths and not shared use paths ie you have to take your life in your hands and ride from one near miss to the next, then I will use them! The last time I was knocked off my bike was on a so called cycle-path and this was by another cyclist not looking where he was going! Maybe we should call cycle-paths what they really are, "Dog shit alleys" it has a certain ring to it? Maybe if the people who finance these schemes could see what they are ie a big expensive dog loo then we could progress! If I had to use a Dog shit alley or be fined then I would either ride where there is no d.s. alley or drive...

But when such infrastructure is mooted to the powers-that-be the response is too often "no infrastructure until ALL cyclists adhere to the letter of the law and don't run red lights etc".

The point I make in the piece, and on the BikeBiz.com spoof, is that the same does not apply to motorists. Nobody ever seriously suggests drivers won't get more roads until they stop speeding etc.

Sure, some cyclists misbehave, but why should that the sins of a few lead to a lack of spending on all?

Bike org officials who spend their professional lives asking for facilities for cyclists come up against this brick wall constantly: "when cyclists start behaving, then we may provide for them."

As it happens, I think there is quite a lot of what non-cyclists would regard as bad behaviour among cyclists - I am not going to make a moral jusdgement on it myself, but I can see where they are coming from - but this situation has come about because what we see as "the cyclist" in a generic sense, ie the dominant characteristic, has evolved in a sort of Darwinian pattern of natural selection in response to the road conditions we have to face. Expose us to unpleasant or dangerous conditions for which the only viable survival tactic is to go vehicular, to straddle the lane, ride fast and furious, get well away from lights and junctions before we are overrun, and it can hardly be a surprise if that is what we do, and it can hardly be a surprise if most of the people who can, or who are willing, to do this are men in the prime of life - just the type, in short, who are most likely to exhibit aggressive tendencies.

So not only does it make no sense to deal with cyclists infrastructure in a way you would not deal with motorists, but if you want to improve their average standard of behaviour, what you actually want is to shift the balance towards female, younger, and especially older cyclists, who currently feel frozen out of something that ideally they would like to be able to do. In other words, improve cycling conditions and cylcling behaviour will follow, not vice versa.