Cyclist doing something legal in Scunthorpe makes the local paper

If Amazon, Startbucks, Green and the rest of the morally bent tax dodgers paid their way we would have the cash for a decent cycling infrastructure, though no doubt it we did have this money the government would slash it up the wall on some half cooked idea.....special lanes for jaguar and bentley drivers.

Took a bus today as illness meant didn't feel up to cycling. As expected the bus was _agonisingly_ slow, took about four times as long as the same journey would on a bike. The reason it was so slow was the whole route consisted of roads reduced to a single lane due to endless rows of parked cars on both sides (in some cases illegally parked in absurd places, but mostly parked quite legally), so that every time a vehicle came the other way the bus had to labouriously pull over to let it squeeze past.

The number one reason for delayed journeys is the presence of so many cars, and especially _parked_ cars. A great many supposed throughfares have now become primarily car parks.
(Even some of the pavements here are now too narrow for two pedestrians to pass each other due to parking bays being painted on them so as to leave just enough roadspace for at least one-way traffic)

Until motorists stop insisting on on-street parking (and stop making so many journeys in unnecessarily over-sized vehicles) then for them to complain about cyclists 'holding them up' is pure hypocrisy. Even the slowest cyclist moves faster than a parked car.

(This is actually the main reason why I gave up on buses in the first place. Almost invariably they'd be slower than _walking_ due to endless queues of near stationary cars stretching into the distance each with only one person in, and half the road surface being used as a car park. Motorists need to 'put their own house in order' before they complain about other modes 'getting in their way').

I work in Scunthorpe and have to commute up mortal ash hill everyday to get home, so I have good experience of the hill / roadworks, it's 2 lane's, the road works are in the outside (overtaking/fast whatever you want to call it) lane, and it's actually a 30 limit in the roadworks section, the works end half way up and then it's back to national speedlimit, so to say the cyclist could of used the coned off area is ridiculous, he would of obviously ended up in the outside lane with fast moving traffic on the steepest part of the hill with no way back across other than to cut through traffic.
The path is set back about 3 feet from the curb, and you wouldn't want to ride on it, rough, pot holed mainly broken up, and narrow. The section between the road and path, is no mans land, long grass and covered in general main road debris.
And there isn't anywhere safe to pull in, other than an exit slip road from the steel works and a small gravel layby, either way it's a constant flow of traffic around that time so he'd of been waiting a while!

I guess another point is that motorists really don't seem to be able to see why cyclists might do the things they do (and don't get me started on the commenter in my local paper's website who asked why taxes should be used to pay for *anything* for people who choose to travel to work using a child's toy (!!!)).

This morning I had a well-dressed middle-aged woman (older than me, anyway, and I'm 43) scream out of her window as we stopped next to each other at a junction that I had been "all over the f-ing road, you f-ing idiot!". She then wound her window back up and raced off.

Wind back a quarter mile or so...

I was riding generally maybe three feet out from the kerb on a very wide downhill road (Queen's Road, Bristol, for anyone that knows it, past the Students Union). As you may know, you have to be at least that far out unless you have full suspension, due to all the potholes and sunken trenches, and *sometimes* you need to move further out. I was going a good clip, and all of central Bristol is a 20mph speed limit anyway. No cars close behind me.

I went toward the right of the lane as I approached the first of a pair of mini roundabouts, to go straight on, then went across the second, then got passed by (it transpires) this woman so close that she practically touched my handlebars, making hand gestures at me, just as we both went through a pinch point caused by a zebra crossing with an island in the middle. I admit to making a rude hand gesture back at her, then carried on with my journey, where we met at the next junction (as you do).

Unfortunately, you cannot explain about the potholes and trenches as someone is screaming at you out of their window at a junction. You cannot explain that you are moving over to the right because that's what you do where traffic is splitting off into two directions. You cannot explain that bikes have to go around raised mini roundabouts and cannot drive over the middle of them like many cars I see.

Just wanted to vent that, and to say, again, how much the invective thrown at cyclists in local papers is down to motorists not understanding and not considering why someone might do something.

Once again the cyclist bashing even though most of the law breakers are motorists, RLJ'ing, creeping at junctions, lack of hand brake use, under taking, speeding, texting,the list is endless.
A cyclist on the other hand lawfully holds up traffic, is it really holding up traffic if they are following the highway code? Surely by now even the stalwart motor fascist should realise that the mass of cars on the highways is too much.

As a cyclist I obey the rules but still I got smashed off my bike by a Jeep driver even though a lane was empty for overtaking. He drove off. This should be an immediate lifetime ban. I would add that anyone in official office who spouts ridiculous comments should be booted out of office. They are truly too stupid to trust they could make a sensible decision on anything.

If the road does not have a minimum speed limit then technically no-one was held up by anyone.

Brooksby: "You were all over the road" - that seems to be a standard excuse drivers have for close passes. You were all over the road, hence the (poor) driver had no choice *but* to close pass you - otherwise how would they have gotten to that next queue before you?!!

Note that cycling in a straight lane counts as "all over the road" if you're more than 20 centimetres from the kerb.

Boo f**king hoo, a cyclist holds up traffic. I remember coming home from a camping trip and the traffic was banked up for a few km's. Thinking that there maybe an accident up ahead, we slowly moved along only to realise that it was just a 'roundabout'. There was no traffic once we went through the roundabout. Roundabouts have been in this country (Australia) for 30 odd years and they still hold up traffic and drivers still don't know how to use them and you NEVER read in the papers or on the net that a 'roundabout' is holding up traffic. Drivers need to build a bridge and get over it.

The local authority concerned should also be checking that the contractors have not taken more space than they need. I am quite certain they could have made a safe lane from one of those they had closed.

I must admit I would probably have pulled over at some point. However, I wasn't there to tell you the facts, and I don't know the road. If he had pulled over, and proceeded to let every queueing car pass by, then started riding again, at what point would he magically be obliged to pull over again? When there's one more car behind him? Ten? At every single viable place to pull in? All this article demonstrates is that the dimwits that planned the roadworks didn't take cyclists into account when they devised a single available lane. That the author of the article didn't think to challenge this just illustrates the journalists' investigative ability.

And no one even thought to stop and put his bike in the back to give him a well earned lift to the top of the hill..

We need more of this sort of reporting then maybe drivers will start demanding Space for Cycling. Is it too much to expect local hacks to figure that much out?

I get this a lot from my wife and her mum - "Why does that cyclist have to go up that hill? Why couldn't they just pull over and let everyone past?". They both forget that a motor vehicle slowing down is a matter of easing off the accelerator pedal, maybe changing gear. Slowing down or stopping on a hill on a bicycle is a complete PITA as you then have to put a *lot* more effort (than a driver does) into getting started again...

And, as another poster has commented, its not exactly common for that ever-so-thankful queue of motor traffic to gratefully let you back into the main flow of traffic.

First world problems, eh?

Meanwhile, somewhere in the real world, a group of young girls gets kidnapped. #Perspective.

Truth is, only the first few cars in the tailback would have been aware that it was some bloke on a bike up front, so the story HAD to be told to ensure that EVERYONE was outraged.

Jeez, I despair. Come out here and sample the infamous Taiwanese road behaviour.

[[[[[ Yes...on a Critical Mass ride in the Big Smoke a while back, the male driver of a very swish jamjar, blocked by bloody cyclists, was tearing his hair out and foaming at the mouth. His lady companion's frown was so fierce her eyebrows descended to somewhere below her nose. "Having a nice evening?" I enquired.
"I'd get home a effing sight quicker without twats like you!" he grated.
"Well, fancy that!" I said. "Cyclists do this demo once a month, whereas drivers get in my way, block my progress and endanger my health twice a day, five days a week, and weekends too---so who's a bigger twat?"
To give him his due, he sighed, began to look thoughtful, and said not another word.
P.R.

Perhaps, of the council consulted TAL 15/99 they might consider the appropriate lane widths for road works which are suitable for the drivers of motor vehicles to pass cyclists safely, noting the width specified for safe passing by LGV's and PCV's, it might then be appropriate to mark a temporary advisory cycle lane, which of course does not require a TRO, although the line closure itself may require one.

Well done that cyclist, and equally the driver in the vehicle following immediately behind for having the patience and sense not to hassle the cyclist, or respond to any pressures from the drivers behind them in the traffic queue.

It just highlights the lack of provision for cyclists. It costs drivers nothing to take their foot of a pedal, that guy was under his own power. Once you get up momentum, you aren't going to stop every few yards to let cars past.
If all the kids who wanted to ride to school did so, there'd be no room for the cars.
What's normal in this world is not normal, it's just how it's been made to be normal. I wish when they'd churned up the original road to build this dual carriageway, they'd left some way for other road users to get where they were going without needing to ride on this anyway.
I think his climb was a brilliant protest to an unthinking, wasteful world.

It just highlights the lack of provision for cyclists. It costs drivers nothing to take their foot of a pedal, that guy was under his own power. Once you get up momentum, you aren't going to stop every few yards to let cars past.
If all the kids who wanted to ride to school did so, there'd be no room for the cars.
What's normal in this world is not normal, it's just how it's been made to be normal. I wish when they'd churned up the original road to build this dual carraigeway, they'd left some way for other road users to get where they were going without needing to ride on this anyway.
I think his climb was a brilliant protest to an unthinking, wasteful world.

It's a shame all the drivers and passengers sitting in the 100 cars weren't riding bikes too...

Remember this chip wrapper is owned by the same people who own the The Daily Wail, in order to reduce costs they appear to no longer employ journalists or even people who can cross check back editions for previous articles on the subject, just article writers. Like its nearby sister chip wrapper The Hull Daily Mail, it survives by writing so called articles that sensationalise local events in order to allow deadheads to write ill informed and inaccurate comments in order to generate responses so that they can download adverts to increase their revenues.

Remember this chip wrapper is owned by the same people who own the The Daily Wail, in order to reduce costs they appear to no longer employ journalists or even people who can cross check back editions for previous articles on the subject, just article writers. Like its nearby sister chip wrapper The Hull Daily Mail, it survives by writing so called articles that sensationalise local events in order to allow deadheads to write ill informed and inaccurate comments in order to generate responses so that they can download adverts to increase their revenues.

I think the real news is that Scunny has a hill

I had a dog walker last week try and block me on the C2C though Washington, even though I am legally entitled to ride on it, and I slow and am courteous to all I pass. He just didn't like people on bikes.

Point is that there are idiots out there who will find any excuse and bend any rule to suit their own hatreds and dislikes, and newspaper site comments sections are like honeytraps for windowlicking neanderthals.

My beef is with the Councillor, who judging from the recent reporting from the one paper, cannot say the same thing twice.

He doesn't want cyclists on the pavement as they are a danger to walkers, and wants them off the road as they hold up cars. Please tell us Cllr Sherwood, just where the feck are we supposed to ride?

Highway code rule 169?

"169
Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle. Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass."

Applies to chaingangs and lone cyclists on big hills just as much as it does to tractors, cranes and all the other things we'd expect to pull over every so often if we encounted them causing a massive tailback when driving a car. https://www.gov.uk/using-the-road-159-to-203/overtaking-162-to-169.

(sorry, pet peeve)