- News
- Reviews
- Bikes
- Components
- Bar tape & grips
- Bottom brackets
- Brake & gear cables
- Brake & STI levers
- Brake pads & spares
- Brakes
- Cassettes & freewheels
- Chains
- Chainsets & chainrings
- Derailleurs - front
- Derailleurs - rear
- Forks
- Gear levers & shifters
- Groupsets
- Handlebars & extensions
- Headsets
- Hubs
- Inner tubes
- Pedals
- Quick releases & skewers
- Saddles
- Seatposts
- Stems
- Wheels
- Tyres
- Tubeless valves
- Accessories
- Accessories - misc
- Computer mounts
- Bags
- Bar ends
- Bike bags & cases
- Bottle cages
- Bottles
- Cameras
- Car racks
- Child seats
- Computers
- Glasses
- GPS units
- Helmets
- Lights - front
- Lights - rear
- Lights - sets
- Locks
- Mirrors
- Mudguards
- Racks
- Pumps & CO2 inflators
- Puncture kits
- Reflectives
- Smart watches
- Stands and racks
- Trailers
- Clothing
- Health, fitness and nutrition
- Tools and workshop
- Miscellaneous
- Buyers Guides
- Features
- Forum
- Recommends
- Podcast
news
Wimborne Road cycle lane wands (credit: YouTube/DorsetSaferRoads)Calls for “less obstructive” solutions to cycle lane’s “driveway-blocking wands” as councillor says “bollards should be replaced with white lines” – but local authority points out drivers are still parking on bike route
The controversy that erupted late last year surrounding the installation of cycle lane wands in the Dorset seaside town of Poole, which saw upset residents claim that they had been “blocked” in their driveways, continues to rumble on, as councillors called this week for the bollards to be removed and replaced with “less obstructive solutions such as white lines or cat’s eyes”.
However, the local council has argued that the wands are necessary to protect cyclists, particularly schoolchildren, who use the Wimborne Road route, pointing out that motorists continue to illegally park inside the bollards on the cycleway and pavement.
In November, the cycle lane on Poole’s Wimborne Road made national headlines after a series of wands were installed at regular intervals along the route, in a bid by the council to segregate the route from traffic and prevent drivers blocking the bike lane with parked cars, creating a safer environment for those using it.
Wimborne Road cycle lane wands (credit: YouTube/DorsetSaferRoads)The new wands provoked a furious backlash from disgruntled residents, however, who claimed the bollards “blocked” them in their drives, sparking articles in the Daily Mail, Telegraph, and on GB News.
One local, 44-year-old Samantha Clarke, told the local press that on-street parking was removed to make way for the cycling infrastructure and said, “It’s so much more difficult, there’s no turning anymore, you have to go in in a straight line”.
Meanwhile, Debbie Woodcocks branded the wands “ridiculous” and claimed they are “doing more harm than good”, pointing out that “you can’t just reverse out fast anymore”.
Wimborne Road cycle lane wands (credit: YouTube/DorsetSaferRoads)“Some can’t get out of their driveway,” the Poole resident claimed at the time. “It’s bad enough cycle lanes have been put there. Trying to reverse out now takes a lot longer and it’s a lot harder. You can’t just reverse out fast anymore, the council has made it more difficult now.”
Since this initial backlash, some of the wands – purportedly blocking access to homes – have since been removed. And in a meeting of Bournemouth, Christchurch, and Poole (BCP) Council this week, Conservative representative Gavin Wright called for the rest of the bollards to be scrapped, claiming that packages can no longer be “safely delivered” on the road.
“There's now no room to stop on the highway as it’s too narrow so that packages from cars, vans, and lorries can't safely be delivered,” the Poole councillor said during the meeting, the Bournemouth Echo reports.
“Are delivery vehicles supposed to negotiate their way down the cycle lane, which they wouldn’t be able to do in the case of lorries anyway, because the bollards are too close together? Or are they supposed to stop in the driving lane which would block it completely on one side?
“This is a particular problem for building materials, as has been mentioned by a couple of residents as they’re delivered by lorry-mounted cranes.
“They can’t reach over the cycle lane and path to their houses and probably shouldn't be parking on the cycle lane.
“It would seem that these bollards have not been sufficiently thought through and should be removed and replaced with less obstructive solutions such as white lines or cat’s eyes.”
Wimborne Road cycle lane wands (credit: YouTube/DorsetSaferRoads)Following Wright’s call for the wands to be removed completely, Andy Hadley, the cabinet member for roads and cycle lanes at BCP Council, said he would respond once council officers had been consulted – but also defended the wands and argued they are an “important tool” to protect cyclists, especially when taking into account “the manner of driving by some”.
“The design was adjusted to reduce the risk of flooding into residents’ gardens and homes,” Hadley told the meeting.
“A few people continue to park inside the wands, across the cycleway and pavement. This is illegal. Double yellow line restrictions apply to the back of the highway boundary.
“Given the increasing width of vehicles, and the manner of driving by some, the use of measures like wands to protect schoolchildren in particular, is an important tool, and where officers recommend their use, they will form part of the consultation process on future schemes.”
Following the initial backlash and negative headlines concerning the bollards in November, Hadley pointed out that preventing drivers from parking their cars in the bike lane was a key factor behind the wands’ installation, while also arguing that that they would prove essential in giving people the confidence to cycle by “affording a degree of separation from moving traffic”.
Wimborne Road cycle lane wands (credit: YouTube/DorsetSaferRoads)“We are committed to creating safe, sustainable and active ways for people, including schoolchildren, to travel locally to and from Poole town centre along this busy road,” he said.
“To encourage people to cycle they must feel confident that they are safe. These wands are intended to give them that confidence, by alerting both people cycling and those driving vehicles to the presence of the cycle route, affording a degree of separation from moving traffic, and preventing vehicles from blocking the cycle lane.”
He did however also accept that in certain locations where the bollards had created “most difficulty”, the council would “listen to feedback” and “adjust the positions of wands to ensure continued property access”.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
Latest Comments
- Daclu Trelub 3 sec ago
I had a Commer, the steering was by committee, the roadholding by Frankenstein and the economy by Shell. Utterly dreadful heap of junk, period.
- HLaB 4 min 47 sec ago
I don't really trust the police to do anything with that evidence, given my experiences the few times I contacted them previously. Its not worth...
- David9694 7 min 51 sec ago
Pictures: Shocking aftermath of A38 car crash in Rashwood, Droitwich https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/25080161.pictures-shocking-aftermat...
- 2old2mould 42 min 19 sec ago
I've often wondered if this would happen here one day, and very sad to hear it has. My view is that the track has a fundamental design flaw, as one...
- mdavidford 54 min 25 sec ago
Main thought that TwXtter video prompts is, why on earth does so much traffic need to be using a lane like that in the first place?
- I love my bike 2 hours 26 min ago
Should looking good, with no wrinkles when worn by a mannequin or standing human, rather than in the cycling position be the aim? It's unlikely...
- Secret_squirrel 2 hours 27 min ago
The challenge I have with expensive cycle shorts is rather like a saddle you dont know whether the pad will suit you until its too late....
- leedorney 2 hours 48 min ago
I'm 52 and love cycling, it's only in the last 10/20yrs that roundabouts have been turned into 'straight roads', with lane discipline of military...
- Velo-drone 4 hours 46 min ago
I think you'll find that refugees most places are often very grateful for a bike....
- Keesvant 5 hours 59 min ago
Yes, i use a bolt v1 too....
Add new comment
42 comments
Isn't it illegal to reverse out of a driveway into a main road? And this one's complaining they can no longer do it "at speed" 🤦♂️
There aren't laws governing how people drive. It's all down to common sense.
I believe the Road Traffic Act 1988 disagrees with you.
Which is, ironically, very rare.
No it is not illegal to reverse out of a driveway onto a road if you do so considerately. In fact where I previously lived it was far more dangerous to try to stop two lanes of busy traffic to reverse in to the driveway. So it was safer to drive straight in and reverse out when you saw a gap in traffic flow. On a quiet road reversing in is easy and preferable.
It is generally discouraged, though - the default should be to reverse in if at all possible.
Plus (and I realise this is CoaB's turf here) the answer there shouldn't be to simply accept that reversing out is necessary, but not to mix up your roads and your streets in the first place. Find ways to reduce/slow traffic so that it is safe to reverse in.
Indeed, though this goes wider:
- reversing is generally significantly harder / "higher workload" for drivers themselves.
- probably partly for fundamental biomechanical reasons!
- most people spend most time driving forwards
- ... hence cars are set up for drivers to see most clearly forwards.
Then we consider: how do reversing drivers interact with other road users?
- if it's crossing other users paths when either party is moving at usual speed, that is a hazard.
- if reversing out of a drive or side road mutual visibility can be zero or very poor.
Other human factors:
- people do the easier thing, so on arriving somewhere tend to go in forwards (defer reversing to your future).
- (debatable) people setting off may be in more of a hurry than people arriving.
Conclusion: place designs which require drivers to reverse *at all* should be avoided!
Doubly so where this involves crossing the path of others. (Stopping on a road and reversing in is merely the least-worst option as the interaction with other *drivers* is safer eg. maximum visibility for drivers behind you when you reverse, maximum visibility for you when trying to pull out. It is *slightly* better for cyclists and pedestrians, probably)
I'd rate reversing into a space as much safer for cyclists and pedestrians as the driver should have a much greater view of the road/pavement than when they're already in a space (this applies to both typical parking spaces and driveways).
The exception to this is when a driver decides to pull out from a parking space (not so much a driveway) without indicating or looking sufficiently as they can do so fairly quickly and end up causing a hazard/colliion.
Yeah - only there may (currently) be other vehicles / street trees (we love them! Don't touch our trees!) to obscure vision.
Also we should be totally concentrating on where we're going but I think it's inevitable there will be some distraction from the presence of other drivers (on the road you're backing in from). That's your main *threat* as a motorist - the most salient thing in your world. Plus you're sat looking forward at them...
But fundamentally in most cases your view isn't great when going backwards, and the manoeuvre places a higher mental workload on drivers - which will overload some.
If it's just drivers parking on road space and not crossing others then things like echelon parking may be worth considering.
My thinking is that reversing restricts your view of the road and being in a driveway restricts your view of the road too. Reversing whilst being in a driveway would thus drastically reduce your view of the road/traffic/pavement, so I think it's always better to reverse into a driveway (combining reduced view due to reversing with a normal view of the road) and drive forwards to leave it (combining reduced view due to being in a driveway with normal frontwards view).
I agree - my point was reversing across anything is already a bad move.
Looking at how the other half live, in less dense urban areas people certainly have driveways in NL. And park in the "standard" manner eg. not the ideal way - they drive into them and reverse out (image - from the video).
Perhaps all the other differences make drivers' behaviour more careful so lead to acceptable risk? Those would be many:
- "monofunctional" roads / streets - it's obvious "where you are" and what behaviour is expected e.g. residential places are clearly marked. And where there's broad understanding and acceptance of this idea - which means the speed limits can be set low and people will accept that. Of course there are lots of infra cues like "klinkers" or street bricks etc. Plus there aren't high traffic volumes.
- The clear design which shows what "traffic" to expect where and who has priority. That's clearly not the crossing motor vehicles here.
- People are very used to seeing cyclists every day, everywhere. And probably cycle themselves, or their friends / relatives do.
"But we have street trees / obscured entrances"...
The solution is simplicity itself, you drive in forwards and then once on your own land you turn the car around by whatever means necessary so that you can drive out forwards. If you don't have space to do that you don't have space to park a car.
Or install a turntable.
Now that's what I'm talking about - it's an infra fix!
And as soon as Bob at number 7 has one, others will be installing theirs - so it's self-catalysing. Kids can play on them when they're not needed for parking, or you can turn your drying rack into a spinner... it's multi-functional.
Perhaps a budget version could be done with four kick-boards and a bit of grease?
You could get away with much less turning area required if you go for a Kakeya set
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-simple-math-moves-the-needle-20230929/
Where are Zebedee and Ermintrude when you want them?
I don't understand why it would be safer to do that. If you've got traffic behind you and you slow and stop to reverse into a space, why would that be dangerous? It often happens on busy roads when someone wants to pull into a parking space (whether reversing or not), so why is it different in your instance?
What about removing the bollards altogether and making the whole road open to all users as a public highway? Towing or lifting any vehicles whose drivers transgress the free and open nature of the road. That way both cyclists and drivers get maximum useage of the road with unrestricted access for offroad parking.
All that is needed is to stop drivers using the roadside, and the adjacent footway as their private parking space.
Double yellows with added loading restriction stripes could inform any commercial driver of their rights and responsibilities regarding deliveries; and if something requires a heavy lift (crane), council authority needs be sought before said vehicle stops for any extended period.
Yeah! Make it a Red Route, tear up the footway - heck, put some more lanes in. NSL for free flow - gotta keep that motor traffic capacity / that "reduced journey time" metric.
You can of course access property at any time ... that you can throw out the anchors and dive in before the truck behind runs into you.
Is your curb dropped? No, then you don't have a driveway and if a cycle lane is build past your house then tough luck. The rules on dropping curbs are frankly obserd as it is. I don't have a spot outside my house. I have to pay the council for the priviledge of parking in most places near my house. If I got a dropped curb though not only would I have the driveway but I would effectively reserve 2 spaces outside my house. How on earth does that make sense.
Perhaps if drivers could be even slightly trusted not to park in cycle lanes or come flying out of their "drives" without looking then we wouldn't need solid infrastructure to protect outselves.
But drivists do look. In the direction they need to look to shoot out into that gap. They also only look once they have driven over the pavement and poked out onto the road.
We're all missing the wider point here: a society where people feel compelled to tarmace over their garden in order to get to work has totally lost the plot.
Perhaps there's a compromise. Get rid of the bollards have a pick up doing regular rounds and towing ALL cars (and delivery vans) parked in the bike lane along with enforcing rules about dropped kerbs. Oh they don't want that either.
If you look at the second photo, there appears to be a driveway where someone has filled the gutter with concrete so the can drive in. The council have then placed a bollard slap bang in the middle because they have no right of access. How is the council not pointing that out?
I'd like to see the current law actually enforced - nick people for driving on the footway / cycle path *. With no excuse of "accessing property" if they haven't got dropped kerbs and formal access.
Surely all these people are law-abiding and don't e.g. just bang on about (imagined) rules which suit them and ignore the others? So it would be no problem, right?
* Except ... I'm not entirely sure I would, because that would easily chew up our entire current police and criminal justice system resources. If we could only get the worst of the mass motoring genie back in the bottle... (We can't do easily of course because those who profit from this are still spending billions keeping the system in place; never mind that our entire built environment has been remodelled by mass motoring - oh, and we've adopted it into culture also.)
"Got my (once, forever) licence, bought a car, paid 'road tax', now I get to drive and park anywhere I physically can - it's my right"
I think you could easily pass these offences to the councils (like other parking offences) and just fine them. It is the councils that are losing revenue because these homeowners are not applying for access it's only fair that they claim the revenue from the fines.
Councils don't seem terrible keen ... maybe eburtthebike can give us the insider view in why not?
Guessing something like "we see parking as something which people want something done about - but more in the opposite direction eg. more of it and for free. Due to this sentiment being widespread we find it more trouble than it's worth to implement really effective parking enforcement. "
Sadly, I'm District Council, and highways are County. But, with the new, extremely rushed and shallow Local Government Reorganisation, things will change: but probably not for the better.
How about getting rid of drop kerb applications for new residents. You chose to live in that house knowing about the parking situation. Take responsibility etc.
What? With that level of anti-democratic / anti-car prejudice you'll be suggesting that people can't even move in to a property with a single 1950s garage if they have several modern cars... (see Japan - although we almost certainly "can't get there from here" and there are more appropriate models for the UK closer to hand)
Pages