Front door cam captures moment driver rear-ended cyclist; Which makes more sense? City cyclists stream past SUV; King G; Celebrity Cycling Champion Chart; Fixie feline; Bike tattoos; 'Allez Opi-Omi' debate; BikeisBest ad; New kit + more on the live blog

hirsute wrote:

And all they got was a course.

No wonder I am losing my faith in the Police.

Pretty brief course, I imagine.

"Do not ram your car into other road users, m'kay? Now, consider yourself told off and go drive home."

He actually tries to pass through the pinch point, which is what my WTF is about. 

Then his honk is in response to that, 

I wonder, if in the heat of the moment you twated the driver, that you too would have been similarly sent to a 'Driver Awareness Course'.

IanMK wrote:

I missed this one from a couple of days ago:

https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/13/council-mocked-for-ridiculously-short-cyc...

was it discussed already?

It seems to be another one of those junctions where the Roundabout is ignored.

The picture caption annoys me.  No, the cyclist is not "confused by the markings" - they are riding sensibly, taking primary position to avoid a dangerous overtake on a roundabout.  A dangerous maneouvre that the cycle lane could encourage.

I suspect that the cycle lane was put in place to attempt to slow cars down rather than for cyclists to actually use. If you look that head on photo of the red car, based on tyre marks it look like a lot of cars do not go to the left of the roundabout suggesting they are taking it at speed.

"...many wondering whether they had been saddled with Britain’s – and possibly the world’s – smallest cycle lane."

Er, no - sadly, not even close.

I might join it turning left but I would never join at the beginning.

Another suicide strip.

"Nottinghamshire County Council insisting that the Stapleford instalment is ‘not a cycle lane but new road markings’."

I agree. Anything just marked with paint and/or coloured tarmac is NOT a cycle lane or cycling infrastructure, it's just road markings.

I posted this in reply to the article:

"Nottinghamshire County Council insisting that the Stapleford instalment is ‘not a cycle lane but new road markings’."

The council are correct - anything marked with paint or coloured tarmac but not physically separate from cars is NOT a bike lane or cycling infrastructure, it's just road markings.

At best these road markings achieve nothing, at worst they make the roads more dangerous.

In this case, as the third pic shows they make the road MORE dangerous. Drivers rarely stop behind the give way lines, so encouraging cyclists to cycle close to them is a bad idea. At a junction cyclists should move out into the middle of a lane (taking "primary position"), these road markings discourage cyclists from doing so and and cyclist not in the dangerous lane with annoy drivers who think there's a cycle lane that they should be in.

" advisory lanes increased injury odds by 34%. Junctions were found to increase injury odds threefold"

They've taken an already dangerous junction and made it MORE dangerous.

Threefold, plus 34% means that junction is now 4 times more dangerous than the road leading up to it.

https://findingspress.org/article/18226-cycling-injury-risk-in-london-im...

I got close passed by a car yesterday. I call on all drivers to call out this kind of behaviour. It gives every single driver a bad name. It's imperative that we call out drivers who flout traffic laws by publicly denouncing their antisocial and reckless deeds.

A man from our town, who was born under the Aquarius star sign, was recently convicted of fraud. I call on all people with an Aquarius star sign to call out this kind of behaviour. It gives every singe Aquarius a bad name. It's imperative that we call out all Aquarius  who flout laws by publicly denouncing their antisocial and reckless deeds.

No - the lesson from that is that there are some areas of life where collective responsibility is deemed acceptable, and some where there isn't. For some reason, cyclists are collectively repsonsible for the behaviour of complete strangers who happen to be on a bike. For some reason, drivers are not responsible for the behaviour of complete strangers who also happen to be driving a car. And for some reason, I am not responsible for the crimes fo people who might happen to have the same star sign.

If you think that cyclists are such a great danger that they warrant collective repsonsibility, but drivers aren't, then I have a massive file fo Department for Transport accident statistics for you.

Except drivers who break the law are not the exception.  https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/vehicle-speed-compliance-statis...

"In April to June 2021, 51% of cars in free-flowing conditions exceeded the speed limit on motorways. On National Speed Limit (NSL) single carriageways with a car speed limit of 60mph, 11% of cars exceeded the speed limit, while on 30 mph roads, 53% of cars exceeded the speed limit."

The severity of the issue in that Mail article is summed up by the headline.  The rule breaking by these cyclists "irritates" drivers.  Not endangers them, or actually affect them in any way other than "irritates" them.  If the article was framed from the perspective of the pedestrians, I'd have much more sympathy for it.

I am not, in any way, justifying red light jumping.  I am just baffled why once again you come on to a cycling website apparently for no reason other than to pick an argument with cyclists.

Do you drive?  Are you going on to motoring websites asking for all motorists to call out any motorists who break the speed limit?

Nigel Garrage wrote:

I'm a cyclist who obeys the law. If I see a red light, I stop. I'm not picking an argument with other cyclists, I'm picking an argument with cyclists who think it's fair game to cycle straight through red lights.

That's a lie. You've seen one video of 16 cyclists on the Daily Mail (specifically chosen by them because it was the worst one they could find) and you have stated that this one video represents the vast majority of cyclists, an assertion for which you have no evidence whatsoever. 

So again, you're lying. In truth you are picking an argument with other cyclists, not just cyclists who think it ok to cycle through red lights. You are doing it with weasel words - a classic trolling technique to allow you to knowingly make inflammatory statements while having enough deniability to allow you to continue to claim the moral high ground. You are doing that because you are a rude and anti-social individual who enjoys trying to make complete strangers feel bad.

What's that about?

Wingguy wrote:

That's a lie. You've seen one video of 16 cyclists on the Daily Mail (specifically chosen by them because it was the worst one they could find) and you have stated that this one video represents the vast majority of cyclists, an assertion for which you have no evidence whatsoever. 

So again, you're lying. In truth you are picking an argument with other cyclists, not just cyclists who think it ok to cycle through red lights. You are doing it with weasel words - a classic trolling technique to allow you to knowingly make inflammatory statements while having enough deniability to allow you to continue to claim the moral high ground. You are doing that because you are a rude and anti-social individual who enjoys trying to make complete strangers feel bad.

What's that about?

It's classic attention seeking behaviour. They have difficulty getting the attention they seek in real life (probably because they're a bit of an arsehole) and so post rubbish here to at least get some response even if it's negative - to them it feels like a rewarding discussion.

You forgot your pic

hirsute wrote:

You forgot your pic

Thanks - I knew I'd left it somewhere

I cycle and drive. I stop at red lights, whether on bike or in car. Yesterday, I saw a driver go through two set of red lights (there's a oedestrian crossing at a roundabout, with lights of the crossing, immediately followed by lighs for the roundabout). He actually sped up to go through them. Does that mean that he gives me a bad name as a driver? This isn't a rare occurrence either. At almost every set of lights I come to, I'll see drivers speed up to get through on amber, even though they should be slowing to stop.

Beatnik69 wrote:

I cycle and drive. I stop at red lights, whether on bike or in car. Yesterday, I saw a driver go through two set of red lights (there's a oedestrian crossing at a roundabout, with lights of the crossing, immediately followed by lighs for the roundabout). He actually sped up to go through them. Does that mean that he gives me a bad name as a driver? This isn't a rare occurrence either. At almost every set of lights I come to, I'll see drivers speed up to get through on amber, even though they should be slowing to stop.

Red light jumping is at epidemic proportions... amongst car drivers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_aDmDAbpA8

Out of my bedrom window I can see a junction with traffic lights and you only have to watch a few sequence of the lights before you see a motor vehicle going through on red. In fact once one goes through a whole string of them will follow.

Same goes for the local light controlled crossings, you literally have to force your way across the road at times as many drivers will not stop on the red light unless absolutely necessary

Red light jumping is normalised and completely acceptable for motor vehicles around here in my experience but of course the Daily Mail readers have no interest in these facts.

I see far more motor vehicles running a red light than I do cyclists when I am out and about - FACT.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

The simple fact is that you won't see it - you might see people running amber or just-red lights (which is unfortunately normalised amongst motorists), but you wouldn't see countless hordes of them nonchalantly floating through the junction as though traffic lights don't exist.

Or, to interpret correctly:

Quote:

The simple fact is that you won't see it - you might see it, but you won't see it.

The fact is that the offence is failing to comply with traffic signals, and it is just as much a breach for a motorist to roll into the ASL on red as it is to continue through the junction (of which we have all seen motorised examples, of course).

Of course, when a car does go through the junction on red, it does not 'float'; it goes through with considerable [mass x velocity].  And there are countless videos on YouTube or similar of cars doing just that.  If you haven't seen them, you clearly don't waste your time in enough places other than here.  It's just that people don't pay attention to campaigns against that sort of thing, because cars are normal and everywhere, whereas cyclists are just 'in my way'/'in my newspaper'; so it's just an idiot who happens to be in a car, not a 'lycra clad idiot like all cyclists'.

There is also a video out there which shows just that. It is at a junction near Marleybone station where one car goes through on Red and then multiple other ones just go through before a car about 6-7 back in the flow stops correctly. The lights then go green which shows they were working. 

And energy of 1/2 m v2

Nigel Garrage wrote:

OK, my challenge to you then is to take a video, post it on YouTube or similar and share it here of similar behaviour by drivers to those cyclists.

The simple fact is that you won't see it - you might see people running amber or just-red lights (which is unfortunately normalised amongst motorists), but you wouldn't see countless hordes of them nonchalantly floating through the junction as though traffic lights don't exist.

So Nigel, are you claiming it is only RLJing that concerns you or do all types of illegal, careless and dangerous road use count?

I ask because I've just finished a (planned) 4 hour motorway journey and when traffic was freely moving I don't think there was a single second I couldn't see at least one person driving poorly or illegally. Speeding, lane hogging, undertaking, forcing lane changes, lane changes without indication and (my personal favourite because it has such major consequences) rampant tailgating. Serious, continuous, high speed tailgating absolutely everywhere. For that reason alone I think there was more time that every single person I could see was driving badly than when a minority of people were. 

And keep in mind those are just visible instances - I have no idea how many drivers were distracted by phones, setting GPSs, playing with MFDs or plain watching TV, just like I have no idea how many were driving with cars and tyres in an illegally poor condition. So when you say that bad drivers are the exception I just have to laugh. I don't know what country you live in where that is the case but it is not the UK.

I say a planned 4 hour journey, it ended up being a 5 1/2 hour journey due to the M6 being completely closed  (probably until late tonight) and tailed back for miles because of a car crash with serious injuries. Do you think that just randomly happened, or was it a direct consequence of the widespread bad driving I just talked about? Talking of consequences, aside from the human cost what is the economic cost of a major motorway shutdown? What is the impact on an HGV supply chain we know is currently stretched to breaking point? How does the human and financial cost of every single cyclist RLJ for an entire year stack up against this one single vehicle crash out of the many that happen every single day?

If you want to persist in this Sisyphus method at least spare the rest of us from using quote.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

I'm not picking an argument with other cyclists, I'm picking an argument with cyclists who think it's fair game to cycle straight through red lights.

I think you're in the wrong place then. I have not seen a single post on this site condoning cyclists jumping red lights. Perhaps you should visit the forum at lawbreakingcyclists.cc to continue your trolling.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

Plenty of people here not only condone jumping red lights but actively encourage it of others.

Have you got any examples? I've seen comments suggesting that it is less dangerous to other road users than a car jumping a red light but that is a long way short of condoning, let alone encouraging, such behaviour.

Nigel Garrage wrote:

GrandTourer wrote:

I think you're in the wrong place then. I have not seen a single post on this site condoning cyclists jumping red lights. Perhaps you should visit the forum at lawbreakingcyclists.cc to continue your trolling.

I think you haven't been paying attention then. Plenty of people here not only condone jumping red lights but actively encourage it of others. But I'm glad the majority are with me.

What about red lights, working on a sensor rather than a timer, which do not react to the presence of cyclists.

should cyclists

a) treat the red light as give way and proceed with caution

b) wait for however long it takes for a responsible motorist to see them safely across the junction

c) turn around and find another route?

wycombewheeler wrote:

What about red lights, working on a sensor rather than a timer, which do not react to the presence of cyclists.

should cyclists

a) treat the red light as give way and proceed with caution

b) wait for however long it takes for a responsible motorist to see them safely across the junction

c) turn around and find another route?

The modern standard for traffic lights is that they should respond to all vehicles, including cyclists. Find out how to report faulty signals to the local highways authority (sometimes this is delegated or outsourced to a separate traffic control organisation), and report it if you find yourself hung out to dry in a junction with sensor-based phases.  Do that repeatedly if the problem repeats.  Encourage others to do the same, and escalate via your local councillors.

In the meantime,

d) once you have established, through your knowledge of the phasing of those signals that they have failed to sense you, you might consider them not to be "working".  In that case, you might choose to invoke the last sentence of rule 176 of the Highway Code.  However, while you might have a legal defence, the civil liability would remain with you to give way at least as much as you would with an unmarked junction, especially as you will be aware that other directions will have green signals.

The definition of 'not working' may be contentious.  Stuck on red:  the lamp is working, but the traffic management is not.  when reporting the fault, I'd be sure to express your intention to interpret subsequent failed/undetected phases as 'not working' for your understanding of rule 176.

You might get some guff back from them about riding over the 'sweet spot' of where induction loop wires meet.  I'd reject that back to them: it is not you job on a bike to weave around trying to find where their system works.  If it doesn't work they should fix it: that might be a retune of the loop system; it may be some works to replace components... neither is your problem.