"As a cyclist..." anti-LTN talkRadio rant; Bus driver pulls in on Jeremy Vine...but apparently it's the cyclist's fault; Peloton van blocks bike lane; Dowsett's Hour Record disappointment; Bike hangars, Valverde's final season + more on the live blog

welcome to the club I dont think you are wrong on this, people seem to lose the fact that you can express an honest opinion and its just your opinion that people are free to disagree with, as long as they debate respectfully with you, but there seems a competition to want to browbeat people into agreement all the time and unfortunately nuance and the subtlety of these things is lost as you get cast as either in the for or against camp, whereas most things are way more complex than that.

I don't recall people being anything other than polite to you.

The browbeating is normally with those with a clear history and MO or a recently joined poster who is being ' a bit controversial' .

I was certainly subjected to some direct & personal abuse earlier in the year by some individuals, which amounted to telling me to just leave,go away and take my opinions elsewhere,but not in so many words if you follow.

I dont know if those individuals accounts were then banned as they obviously broke the rules on swearing, but they were mostly infrequent contributors anyway so it's harder to tell. But I was more disappointed those posts then received several likes,so others certainly agreed with the sentiments even if they didnt post the words themselves.

And sometimes it feels like theres a mass pile on to be more argumentative than to debate, and some of it feels personal directed really at the person and not what the individual actually had said.

Sorry to read that. I usually remember stuff like that.

Pile ons occur for the 2 main reason given previously.

There is very little moderation, so it is a form of 'self moderation'. As I have said before other places have a flag button and you can give reasons why the post has broken rules. If we had that here, posters would get 2 or 3 warnings then a perma or they would decide to tone down their posts before getting a ban.

2 or 3 posters in here would not survive a week on somewhere like AVforums.

Let's put you in a different scenario then.  You're doing 65 in your car on the motorway, another car comes alongside you going 68, then indicates and moves in just in front of you to pull over at the junction, slowing down enough that you are forced to slow down and go around, but it's OK because the other driver has indicated.  That's OK then is it?  Or would it be better for the other car to slow down, pull in behind you and pull off without  any interaction with you?  And before you say "but that's different...", it really isn't.  The only difference is the road and the speeds, the interaction is identical.  

sapperadam wrote:

Let's put you in a different scenario then.  You're doing 65 in your car on the motorway, another car comes alongside you going 68, then indicates and moves in just in front of you to pull over at the junction, slowing down enough that you are forced to slow down and go around, but it's OK because the other driver has indicated.  That's OK then is it?  Or would it be better for the other car to slow down, pull in behind you and pull off without  any interaction with you?  And before you say "but that's different...", it really isn't.  The only difference is the road and the speeds, the interaction is identical.  

it is different because in this case the bus was NOT in front of Jeremy when it started moving in. So the analgy you make is more favourable to the overtaking driver, and still everyone would agree it isn't right.

I think your analysis of the facts is simply wrong.

The indicator is already on by 19secs on the clip, at the very latest, at which point the bus is still alongside and overtaking, not clear ahead.

So the bus is indicating to cut in in front of the cycle while in the act of overtaking.

that can't be allowed, surely?

Captain Badger wrote:

In fairness, many of the comments have JVs back

By the way, did I mention my 3000th post yesterday?

Did you have a little party?

hawkinspeter wrote:

....

Did you have a little party?

A quiet private affair.

Captain Badger wrote:

A quiet private affair.

As the bishop said to the actress

hawkinspeter wrote:

Captain Badger wrote:

A quiet private affair.

As the bishop said to the actress

That's my story and I'm sticking to it....

If you replace the bike with a car and imagine a similar situation of a vehicle overtaking just to immediately pull in and stop in front , would that be acceptable? I think most would say it is not.

squidgy wrote:

If you replace the bike with a car and imagine a similar situation of a vehicle overtaking just to immediately pull in and stop in front , would that be acceptable? I think most would say it is not.

The acid test is 'Would you have done that to a police motorbike?'

squidgy wrote:

If you replace the bike with a car and imagine a similar situation of a vehicle overtaking just to immediately pull in and stop in front , would that be acceptable? I think most would say it is not.

Indeed

squidgy wrote:

If you replace the bike with a car and imagine a similar situation of a vehicle overtaking just to immediately pull in and stop in front , would that be acceptable? I think most would say it is not.

But it wasn't a car it was bike, so it's alright. Why can't you see that? (tongue firmly in cheek).

iandusud wrote:

But it wasn't a car it was bike, so it's alright. Why can't you see that? (tongue firmly in cheek).

That is, essentially, what some of the commenters on the Twitter thread are saying, but without their tongue being in their cheek. They do genuinely seem to believe that because the cycle lane has ended (or at least is not marked at that point) and there is a bus stop, that the bicycle is required to give way to the bus in those circumstances. 

Thus ignoring the whole Highway Code inconvenience of not coming into conflict with other road users and not cutting in on vehicles on your left. 

Jetmans Dad wrote:

iandusud wrote:

But it wasn't a car it was bike, so it's alright. Why can't you see that? (tongue firmly in cheek).

That is, essentially, what some of the commenters on the Twitter thread are saying, but without their tongue being in their cheek. They do genuinely seem to believe that because the cycle lane has ended (or at least is not marked at that point) and there is a bus stop, that the bicycle is required to give way to the bus in those circumstances. 

Thus ignoring the whole Highway Code inconvenience of not coming into conflict with other road users and not cutting in on vehicles on your left. 

I'm not sure of the exact law on this but suspect you're right - that we have some magic where the cycle lane winks out of existence for the length of the bus stop. In my opinion the root causes of the problem here are:

• Poor infrastructure - this is a "protected" lane of the "do it at minimum extra cost and certainly without actually doing any digging" kind. Essentially self-contradictory (e.g. if needed it shouldn't be intermittent).
  TBH I consider ways of "fixing" these a waste of cash over just doing these properly.
• The "wavy markings" rule before pedestrian crossings just adds to the issues here. (Aside - the rules around those are peculiar and could do with a review).
• Lack of understanding by drivers of the "cycle lane is another lane".  This one is marked as a "mandatory cycle lane" so it definitely is. Maybe some refresher courses for drivers to keep them up-to-date would be a good idea...?