What makes you feel safe on the road?

philspeck

Hi everyone,

After recently completing a charity fundraiser, cycling 450 miles between the 3 Peaks and climbing them for Help for Heroes (http://climbandcycle.info), I became acutely aware of what situations I felt safest in and when I was most likely to err... fill my pants so to speak! I road may different types of road, with all different volumes and speed of traffic,
and surfaces.

It came after finding out that we had missed a sign saying no pedal bikes allowed on a section of dual carriage way near Hamilton, just South of Glasgow.

It was a brand new, smooth tarmac, dual carriage way. The lanes were wider than normal and to the left side was a rumble strip with an area that can be described as a perfect width for a person on a pedal bike! Then to the side of that a good run off grassed area. Car speed limit of 60mph.

This was the safest I'd felt on the whole ride. Cars were further away from me, I had my own lane in effect, I had a run off area. The road was smooth, so I wasn't dodging pot holes, drain covers, rocks, McDonalds food wrappers... etc... etc.. No erratic driving from me to scare car drivers.

Also, a biggy for me, no cars driving right up to my back wheel, overtaking close to me, often dangerously with cars coming in the other direction, and the drivers don't get road rage from being held up by a "slow" bike. Incidentally, you can go faster on a road that is smoother and has no pot holes.

Certainly safer than the 60mph lanes that you can ride once out of built up areas. where you have ride out in the middle of the road to avoid wrecking your wheels and ditching into the brambles where your gonna have your eye out! We all know cars still do over 60mph on narrow lanes, or country A roads.

Or even safer than some of the town roads where your dodging parked cars and the apparent blind people who pull out of side streets without looking, or the idiots at roundabouts (don't get me started on roundabouts, that's another story, for another day!)

So I ask the question - why were we "not allowed" on such a spacious road? Surely it couldn't be because of the speed? or lack of space? This was what I was told when stopped by the highway maintenance guy. In a genuine conversation with him, we pointed out we ride on smaller roads with less space and with people doing greater speeds.

Or maybe its just me. Maybe space makes me feel safe.

What do you guys reckon? What makes you feel safe? Is it big, wide dual carriage ways with a lane at the side suitable for a bike? Or do you feel safer on the narrow lanes that we often find ourselves on with cars driving on our back wheel waiting to overtake us?

Let us know what you think... and take part in the poll (if i added correctly!)

Phil

Wirral_paul

I feel safest out in the countryside, but would suspect that this would be the most likely place to get seriously hurt / killed proportionally in the event of an accident (higher speeds etc).

Towns / cities must have by far the most accidents though (just lower speed generally)

anto164

Country A & B roads. Even though these roads sees traffic overtaking you ina stupid fashion.

Only as wide DC's mean super fast traffic and lorries, and town and city riding means traffic and no one checking their blindspot, so more likelyhood of getting knocked off.

desweller

I find that I feel safest if I adopt an assertive riding style, whatever the road. I prefer country roads; round here people generally give quite a lot of room.

For me the worst environment would be urban riding; there's just so much for everyone to look out for, the probability of not being seen by a driver (or even another cyclist or pedestrian) is very high.

philspeck

Last week, i was clipped 3 times on country roads, on the DC, traffic on inside lane near to me seemed (and i mean seemed) to be no faster, i.e. all the fast cars etc were on the outside.

I guess its a bit like cars stats for motorways v A & B roads. On average, in a car your 3 times more likely to have an accident on A & B roads, but, on a motorway its likely to 3 times as worse...

sungod

i feel safest when there's a police car or motorcycle behind me, it has an astounding effect on driver behaviour

had some excellent drafts off police bikes too :-)

otherwise, smooth wide roads, with no parked cars and no blind sideroads are good, there's room for me, and less distraction for drivers

neilo23

I feel safer not living in Britain. Don't get all the idiots shouting abuse at you.

Thebigbee

Sorry - I can't vote for any of the options because they all seem quite dangerous. I feel the safest on country B roads where the roads are super smooth and you will perhaps get 5 cars an hour driving past you.

Country A roads usually have a 60 mph speed limit as do dual carriage ways so I don't feel safe on either of them.

IMO a poor poll.

Thebigbee

Wirral_Paul wrote:

I feel safest out in the countryside, but would suspect that this would be the most likely place to get seriously hurt / killed proportionally in the event of an accident (higher speeds etc).

Towns / cities must have by far the most accidents though (just lower speed generally)

Do you mean there is more chance of a hit and run if some muppet knocks you off your bike with no witnesses? LOL

philspeck

Thebigbee wrote:

Sorry - I can't vote for any of the options because they all seem quite dangerous. I feel the safest on country B roads where the roads are super smooth and you will perhaps get 5 cars an hour driving past you.

Country A roads usually have a 60 mph speed limit as do dual carriage ways so I don't feel safe on either of them.

IMO a poor poll.

The majority of B roads are 60mph limits, I suppose you could argue that A and B should be separate in the poll, but IMO opinion there is often very little difference, and surfaces on B roads are considerably poorer than A roads, as they receive the most funding for repair.

I feel that all types of roads in our country could be classed as seriously dangerous, so why suddenly say we can't ride another section of road where we are at no more risk than if in the city or on A and B roads.

The motorway is not in question here.

I think the point is, we should be allowed on these types of road, and if you don't feel safe on such a road (whatever it may be) then you choose not to ride it.

There is a large A road near me, DC, but I wouldn't ride that particular one. Yet last week in 450 miles of riding I felt safest on a stretch of DC. A bus tried to drown me in lake windermere, twice, a day or so before!

andy46

Country A and B roads round here are pretty quiet if you know which ones to go on and at what time of day.

coman1985

i never feel safe till im on my local a road there is a stretch of road for about 12 miles dead flat local bike club use it for tt but the good thing is it has a 3 foot tarmac white line then the lane both sides yet on a country road i have vans and tractors smashing past me