Chris Boardman video asks, Who Are Cycle Lanes For?

That road is just around the corner from me, so it really is just another cycle lane that happens to be close to Chris.

It's here by the way: http://goo.gl/maps/1jJke

Initialised wrote:

Simple design rule, if a road's left most lane is not wide enough for a car to safely pass a bike either widen (reducing wasted space in the middle or the right hand lane entirely if needed) it or drop the speed limit to 20mph. Then you don't really need cycle lanes.

Assuming all cyclists can maintain 20mph regardless of the gradient, and all drivers stick to the speed limit

pastryboy wrote:

Initialised wrote:

drop the speed limit to 20mph. Then you don't really need cycle lanes.

Have you tried cycling on a 20mph limit road?

I was looking at my speedo thinking am I being naughty for hovering around 21/22. I was overtaken repeatedly.

This is one of those occasions where the rules don't apply - no speed limit for bikes.

But that is a serious point. Cars believe they should be faster than bikes maybe because they are so used to it. They therefore feel as though they should be overtaking. I believe that bikes in a 20mph zone doing 20mph will cause cars to break the speed limit maybe even unwittingly.

My road is at the bottom of a long gentle slope. I often cross into the 30mph zone at at least 30mph - I'm often overtaken in the 30mph zone. The cars then brake quite hard as the 30mph flashing light thing lights up. I get the sense that they are judging their speed based upon mine.

I'd love to hear from the people who are actually responsible for the road designs that feature cyclepaths like this. Miles and miles of useless tarmac, signs and paint. Such a colossal waste of money. Often money that is earmarked by the government to specifically encourage cycling through improved facilities, and all it does most of the time is to make things far worse.

I'm surprised that councils get away with this.

DaxPlusPlus wrote:

meanredspider wrote:

Cars believe they should be faster than bikes

+1

Don't get me started on this subject.

+2

Hutch, in one of his CW columns says he was stopped by a policeman while out riding. The problem: he was doing 28mph in a 30mph zone. Apparently this meant "Cars would have to break the speed limit to overtake you".

Some drivers REALLY don't like being behind cyclists. I was overtaken 6 or 7 times by the same minibus this morning, each time with more revs and bluster. Each time I would overtake back at lights, junctions or just minor holdups, sometimes as much as a mile or so down the road. A couple of times he overtook as I slowed for red lights, where he would rev up to (I guess) about 6ooorpm in first gear and then swerve left across my path and perform an emergency stop. As we came into the busier section, around town, I knew I would overtake and not see him again, so I stopped behind him and drew a big gentleman sausage in the muck on his back door. Which made me feel mature and superior.

The vast majority of cycle lanes are designed by people who will never use them and have no idea how they work leading to a useless waste of money.
Usually just so some councillors can be seen to be doing something.

pangolin wrote:

Yup +3.

There are loads of areas in Richmond Park (20mph limit for everyone) where it's easy to be in the low 20's.

Get overtaken constantly.

Even lard-arses like me can get to 30 when needs must (or hills allow!) Coming into the Business Park where I work when I'm on the Madone I can top 30 without really trying and I get the odd idiot trying to get past. I had one guy nudging his nose past on the sweeping bend when I was holding north of 30, so I changed up a gear and accelerated - listening to his frantic braking when realised the roundabout was on him was very amusing....

I think it's a little worse than that. Councils are actively encouraged to build cycle lane into desgins or redeisgns of road layouts and junctions, they get government fundind to do it. Unfortunatly this often translates too "get the cyclist out of the way" resulting in the cycle lanes like the one in the video. What they should be tasked to do is make it easy, fast, safe and uninterupted. Perhaps the measurement should be made based on how many cyclist use the facility compared to those that don't. If I was on the road in the video I would go striaght on and round the roundabout. So run a study and look at how many cyclist use it and how many don't, the scheme should only be judge a success if close to 100% of cyclists perfer to use the facility.

There's one way to seriously improve the safety of not only cyclists on the road but other road users: improve driving standards.

It's shocking just how sh*te driving standards are. I'm seriously fed up of drivers getting aggressive because they think you should be on a cycle path or a foot way. Most drivers are too happy to shout about what people should be doing but either have totally forgotten what's written in the Highway Code and/or have never bothered reading the cycling section in there.

Even more shocking was a policeman I know insist that there is nothing in the Highway Code about cyclists!!

How about forcing driver to retake their tests every 5-10 years? That should take the crap drivers off the road.