UK Politics: Testing, testing, one two free

[dog-days]

20 minutes ago, A wilding said:

UK bike lanes are often white lines semi randomly scattered about on roads at the behest of local councillors who have never ridden a bike in their lives but want to boast about their "cycle friendly policies". These tend to be death traps that have cars parked in them, are widely ignored by other road users, and disappear whenever they would actually be useful (i.e. when the road narrows or at road junctions). Such bike lanes are often best ignored.

(To be fair, not all are like that, there are some good ones about.)

Yes, all too true. I think things are slowly improving, but there are still a heck of a lot of awful lanes out there. Narrow ones full of pot holes that try and get you to ride over deep-set uneven gutters; ones with the parked vehicles A wilding mentions that force cyclists out into the traffic flow - it would be safer just staying in the flow from the start. 

Until recently in my hometown there was a lane that took cyclists out into the midpoint of a busy bridge, and then stopped. Just disappeared. That one's changed now thankfully. 

I've seen so many dangerous or pointless ones that I distrust them automatically, unless I've researched it first. 

[Which Tyler]

2 hours ago, mormont said:

Most of the complaints seem to be about clarifying things that were in the rules anyway but the people complaining had never bothered to read the existing rules so they assume these are radical changes. It's a scenario familiar to every update to refereeing guidance in football.

Others involve recognising that a car is a potentially lethal weapon that needs to be handled with a great deal of care for other road users and that accidents can happen to anyone, without the 'but not me 'cos I'm a really good driver and I'm in a hurry' qualifier that so many drivers insert mentally when they're behind the wheel. I can see why those are unpopular with some.

Just drive responsibly, people. There's not a thing in there that should cause you an issue if you do that.

Also, I knew about these changes weeks ago. There was a publicity campaign in the press, on Twitter, everything.

Yep, it's not exactly news that if you're in a car, and you can see someone in the road in front of you - try not to hit them.

Also, I thought this "uproar" was all over and done with by the new year? IIRC these changes were announced in the summer, and then noticed by people just before new year when they were due to come into force.

[Pebble thats Stubby]

The Problem with putting cycle lanes on British roads is most of our roads are narrow and don't have room to expand.

Often our roads are just 2 lanes one of which is the traffic coming in the opposite direction.

Occasionally we might have a pavement wide enough to put a lane on and still allow pedestrians.   although normally this won't be for very far at all before there is a Tree or Bus shelter blocking things.

 

In places where you can take a lane off the car drivers this then increases congestion as the cars are forced onto less road. making motorists hate cyclists.   where as before you might of had a lane of mostly parked cars these cars now have nowhere to safely park and lack on enforcement means a lot of them still park in the new cycle lanes, and makes the cycle lanes unusable forcing the cyclist into the car lane and causing the car drivers to hate the cyclists even more.  

Even if you do get a decent cycle lane most of these don't link up to each other.

 

In other places there are no cycle lanes and often not even a pavement.

[Heartofice]

In an ideal world we would totally redesign our towns and cities to be less centred around cars. Right now, as above, our roads are too narrow and it seems like there has been an explosion in car ownership, because most roads are reduced to almost one lane by cars parked on either side. 

I don't know why anyone would want to risk their lives cycling in cities. I would love to be able to cycle to work, but no chance, you are putting your life in your hands and the roads are simply not designed for both cars and bicycles, even with bike lanes. 

[dog-days]

It does depend somewhat on the city and where you are in it. I spent a year cycling safely to work across the southern suburbs of Birmingham using quieter lanes and paths through parks - I didn't use any official on-road cycle lanes. 

Cardiff was much more difficult - partly because I had to make my way through the busiest part of town, partly because the east-west connections are terrible there. The one good thing about cycle commuting in Cardiff is that it's hard to get run over by a car that's sitting in a traffic jam. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, A wilding said:

UK bike lanes are often white lines semi randomly scattered about on roads at the behest of local councillors who have never ridden a bike in their lives but want to boast about their "cycle friendly policies". These tend to be death traps that have cars parked in them, are widely ignored by other road users, and disappear whenever they would actually be useful (i.e. when the road narrows or at road junctions). Such bike lanes are often best ignored.

(To be fair, not all are like that, there are some good ones about.)

Funny localish news item from last week or so, at least to me it was funny.

During corona quite a few municipalities cut off parts of the road and made temporary bike lanes out of it. One car user (a judge on top) wasn't too impressed with this and sued the city of Hannover over one road with such a bike lane. He won his case, because the new bikelanes did not meet some standards. The city did not appeal the decission, but took another route instead. They basically did away with parking spots in the street in question, and used that space to make a perfectly legal bike lane. Presumably not the outcome the plaintiff had in mind. With the typical wailing from the usual suspects about the poor people living there now losing their parking spots. 

[BigFatCoward]

19 minutes ago, Heartofice said:

I don't know why anyone would want to risk their lives cycling in cities. I would love to be able to cycle to work, but no chance, you are putting your life in your hands and the roads are simply not designed for both cars and bicycles, even with bike lanes. 

It's dangerous but not prohibitively so. I've been doing 125-150 miles a week in London (Bounds Green to Earls Court then Wembley to Marylebone) for 10 years and I've had one accident. 

The only change I see is in future roads will have so much more space because people won't need to own cars, they will call a self driving one. And presumably AI in these cars will be a lot better than the average British citizen at driving. 

[Spockydog]

27 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Bounds Green to Earls Court

*nearly chokes on coffee*

WHAT? How long did that take?

[Fragile Bird]

11 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

*nearly chokes on coffee*

WHAT? How long did that take?

Geez, if he’s cycling at least 125 miles a week, no wonder he drinks so much beer on the weekend.

[BigFatCoward]

14 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

*nearly chokes on coffee*

WHAT? How long did that take?

Exactly the same amount of time as the picadilly line tube. About 55 mins door to door. 

[Spockydog]

13 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Exactly the same amount of time as the picadilly line tube. About 55 mins door to door. 

That's pretty impressive (and probably quite scary). 

[Denvek]

4 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Not in the UK… but… why have dedicated “bike lanes” if cyclists aren’t required to use those dedicated lanes?

Because sometimes it's safer not to.

[BigFatCoward]

https://www.itv.com/news/2022-01-24/boris-johnson-had-birthday-bash-during-lockdown-itv-news-understands

Nail in the coffin? 

[Spockydog]

2 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

https://www.itv.com/news/2022-01-24/boris-johnson-had-birthday-bash-during-lockdown-itv-news-understands

Nail in the coffin? 

Probably not. Surprise parties do not count. Or some shit. 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

Presumably if it was a surprise, no one told him that it was a party. Pretty watertight defence I’d say.

[BigFatCoward]

5 minutes ago, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

Presumably if it was a surprise, no one told him that it was a party. Pretty watertight defence I’d say.

Not once he stayed. 

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Not in the UK… but… why have dedicated “bike lanes” if cyclists aren’t required to use those dedicated lanes?

I wonder that every single day, every moment I go out, attempting to walk anywhere on the sidewalks where bicycles, unless little children's bikes with training wheels accompanied by a parent, motorbikes, scooters, skateboarders, motorcycles, are prohibited, yet, here I am outnumbered by them all, just as none of them pay attention to any other traffic rules such as red lights, the correct lane, one way streets, etc. Most of them swearing at me to get the eff out of their way and watch where I'm going, as I attempt to cross at the corner, in the pedestrian walkway, with the Walk sign.  I hate all of them.

[Spockydog]

The interior designer got an invite, so there goes the 'it was a work event' defence. 

[Stannis Eats No Peaches]

9 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Not once he stayed. 

Uhhh he was so shocked at the surprise that he was stunned to the point of not being able to move?

[BigFatCoward]

Just now, Stannis Eats No Peaches said:

Uhhh he was so shocked at the surprise that he was stunned to the point of not being able to move?

And just stood there wobbling his head and spluttering for 15 minutes.