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Joined 11 months ago
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Cake day: July 24th, 2023

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  • If you are saying that you support the construction of comprehensive segregated cycle paths then I am very much on your side.

    Yes they can have their lane

    It would be nice if motorists also kept to their lane, then. Too often I find my cycle lanes blocked by drivers who feel that the road was"entirely built entirely by motorists for motorists". I would also be happy to keep to my lane if it always existed. As it is, a lot of the time I’m left with no other choice but to join with the motor traffic as the cycle lanes just stop existing. In the UK it’s illegal to ride on the pavement, and I’m sure you wouldn’t want me to become another cyclist who just ignores the law for his own benefit?

    It’s also important to note here that the UK now has the Hierarchy of Road Users, which explicitly states that the more vulnerable the road user, the more priority they should be given. Pedestrians have top priority, followed by horses, followed by cyclists, and then with motorised traffic at the bottom. It’s a very new development, and one that I don’t think has been tested in law yet, but it’s there in our Highway Code.



  • As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, in the UK (which is where this image seems to be from), the “safe” passing distance for a car overtaking a bike is supposed to be 1.5m. Add that to the 0.5m minimum distance the cyclist is supposed to be from the kerb and the width of the cyclist themselves, and overtaking even a single cyclist should have the car almost entirely in the other lane anyway (UK lanes are typically narrower than their US counterparts).

    Whether anyone actually follows those rules is another question, but that is how motorists are supposed to behave.

    It is also written into our Highway Code that motorists should “give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders and horse drawn vehicles at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car”


  • The image appears to be from the UK. Here in the UK cyclists are supposed to stay at least 0.5m from the kerb, with a recommendation for more distance if possible (rule 72 of the Highway Code). Cars are supposed to keep at least 1.5m away from cyclists when overtaking (rule 163). Taking an average cyclist width of 60cm (some handlebars go much wider than that, as might pannier bags, but let’s use that as an average), that means a single cyclist should have control of ~2.6m of the lane at least.

    Let’s say that the average lane on urban roads in the UK are around 3m wide (an estimate based on a quick google, not a rule), this means a legal overtake of a cyclist should have the car leaving no more than 40cm of the car in the lane. It’s not a big jump from that to moving entirely into the other lane.

    Admittedly almost no one in the UK actually follows these rules, but this is how it’s supposed to be. Given that, adding another cyclist riding abreast shouldn’t affect overtaking time significantly, whereas the two cyclists riding in line will double the amount of time in the oncoming lane.






  • My city has been stuck trying to expand its tram system for decades at this point, but whenever I mention that we could introduc trolley buses instead people look at me like I’m crazy!

    They just make so much sense for our use case. We’re a hilly city, so the rubber tyres are more suitable than steel on steel, the routes they want to build on don’t really have the space for separated infrastructure, so having buses that can run on the roads will be less disruptive, and by not having to install rails they’re a lot cheaper too.







  • This reminds me of two recent posts that I got involved in here.

    The first was about Wales’ upcoming 20mph zone, where people were complaining that “they’re just trying to generate revenue”. Well, only if you decide to break the law, surely?

    The other was a discussion on the cyclists who were “caught” speeding in Devon. Drivers were outraged and wanted cyclists to adhere to the speed limits (good luck without a speedometer). But they would get apoplectic when you suggested that they should do the same.

    As a cyclist it always strikes me that we probably don’t need any new laws to make the roads safe, we just need the current laws to be enforced and obeyed. If every driver gave every cyclist 1.5m of space, priority at junctions, kept out of the cycle lanes, etc. as they’resupposed to then the roads would be a lovely place to cycle.