Cyclists on the road...

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Paddy O'Dors said:
You have to pass a test to drive a car but that's no guarantee that the driver isn't gonna be a twat when he/she has his/her licence. The same would apply to cyclists.

Where does this "passing a cycling test" sit if you already have a full driving licence? It would seem a bit stupid if I have a licence to drive a HGV but had to pass another test to ride a bike. What is this test gonna teach me? Would it apply to kids?
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That is one of the key bits. I think of where I grew up in Blackfell. Our street was basically one road with 6 small cul-de-sacs coming off it. We would bike around the streets and the paths cutting through to other streets. If we saw a car, it would be going fairly slowly and we would just move to the side. Same thing if someone was walking down one of the paths, we would just move aside. It seemed that all summer long we were playing outside with a lot of that racing around on bikes, and I can't remember anything that you would class as unsafe. As the area was pretty safe traffic wise, all our parents were happy.

However, those streets were public highways so if a test law came in, we would have been breaking the law. Are you really going to test kids at the age of 6?

I cycle to school with the kids and have done for a few years. I cycle behind my daughter calling instructions and we also give her a fair bit of tuition before we started heading onto roads.

Any test would stop these sorts of things and keep kids from going out on bikes. I just don't think the scale of the problem is large enough to start having a formal test. People say "but some cyclists go through red lights". Well so do cars and I'm pretty sure those cyclists know going through a red light is not allowed. It is the most widely known rule of the road. Teach cycle road safety at school and make resources available to parents to help teach their kids at home, but otherwise I don't think there is a problem to be solved there.
 
Effrafax said:
Cyclists are wankers, i always get as close as possible and try and make them wobble like the wobbly ***** they are
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Oddly enough, when I was cycling in London I found that wobbling was the best defence against car and van drivers.

If I cycled without a helmet that would pass within a foot of me. If I wore a helmet, then they would pass within six inches of me. But if I wobbled whilst I cycled, then they'd leave at least a yard clear as they passed me for fear that I might scratch their bodywork.
 
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DaveH said:
That is one of the key bits. I think of where I grew up in Blackfell. Our street was basically one road with 6 small cul-de-sacs coming off it. We would bike around the streets and the paths cutting through to other streets. If we saw a car, it would be going fairly slowly and we would just move to the side. Same thing if someone was walking down one of the paths, we would just move aside. It seemed that all summer long we were playing outside with a lot of that racing around on bikes, and I can't remember anything that you would class as unsafe. As the area was pretty safe traffic wise, all our parents were happy.

However, those streets were public highways so if a test law came in, we would have been breaking the law. Are you really going to test kids at the age of 6?

I cycle to school with the kids and have done for a few years. I cycle behind my daughter calling instructions and we also give her a fair bit of tuition before we started heading onto roads.

Any test would stop these sorts of things and keep kids from going out on bikes. I just don't think the scale of the problem is large enough to start having a formal test. People say "but some cyclists go through red lights". Well so do cars and I'm pretty sure those cyclists know going through a red light is not allowed. It is the most widely known rule of the road. Teach cycle road safety at school and make resources available to parents to help teach their kids at home, but otherwise I don't think there is a problem to be solved there.
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Do kids still do the cycling proficiency test or does it no longer exist? I think we did it in the final year of infant school. Three days, I think of training, then a test day. When it came to the test, it was raining really heavily so we had to do it in the school hall, walking about with our hands in front of us as if we were holding handlebars, sticking our arms out to turn left or right, taking care to glance behind us etc.
 
jamieboy said:
if some twat on a bike nearly smashes my side mirror, and just looks at me like im stupid and keeps on riding while mouthing off at me hes getting f***ing swilled marra. and theres nowt wrong with a brew on a morning in a van. so fuck off
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Your side mirror!?!

Were you driving 'your' van at the time, like?
 
Arkle said:
Do kids still do the cycling proficiency test or does it no longer exist? I think we did it in the final year of infant school. Three days, I think of training, then a test day. When it came to the test, it was raining really heavily so we had to do it in the school hall, walking about with our hands in front of us as if we were holding handlebars, sticking our arms out to turn left or right, taking care to glance behind us etc.
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They still do them aye. I believe Sustrans have a hand in shaping the course.
 
monkeytassle said:
Have you seen the damage a bike can do to a car? Because the answer is not very much. Ans not much more than a pedestrian
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Except that a bike has more pointy metallic bits that might scratch the car's precious bodywork ...

HellsBells said:
I'd argue that, given we have one of the worst pollution problems in the world (worse than Beijing, by all accounts), the congestion charge isn't dealing with the cars enough. We need to persuade people to leave cars out of London. Part of that is the Charge, part public transport, part is improving walking conditions and part is improving cycling.
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Say what?!?
 
Eddie Hitler said:
Well if you want some little old dear or a boy racer, who is generally shit at driving anyway, bump into you you have no one to blame but yourselves.

Its dangerous as fuck
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There's no danger in riding two abreast, the danger presents itself when you get impatient drivers forcing there way through a gap that's nots suitable. There's a general belief amongst some drivers that they take priority over cyclists on the roads which simply isn't true.
 
Randy Bareback said:
There's no danger in riding two abreast, the danger presents itself when you get impatient drivers forcing there way through a gap that's nots suitable. There's a general belief amongst some drivers that they take priority over cyclists on the roads which simply isn't true.
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Totally agree with everything you mentioned mate.

My argument is, there is too many idiots and shit driver's on the road for it to be safe.
 
Randy Bareback said:
There's no danger in riding two abreast, the danger presents itself when you get impatient drivers forcing there way through a gap that's nots suitable. There's a general belief amongst some drivers that they take priority over cyclists on the roads which simply isn't true.
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And what worries me is that if you read this form (a cyclist thread comes up every 2-3 weeks), comments on news media and a number of other forums, "They should pay road tax", "they need a licence and insurance", "they are wankers", "should be banned on roads", seems to be a valid excuse for dangerous driving and putting lives at risk. There seems to be a huge proportion of the population are happy with the fact that their driving could kill or seriously injure someone and the above statements justify the risks they take. One is an opinion and the other three are laws which exist but they don't happen to agree with.

I really like the idea someone had on the last thread about this, a few weeks ago. If you are caught driving in a dangerous way to cyclists then you are made to go on a cycling trip through traffic with an instructor talking you through it and the dangers over a headset.

Cyclists do need to be more assertive at times. There is one narrow hump back bridge where I live, and I regularly used to nearly get clipped by someone trying to squeeze past me. Now I stick bang in the middle of the road. It is only a 100 yard section, but I have had so many near misses I now make it clear that there is no way past me at all.
 
sidneyeric said:
Entirely the fault of the cyclist in the wrong lane. Left turn only.
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First time I watched that, I was thinking the cycle lane disappears half way through the junction, but you are right about the left turn only. However there were a lot of cyclists going straight on there and if paying attention, the bloke who got hit was well ahead and therefore visible to the HGV driver before he was hit. The stream of other cyclists should have been a clue to exercise more caution.
 
sidneyeric said:
Entirely the fault of the cyclist in the wrong lane. Left turn only.
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You're missing the point. It's a total failure of the design of the road. A mistake from either party on the road should not end up with someone under a HGV. People have filtered up the front of that junction expecting a ASL, once you're there and there isn't one you're in a shit situation where you're literally competing with a lorry for road space. It's appalling infrastructure design which isn't safe for cyclists to use.

This is exactly why you'll see the odd cyclist jump a red light as well, it gets you ahead of situations like this.

Fwiw if I was that bloke I wouldn't be up the inside of a lorry.
 
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