What’s keeping Brits off the bike? In a word: fear, says new study

fancynancy wrote:

Cars seem to believe we are holding up their journey, then 2mins later we will pass them again as they are stuck in traffic. It’s all so silly really.

This. On my way to work I frequently get passed at 40+ mph on a blind bend, only to catch up to the vehicle in question seconds later at the junction 200m down the road.....

fancynancy wrote:

Cars seem to believe we are holding up their journey, then 2mins later we will pass them again as they are stuck in traffic. It’s all so silly really.

Earlier this evening I was the recipient of a 'must-pass-the-cyclist' moment (unsurprisingly enough featuring an AL Galaxy). He needed a full emergency stop to avoid hitting the back of the queue we were approaching... I laughed so hard I nearly crashed into a bus.

harman_mogul wrote:

Meantime...I am surprised that nowhere in the study's findings is there mention of 'fear of getting your bike nicked'

thinking about it, I never really worry about my bike being nicked, but I won't ride into town because there is no where safe to lock my bike up. Not sure if that makes sense! I am lucky I live a few minutes walk from town.

Issues I face, I won't cycle to the supermarket as I have no faith in my bike not getting trashed and have no space for another bike. Cycle parking is very much an afterthought in so many places, tucked round the back just where a thief or vandal can have some peace and quiet. I cycle to work but there is nowhere to lock the bike up. I just chain the bike to the structural steelwork, the building isn't going anywhere so should be safe! but there is a nice big carpark.

The cycle-hoops that do exist in town, don't protect your bike from idiots scratching the bike by dumping there bike on top. No one deals with the bikes that have been abandoned and that occupy the very few spaces that exist.

mrmo wrote:

I won't cycle to the supermarket as I have no faith in my bike not getting trashed and have no space for another bike. Cycle parking is very much an afterthought in so many places, tucked round the back just where a thief or vandal can have some peace and quiet.

My local Tesco Extra (a really big one, next to an Ikea) has room for about twelve bikes around the back, next to the exit that they permanently closed because too many shoplifers were fleeing through it.

I hadn't been there for a while, but went at the weekend and... drum-roll ... - they have got rid of half of the bike stands. There is a now a small kiosk-type shop for a popular key cutting chain of stores. So, the bike stands are now completely out of sight, in an area between a key cutting store and a permanently shut rear exit.

Anyone would think they didn't want cyclists to shop there...

Quote:

The cycle-hoops that do exist in town, don't protect your bike from idiots scratching the bike by dumping there bike on top. No one deals with the bikes that have been abandoned and that occupy the very few spaces that exist.

The problem with other people scratching your ride when they lock their own up, is apparently just one of those things - I was reading an article with someone visiting Amsterdam and the locals said not to ride their good bike, because it'll get damaged by other people and their huge heavy town-bikes.

And, our local police do seem to go through from time to time and cut off all of the abandoned bike carcasses and locks.

brooksby wrote:

The problem with other people scratching your ride when they lock their own up, is apparently just one of those things - I was reading an article with someone visiting Amsterdam and the locals said not to ride their good bike, because it'll get damaged by other people and their huge heavy town-bikes.

Which meets

Quote:

Firstly, many new homes, and especially flats, are being built without bicycle storage in mind.

head on.

There is so little storage that if you want a few bikes you soon have a problem, and this is before you run into n+1, I am just talking 2-3 people living in a house and having one bike each.

mrmo wrote:

brooksby wrote:

The problem with other people scratching your ride when they lock their own up, is apparently just one of those things - I was reading an article with someone visiting Amsterdam and the locals said not to ride their good bike, because it'll get damaged by other people and their huge heavy town-bikes.

Which meets

Quote:

Firstly, many new homes, and especially flats, are being built without bicycle storage in mind.

head on.

There is so little storage that if you want a few bikes you soon have a problem, and this is before you run into n+1, I am just talking 2-3 people living in a house and having one bike each.

Surely the council will let you park them in the street outside your home. There is a precedent for that...

In fact buy a very old van, excise exempt, and park it in the road. Store your bikes in the back. Free secure storage right outside your home. The van doesn't even need to be a runner, get it towed into position!

paulrbarnard wrote:

mrmo wrote:

brooksby wrote:

The problem with other people scratching your ride when they lock their own up, is apparently just one of those things - I was reading an article with someone visiting Amsterdam and the locals said not to ride their good bike, because it'll get damaged by other people and their huge heavy town-bikes.

Which meets

Quote:

Firstly, many new homes, and especially flats, are being built without bicycle storage in mind.

head on.

There is so little storage that if you want a few bikes you soon have a problem, and this is before you run into n+1, I am just talking 2-3 people living in a house and having one bike each.

Surely the council will let you park them in the street outside your home. There is a precedent for that...

In fact buy a very old van, excise exempt, and park it in the road. Store your bikes in the back. Free secure storage right outside your home. The van doesn't even need to be a runner, get it towed into position!

won't work, you may be "excise exempt" but you still have to obtain a VED disk to prove your vehicle has a current MOT and has insurance...

Paul_C wrote:

paulrbarnard wrote:

mrmo wrote:

brooksby wrote:

The problem with other people scratching your ride when they lock their own up, is apparently just one of those things - I was reading an article with someone visiting Amsterdam and the locals said not to ride their good bike, because it'll get damaged by other people and their huge heavy town-bikes.

Which meets

Quote:

Firstly, many new homes, and especially flats, are being built without bicycle storage in mind.

head on.

There is so little storage that if you want a few bikes you soon have a problem, and this is before you run into n+1, I am just talking 2-3 people living in a house and having one bike each.

Surely the council will let you park them in the street outside your home. There is a precedent for that...

In fact buy a very old van, excise exempt, and park it in the road. Store your bikes in the back. Free secure storage right outside your home. The van doesn't even need to be a runner, get it towed into position!

won't work, you may be "excise exempt" but you still have to obtain a VED disk to prove your vehicle has a current MOT and has insurance...

If it's pre-1960 it won't need an MOT. And insurance on classic vehicles is quite cheap anyway.

harman_mogul wrote:

(You might recall Jeremy Clarkson's crack that 'anybody over 23 on a bus is a failure'. JC projects that 'cyclists-don't-really-count' attitude.)

worse than that he was quoting Thatcher --> A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure

RedfishUK wrote:

harman_mogul wrote:

(You might recall Jeremy Clarkson's crack that 'anybody over 23 on a bus is a failure'. JC projects that 'cyclists-don't-really-count' attitude.)

worse than that he was quoting Thatcher --> A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure

Ah thank you, we even have fact-checkers on this board. Interesting that la Thatch should have characterized the bus-bound 26-year-old failure as a man.

Presumably in her day the chap would have had the car to drive to work, while his missus schlepped around on the bus doing the shopping, and that was all as it should be.

But that generation's attitudes, as noted, are gradually atrophying.

RedfishUK wrote:

harman_mogul wrote:

(You might recall Jeremy Clarkson's crack that 'anybody over 23 on a bus is a failure'. JC projects that 'cyclists-don't-really-count' attitude.)

worse than that he was quoting Thatcher --> A man who, beyond the age of 26, finds himself on a bus can count himself as a failure

To be fair to Thatcher (not a sentence I use often) I don't think its established that she really said that. It also has mutated to 'only losers take the bus', which I vaguely remember became the title of a Fatima Mansions album.

Its true though that buses have a plebian image. For some curious reason its been noted by transport planners that higher-income people are happy to take trams but not buses. Social signifiers take strange forms.

ajmarshal1 wrote:

Update:

In the interests of fairness, here's the reply from the coach company (Longstaffs of Amble, Northumberland) in it's entirety , make of it what you will:

Thank you for your email. Your comments have been noted and our drivers spoken to.

Regards

Alison

never send an email direct to the company without copying in the police, the later may do nothing, but it is on file and it is harder for the company to ignore.

ajmarshal1 wrote:

Update:

In the interests of fairness, here's the reply from the coach company (Longstaffs of Amble, Northumberland) in it's entirety , make of it what you will:

Thank you for your email. Your comments have been noted and our drivers spoken to.

Regards

Alison

Well that fills you with confidence.

ajmarshal1 wrote:

Update:

In the interests of fairness, here's the reply from the coach company (Longstaffs of Amble, Northumberland) in it's entirety , make of it what you will:

Thank you for your email. Your comments have been noted and our drivers spoken to.

Regards

Alison

Words like these alone are meaningless. They would struggle to use fewer words in their communique, such is the importance of this to them.

Fairness would include:
- ensuring the driver understood the seriousness of the incident
- he recognises the consequences of his actions
- him (and the company) finding a way to address the failure and prevent it happening again to their staff.
- communicating something of all the above to the complainant.

This happens in other areas, why not so-called 'professional' drivers?

Simon E wrote:

Words like these alone are meaningless. They would struggle to use fewer words in their communique

True. This in fact says "Get lost".

In the world of meetings, it is put thusly: "Thank you for your input. We'll take that point under advisement." [Nod to minute-taker]

(This post refers the Langstaffs incident)

harman_mogul wrote:

Simon E wrote:

Words like these alone are meaningless. They would struggle to use fewer words in their communique

True. This in fact says "Get lost".

In the world of meetings, it is put thusly: "Thank you for your input. We'll take that point under advisement." [Nod to minute-taker]

(This post refers the Langstaffs incident)

Yep, that's what I took from their reply. I kind of read it as "Bugger off mate, we don't care" The lack of apology was telling. Sadly, I didn't expect anything more from them than that if I'm honest, knowing that people who don't ride a bike really don't care at all.

What is worse is that most of the time I just shrug things like this off for fear of becoming one of those mad blokes covered in cameras that shouts number plates every five minutes. I can't be doing cameras, not aero. It's bloody dangerous out there though and I wonder what it will take for it to ever change.

ajmarshal1 wrote:

Update:

In the interests of fairness, here's the reply from the coach company (Longstaffs of Amble, Northumberland) in it's entirety , make of it what you will:

Thank you for your email. Your comments have been noted and our drivers spoken to.

Regards

Alison

I would struggle to write a more blatant piss off I'm busy reply than that of Alison's. It is fairly obvious that your email got deleted directly afterwards and I for one don't think any of their drivers have been spoken to.

bikebot wrote:

Most drivers are fine, could you imagine what the carnage would be like if it actually was a majority that were incompetent.

I wouldn't say most drivers are fine, I would say most drivers are barely competent and very complacent. Evidence for this is the two lane entry roundabout, something so simple, and yet in my experience something that seems to be beyond the capability of a huge proportion of drivers. Then we have lane discipline on dual carriageways and motorways, a huge proportion will never move over after overtaking, you only have to look at the stream of trucks in the left, the reps on the right and the empty lane in the middle to see that.!

This is before you consider the disregard for parking laws, speed limits, mobile phones, etc etc.

Think about the Sheppey bridge crash last? year, its foggy visibility is reduced, so what happens a major pile up.

bikebot wrote:

Most drivers are fine, could you imagine what the carnage would be like if it actually was a majority that were incompetent.

We do have a bit of a quality issue with driving. From my observation, a difference between commuter cyclists and drivers is that cyclists often brush up on their road craft and knowledge over time. Drivers however develop an over confidence in their ability.

Forcing drivers to at least retake their theory test every decade would help with that, along with a greater use of retraining as a punishment for offences.

The majority get away with it. I'm not sure that makes them "fine".

If we must allow private cars, I'd have thought 5 yearly medicals and retests (the lot, not just theory) would be appropriate - I can't think of any reason why people should be allowed to wield dangerous weapons, with essentially no constraint from the law, and no check on their fitness or competence, beyond 'some time in the past they did OK', probably in different road conditions, with a less powerful car, and in better physical condition themselves.

bikebot wrote:

Most drivers are fine, could you imagine what the carnage would be like if it actually was a majority that were incompetent.

We do have a bit of a quality issue with driving. From my observation, a difference between commuter cyclists and drivers is that cyclists often brush up on their road craft and knowledge over time. Drivers however develop an over confidence in their ability.

Forcing drivers to at least retake their theory test every decade would help with that, along with a greater use of retraining as a punishment for offences.

I don't know about 'fine'. I'd say 'could you imagine what the carnage would be like if non-drivers - cyclists and pedestrians alike - didn't constantly allow for and anticipate bad-driving?'

People operate on a need-to-know basis. Cyclists learn as they go along because their survival depends on it - drivers forget what they knew initially because it doesn't.

On the other hand, UK drivers I'm sure are not nearly as bad as in many other countries - maybe up there with Northern Europe but way ahead of youtube-dashcam-star Russia or the less developed countries.

The way I'd put it is our drivers are the worst in the world apart from all the other countries!

A good book I read was called "The Way We Drive and What It Says About Us", by a sociology professor in the States. He claims that humans haven't developed the social skills which are required when travelling at more than running pace, as its only relatively recently that humans have been able to do so, basically since the motor car was invented. We need eye contact to remain "human", and sitting in a glass and metal box means we've lost the ability to behave in what is a normal way. Thats why drivers in tesco car park are happy to wait, let people pull out, they wave pedestrians across and generally get on ok. Once we hit 30mph and above on the open road we develop our, as you quite beautifully put it, "inbuilt attitude of fuckwittery".

Interesting view, and the more I ride the more I subscribe to it.

As someone sagely noted on here the other day, 'never trust anyone who doesn't pay their own insurance' - changing that would be a start to changing behaviours...

As someone sagely noted on here the other day, 'never trust anyone who doesn't pay their own insurance' - changing that would be a start to changing behaviours...