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Invalid Scald ID.
Glasgow cyclist shows why you shouldn’t always ride in a bike lane
Recent photos taken by a Glasgow cyclist highlight the dangers inherent in some of the nation’s cycle infrastructure. Ernie Marples says the road layout seen in his pictures would have resulted in his being doored had he made use of this particular cycle lane.
In a tweet, Marples wrote: “Door was flung open without warning. Even though I was outside that lane it still gave a scare.”
@bollocksinfra This would have been a dooring if I rode within the bollocks infra layout. Thanks @GlasgowCC pic.twitter.com/z3cISJjA7N
— Ernie Marples (@ErnieMarples) March 2, 2016
@bollocksinfra and the rear view.. pic.twitter.com/gaoAzPwZK0
— Ernie Marples (@ErnieMarples) March 2, 2016
He later said that he was tempted to paint a red line through every bike symbol so as to transform the lane into a safety feature.
Last year, Reading Council removed two bike lanes at a cost of £30,000 after they were branded ‘dangerous’ for much the same reason.
The cycle lanes, on Lower Henley Road and Wokingham Road, were paid for by Local Sustainable Transport Fund money, but were placed directly alongside parking bays with no buffer zone. This meant that when a car door was opened, it obstructed the whole bike lane.
Councillors voted to remove the lanes at a traffic management sub-committee meeting in June following complaints and an appeal by Reading Cycle Campaign.
Early plans for Wokingham Road, without the buffer zone, were met with 'unanimous condemnation' from campaigners and were subsequently changed. However when the lanes eventually appeared, no buffer was present.
Reading Cycle Campaign’s Adrian Lawson also said that on Lower Henley Road the paint had seemed to go around whatever cars happened to be parked there at the time, including around informal parking bays with wide pavements he says could have been converted to car parking.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
Latest Comments
- chrisonabike 20 min 46 sec ago
Apologies - you're quite right! Something about presentation and comprehension...
- wtjs 41 min 27 sec ago
You can find out whether they're lying about 'taking action' by asking them what they actually did. When they refuse to tell you, citing various...
- Bungle_52 57 min 29 sec ago
Blind spots eh. Just a reminder of the lorry driver who was aquitted after killing a cyclist on a roundabout where the jury obviously felt it was...
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But don't forget to correct for altitude.
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Also don't forget - Sustrans are a charity *....
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Yes ... but (just due to the large numbers of people affected) this likely would only proceed in the UK at a very ... cautious ... pace....
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Arsehole in the van not with standing, how did they manage to get a risk assessment allowing a race (a group not a TT) group to be competing on ...
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I think reviewer completely missed the point here trying to match bike's name with what it can do. Ribble is namin git's bike weirdly, the...
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Bit of googling gone wrong in the article - the JAT is the Junction Assessment Tool, the Joint Approval Team appears to be a coutner terrorism...
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29 comments
Drivers never drive in the door zone. They don't want to be doored either.
This sort of thing happens all the time! When passing any vehicle stick to the rule of "leave a car a door & a bit more" between the vehicle & yourself everywhere!
Kingston Council has thought about this problem.......
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.meg/wcc/facility-of-the-month/August20...
that actually did make me laugh out loud!!!.
It's a road i actually use quite regularly, there's a whole load of similar pointless paint on the surrounding roads. I don't actually think it's that old, certainly not a GLC era leftover.
Fortunately it's fairly low traffic, so I've never had any driver aggression from ignoring it. I think a few bits have already vanished, where someone has decided not to repaint them.
It is still all in education. Uneducated motorists expect you to ride as far left as possible. They simply don't think about the implications of the door zone as a cyclist, even though as a motorist they should, since when driving a good practice is to leave the same space when driving past parked cars. If you ride just outside the door zone they can sometimes still squeeze past dangerously. Yet if you take the lane you are being an arrogant bastard. Take your pick
Another problem with this system is that when you are cycling a "door length" away from the parked car, you are exactly in the wrong place to be cycling with the traffic; effectively in the "squeeze past" zone.
Most of the time you are lucky to have a lane to ride in. Usually there are just cars parked in it regardless (I'm talking about you upper Chorlton Road.) Most of the time I just try to hold a steady line instead of weaving in and out.
[[[[[ You're better off weaving (very slightly) rather than riding a rock-steady line....9 out of 10 drivers, in my experience, give you a wider berth, and dozy pedestrians are more likely to see you coming. By the way, I suspect my brilliant posts and erudite responses are, for some reason, not actually appearing for you'all to read-----so would somebody PLEASE respond, if only to shout "Zollocks!". I thank you.
I find that suddenly looking to your right, as if you're about to pull out usually makes them give you more room. I haven't tried the old "shakey cyclist" trick though, so I might give that a try when I want more room.
And no, I can't see your brilliant and erudite posts
[[[[[ HAWKINSPETER---one is extremely very grateful. Faith in human nature restored!.
"Last year, Reading Council removed two bike lanes at a cost of £30,000 after they were branded ‘dangerous’ for much the same reason. "
Well they did vote to remove the bike lanes last June despite installing them while a complaint to the Ombudsmen was in progress and despite contrary advice. Nevertheless they have yet to remove them.
Got exactly the same layout on a road near me on my daily commute, which also happens to be on a downhill. and was nearly 'doored' at 25mph+.
I now ride a doors width away which effectively puts me back into the main road and not within the cycle lane.
Madness.
Always taught to ride an open doors width from parked cars, and still do, would use exactly this to defend my actions to a motorist.
Also taught to overtake cyclists by the same width as their height (if that makes sense), just in case the fall sideways and you drive over their head.
There's common sense and logic in there somewhere.
i find most " cycle lanes" more dangerous than roads.
The only time I've come off my bike when it involved another vehicle - rather than the usual dropped kerb/black-ice/stupidity - was when I was doored.
I was riding along with stationary traffic to my right (usual footpath-parking-cyclelane-road layout), about to enter a cycle lane (like, it was centimetres ahead of me), and I was doored when a passenger decided to get out of a car in the aforementioned stationary traffic queue.
The cut down my shin got road grit and oil in it, so it's now a bit of a Quint-style "Call that a scar?" talking point.
I never cycle in the 'painted-on' cycle farcilities, but ride on or slightly outside the line.
Yeah cycle lanes don't always seem to work. Seen cars overtake a cyclist and then pull in infront of them countless times.
Also got hit off of my bike by a van here in Cambridge a year ago, double skull fracture apparently didn't entice him to stop! Thankfully the noble steed was fine, a change in bar tape and she was ready to roll again.
I'm under the impression that drivers think that cycle lanes give Cyclists an impenetrable sense of wellbeing, meaning they can pass even closer than they would without the designated lane.
Ah well, im sure cyclists are to blame
Reminds me of what we have to put up with donw here in Portsmouth - http://road.cc/content/news/17117-pedestrian-injured-controversial-south...
I don't entirely understand why luring people into serious danger can be treated as a criminal offence in some cases but not in others.
I mean, if a works building put in a door with 'toilets' marked on it, and a 20 foot vertical drop on the other side, would that not attract any legal sanction? How is this sort of thing any different?
Maybe a stupid idea, but how hard it is to change the layout from main road/ bike lane/ car park to main road/ car park/ bike lane. The bike would have protection of parked cars and with there would be extremely small chance of dooring as most drivers are alone in the car. The only problem I can see is drivers parking on the cycling lane instead of their designated space.
About 2KM of my 13KM commute is like that.. All that happens is the cars park right next to the curb in the cycle lane so that they're further away from the traffic and don't have to fold in their wing mirrors.. So you just end up riding to the right of the cars anyway.
In Barcelona this system is common. On the whole, it isn't any better. Pedestrians crossing the road forget to look again when they have to cross the bike lane and you still have passengers opening doors onto the bike lane.
The solution is full integration or full segregation, not a mix.
So cyclists who get killed by left turning HGV's get blamed for using the ASZ feeder lane to filter. How long before we get blamed for getting doored when using the cycle lane? Common sense and all that shit.
and despite the law on opening doors, it would have been an "accident" and the cyclist hospitalised and the driver regarded as innocent.
Not sure if this would have been an "accident" as such, more like criminal damage of the car by the cyclist...no doubt resulting in a successful prosecution of the cyclist after an exhaustive (no effort spared) police investigation. The police would then have taken to twitter to offer caution to other cyclists and reiterate that they will treat all attacks on cars with equal and even handed zeal, #morebloodycyclistsontheroadholdingupanemergencykebabrun.
ok, and the cyclist fined for emotional trauma caused..
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/02/07/after-kill...
That's 5km of my 10km commute like that. Scary stuff.
Given how close he was when the door opened, the poor bastard would've more likely been cut in half.
What a glorious waste of our Tax Pounds.