Police still hunting driver involved in fatal hit and run with cyclist in Bournemouth after finding van in Southampton

alansmurphy wrote:

Doesn't mean he shouldn't be safe. Maybe if drivers were held accountable and standards actually improved, you'd see more people riding it! The fact that it's hit and run and a murderer is in hiding rather overshadows where the incident took place...

Agree. The sad thing is that there is plenty of space on both sides of that road for a protected cycle lane.

Everyone is entitled to do their own risk assessment but I can't understand why anyone would choose to ride it when there is a quiet and direct B-road alternative right alongside.  I'm a confident road cyclist happy riding in 50mph traffic on part of my commute but in my experience most drivers exceed the 70mph limit on that road and therefore I wouldn't go near it. We're talking motorway speeds with no hard shoulder - the poor bloke would have been safer on the M25.

Absolutely not his fault and he is completely entitled to cycle there without fear of being killed but it just strikes me as a strange route choice.

kil0ran wrote:

alansmurphy wrote:

Doesn't mean he shouldn't be safe. Maybe if drivers were held accountable and standards actually improved, you'd see more people riding it! The fact that it's hit and run and a murderer is in hiding rather overshadows where the incident took place...

Agree. The sad thing is that there is plenty of space on both sides of that road for a protected cycle lane.

Everyone is entitled to do their own risk assessment but I can't understand why anyone would choose to ride it when there is a quiet and direct B-road alternative right alongside.  I'm a confident road cyclist happy riding in 50mph traffic on part of my commute but in my experience most drivers exceed the 70mph limit on that road and therefore I wouldn't go near it. We're talking motorway speeds with no hard shoulder - the poor bloke would have been safer on the M25.

Absolutely not his fault and he is completely entitled to cycle there without fear of being killed but it just strikes me as a strange route choice.

Personally, I would choose not to cycle down the A338 Spur Road, but that doesn't detract from the fact that it is a road that is ostensibly available for use like any other. Indeed, it's worth noting that there are supposed to be pedestrian crossing points along it where existing footpaths cross the carriageway. No bridge or tunnel was ever provided for the ones north of Blackwater, yet the paths remain in place; the implication being that you can cross the A338 on foot.  Until the rebuild there was even a spot for driving cattle across it just south of Blackwater! And when the A338 becomes the Wessex Way there are also some of those joke cycle lane markings to cross the slip roads with. So there is a disparity between the road's official status, and the way it is routinely treated as a 'cars and trucks only' pipe by many of its users. The whole road is typical of a common British tendency to slowly turn A roads into de facto motorways without going the whole hog and actually making them motorways - which would presumably require them to then spend money on additional and alternative infrastructure.

It is also frankly unforgiveable that a better infrastructure alternative was not provided as part of the A338 rebuilding - which was afterall more or less a complete rebuilding from the foundations up - of the road. I know there is Matcham's lane - which I assume is the B road kil0ran refers to? - but I've always found it too narrow, winding and bumpy to share with the cars that like to treat it as a race track...when I live in Verwood I used to go the long way round via the soggy/dark Castleman Trailway and then Ferndown/Parley. But you still had to endure the farce of fast/close overtakes on New Road, where they have all that unused space (acres of grass verges for those who don't know the area) doing nothing.

slow_going wrote:

It is also frankly unforgiveable that a better infrastructure alternative was not provided as part of the A338 rebuilding - which was afterall more or less a complete rebuilding from the foundations up - of the road.

What I thought, after they had finished it, was, how many millions has this cost when there was nothing wrong with the dual carriageway as it was?!
That money could have been spent on far more urgent and important things, cycling infrstructure for one.