Near Miss of the Day 287: Double close pass at high speed

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Love the emergency road signage dumped in the middle of the shared use/ cycle lane at 1:17 as well. 

That's been there a while now.  It's designed so if you are cycling at anything more than 5mph going onto the cycle path, you face plant into it.

ktache wrote:

That's some damn fine weather you have in that there Bristol.

Every day's a holiday here in Bristol.

I don't usually cycle that route (near Filton, north Bristol), but I'm actually working for three days in Sadly Broke and have cycled along that exact route yesterday and this morning.

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

hawkinspeter wrote:

ktache wrote:

That's some damn fine weather you have in that there Bristol.

Every day's a holiday here in Bristol.

I don't usually cycle that route (near Filton, north Bristol), but I'm actually working for three days in Sadly Broke and have cycled along that exact route yesterday and this morning.

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I nearly got hit coming back because a driver was using his phone, he didn't once look up from it while he passed me.  Which is an issue if you want to take the lane, chance are one of the drivers will be on their phone.  I counted 12 on their phones between SGS and the filton round about last week.

hawkinspeter wrote:

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I did try, honestly.  That is actually in South Gloucestershire, the responsibility of their highways department, motto "never knowingly competent".   It took me a long time to learn that their consultations were merely a box ticking exercise, and it really didn't matter if you produce seven pages of quotes from their own policies that they were ignoring, they were going to do exactly what they planned in the first place.  Certainly in the North Bristol Fringe, their intention has been to turn it into a suburb of Los Angeles, with the usual few token cycle facilities thrown in to make it look good.  Pretty much the entire length of the A38 in SGlos has been deliberately made unattractive, inconvenient and dangerous for cyclists.

The SGlos cycle forum usually has more officers than cyclists, because everyone who used to go is so disillusioned, including me, and I haven't been for years.

I wrote an article about the junction at 3:05, which might have been designed to be dangerous for cyclists, with an alternative shared use route which takes about five minutes to get around because of the crossings, and with a surface which, if I might quote myself "was laid by a drunken chimpanzee with a shovel."

Thank god I've moved somewhere a little more civilised.

burtthebike wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I did try, honestly.  That is actually in South Gloucestershire, the responsibility of their highways department, motto "never knowingly competent".   It took me a long time to learn that their consultations were merely a box ticking exercise, and it really didn't matter if you produce seven pages of quotes from their own policies that they were ignoring, they were going to do exactly what they planned in the first place.  Certainly in the North Bristol Fringe, their intention has been to turn it into a suburb of Los Angeles, with the usual few token cycle facilities thrown in to make it look good.  Pretty much the entire length of the A38 in SGlos has been deliberately made unattractive, inconvenient and dangerous for cyclists.

The SGlos cycle forum usually has more officers than cyclists, because everyone who used to go is so disillusioned, including me, and I haven't been for years.

I wrote an article about the junction at 3:05, which might have been designed to be dangerous for cyclists, with an alternative shared use route which takes about five minutes to get around because of the crossings, and with a surface which, if I might quote myself "was laid by a drunken chimpanzee with a shovel."

Thank god I've moved somewhere a little more civilised.

I'm loving that line - I'm going to try to introduce that into as many conversations as possible.

Monkey Puzzle wrote:

Screw the A38. My office is up Aztec West way and I gladly add an extra mile or so to my journey (plus lose the hill at Filton) by going around to the east and coming up through Sadly Broke rather than face that dual carriageway.

I plotted a route on OSMaps and it took me a confusing way (via Parkway station) that would've resulted in me getting lost, so I though I'd go the easy way that I know (straight up Muller Road and along the A38) even though I know how treacherous that road is.

hawkinspeter wrote:

burtthebike wrote:

hawkinspeter wrote:

That road is almost a masterclass in poor design for cyclists. The surface is pretty bad so you have to check where your front wheel is going and there's a significant slope so you tend to be travelling at speed. The cycle lanes are positioned between a left-turning lane and the straight ahead lane, so it encourages traffic to try to cut across you. Also, there's a lot of fast moving cars and big trucks along there - pretty scary.

I did try, honestly.  That is actually in South Gloucestershire, the responsibility of their highways department, motto "never knowingly competent".   It took me a long time to learn that their consultations were merely a box ticking exercise, and it really didn't matter if you produce seven pages of quotes from their own policies that they were ignoring, they were going to do exactly what they planned in the first place.  Certainly in the North Bristol Fringe, their intention has been to turn it into a suburb of Los Angeles, with the usual few token cycle facilities thrown in to make it look good.  Pretty much the entire length of the A38 in SGlos has been deliberately made unattractive, inconvenient and dangerous for cyclists.

The SGlos cycle forum usually has more officers than cyclists, because everyone who used to go is so disillusioned, including me, and I haven't been for years.

I wrote an article about the junction at 3:05, which might have been designed to be dangerous for cyclists, with an alternative shared use route which takes about five minutes to get around because of the crossings, and with a surface which, if I might quote myself "was laid by a drunken chimpanzee with a shovel."

Thank god I've moved somewhere a little more civilised.

I'm loving that line - I'm going to try to introduce that into as many conversations as possible.

Let me know how that goes.  As I know from bitter experience, as a chat up line, it seems to lack something.