Judge wants to ban cyclists from some A-roads

Good for the judge. Totally independently and to much derision from some cyclists like Carlton Reid, I have been, with the welfare of cyclists in mind, been raising the self evident: For humans to mingle, mix, often compete with and be in the path of large fast moving essential machines operated by any Tom Dick & Harry, has to be daft. May I say that I do it too and I am daft because it is a mad lottery.

Carlton is far too tunnel visioned to be a cyclist's best advocate and predictably spoils his contribution by blaming drivers and seeking more punishment for them too. But it is not they who are creating this dangerous scenario. Politicians, trying to deal with their own economic failures, green agendas, and in some case from ideology are irresponsibly donning convenient cycle clips & exploiting cycling for their own ends.

Carlton's blame stance doesn't alter the fact that when dead you may well have right on your side. Worse yet: If crippled or turned into a vegetable state, you may well have been in the right too. Wonderful Carlton. Completely missing the point as usual.

Well, of course the judge is right, and showing the good commonsense of so many judges of his ilk.
People who injure or murder others should be given full control of their environment and those that are injured, upset or killed by those dangerous individuals should have their freedom circumscribed for their own protection.
In the same spirit of common-sense, I look forwards to any person with a history of GBH or who arm themselves with guns being given control of the high-streets and anyone who might suffer injury to be confined to their own houses.

If people who DON'T cause injury were to venture outside their houses, they must be subject to the full force of the law for exposing themselves to danger.

Yes, that should stop accidents nicely.
Better still:
It would be good for the gun and 4x4 industry too.

if you restrict cyclists to roads with 30 or 40 miles an hour limit you might as well make cycling illegal as many of the minor roads we use are covered by national speed limit which is 60 anyway. Dual carriageways should be safer as although the speeds are greater the roads are generally straighter so unless the cyclist is wearing camouflage there should be no supprises encounters, but how often have you been passed on a empty dual carriageway, whilst riding side by side, by a fist waving motorist inches off the bars

I ride 10 miles each way along the a256 into margate . It has what many might regard as a high quality cycle path alongside it but it is in fact crap because the Tarmac is corrugated and littered with broken glass fragments ( something you don't realise unless you try to ride on it with road tyres). I use the main carriageway and its fine ...perfectly safe because its straight and all the vehicles are travelling the same way. My other route is a country lane route and I have a near death experience on it at least once a week or so. There is no way this judge has any idea of the actual risks to cyclists per km cycled on different road types. A roads are the safest type of road to cycle on statistically.
Another thing, ban cycles then also ban 30mph mopeds. What is the difference ?

Think long and hard.....if bicycles start to loose the right to use all roads cycling is in trouble and ceases to be a viable means of transport.

I also wanted to add that in 4 years of cycling on a 50mph dual carriageways day In day out, the only events that could be construed as dangerous that have happened to me have been deliberate acts of aggression by drivers who have seen me but clearly thought I shouldn't be there. I shall expect a bit more of these from times readers I suppose. Thanks judge. FYI this dual carriageway is the only way I can make it in time to pick up my daughter from after school club on time. 10 miles takes me 29 minutes on the dual carriage way, 40 minutes using the toy town path next to it(with daily punctures), and 55 minutes on my far more dangerous country lane route )15 miles). And I frequently overtake mopeds btw.

Maybe a dangerous thing to do, but what if we were to flip the argument on its head? What about banning HGVs from town centres? The Judge's arguments stand up just as well to this kind of action as removing more vunerable road users rom faster roads.

Typical attitude of a judge who thinks he can pass judgement on subject he actually knows nothing about (as he demonstrates by his stupid comments. What chance do cyclists have of getting justice in court when idiots like this are in such positions? What makes him think he has the right to make such statements about road traffic issues when he clearly has no real understanding of the issues. How arrogant. Time he retired.

It doesn't mention it but I presume the judge is a regular cyclist - I mean he's not likely to be some arrogant buffoon that thinks he's an expert on cycling while being chauffeur around in a jag!

'....The whole thing was made completely out of matchsticks!'....... 'took it off below the knee'....'a rather striking mustache..'...... 'SNAKE, SNAKE!'... 'well I did laugh I'm afraid...' ..... 'Her husband had been entombed in ice.'.....'Like this.'... 'but I'm afraid that I was very, very drunk.'

Martin Porter QC has written a response to The Times:

http://thecyclingsilk.blogspot.com/2012/10/cycling-on-dual-carriageways-...

A blanket ban would be stupid.
There are several road near my hometown where the only direct route is a dual-carriageway A road.

If you really can't see and react to an object in front when driving at 60mph you either need to slow down or mail your licence back to the DVLA.

Hey I have good idea, Why don't we have a Highway Code? Oh we do. Why don't we use it, I see more drivers texting and using there phones then ever before, not seen a cyclist doing this yet. I see cyclists jumping red lights cars sitting in cycle lanes the list goes on. Yes we need more and better cycle lanes but more importantly we need to pay care and attention and mutual respect on her majesty's highways. We don't need another judge getting above his station he should stick to applying the laws correctly and sentencing those who break the law. Not to difficult is it and yes I do cycle on dual carriageways and 99% of motorists give you plenty of room but there's always an idiot or someone not paying attention. Keep safe.

Was one of m'learned friends comments mis-reported. It says "60mph dual carr...", where in fact the national speed limit as we all know being responsible road users and familiar with the Highway Code, is 70mph, as another poster has noted. The same as a motorway.
Interesting approach, ban the victim and the crime stops. None of which helps someone hit from behind by a driver paying insufficient attention to conducting his 600kg-44 tonne piece of machinery along the road in a safe way.

I think we should ban Judges from talking to the media....

PaulJ - I actually got pulled off the A1 just outside Edinburgh by the police as you cant cycle on it, I had managed to not see the road-signs informing me of such thing! Even then though I had no fears about cycling to the left of the solid line despite some of the larger vehicles passing.

re the A1 in England, i regularly ride along it as part of my training rides, from peterborough way (where it turns to the A1M) up to Doncaster, I really enjoy it as a good road to ride on!

I've probably done a 1000 miles on in and never had any issues - but I am always lit up well - normally 2 or 3 lights on the back to alert drivers!

Martin, this is not atypical for the A1: http://goo.gl/maps/u7uJ8

There is though a very narrow cycle/footpath (fgood luck if there's a cyclist coming the other way) on the opposite side of the road. Enjoy!

Martin, dual carriageway A-roads don't always have a hard shoulder . Indeed, that'd be unusual up here in Scotland. Having to cycle *in* a lane with 60+ mph traffic is not fun. Close passes at that speed can be terrifying, especially if by larger vehicles.

I am a big fan of riding on busy A-roads and dual-carriageways - for me I find it the obvious choice for longer rides.

I am lit-up like a Christmas tree and I am inside the white line and pose zero risk to traffic unless they are driving along the hard shoulder!

Generally traffic passes at a safe distance, partly due to the light I emit, but I think also because of the unusual nature of seeing a cyclist on that road - some douchebag drivers come too close - but that can happen on any road.

I wouldnt however ride these roads without lights or wearing non-refelctive black, I think thats just asking for trouble - and in the event of a collision then the newspaper would report that I wasn't lit up or visible and bad driving would be excused!

I have to admit that I hate using and try to avoid using dual carriageways, but I'd be loathe to agree to a cycling ban on their use.
As mentioned, in reality, these roads should offer high levels of safety, being straight, wide, with great visibility and loads of overtaking room. Only challenge is vehicle volume and speed, which apart from being no fun at all to be around, shouldn't jeopardise safety.
I see this ban being for less about safety and far more about convenience for the judge and other car drivers. As has been said many times before, the rage felt by many car drivers is intact a knee jerk reaction to being made aware of their own incompetencies... Oh shit a cyclist, what do I do... Do I overtake now, is it safe... Oh shit.... Terre fecking cyclists!
I digress.
Why not just include a wider path at the side of these dual carriageways like in other countries... Problem solved.

"A dual-carriageway has lots of room to overtake and visability is amazing."

Personally I think this is one of the most misperceived points of dual carriageways. When the road is quiet the above may be true but as a daily driver on a 70mph DC (on which I would never ride) I can confidently state that when the road is busy the exact opposite is true: it is very often, for a number of reasons, *extremely* difficult to spot cyclists. I would choose a 60mph rural road over any busy dual carriageway with even a 40mph limit, any day of the week.

I agree 100% with the statement that "the half-way-house that is the dual carriageway A-Road is a dangerous anachronism". Horrible things for drivers but even more so for cyclists. Time we built good cycling alternatives alongside them and perhaps made more use of the "An (M)" classification.

Imagine the furore if a judge wrote to a national newspaper saying that it is dangerous for black people to walk alone in certain areas, so they should be excluded from any borough or constituency where, to draw a similarly arbitrary line without consideration for the practicality for those affected, racially-motivated attacks exceed 10% of crimes reported.

If you support banning on A roads why not any road?? A dual-carriageway has lots of room to overtake and visability is amazing. Small country lanes have poor visability, hedges, farm animals crossing, mud on the road etc. Sounds far too dangerous. B roads often are much more twisty with a speed limit of 60mph. They are narrower- cars give little room to overtake. Urban roads- there is so much going on, how could the poor drivers be expected to see every little bike on the road.
Lets just get those pesky bikes off the road once and for all. Maybe we should let them do the odd sportive a couple of times a year.

Perfect cycle lanes would be fine- I have never seen one that allows me to get from A to B at a decent speed safely.

In my view, the half-way-house that is the dual carriageway A-Road is a dangerous anachronism- they've often (from a driving point of view) got horrible dangerous junctions, many are cramped and narrow etc. Really, they should all be Motorways, with properly engineered junctions etc- and both a local access road and a seperate, non-shared-use (segregated) cycle route roughly paralleling them.

It would be unpopular in many places, yes, and hideously expensive, but the end result would be a much more pleasent driving and cycling experience.

As a general principle it has merits but so many loopholes and possible errors that practically it may not work. How ever I can think of places where it would make perfect sense for both cyclists and car drivers. After all cyclists don't moan about being banned from motorways. Banning mopeds as well would be good.

There are dangers, we can all appreciate that .. and I understand where he's coming from .. but don't agree

I toured Eire a few years back and the vast majority of "A" roads or their version thereof had very adequate cycling provision - a good width of well surfaced tarmac ....

I came back singing their praises ... the drivers had WAY MORE RESPECT also..

"momentary inattention"? That'd be Careless, then. It's almost as if the law had already considered the question (albeit it's barely enforced).

what planet is this guy from?

He is right.

I already avoid dual carriageways because of the speed involved and the volume of traffic. But as we all know some 'bike users' have no sense of their vulnerability.

At 60 mph a car does 89 feet per second not 60 (a rule of thumb is to multiply the mph by 1.5 to get feet per second)

As for banning bikes from A roads, that's simply wrong. I did, however suggest o my local authority that all roads with a sped limit in excess of 40 should have a segregated facility next to or parallel to it, should people want to use it without having to mix with traffic. They apparently think it's an interesting idea but I'm not expecting a raft of new paths in my lifetime

Absolute classic stupidity. Such a ban would mean that (possibly) the most famous cycling cafe in Britain, The Eureka, would be inaccessible to all cyclists as it sits on a non-urban dual-carriageway main trunk road (A540) with a 50mph limit.
Many people have been fighting for years to get a cycle path/lane built along the length of the A540 but without any success or even a prospect of success, and this dual-carriageway is possibly the most used by cyclists on Merseyside.
The ban won't happen and the cycle paths won't happen.