Will This Make Cycling Safer?

Pound Coin said:
The main differences are between London, Cities, Towns, Villages and the country, is a better way of putting it.

The main driver in disconnection from environment has been private transport. (Unless you want to call Private medical care Personal medical care)
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I see what you did there ;)

It's more complicated than that, private transport has been around forever, with the horse, then the bicycle (which incidentally led the move to metalled roads) then motorcycles and cars. The problem is the way they are sold, and the dreams and expectation sold asking with them. The burgeoning car ownership since the sixties led to the stigma of riding a bike being something only poor people do. Interestingly (?) That's where China and India are now. Riding for fun was something that the average person would have dreamt of, and cyclists were not seen as a group to be marketed to.

Take all the cr@p away, you are left with on the one hand a fantastic piece of engineering that's sold on a dream that destroys itself, the more people that that buy into the dream, the less the dream is achievable. On the other hand you have a simple, functional mode of transport that is so good the basics have changed very little over the last 120 years.

The disconnection becomes an issue where the separate realities are forced to mix. A driver of a car capable of 100 mph is "forced" to wait behind a tractor, or horse, or bike. Modern city man has no idea how to behave around a horse. Selling him a house in the country because that's all he can afford is a recipe for conflict.
 
Ham said:
Take the Whitechapel Road in Aldgate, part of a complex junction where I had seen many accidents with only two lanes and a narrow pavement, I could not see that ever getting better. But then, the "cycle superhighways" arrived and now you could ride into central London from almost any point in an 8 mile radius in perfect safety. At Aldgate, one of the two lanes was given over to bikes, astonishing. Over a fairly short period cyclists and drivers have come to accommodation for the most part and cycling in London can now be as safe as anywhere, almost, if you choose it to be so.

So, yes, cycling has got much safer in the UK and there's no reason for it not to continue to do so. Fact is, there are knobheads everywhere, some are in cars, some are on bikes (I must resist the impulse to say a lot are on electric scooters) and that won't ever change, as an individual your contribution is to realise that, accommodate it, and stop reinforcing the divide between "Drivers" and "Cyclists". That'll help.
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It's much the same for people riding motorbikes. I used to commute from Heathrow to Aldgate every day, and the risks some bikers took was astonishing. I don't mean riding up the outside of traffic which is stopped in a queue, that's half the reason you use a bike. But going up the inside of lorries just before potential left turns, going the wrong side of traffic islands, and ranting at van drivers who could quite easily knock you off....
 
Ain't that the troof. Two wheels is two wheels, whether or not there's a motor, and the electric assist is blurring the lines all the time. I think with PTW it tends to be the young ones who take the risks, although that's by no means exclusive there is a process of darwinian selection, much as exists with bikes. Knob head in car, please to be meeting knob head on a motorbike and knob head on a bike, you are all related if you but knew it.
 
I know a fair few old bikers and knew a few bold bikers. Not many old bold bikers though...
 
Ham said:
I was certainly not commenting on your driving, I have no idea how good or bad it is. Instead I was highlighting that you choose to single out cyclists for their failure to signal where a simple reality check would confirm that car drivers as a whole are as bad if not worse - failure to signal is common, improper signalling after a manoeuvre has started even more so. And this, despite the responsibility that comes with piloting a tonne of metal at speed. It is this imbalance in attitude that the Highway Code redrafting seeks to alleviate,
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I wasnt only commenting on cyclists, I was including all road user especially BMW drivers. Saying that I think indicators are an optional extra on those :thinking:
 
dcash29 said:
I wasnt only commenting on cyclists, I was including all road user especially BMW drivers. Saying that I think indicators are an optional extra on those :thinking:
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The BMW driver thing is a fallacy, Mercedes drivers on the other hand....
 
I thought they now removed indicators from AUDIs and fitted them to BMWs
 
IMG-20220208-WA0004.jpg
 
There's a button for that and if anyone wants to press it, be my guests!!! :P
 
cambsno said:
Can you say that sort of thing these days - am sure someone will be offended by it!!!
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Well I think it’s terrible and sets a very bad example. Not one of them is wearing bright gear or a helmet :D
 
They had an escort and I had my hazard warning flashers on...
 
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