exdulwicher

Normally you're one of the regulars complaining that a thread goes off topic or has been hijacked by the "what about a car?" brigade. Here we have a thread nominally about the difficulty of seeing some cyclists which has now veered wildly off into the realm of e-bikes in Amsterdam! I maintain by the way that there is no issue whatsoever with cyclist visibility. You're all able to spot a cyclist at 1000 paces, state what they're wearing (usually also including the use or otherwise of a helmet / earphones), the brand of black clothing they're wearing, the pavement they're riding on, the red light they've just jumped, the type of bike they're on, the speed they're going at (which, if they're on a road is always so slow that they're holding up everything for miles around and if it's anywhere else is so fast that terrified pedestrians are leaping for cover as they hurtle along) and how much respect / empathy they deserve if they're hit by a poor innocent driver.

I was just going to say, I was sure it was you on a different thread arguing the definitions of SUV vs crossover vs off-roader and getting upset that everything was being lumped in under "SUV". Well the same applies to bikes and there is a legal difference between e-bike (or EAPC, electrically assisted pedal cycle) and illegally modified cycles or unregistered e-moped / e-motorbikes. "acknowledge" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. I explained it - you seemed to be under the impression that Amsterdam was flapping around panicking about e-mopeds etc, I simply pointed out that every city authority is doing this (and similar) on a daily basis. Anticipating issues, working out possible solutions, trialling them, gathering data and acting accordingly. It's strange how it's always bikes that are the issue with you though isn't it? Paris for example has identified that the major issue is cars (of all shapes and sizes and models and engine types, Penguin!) and has taken some dramatic steps to seriously restrict them including massively increasing the parking charges for heavier vehicles (which is normally but not exclusively the SUV-style) yet you're strangely not going on about the chaos over there of too much vehicle traffic and the actions of the authorities to "ban" them (it's not a ban, it's just some restrictions and extra charges).

The point I was making Rockets is that any decent city transportation authority is doing this sort of stuff day in day out - in fact if they weren't doing it, you'd be complaining too! Is [xxxx] becoming an issue? What can we do about it? What needs improving in order to manage [xxxx]? What is the cause of [xxxx]? What possible solutions are there? So let's say the use of e-scooters has become an issue. Well 10 years ago, e-scooters didn't really exist so there were no laws around them, you may as well have suggested laws around time machines. Well now, they are an issue (and they don't actually exist in legislation because the law invariably takes a while to catch up with reality). So the solution put forward (in the UK) was to run legally recognised hire schemes using private operators (Lime, Dott, Tier etc) and use that to gather evidence as to what can / should be done about e-scooters in general. It's not a perfect solution (cos this is the UK and we're about 40 years behind Amsterdam in this respect). But it's a mostly workable one. Every city in the world is grappling with these sorts of dilemmas on a daily basis, tweaking things (mostly behind the scenes, the public will rarely be aware of a new algorithm at a set of traffic lights for example) and occasionally, it demands more public measures like saying "OK, back in the days when fatbikes made up 2% of city traffic, there were no real issues, but now they make up 10% it's probably time to move them off the cycle lanes, but we can take a bit of roadspace away from cars and pop in a special "big e-assist vehicle lane", everyone will be happy" Apart from Rockets who will treat it as some massive conspiracy.

Surely it is the responsibility of the highways authority (not sure about Amsterdam but over here it'd mostly be the local council) to manage any issues within transportation? That's literally their job to look at problems, issues etc and deal with them. That could include: buses not running on time too many cars growing use of e-motorbikes / fatbikes / e-mopeds overcrowding at a station etc A few years ago, there were very few e-motorbikes and as they came along the legislation hasn't really kept up so a blind eye might have been turned to them using cycle lanes but now there are a lot more of them, they're faster than regular bikes and e-bikes and maybe the law needs changing a bit to recognise that? That's not a "problem". It's a highways authority doing what they're paid to do. Same way as over here people are finally realising that there are simply too many cars and they might need to do something (or some things) to discourage car use a bit. Again, not really a "problem", it's just an evolution of local needs in conjunction with some regional / national strategic oversight. And yes, fatbikes are not e-bikes. Same with those delivery riders around here, they're not e-bikes. They're illegally modified / illegally used electric motorbikes, or electric mopeds It's really quite an important distinction. Normal legal e-bikes (25kph, pedal operated etc) are classed in law as bicycles. Electric mopeds / motorbikes, any form of bicycle with a throttle is classed as a motorbike. That's the law, regardless of what you want to believe or what the lazier elements of the media print.

It was irony* *Like gold-y and bronze-y but made of iron. 😉

Oh I can't see *anything* cos none of them are wearing hi-vis. That's literally just a black screen, none of those boats are in hi-vis. How careless of them! If someone paddles into one of those boats, I'll have no sympathy for it cos it's not dressed properly. Stupid boat. Where's its lifejacket and helmet? I had to look away from the rest of it, the absolute chaos of all those black things colliding with each other was traumatic. It's been a while since I saw Amsterdam actually; last time I saw it, Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson were having a massive shootout in the place. I assume Rockets must have been visiting at that time and assumed that was just normal rush hour. 😉

It's a fair question. Rockets seems to have fairly consistently complained about any and all traffic measures but maybe we've missed his thread of glowing endorsements about Dulwich Square, school streets, cycle lanes and bus lanes?? Some positivity would be nice so a list of what people like and support might be quite enlightening!

Complain to the school and the council environmental / health team. As they're commercial vehicles you can also report them to the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA): https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/driver-and-vehicle-standards-agency It's a common problem - one driver a little while ago said "oh it's OK, the pollution just blows away". Those coaches have been an absolute bane of the area for years - yes I get that it stops a thousand cars or whatever but they're a law unto themselves. And the school won't even consider options like having a pull-in on their land to get them off the road and they don't seem bothered about enforcing the No Idling signs.

https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/we-must-separate-art-from-artist-in-singing-of-nazi-gas-chamber-songs-says-farage-20251125262249 Surprisingly, one of the more reliable sources of news. Better than the Farage Channel GB News anyway! 😉

Can we just make this a standard automatic response?!

Oh please don't go down that "give others a bad name" nonsense. Cyclists are not some identikit tribe. There is no collective responsibility. What one cyclist does or does not do has no bearing on any other cyclist anywhere else. The only time I might accept that definition is on a group club ride although even then it's tenuous at best. What you're doing is a form of outgrouping leading to the over-generalisation of negative behaviours or attributes. Same way that one driver on a mobile phone doesn't give all other drivers a bad name. Same way that Harold Shipman didn't give all GPs a bad name.

I'm quite surprised at that since Cyclist is normally fairly reputable. It's largely bollocks. The Highway Code is not law - it references law in an easy-to-understand manner and it contains guidance ("you should / should not...") and simplified law ("you MUST / MUST NOT...") You're not breaching a RULE. You're "breaching" guidance and since you can't really breach guidance, any such challenge would be thrown out. Not that it matters as such, drivers have been successfully claiming not to have seen the cyclist that they ran over for years, quite often escaping with pathetically light or even zero sentence. This was a fairly recent one which I remember cos it was reported on various cycle sport pages: https://www.thetfordandbrandontimes.co.uk/news/25511711.norfolk-driver-spared-jail-cyclist-killed-a11/ Pleased guilty to causing death by careless driving (phone use). Cyclist taking part in an organised event (so there were signs and marshals), was wearing a bright coloured top and had a flashing rear light (and it was daylight). He drove straight into the back of her cos he was using his phone. Suspended sentence and a short driving ban. Strangely, you're outraged when this sort of technicality is used in a cyclist / pedestrian case (you keep quoting the Regent's Park incident for example) but in a cyclist / vehicle one, you're ever so keen to blame the cyclist. Tell me, has any cyclist anywhere ever behaved / dressed / acted in a manner that you deem appropriate? For someone who claims to cycle, you're forever on here arguing technicalities and telling multiple anecdotes of how you've seen a cyclist doing / not doing something which they shouldn't / should (delete as applicable). Edit: what that case shows very clearly it it rarely matters how visible a cyclist is (and I made this point in an earlier post). If the driver is using a phone, having an argument, not concentrating, tired etc it doesn't matter if the cyclist is wearing a fluoro unicorn costume or is dressed in all black.

Don't worry, he's only ever indirectly racially abused people and he's never done it in a hurtful or insulting way. It's very difficult to know isn't it? I mean, is the racist man known primarily for being a racist actually a racist if he says racism is funny? Gosh, tricky one... Bit like that joke where the footballer calls the ref a **** and gets booked for it. Footballer is annoyed at this and says "well, what if I think it?" Ref says "well I can't stop you thinking can I?" Footballer says "cool, in that case, I think you're a ****" 😉

Well I didn't see them so I have no idea. But more bluntly - if they felt it was safer to ride like that (maybe they were discussing something, maybe to ride single file would have encouraged dangerous "squeezing past", maybe the rearmost rider would have been unable to safely see hazards ahead) then they are allowed to do so and your feelings or opinions don't really come into it. I notice that you don't come on here when there's a traffic jam of a hundred drivers all in single occupancy vehicles, all doing 10mph along that road? Strange. It's not anti-car to point that out. It's highlighting your motornormative attitude. Cars - all normal, proper people drive cars, carry on. Bloody hell, someone is cycling along next to someone else! I shall get onto the ED Forum immediately!

And as I pointed out earlier, what would you have said if it was a horse (approximately the same width as 2 cyclists side by side). What about if it was someone riding a mobility scooter, perhaps desperately searching for the next section of dropped kerb to get up? What if it was someone pushing a broken down vehicle? If they feel it's safer to ride side by side they are perfectly allowed to. Somewhere on this thread (or was it one of the many many other threads where it's apparent that no cyclist anywhere has ever behaved in a manner that everyone feels is "appropriate"...?) I also pointed out that to overtake a cyclist, you have to give 1.5m: That means that to overtake someone along most sections of the South Circular in / around the Dulwich area, you need to be pulling mostly into the opposite lane. Therefore, there needs to be zero oncoming traffic in the time for you to complete your overtake. Therefore if you can put half a wheel into the opposite lane, you can put the whole car there. I don't really see why this is so difficult for you to understand. It's also possible that the cyclists have looked at the road ahead, at the traffic conditions, the road width, the junction / lights / obstacles ahead and deliberately taken the lane to prevent some idiot overtaking only to then slam the brakes on 20m in front of them. I quite often have to think for drivers because most just go "cyclist! I MUST overtake immediately! MUST. GET. IN. FRONT!!!" without actually considering that 20m up the road is a red light or the arse end of yet another traffic jam. Maybe for one to ride behind the other, his / her view of potholes, traffic etc would have been bscured therefore it's safer to ride side by side at least for a few seconds. Maybe you could have a go at all those single drivers who insist on driving along two-abreast as well. All the road space they take up! SO entitled...

I don't think anyone has said or even implied that. There are idiots in all walks of life - idiot pedestrians who'll step into the road, their gaze fixed on their phone. Idiot cyclists with no lights. Idiot drivers who speed or drive under the influence. No-one is denying or excusing any of that. The point being made is that it doesn't really matter if the driver in this instance is a serial criminal escaping the police with the proceeds of their crime or a nun driving a disabled orphan to the daycare centre, the OUTCOME is the same. A crashed car, a lot of mess and a dead or injured person (usually not the driver). Death doesn't really care about who was behind the wheel, it doesn't help to minimise it by going "oh well the guy was a robber, what do you expect?!"

I would report that to the police as attempted robbery. Sure, they won't catch who did it but enough reports of that nature do at least allow them to build a picture of crime hotspots. It doesn't sound like some cyclist not paying attention, it sounds exactly like someone has seen you using a phone and made an attempt at a snatch and go. Glad you're OK.

My God, wait until you hear about all those 2-abreast drivers! Even when they go out alone, they take an armchair and a sofa with them! How entitled of them! 😉

What do you think those same drivers would have done if it was a horse rider - perhaps someone coming from riding their horse around the park? Or even a police horse & rider? Takes up about the same amount of space as a cyclist or two. Willing to bet that the levels of consideration from said drivers to the obstruction in question would have been considerably higher... Just saying. It's genuinely fascinating how drivers will at towards different "obstructions" (for "obstruction" read: legitimate road user not doing the speed that the driver behind wants). Horse rider: driver passes slowly and carefully, literally climbing the kerb on the opposite side of the road. Mobility scooter: might grumble a bit but basically does the same, passing wide and carefully. Tractor: definitely going to grumble but they've got no choice. Cyclist: BEEEEEEPPPPP!!! GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU NON TAX PAYING LYCRA LOUT!!!! Edit: what's also fascinating is how this thread started as a complaint about cyclists dressed in all black, being invisible, coming out of nowhere etc. Seems that everyone on here is more than capable of identifying a cyclist at half a mile - not only identifying them but able to tell what jersey they're wearing, what type of bike they're on, what speed they're going (it's never "just about the right speed", it's always either far too fast and a danger to everyone or far too slow and holding everyone up - sometimes both speeds at the same time), what clothing they had on (especially whether or not they were wearing a helmet) and how they were riding. I'd suggest from all that, there's no issue at all with cyclist visibility!

That's not what I said at all. If you have a route that takes one hour, and you want a bus every 6 minutes, you need 20 buses to service that route (in both directions). If you extend that route right up into town and it now takes 2hrs, you need 40 buses to maintain a 6-min service in both directions. That's very inefficient because very few people will use the route the full way. The very few people who do want to go the full distance would be better served by changing buses or some other option like bus/train or bus/tube. You can run a much more efficient service by interchanging routes rather than trying to run every bus right to every possible destination. And as the service becomes more efficient and reliable, more people use it because those are the two main metrics that people use when route planning - they want to know that the bus going to turn up and that the journey is going to be xx minutes (give or take a small percentage). Arguably, being on-time to a scheduled timetable doesn't matter much when you're running a 6-min service since you never have to wait more than 5.9 minutes. That efficiency is bolstered considerably by bus priority measures such as preferential transit through a junction, 24/7 clear lanes in busy areas and so on.

The RLJ is a separate issue so I didn't mention it because as far as I can tell it's not related to the use (or otherwise) of the faded lines of paint masquerading as a cycle lane. In the past on other threads I've explained why some cyclists might jump lights some of the time but I've never condoned it.

You can't really have the first part without the last part. The reason that so many bus routes got shortened a few years ago was that longer routes are far more prone to delays. A 5 min delay at the start can be magnified into a 20 min delay by the end on a 2-3hr journey from the suburbs up into central London which also starts impacting driver working hours and forcing driver changeovers which further delays the service. You also end up with a huge crush of buses all trying to go to Strand, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly etc. It's far more efficient to run shorter services, you need fewer buses (since they're being turned around quicker) which means you free up buses to increase the frequency, either on that route or a connecting route. The Hopper fare means you're still paying the same flat rate, you're not being charged twice but you simply can't have bus routes from everywhere to everywhere else, chances are you're going to have to change somewhere. If you want faster, more reliable services, you need the 24/7 bus lanes and bus priority lights. If you want more pleasant services (less crowded / more comfortable etc) you need fewer people per bus so higher frequency (therefore shorter routes) and nice safe waiting shelters with good quality info, lighting, CCTV etc. That is invariably more important to more people than having a bus that goes door-to-door for every possible destination. If you just add more buses to the mix, you end up with more buses stuck in traffic.

And as I said, regardless of the existence (or otherwise) of the appalling pretend cycle lane along there, no traffic can overtake him anyway without pulling clear into the opposite lane in order to give the required 1.5m space. Rule 213 On narrow sections of road, on quiet roads or streets, at road junctions and in slower-moving traffic, cyclists may sometimes ride in the centre of the lane, rather than towards the side of the road. It can be safer for groups of cyclists to ride two abreast in these situations. Allow them to do so for their own safety, to ensure they can see and be seen. Cyclists are also advised to ride at least a door’s width or 1 metre from parked cars for their own safety. On narrow sections of road, horse riders may ride in the centre of the lane. Allow them to do so for their own safety to ensure they can see and be seen. Motorcyclists, cyclists, horse riders and horse drawn vehicles may suddenly need to avoid uneven road surfaces and obstacles such as drain covers or oily, wet or icy patches on the road. Give them plenty of room and pay particular attention to any sudden change of direction they may have to make. Just because you can't see any debris, potholes, drainage grids etc from your vantage point behind the wheel of a car doesn't mean it's not there.

24/7 bus lanes. Bus clearways and bus priority measures.

You mean along here? Google Streetview That not-remotely-compliant-with-modern-standards, barely-a line-of-paint, worse-than-useless "cycle lane"? The one that stops and starts at intermittent points and is barely wide enough for a set of handlebars...? That was put in years ago as a tickbox exercise way before there were any standards around these things. The weaving in and out will be because it'll be full of glass, grit and other debris that could cause a puncture (plus probably the odd parked car, vehicle trying to turn out, pulled-in bus etc). It's one of those no-win situations. If the cyclist had ridden just to the right of it, you'd have complained he wasn't using the lane. If he rides in it, he's too close to the kerb (cos the lane is stupidly narrow and rubbish) and he's in all the debris. Plus a couple of other factors: To overtake, according to the Highway Code (and I know how much everyone on here quotes that when it suits...), you need to give 1.5m of space so basically you need to be pulling into the opposite lane. The existence of the apparent "cycle lane" doesn't change that. Also, the speed limit along there is 30mph, the cyclist (from your description a club cyclist on a decent road bike) was probably doing near enough 20 so there's not a big speed differential. Actually to ride along there, the position I'd take is pretty much wheels ON the line of paint, that's as close to the kerb as the Highway Code advises (my bold in the quoted text below). Rule 72 Road positioning. When riding on the roads, there are two basic road positions you should adopt, depending on the situation. 1) Ride in the centre of your lane, to make yourself as clearly visible as possible, in the following situations on quiet roads or streets – if a faster vehicle comes up behind you, move to the left to enable them to overtake, if you can do so safely in slower-moving traffic - when the traffic around you starts to flow more freely, move over to the left if you can do so safely so that faster vehicles behind you can overtake at the approach to junctions or road narrowings where it would be unsafe for drivers to overtake you 2) When riding on busy roads, with vehicles moving faster than you, allow them to overtake where it is safe to do so whilst keeping at least 0.5 metres away, and further where it is safer, from the kerb edge. Remember that traffic on most dual carriageways moves quickly. Take extra care crossing slip roads. So what you witnessed along there in terms of riding position was a total failure of cycle infrastructure (and I use that word in it's loosest sense) rather than a failure of cycling.