Daft lady on bike.

[rendelharris]

Just because you have experienced it doesn't mean it happens as often as you claim it does, either. But I cede the field, if you're determined to insist that the pavements of ED are thronging with mad packs of kamikaze cyclists, so be it. I must be really lucky in the times I go walking not to see any.

[cella]

You're using extreme examples but these things are daily regular occurrences. Just a few each day is more than enough. I use the ED Road junction several times a day at differing times from really early till really late so have come to expect it. Lots of occurrences in the newly bus free Rye Lane too, particularly at the lower end where they are currently working on the road.

[rendelharris]

Funny thing, I've just walked a 3.5 mile loop through the middle of ED - including through the junction you mention - to go and feed a friend's cat. I kept an eye out; middle of rush hour so I counted (give or take a few) around seventy cyclists. One was riding on the pavement - a six-year-old girl with mum riding in the road alongside. To be completely unbiased, I saw several light-jumpers (almost as many as I saw jump the lights in cars) but the swarms of pavement-riding maniacs were conspicuous by their absence. Having a day off, maybe?

[cella]

Maybe/hopefully!

[Nigello]

Today I sat outside a cafe in Dulwich Village and saw two cyclists on the pavement. Yesterday I saw three. It happens and it's annoying and selfish and very, very rarely necessary. I also saw pedestrians crossing unsafely and cars speeding. It's not just one group that's acting badly.

[Sue]

I quite often see cyclists on the pavement.

What really pisses me off is when it's a grown man and there's virtually no traffic on the road.

WTF?

Timid cyclists in the rush hour cycling on the pavement I can understand (a bit).

Off topic, but I was on a 185 today and a cyclist was nearly run over by the bus. She began to step off the pavement with her bike without looking, and the bus was literally (and in this case I literally mean literally) about 30cm from her. She wasn't at a crossing. She just didn't look to see if there was anything coming ......

I was looking out of the top deck window and I'm amazed (and relieved) I didn't witness a very nasty accident. She saw the bus just in time .....

[malumbu]

This morning I saw the great big yellow and orange fire ball come up over the horizon.

Then later these droplets of water fell from the sky.

Then it all went dark.

Biblical or what? Did anyone else see anything amazing?

[malumbu]

But to return to the subject, someone has already done this for you https://road.cc/content/news/234564-six-our-favourite-anti-cycling-rants-and-complaints-2017

I wont paraphrase the stories and the clue is in the title

[Passiflora]

Cyclists are a nightmare and especially if they're wearing dark clothing and no lights on their bikes at all.

Would agree with the OP and that the lady is really daft!

[ianr]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> But to return to the subject, someone has already

> done this for you https://road.cc/content/news/234564-six-our-favourite-anti-cycling-rants-and-complaints-2017

>

> I wont paraphrase the stories and the clue is in the title

The title being "Six of our favourite anti-cycling rants and complaints from 2017". I don't know what the article says; I opened the link just to post the title.

[Passiflora]

Can't be bothered to open the link but still think that cyclists are a nightmare.

[malumbu]

And here's another one (link to the Daily Mail)

https://road.cc/content/news/213909-10-most-hysterical-anti-cycling-daily-mail-headlines

The best title is Precious Moaning and Tetchy - Cyclists are the new women

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2420957/LIZ-JONES-Precious-moaning-tetchy--cyclists-new-women.html

And here goes the quote

As my taxi driver, taking me to the first London Fashion Week show on Friday morning, remarked (as several cyclists cursed him loudly with added hand gestures, for pulling over, which he did carefully): ?Cyclists are the new women.

?Never pay for stuff, always moaning, and get really upset if you pull out quickly.?

In their defence I expect that journos don't believe the crape they have to write, and may well do it tongue in cheek, albeit that it is very offensive.

Anyway thanks for this thread, it has taken me away from Brexit and filling in my tax return

[cella]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> This morning I saw the great big yellow and orange

> fire ball come up over the horizon.

>

> Then later these droplets of water fell from the

> sky.

>

> Then it all went dark.

>

> Biblical or what? Did anyone else see anything

> amazing?

At it again? Your posts are bonkers most of the time - why bother?

[rendelharris]

Passiflora Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Cyclists are a nightmare

Great to see such an open-minded attitude. Please consider not driving.

[malumbu]

My apologies if my posts are unclear. Essentially I don't understand this irrational hatred of cyclists.

I cycle 80 to 100 miles a week. Most of the time without serious incident. I see well behaved cyclists, motorcyclists, car drivers, vans drivers, bus drivers, truck drivers. All sharing the space courteously. At times I share a joke with some. At times having a disagreement, but long ago learning how to avoid road rage being the vulnerable party.

If I were to rank those who are most likely to cause me an issue, probably young males in hot hatches, but not exclusively. Not routinely bus drivers, white van drivers, or cabbies. Those on scooters doing the knowledge used to be annoying but not so much nowadays.

Once every so often I shout at a fellow cyclist for not looking or inicating, or being on the phone and not showing any attention, or the worst of red light jumpers ie cycling 15mph with people crossing. I'm more likely to shout at someone with no lights, or luminosity at all if driving "please get some lights"

The biggest danger by far to cyclists is pedestrians just walking out without looking.

So onto more serious matters we are killing the planet. Selfish drivers who consider they can drive what they want, whenever they want, where they want and how they like are a major contribution. I'm happy to take a few naughty cyclists as collateral in order to get more of us out of our cars.

[fishbiscuits]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The biggest danger by far to cyclists is

> pedestrians just walking out without looking.

Yeah, interaction between pedestrians and cyclists seems a little problematic, particularly in central London.

I think in reality we need a bit of behaviour modification on both sides. Pedestrians DO need to be more careful... I think a lot of us rely too much on audible cues, instead of looking properly. But at the same time, it's not reasonable for cyclists to turn into side roads at full speed, and shout at any pedestrians who happen to be crossing at the time. (Drivers are taught to give pedestrians right of way in this situation... cyclists need to do the same).

[Earl Aelfheah]

The biggest danger to cyclists and pedestrians is motor vehicles. This is not an opinion, it is clear from the statistics.

[malumbu]

Biggest danger of death and serious accident is in deed motorised vehicles (my apologies as a scientist with a good grasp of evidence and stats). Higher likelihood of collisions in an urban area is with pedestrians,walking out without looking often distracted by headphones/a mobile screen. I try and anticipate both but a driver on a mobile phone is usually obvious from positioning and the like. Walking around Covent Garden the other day 90% of people seemed to be looking at their phones (OK that was a pedestrianised area)

[exdulwicher]

That?s why I feel the cycling ?community? (I?m assuming such a thing exists, as it were) is the best forum to address the issue. Pressure from one?s peers is more likely to be effective than any pedestrian or driver yelling at them.

As @rendelharris said in the post below the one I've quoted, there isn't really such a thing as a "cycling community" anymore than there is a driving community or a train-travelling community. You often get some shared interest type stuff, especially on social media and you might all share a "moment" when your train breaks down and people are forced to start talking to each other(!) but once it's sorted, you all trot off without a care in the world. you've had a breif bonding moment but it's not a "community".

I don't really get the red light thing either - anyone jumping a red light (whether it's a pedestrian nipping across between cars, a cyclist nipping across during the joint red phase etc) - so long as they're not directly harming anyone it's generally not a real problem. No-one wants to be hit by a car or bike, no-one on a bike wants to hit anyone else either and as traffic lights are generally put there to control the large heavy lumps of vehicle, they may not always be suited to controlling people - be that people on foot, on bike or on skateboards. After all lots of countries allow cyclists to turn right on red (and USA allows it for cars too) or to treat red lights as a give way and there are not hoards of people being knocked flying nor hoards of cyclists ending up dead.

Sometimes it can actually be beneficial - there was a wonderful in-depth study in Germany where cyclist behaviour was observed for a while at several junctions and it as noted that there were hundreds of red light infractions but none of them resulted in any danger to the cyclists or to third parties and it was also noted that motorised traffic generally flowed better when the cyclists simply got out of the way in advance. Situations where large groups of cyclists obeyed the lights (the classic "everyone else has stopped so I will too") actually resulted in slower traffic flow ovrall as everyone got going again when the lights went green. That's why those cyclist advanced stop boxes should really only be used in conjunction with advance light phases for cyclists (as at the JAGS / Alleyn's junction on East Dulwich Grove).

[JoeLeg]

Right. So you?ve got yourself a justification for people to jump red loghts.

I refer you Rendel?s earlier posts on that specific matter, and invite you to do one, given that you think the rules of the road somehow don?t apply to you.

[exdulwicher]

I didn't say I did it, I posted several reasons as to WHY people jump lights (and actually it applies to pedestrians nipping across on the red man, cyclists RLJing and drivers RLJing. The MANNER of RLJ is very important. Pedestrians and cyclists will (generally) look all ways, ensure it's safe and then "nip through", perhaps only to a mid-way traffic island. Drivers RLJing (generally) do it by what is politely termed "amber gambling" where you see the light change and floor it.

Clearly there's a vastly different level of danger to both the RLJer and any other road users to those various cases of RLJ. Ultimately, traffic violations (by drivers, cyclists and pedestrians) are the result of poor infrastructure that eithr enables that behaviour or in some cases actively encourages it. If you've got a set of lights at a crossing where you have to stand for ages, you'll be more likely to "nip across" through a gap in traffic than if the lights changed more regularly or gave a longer crossing period. Same with cyclists. If the lights change at ocne and the big HGV behind you starts to turn left, it stands to reason that some cyclists might voluntarily choose to self-remove from that danger by "anticipating" the lights a bit.

You can mitigate that by intorducing what should be there already - advance traffic phases for cyclists.

Similarly when you see a cyclist on the road instead of on a cycle path. Rather than thinking "bloody law breaker, he shoud use the bloody path that my taxes have paid for" it might be an idea to examine WHY the cyclist is not on the cycle path. Chances are it's becasue it's shit in which case it's again a failing of the infrastructure, not a failing of the cyclist. It's a fascinating topic actually - mix of psychology and traffic engineering.

[JoeLeg]

Wow. So many straw man arguments that plainly there?s no point with you.

Whatever mate, whatever...red lights are the law of the road and nothing you can say will change that. If I?m crossing on a green an a cyclist comes through on a red then I?ll remind myself that you said it?s ok.

ETA - I find the idea that a road user - of any hue - can be trusted to jump a red ?when it?s safe? as it were to be laughable in its thoughtlessness. If you?ve done it once you?ll do it again, and again, and then one day you?ll do it when it isn?t so safe...

[cella]

Exdulwicher - you lost me at the jumping red lights bit. Assume from your title you no longer live in these parts - phew!

[edcam]

Jumping red lights is ignorant and inexcusable, regardless of your mode of travel.

[diable rouge]

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