371–380 of 522 posts
A few speed bumps at the intersection would slow drivers. Speed bumps are cheap and effective. You can lay several in series to encourage drivers to slow. It would be a shame not to use them in such an instance, where lives might be saved.
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There’s a subset of drivers in the UK who have a resentment to sharing the road with cyclists. Their primary arguments follow; “car drivers pay road tax...” or “cyclists should be forced to sit a driving/road test...” blah blah. There are certainly cyclists who do nothing to help the reputation for the rest but car drivers fail to realise how vulnerable cyclists and motorcyclists are.
Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road? Others road users must have one. ---- It's a shame I'm getting downvoted, but the current state of affairs is that in cities like London bicycles, cars and trucks will be sharing the road for the near-mid future. I'd rather not have trucks or cars in the city, and ideally cyclists would have their own road separate from cars and pedestrians, but I think that'…
I don't think cyclists should need licenses to co-habit the roads with other vehicles. However, I think road safety education should be mandatory, perhaps in schools? When I attended (ordinary state) primary school we were all put through the RoSPA[0] Cycling Proficiency Test[1] at around ages 8-10. This was back in ~1977/78 so I'm showing my age :)
As I remember it the course was good fun. You got to use your own bike - I had a Raleigh Chopper :) - and the instructor set up different road layouts in the school playground to negotiate - he even had traffic lights and road signs. We were then lead out on the actual road where the instructor shepherded us through various real life challenges. We were even taught to perform "life saver" looks over our shoulders before carrying out any manoeuvres. At the end of the course we sat a test and were given wee metal triangular RoSPA badges.
I'm not sure if this is still a thing in schools now (I don't have any kids of my own), but I think it should be. Even basic education such as this prepared me to be a better driver, biker (i.e. life saver looks) and pedestrian.
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Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road? Others road users must have one. ---- It's a shame I'm getting downvoted, but the current state of affairs is that in cities like London bicycles, cars and trucks will be sharing the road for the near-mid future. I'd rather not have trucks or cars in the city, and ideally cyclists would have their own road separate from cars and pedestrians, but I think that'…
> Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road? Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence? In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists. This dual effect would have a number of negative i…
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Most roads in the UK are perfectly well designed to handle bike traffic. But they are not designed for the massive quantity of vehicle traffic travelling at relatively high speed on roads originally designed for a different age. Danger to cyclists are a symptom of this wider problem which we have no real solution for. Also, this particular junction is terribly designed for cars and will result in collisions.
I disagree vehemently. While my experience on UK roads isn't that big, I have not seen any well designed bicycle road. Even the roads in the residential areas I've seen are quite bad; small, many cars parked on them (bad for visibility) and of considerable lacking quality. The bicycle roads in London are just lines painted on top of whatever surface the route encounters: curbs, manholes, poles in the middle of the ro…
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> All other road users must have one. Not true. Horse drawn vehicles and horse riders don't. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/rules-about-ani... Invalid carriages also need no license. https://www.gov.uk/mobility-scooters-and-powered-wheelchairs... I'm sure other examples can be found.
In most of the US (it varies by state), moped riders (where mopeds are generally defined as motorcycles below a certain engine capacity and top speed, often 30 or 40 mph) do not need a license.
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There’s a subset of drivers in the UK who have a resentment to sharing the road with cyclists. Their primary arguments follow; “car drivers pay road tax...” or “cyclists should be forced to sit a driving/road test...” blah blah. There are certainly cyclists who do nothing to help the reputation for the rest but car drivers fail to realise how vulnerable cyclists and motorcyclists are.
I live in Belgium. We have a lot of cyclists here, but I think 80% of them don't know their weak position on the road. As my father said, "They think they are terminators, that if a car crashes into them, the car will break and they will be OK". And that's what I almost always see on the road. We have a lot of cycling lanes, thank god for that, but sometimes they are not in a good state so all those people tend to sh…
" I also understand that there are bad chauffeurs on the road too, but from my experience, far less than bad cyclists..."
Your comment, which to be fair is not unusual, is essentially concern trolling. This impression is reinforced by your retailing of your measureless anecdote about how cyclists are worse than car drivers for being "bad".
Essentially, cycling is safe enough. Cyclists are not worse than any other road users. However compared to other road users they are not contributing to CO2 and are substantially less likely to kill other road users or suffer health problems stemming from low exercise levels.
[1] http://careymcandrews.org/pdf/McAndrews_et_al_Accident_Anal_... [2] https://journal.cpha.ca/index.php/cjph/article/download/3621...
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Most roads in the UK are perfectly well designed to handle bike traffic. But they are not designed for the massive quantity of vehicle traffic travelling at relatively high speed on roads originally designed for a different age. Danger to cyclists are a symptom of this wider problem which we have no real solution for. Also, this particular junction is terribly designed for cars and will result in collisions.
Roads in the UK have generally had some work done on them since the automobile was invented. Saying that they are designed for bike traffic, when they are continuously rebuilt to the needs of motorised vehicles, is a bit like complaining that it is problematic marching a centuria down the middle of the A59 out of York, given that is what the Romans designed it for. And we do have a solution to this problem, it is tha…
Thank you, this observation has brightened up an otherwise mundane Wednesday.
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Because they are not zooming around in a several hundred kilogram steel box? Also, I regularly walk on or over roads, with no license whatsoever. Outside, everyone's participating in traffic, one way or another.
Even so, a bike is capable of moving at speeds high enough to cause severe harm to the rider or pedestrians. What if the threshold for a test was based on the average speeds of the vehicle?
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> Why shouldn’t cyclists need a license to ride on the road? Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence? In a general case though, requiring cyclists to have a licence would reduce the number of cyclists, probably significantly. This would correspondingly increase the number of motorists. This dual effect would have a number of negative i…
> Thought experiment: if you didn't have any motorised vehicles on the road, would you still want cyclists to have a licence? Of course! In a world where there were only cyclists there would still need to be a set of rules that all cyclists are required to follow. Those might include how to behave at intersections, how and when you should overtake other cyclists, and so on. To be allowed to cycle, each cyclist should…
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Most middle- and upper-class Americans take a driver’s education course (like what you’ve described) prior to receiving their driver’s license. In 10 years it won’t even be necessary because nobody’s going to be driving themselves anyway.
A lot of the cars on the road right now are ten years old or older. Even if self driving cars became a thing that anybody can afford right now it would take longer than ten years before nobody had to drive themselves.