ASL design - why do some councils make them useless?!

[TonyEnjoyD]

On recent weekend rides I had the pleasure or riding along a section of road which has been long in need of resurfacing and has now been done and has lovely new road marking too.

In one section of around a 1/4 mile there are eight new ASL's

"Lovely" I hear you say, however, they are of no safe use unless you are already at the front as the lights change, as none of them have "mandatory" cycle lanes to access them and if you are behind other vehicles, you either have to attempt to squeeze through the inside or chance going around the outside to access the ASL

Nice to know that the government create this then make the "mandatory" statement in what they then call "advisory" notes for local authorities as they are allowed to override these in collusion (oops) agreement I mean, with local police, and not give a "mandatory" cycle lane to access them.

Blooming madness!

The government advice -http://www.ukroads.org/webfiles/tal08-93.pdf

The reality:

 

[summerdays]

I'm not too worried by whether there is a filter lane as I will make up my own mind how I'm going to get there if I decide to go forward into the box rather than following the filter lane even if it is provided. There is one ASL box I know of which is really too short to fit a bike into - now that one I don't know why they bothered!

 

[HLaB]

Some people believe ASL filter lanes which encourage cyclists to an inappropriate position ie left of left turners or when they actually want to go straight or right shouldn't be there and they only reinforce the negative thought that they should always be out of the way. Whilst I agree with the thought, I'd go further and scrap ASLs too.

 

[captain nemo1701]

Some ASL's have no feeder lane and no dashed line on the left. Therefore, they are legally useless as no cyclist can enter on red. Surely, a tweek of the law is all that's needed to allow cyclist to cross the line while motorists must stop?.