Changing the behaviour of cyclists

[Arch]

I know, there isn't an answer...

Well, there is. Emigrate.

 

[John the Monkey]

I know, there isn't an answer...

Well, there are answers - one is to start the sort of enforcement and punishment that would actually make a difference. The problem is that this would necessarily focus on the most dangerous and most numerous of road users. It would take cross party poilitcal will to actually do something.

Well, there is. Emigrate.

A far more likely solution, sadly.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

Some teenager-ish guys were about near home the other day; Mr Houtkop had decided to head home at speed (I think there was an unpleasant headwind he was trying to get out of asap). As we're both on Bromptons, one of the guys clearly thought it'd be easy to chase and pas him... it wasn't! He gave up halfway home...

 

[John the Monkey]

Some teenager-ish guys were about near home the other day; Mr Houtkop had decided to head home at speed (I think there was an unpleasant headwind he was trying to get out of asap). As we're both on Bromptons, one of the guys clearly thought it'd be easy to chase and pas him... it wasn't! He gave up halfway home...

Surprisingly quick bikes, aren't they? A chap on an MTB looked dismissively at me & the S6L on the way home last night, and then in a surprised fashion as we passed him at a comfortable 21mph (was heading for daughters' parents' evening, under strict instructions not to be late!)

Mrs Monkey still says I look like something from the circus on it though.

 

[Amanda P]

Could there be a guilt factor?

I’m sure most of us have had conversations with others which eventually come around to the other party saying “I’d cycle more, but…” followed by some excuses/reasons.

This suggests to me that people are perhaps dimly aware that using a car to get around a city isn’t a great idea – but it’s so damn convenient that it’s hard for them to give it up. The perceived poor behaviour of cyclists is one more excuse not to do so.

 

[ianrauk]

This sums up a majority of motons current attitude in one succinct paragraph... nice one

But here's the thing.

Those people don't want us on the road. The RLJ'er, the unlighted cyclist, they're just the excuse they use to justify their dislike of us as cyclists. If it wasn't them, it would be that we don't "pay road tax". If it wasn't that, it would be that we "hold them up". If it wasn't that, etc,etc.

 

[psmiffy]

John the Monkey/Ianrauk - I agree - motorists do not want cyclists on the roads - a hypothesis that is proven when looking at the countries that are most cycle friendly - Holland, Germany and Denmark - Cyclists have by and large been removed from the road

 

[Hilldodger]

I'm a motorist. I have a modernish car, a classic car, a classic van, seven motorbikes and I regularly drive Cyclemagic's vans.

Don't include me in motorists do not want cyclists on the roads

 

[John the Monkey]

Excellent!

Her scornful laughter does lead to greater speed though, in my efforts to show that it IS a proper bike. Every cloud, etc

 

[Over The Hill]

Most bike shops predomenantly sell black cycle gear and I had to really shop around to get a saddle bag that was not black.
OK a keen cyclist may have lights where your yob may not but the desire to not be seen runs deep!
Around here the country lanes are full of dog walkers in their dark green wellies and dark green coat wandering the lanes. It is often only the reflection of the dogs eyes or a bit of white on the dog that shows up.

 

[Arch]

John the Monkey/Ianrauk - I agree - motorists do not want cyclists on the roads - a hypothesis that is proven when looking at the countries that are most cycle friendly - Holland, Germany and Denmark - Cyclists have by and large been removed from the road

But then there's France, where they haven't so much, and drivers are routinely courteous. You can almost guarantee that a close passing car in France will have a GB plate.

And from what I gather from people who were there recently, Denmark is not wholy provided with cycle paths, which often peter out between towns. And indeed I remember that Copenhagen only had them on the main streets - side roads often didn't, but drivers still behaved well.

Somewhen, between the end of WW2 and now, we in Britain got obsessed with having a car, and the idea that if you don't, you're a failure. That's the problem.

 

[ComedyPilot]

But then there's France, where they haven't so much, and drivers are routinely courteous. You can almost guarantee that a close passing car in France will have a GB plate.

And from what I gather from people who were there recently, Denmark is not wholy provided with cycle paths, which often peter out between towns. And indeed I remember that Copenhagen only had them on the main streets - side roads often didn't, but drivers still behaved well.

Somewhen, between the end of WW2 and now, we in Britain got obsessed with having a car, and the idea that if you don't, you're a failure. That's the problem.

Never a truer word written.

And woe-betide anyone who DARES to set up stall in the camp of, 'I don't need a car'

You are condemned as an outsider and ne'er do well.

Makes sense really, these people have invested THOUSANDS of pounds to buy the latest car to project an image, and are not going to back down. They've got a lot of collective money invested in their egoistic status 'symbols', and they don't want to lose face by giving it up.

 

[just jim]

"The [draisine] concept was picked up by a number of British cartwrights; the most notable being Denis Johnson of London announcing in late 1818 that he would sell an improved model. We can assume a name change occurred when Johnson patented his vehicle and named it “pedestrian curricle” or “velocipede,” but the public preferred nick-names like “hobby-horse,” after the children’s toy or, worse still, “dandyhorse,” after the foppish men who often rode them"

from Wikipedia's "History of the bicycle"

push bikes eh?

 

[John the Monkey]

But then there's France, where they haven't so much, and drivers are routinely courteous. You can almost guarantee that a close passing car in France will have a GB plate.

Although even that is rare (ime). It's as though the road manners permeate, some how.

Somewhen, between the end of WW2 and now, we in Britain got obsessed with having a car, and the idea that if you don't, you're a failure. That's the problem.

I'm not convinced that it's the cars. It's the impatience- and it's reflected in the way a lot of people use the road. (Some) Pedestrians dash across when it isn't really safe. (some) Cyclists take stupid risks filtering. (Some) Motorists don't read the road ahead and can't be bothered to look out for anything that won't dent them. The problem is that motor traffic being stupid and impatient poses a huge risk to all parties, and a proportionately huge-er risk than anything else.

Our problem here is that the media and the law connive in this situation, as does road safety education. It's not for drivers to travel at appropriate speed & take care around vulnerable road users, it's for you to tog yourself up like a radioactive poundshop, or get on the f* cyclepath. Collisions are usually described as "accidents", despite often being due to poor observation or judgement (if not worse). Punishments are laughable, with even the car centric US seeming to take poor driver behaviour more seriously than us (the recent road rage case in LA, for example, where the driver was charged with assault with a deadly weapon (his car)).

If things don't change, people are going to think you negligent for walking down the street without wearing hi-vis in a decade or so, mark my words.

Around here the country lanes are full of dog walkers in their dark green wellies and dark green coat wandering the lanes. It is often only the reflection of the dogs eyes or a bit of white on the dog that shows up.

This is why people used to be taught to slow down and take more care where there weren't pavements, and more generally in poor light/visibility. I live somewhere farily rural, and whilst some drivers follow that rule, far more blat along at the speed limit or above. After all, they have little to fear from anything in the road, or from the law, do they?

 

[psmiffy]

Arch – I agree cycle paths in the countries I mentioned (It was a rather sweeping generalisation) are not 100% and somehow drivers in those countries and in France manage most of the time to behave well.

However, I don’t believe its just about cars and being a superior person if you own one. If you look at car ownership in those countries then per head of population Germany and France is ahead of the UK with Holland just behind us and only Denmark lagging significantly behind.

John the Monkey – I agree that impatience, (coupled with drivers rather exaggerated view of their own driving skills) lead to the situation that cyclists are more at risk in this country than in Germany, France, Denmark and Holland. On the point of enforcement in my travels in those countries the Police were even less visible than they are here. So why are drivers in the UK so impatient/have this sort of mindset?

I am sorry to labour this point but I recently cycled across Sweden, Finland, the Baltic States and Poland a lot of the time amid a sea of trees – for some reason my mind in these zones of visual depravation would come back to debating this very point. Never worked it out.