Cyclists DON'T hold cars up on the road.

[ShipHill]

Less intelligent car drivers (some are pretty good road users) may think that cyclists hold them up as they rush to save a kid's life or negotiate World Peace but we don't.

All we MAY do is delay them getting to the queue of vehicles at the lights, junction, roundabout or whatever a few hundred yards down the road. They sit in that queue for 10 instead of - say - 20 seconds. They then proceed on their way at the same time they would have done had we not been "in their way". They just joined the queue later.

So if you're a silly car driver who overtakes at dangerous and inopportune moments try using that dormant organ between your lug holes and THINK for fcuk sake.

 

[ianrauk]

Why are you preaching to the choir?

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Indeed, the only time bikes really hold cars up is when cars knock them down.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Actually, we probably do. Not the car directly behind us, but there's a reasonable chance that with a bike at a junction with traffic lights less cars will get through before the lights change than without a bike there, so the ones that would get through but don't will be held up a significant amount. I mean, fark 'em they'll just get stuck anyway and if you weren't on a cycle you'd be in a car in front of them, but it's probably still a thing. On a big scale cycles probably don't but on a macro scale they probably do.

 

[ShipHill]

We were chatting at work and there's always 1 bellend who reckons "cyclists this that and the other" and now I'm sat here at home and thought about it and... well Google searches for phrases and stuff.... so I believe... and I was thinking what if such a car driver typed something into Google and found this thread and made them think about it instead of them forever driving like a bellend.

I've probably wasted precious time and effort but hey ho.

 

[uclown2002]

top post

 

[ShipHill]

My place of work is on the corner of a fairly big set of lights and car drivers hold each other up waaay more that Jo Pushbike does.

1st car pulls off on green.
2nd car puts phone down then pulls off after a huge gap has appeared.
3rd car has to restart the engine because it's got that new fangled engine cut out. Another big gap
And so on.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

On the motorcycle mailing list I belong to there's a guy who works for Portsmouth council who swears they have sat and watched CCTV of traffic light junctions and can see that when a bicycle is at the front on average 2 less cars get through the junction. As there are more bikes, less cars get through and it flows like a wave through the traffic. He used this as proof that bicycles hold up cars. I actually believe that over the whole journey this isn't a thing. That if the two cars had got through the lights they'd have just hit traffic further down the road. But based on the OP, I'd say there is an argument there.

It does touch on my current number 1 gripe with car drivers in traffic, the ones who don't pull away sharply at traffic lights when you are sat behind them, but let two to three car lengths open up and then go shooting off like a Grand Prix start leaving you hanging in space through no fault of your own.

 

[Smokin Joe]

Everyone holds everyone else up simply by dint of being on the road. Anyone who can't accept that should stick to walking.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Bloody walkers, holding everyone up. :-)

 

[wiggydiggy]

I hold cars up all the time, like a modern day Dick Turpin I cruise the lanes of Yorkshire a robbin and a stealin lol

 

[Goonerobes]

Unfortunately cyclists do hold up cars as was the case today when I was cycling in the New Forest & caught up with a queue of 5 cars travelling at around 10mph because a couple of cyclists on mountain bikes were riding 2 abreast along the road. This also meant that not only were they holding up the cars they were now holding me up to!!

 

[summerdays]

I had a good ride today where I suspect the driver probably noted that he was held up by a cyclist multiple times, and I bet he didn't think about the queues of cars that held him up each time enabling me to get ahead each time, I last saw him at the back of a long queue for traffic lights!

The other thing that holds up drivers (apart from other drivers), is those same cars when they aren't using them parked along the side. If they weren't there you would be able to pass the cyclist you think is in the way!

 

[yello]

My name is Dick Turpin and I hold up cars.

 

[winjim]

My name is Dick Turpin and I hold up cars.

TMN to @wiggydiggy