Cyclists DON'T hold cars up on the road.

[wiggydiggy]

TMN to @wiggydiggy

Er touch me not?

 

[broadway]

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 also means they don't count bicycles as traffic in Portsmouth as it is a reduction of 1 vehicle.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

At the moment I'm driving just over 60 miles a day on south London roads, over half of which is outside peak times. My average speed registered by the car has never exceeded 13 mph over a whole day. Of the delays, by far the most time is lost because of the sheer density of traffic - aka congestion. Traffic lights, none of which are there to protect other road users from the dangers represented by cyclists. Parked cars blocking roads, making two way streets into serial one way streets. People who can't indicate or get in lane. Vehicles that can't fit into single lanes. Drivers who drive ever bigger cars in the slavish belief that ostentatious oversizing is a marker for status.

But congestion itself is greatly affected by car occupancy rates. In commuting times, the national average car occupancy rate is 1.2 per vehicle. Divide the amount of space that vehicles occupy by the occupancy rate and the striking fact is how much road space is occupied per person. There are not actually all that many people on the roads, it's just that those people appropriate so much space to themselves.

There are quite a few roads where, close to schools, the bike occupancy rate is higher than the motorised vehicles'.

And I know that bikes, while they can briefly hold cars up - heck, I even had to slam my brakes on this afternoon because a filtering cyclist cut in front of me without quite appreciating quite how close to me his rear wheel was and I must have lost about 3 seconds of my time - very rarely do hold up cars. What they do is temporarily impose a steady speed instead of the staccato dash to the red light rhythms of motorised urban traffic - you might slow down to let them pass a pinch point but, why rush, they're only going to filter past you in a few seconds anyway. Oh, and they take up far, far less road space than cars.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Oh, and they take up far, far less road space than cars.

... and we look better: toned, fit, fantastic, etc. It's hard being so fit and healthy!

 

[Accy cyclist]

I can't think of one incident when i've been driving where i've been held up by a cyclist. The most annoying thing when out on my bike is when a vehicle overtakes me aggressively to(as the op points out)get to the lights or a junction asap just so they can wait a bit more! Vehicles often hold me up by overtaking me then stopping to give way to oncoming traffic blocking that narrow gap i could've got through.

 

[Markymark]

My cycle commute is around 35 mins (I stop at every red light). In the car its around an hour. The cars are slower than me and slow me down.

 

[adscrim]

My commute to work takes 15 minutes on an average day. It's 30 minutes in the car and 45 on the bus. I've had motorists tell me to get out of the way while stationary at red lights as I'm holding them up.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

I ride around 50 minutes to an hour each way for my commute, in the morning I probably save 20-25 minutes over driving the car providing it's a normal day, on a bad day I could be saving hours. On the ride back I probably lose 10-15 minutes over driving the car because traffic flows out of SE London easier than it does in and a lot of my commute miles are after the A20 has started to run properly for cars so I'd be doing 70 odd on four wheels. From work to Fiveways I still beat every car there.