Does people commuting on a cycle really reduce traffic?

[Hip Priest]

75% was just plucked out of thin air - hyperbole really. Some helmet cam cyclists annoy me for the reasons stated above. Not everyone is the the same, obviously, so apologies for that.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

Nothing wrong with having a cam for use as evidence in that sort of incident. Plenty wrong with posting up daily videos of minor incidents and letting your journey to-and-from work dominate your life.

That's true, but it depends what you consider to be minor. Now I think about it, posting videos of incidents takes up perhaps 2 or 3 hours per week, whereas reading and posting on CycleChat can easily take up more than twice that. Hm, Magnatom was right .

 

[snorri]

I also think that the Cyclecraft approach is much easier to adopt once you have become a reasonably strong cyclist.

The full title of my 1997 edition is CYCLECRAFT, Skilled Cycling Techniques for Adults.

The title has been edited now, not sure about changes in the content.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

The full title of my 1997 edition is CYCLECRAFT, Skilled Cycling Techniques for Adults.
The title has been edited now, not sure about changes in the content.

It does still contain the text: "A good cadence to aim for is about 80, while a sprint speed of 32 km/h (20 mph) will enable you to tackle most traffic situations with ease."

I struggle to get much above 15mph on some of the uphill junctions where I need to take the lane on my commute, and certainly could not achieve 20mph into a 10mph headwind, which is quite normal. Good job I do it for the exercise!

 

[david k]

of course it does, if they chose a bike over a car that is

 

[DonnyDarko]

[QUOTE 1588080"]
These two bits of road have no central reservation. A central reservation is having an actual barrier in between the traffic (like on a motorway).

What is here are chevrons enclosed by a broken white line so can be crossed although you should be aware of any potential hazards. I'd put this down to driver error/non confidence/hesitation in not wanting to overtake rather then a cyclist holding up the traffic.
[/quote]

Thanks for the reply Lee.

The A43 has a grass verge through most of it. And the road leading off that to work has a wall built down about half of it. Those are the bits that I tend to find cars all in a line behing a cyclist. And like I said it doesn't matter if a car does overtake them, there are that many traffic lights that the cyclist usually gets back past them all and we're all back to square one. Even though there are cycle lanes down some/most/bits of the route.

Clearly if it's going to screw your tyres or worse you'd opt of the road. Perhaps what's needed is a clear up regularly by the council by way of a road sweeper thing but I can't see that happening with all these cut backs.

I think what I'll do is just a mixture of pavement, cycle lane, road, and just give chances for the angry commuters to pass me if they start getting a bit riled up like I have to admit I have been myself in a car when being a bit late. Perhaps my fault there too for setting off late or whatever though.

Thanks to all for contributing to the thread, it's an eye opener for sure.

 

[Dan B]

If traffic lights make it so that the motorists are on average as slow as the cyclists anyway, what exactly are they hoping to achieve by playing leapfrog? Getting to the lights sooner is not going to make their overall journey time any shorter