Doubling Up On Road

[theclaud]

I'm going to read the whole of this thread the next time I get caught in a traffic jam on the M25. Meanwhile, my 0€02 worth is that I have never been substantially delayed by cyclists while driving. In fact, I believe my car journeys would have been slower if only a small proportion of those cyclists had chosen to drive instead. However, if motorised transport were restricted to driving in one lane only on dual carriageways, my cycling journeys would be a lot quicker and safer.

That reminds me, obliquely, of Alan Storkey's visionary coach transport system, described by George Monbiot here. Of course, it wouldn't work so well if coaches had to pull over every time a car wished to get past...

 

[freecyclist]

What is wrong with you? Why do you insist on arguing against a position that no-one is putting forward?

No-one has said they would continue to ride 2 abreast, deliberately holding up traffic, if it was safe to single up and let the car(s) through. Almost everyone has said that they would stay in 2 abreast to prevent an unsafe overtake, and that in many cases it's easier to overtake cyclists 2 abreast than single file. Stop it with your ridiculous straw man arguments please.

And I very much doubt whether the majority of forummers would agree that large groups of cyclists should be discouraged. Seeing as the majority of problems are caused by motorised traffic, we should be discouraging large groups of that instead.

To polarise the arguement for the sake of clarity - there are 2 opinions.
1 - cyclists should be proactively considerate to other road users and allow motoritsts to pass whevener reasonable safety permitting.
2 - The "Claud" ideology ; cyclists should not make concessions to motorists as cyclists have rights and the spineless conceeding of ground to motorists will only serve to reinforce the motorists sense of entirlement over cyclists. (claud will in the next breath be whining about getting intimidated by the very same motorists she has just deliberately antagonised - duh) This is the militant option.
The latter regards the former as kow towing to motorists.
The former regards the later as selfish individuals giving cyclists in general a bad name.

 

[benb]

To polarise the arguement for the sake of clarity - there are 2 opinions.
1 - cyclists should be proactively considerate to other road users and allow motoritsts to pass whevener reasonable safety permitting.
2 - The "Claud" ideology ; cyclists should not make concessions to motorists as cyclists have rights and the spineless conceeding of ground to motorists will only serve to reinforce the motorists sense of entirlement over cyclists. (claud will in the next breath be whining about getting intimidated by the very same motorists she has just deliberately antagonised - duh) This is the militant option.
The latter regards the former as kow towing to motorists.
The former regards the later as selfish individuals giving cyclists in general a bad name.

You're deliberately misrepresenting Claud's position. He has said he will single up if it is safe and practical to do so.

Why do you insist on misrepresenting, quote mining, and straw-manning?

 

[theclaud]

First, thanks for admitting you didn't put it as well as you'd wanted to.

As to the wise words by another's pen: This is all very well, but it rather pre-supposes that the subject does not also enjoy walking and cycling.

I'm a 4,000-mile a year cyclist and I spend most of my life in the country. I drive rather more than that, but I do ride and I do walk.

I know and love the whiff of the first coal fires as Autumn becomes Winter.

I love the scent of the roadside woodland after a heavy rain.

Ditto the sight of a buzzard watching me ride past from his telegraph pole and the view ahead of a road snaking up a climb as my finger twitches over the ergo shifter to launch me in the small ring. On regular rides I know where I'm going to see a particular discarded boot or wheel trim in the hedge.

I even play a game of Moo-ing at cows as i ride past and counting how many heads turn. Even my kids have got into that one. it has become competitive, sadly. We do the same for sheep too.

I am not the passenger of your eloquent author's vivid imagination. Few people are.

And I'm not sure driving is anti-social either. I would see little of my extended family if I didn't drive. I feel that I express indivicualism more on a bicycle than I do in a car. I can (and do) pick up hitchers in my car. I can't on my bicycle.

Eh? It's not a portrait of a real person - it is a description of the corrosive effects of transportation on the imagination, and on the configuration of social space. And anyway, I can assure you that, buzzards and old boots notwithstanding, you are exhibiting more than a few of symptoms of the malaise.

I think you are talking about individuality, not individualism.

 

[Bicycle]

Eh? It's not a portrait of a real person - it is a description of the corrosive effects of transportation on the imagination, and on the configuration of social space. And anyway, I can assure you that, buzzards and old boots notwithstanding, you are exhibiting more than a few of symptoms of the malaise.

I think you are talking about individuality, not individualism.

Ummm... I realise it's not the portrait of a real person. It is clearly (and explicitly) the projection of a series of effects on a fictional 'habitual passenger'. I meant not that your author was not writing specifically about me (which would be absurd), but that I did not feel I was subject to what you refer to as the corrosive effects of transport.

If I display symptoms, I will do my best to ignore them as I quite enjoy enjoying what I enjoy. I feel terribly guilty now about being a keen motorist, but I will try to assume some sort of imagined sack cloth as I drive from now on.

I might add that if you were to spend 20 minutes blatting up and down the country lanes in my wife's delightful 1960 roadster, you might again thrill to the sin of internal combustion and chirping tyres. If it is corrosive, it is deliciously corrosive. Like a good Armagnac.

On your last point, I am not talking about individuality. If I were I would use that word. I find the way I use my bicycle far closer to individualism than the way I use my car. It is all about me and what I want, when i want it. I drive largely to benefit others. I dropped in a mention of picking up hitchers in the next sentence, but you may not have noticed it. That is not the whole picture, but it suggests I know my -isms from my -alities.

Really, I was talking about considerate use of the highways. Some other bugger introduced philosophy when I had my back turned.

 

[dellzeqq]

Good points.
I was thinking 6 to 8 for normal (non event) type road groups with no special supervision or additional safety provision.
I see your point and my point is just a common sense based one on what we from a standpoint of best practice should be recommending.
I think the sportive like you refer to are great and should be embraced and encouraged.
If the organisers can make it work and its aok then thats fine , if there are any saftey concerns to cyclists taking part then , i dont know the road or area but would closing the road to public traffic be at all possible.

barking! Utterly, utterly mad

I'm just waiting to be told that CS7 should be closed.......

 

[Dave Davenport]

Blinking heck, I can't believe this posts still running and that anyone thinks it's even worth trying to reason with someone who thinks cyclists shouldn't be in groups of more than eight, in case it causes a motorist to get to their destination three minutes later than they would have.

Freecycle is a berk who's going to carry on spouting the same crap for however long this post continues (IMO).

 

[VamP]

Blinking heck, I can't believe this posts still running and that anyone thinks it's even worth trying to reason with someone who thinks cyclists shouldn't be in groups of more than eight, in case it causes a motorist to get to their destination three minutes later than they would have.

Freecycle is a berk who's going to carry on spouting the same crap for however long this post continues (IMO).

See, FC is clearly either a loon or a wind-up merchant, but some of the secondary discussions on here are quite wide ranging and interesting. I keep popping back in to catch up, though I have long since given up trying to reason with FC.

 

[GilesM]

Actually I didn't put it terribly well. It's not driving in itself I dislike - as someone who rather likes going too fast, there is an imaginary realm in which the pleasure of driving still makes sense to me - it is the participation in a largely antisocial activity, the experience of individualism in action, that I don't enjoy. Much as one might be unable to enjoy the pleasure of a private beach in the knowledge that the locals are fenced out. The car as an instrument of liberation is a fantasy.

Driving a car in western Europe isn't really membership of an exclusive club, get a grip on reality.

As for turkeys and Christmas, I give you these wise words, more eloquent than mine:

The habitual passenger cannot grasp the folly of traffic based overwhelmingly on transport. His inherited perceptions of space and time and of personal pace have been industrially deformed. He has lost the power to conceive of himself outside the passenger role. Addicted to being carried along, he has lost control over the physical, social, and psychic powers that reside in man’s feet. The passenger has come to identify territory with the untouchable landscape through which he is rushed. He has become impotent to establish his domain, mark it with his imprint, and assert his sovereignty over it. He has lost confidence in his power to admit others into his presence and to share space consciously with them. He can no longer face the remote by himself. Left on his own, he feels immobile.

The habitual passenger must adopt a new set of beliefs and expectations if he is to feel secure in the strange world where both liaisons and loneliness are products of conveyance. To “gather” for him means to be brought together by vehicles. He comes to believe that political power grows out of the capacity of a transportation system, and in its absence is the result of access to the television screen. He takes freedom of movement to be the same as one’s claim on propulsion. He believes that the level of democratic process correlates to the power of transportation and communications systems. He has lost faith in the political power of the feet and of the tongue. As a result, what he wants is not more liberty as a citizen but better service as a client. He does not insist on his freedom to move and to speak to people but on his claim to be shipped and to be informed by media. He wants a better product rather than freedom from servitude to it. It is vital that he come to see that the acceleration he demands is self-defeating, and that it must result in a further decline of equity, leisure, and autonomy.

That reads more like a reason for not having high speed trains

 

[theclaud]

Ummm... I realise it's not the portrait of a real person. It is clearly (and explicitly) the projection of a series of effects on a fictional 'habitual passenger'. I meant not that your author was not writing specifically about me (which would be absurd), but that I did not feel I was subject to what you refer to as the corrosive effects of transport.

If I display symptoms, I will do my best to ignore them as I quite enjoy enjoying what I enjoy. I feel terribly guilty now about being a keen motorist, but I will try to assume some sort of imagined sack cloth as I drive from now on.

I might add that if you were to spend 20 minutes blatting up and down the country lanes in my wife's delightful 1960 roadster, you might again thrill to the sin of internal combustion and chirping tyres. If it is corrosive, it is deliciously corrosive. Like a good Armagnac.

On your last point, I am not talking about individuality. If I were I would use that word. I find the way I use my bicycle far closer to individualism than the way I use my car. It is all about me and what I want, when i want it. I drive largely to benefit others. I dropped in a mention of picking up hitchers in the next sentence, but you may not have noticed it. That is not the whole picture, but it suggests I know my -isms from my -alities.

Really, I was talking about considerate use of the highways. Some other bugger introduced philosophy when I had my back turned.

And how exactly do you imagine you will escape them, since you presumably inhabit the same world as the rest of us?

I'm not going to be "blatting" up and down country lanes in any kind of motor vehicle. Any driver who blats anywhere, however charming their vehicle, is a menace.

If that's what you say you meant, then fair enough, but I find it odd that a vehicle that imposes few demands and restrictions on others and expands the horizons of door-to-door transport would be described as individualistic, while one that shapes our entire society according to its demands and requires that everything get out of its way is seen as somehow convivial. The only things that cars facilitate are the things they have rendered necessary in the first place.

I did notice the bit about hitchhikers, which is all very heartening, but if I'm honest I have to admit to finding the self-portraits of the Look How Polite A Road User I Am And Wouldn't It Be Great If Everyone Were Like Me element a bit tiresome by now. It's the implication that everyone else is behaving inconsiderately that is irritating. Not to mention wrong.

 

[theclaud]

Driving a car in western Europe isn't really membership of an exclusive club, get a grip on reality.


That reads more like a reason for not having high speed trains

It is about all forms of high-speed transportation, but especially the private car. The speed is the thing.

I chose the example deliberately, as it is reminiscent of something from Andre Gorz, to the effect that everyone can no more enjoy the benefits of a private car than they can a private beach house. You're right to say that's it's no longer a very exclusive club. And of course that is diminishing its value to the individual, because the fantasy of liberation depends on exclusivity. Hence the getting-out-of-the-way-thing that this thread is about. Put another way, if a few people riding side-by-side is sufficient to frustrate the purpose of motor vehicles, then they were probably a shoot idea in the first place.

 

[Bicycle]

And how exactly do you imagine you will escape them, since you presumably inhabit the same world as the rest of us?

I'm not going to be "blatting" up and down country lanes in any kind of motor vehicle. Any driver who blats anywhere, however charming their vehicle, is a menace.

If that's what you say you meant, then fair enough, but I find it odd that a vehicle that imposes few demands and restrictions on others and expands the horizons of door-to-door transport would be described as individualistic, while one that shapes our entire society according to its demands and requires that everything get out of its way is seen as somehow convivial. The only things that cars facilitate are the things they have rendered necessary in the first place.

I did notice the bit about hitchhikers, which is all very heartening, but if I'm honest I have to admit to finding the self-portraits of the Look How Polite A Road User I Am And Wouldn't It Be Great If Everyone Were Like Me element a bit tiresome by now. It's the implication that everyone else is behaving inconsiderately that is irritating. Not to mention wrong.

Blimey!

1. I'm not trying to escape what I don't see as corrosive. I quite enjoy living in the early 21st Century in Western Europe.

2. The only way to drive a 1960 roadster is to blat. It makes about 55 bhp and has low gearing, so it does 70mph flat out. we normally drive it at 50, which is scary enough. It is not even a menace to insects. It is also very beautiful and has a lovely exhaust note. Utterly, utterly lovely.

3. I do see what you say about motor vehicles shaping our society, although I quite like the environment they've shaped. This computer was delivered in a lorry. As were the slates on my roof, the food in my fridge.. indeed the fridge itself. My children were delivered in a bed. Almost everything else in a lorry. Eschew the vehicle and you need stout leather on your soles.

4. I certainly don't consider myself particularly polite on the road. I put these things in to defend both myself and motorists in general against real or implied charges of being petrol-fuelled misery-bringers. In truth there has not been a week for about twenty years when I've had fewer than three points on my license. Sometimes it is more. My family laugh openly at my driving.

5. I absolutely don't think that everyone else is behaving inconsiderately. I don't imply it. In the post you first took exception to, I wrote very positively about racers, chaingangs, parents training children and others. I write often on this forum that I think the majority of road users are skilled, courteous and thoughtful. So any implication that everyone else is behaving inconsiderately would be very wrong, as you say. And any inference that I'd been thinking that way would be wide of the mark. It's all there in black and white.

6. However, I do think that dawdling cyclists who ride 2-abreast when they could easily tuck in and passing is tricky are not showing a massive amount of consideration for other road users. I also have an issue with lycra missiles on posh wheels who double up to chat between pieces of work if that doubling up inconveniences other road users. These are the points you first baulked at and I am constant in my views.

 

[GilesM]

It is about all forms of high-speed transportation, but especially the private car. The speed is the thing.

I chose the example deliberately, as it is reminiscent of something from Andre Gorz, to the effect that everyone can no more enjoy the benefits of a private car than they can a private beach house. You're right to say that's it's no longer a very exclusive club. And of course that is diminishing its value to the individual, because the fantasy of liberation depends on exclusivity. Hence the getting-out-of-the-way-thing that this thread is about. Put another way, if a few people riding side-by-side is sufficient to frustrate the purpose of motor vehicles, then they were probably a shoot idea in the first place.

To me you lose all sense when you talk of the fantasy of liberation, it's nothing more than a pretty good way of getting from A to B (unless you're now going to tell me that you're impressed by certain cars as a babe magnet), and depending where your A and B are, it can also be a lot of fun, I've never seen the purpose of a motor vehicle frustrated, just a few sad wound up drivers over the years.

 

[theclaud]

To me you lose all sense when you talk of the fantasy of liberation, it's nothing more than a pretty good way of getting from A to B (unless you're now going to tell me that you're impressed by certain cars as a babe magnet), and depending where your A and B are, it can also be a lot of fun, I've never seen the purpose of a motor vehicle frustrated, just a few sad wound up drivers over the years.

That's because you're extremely prosaic. A quick browse of car ads over the years should give you a clue.

 

[Little yellow Brompton]

To polarise the arguement for the sake of clarity - there are 2 opinions.

There seems to be some spelling mistake in the above

To polarise the argument in the hope of creating a divisions that don't really exist.

There we go, I corrected it for you!

You were wrong about the two opinions, there are many more than two.