RLJ'ers

[subaqua]

whats Ken Clarkes opinion on serious RLJing and not so serious RLJing ??

 

[Coco]

The light said red, but meant green.

 

[Becs]

There was a Sunday London Ride last year where the entire peloton was nearly wiped out by a police car RLJing (without blue lights or sirens before or after the event), there's no hope really!

 

[lukesdad]

I appreciate that you're clearly a good enough and experienced rider to minimise the disadvantages of riding sub-optimally, but that doesn't make you a not-selfish rider. Other parts of your riding will make you not-selfish and a good rider, sure, but riding too far to the left isn't one of them. In the same way, taking the lane when I should doesn't make me a selfish rider either. Making it easy for motorists to pass is good riding, and it's generous of me to wait and allow others past as I regularly do, even when I don't need to.

Most motorists are quite understanding of taking the lane through pinch points, and although YouTube video channels don't often give that impression, it's usual to get at least 10 instances of grateful motorists for every impatient one. It's fairly obvious from the hazard flashes and waves of thanks when pulling left after the pedestrian refuge.

The italic bit - I think that perhaps this is either a straw man, or your understanding of Cyclecraft and good riding is significantly flawed. This is the general order of importance of good and sharing road use:

My safety
Your safety
My convenience
Your convenience

I imagine you must be a RLJer yourself, yes? Otherwise I'm not sure why you would try to defend RLJing as acceptable selfishness.

I havnt commented on RLJing.

 

[User482]

So in summary, stuff people do is ok, and stuff they don't do, isn't.

(Reaches for rolls eyes smiley).

 

[Dan B]

You'd articulated that point in post 76 and I've mentioned it in threads passim!

OK, my apologies. In my defence I can only plead that it was a long, tedious and technical thread ;-)

In the 2010 TSRGD amendment consultation there were no proposals to change the wording re: the requirement to use the cycle lane, but a bit about including the stubbie was added.

That's interesting (well, to me, obviously not to Mikey). Given the likelihood of novice cyclists going up the gutter to an ASL between a railing and an HGV and getting crushed by it when it turns left, I'm quite surprised that nobody said "hey, why don't we write the law properly this time so that cyclists can legally enter the box anywhere".

 

[Dan B]

So in summary, stuff people do is ok, and stuff they don't do, isn't.

I agree wholeheartedly and futhermore

 

[BentMikey]

...you're still not good enough to find anyone who's been fined for entering an ASL "wrongly" on a bicycle.

(B-) Must try harder.

 

[lukesdad]

I appreciate that you're clearly a good enough and experienced rider to minimise the disadvantages of riding sub-optimally, but that doesn't make you a not-selfish rider. Other parts of your riding will make you not-selfish and a good rider, sure, but riding too far to the left isn't one of them. In the same way, taking the lane when I should doesn't make me a selfish rider either. Making it easy for motorists to pass is good riding, and it's generous of me to wait and allow others past as I regularly do, even when I don't need to.

Most motorists are quite understanding of taking the lane through pinch points, and although YouTube video channels don't often give that impression, it's usual to get at least 10 instances of grateful motorists for every impatient one. It's fairly obvious from the hazard flashes and waves of thanks when pulling left after the pedestrian refuge.

The italic bit - I think that perhaps this is either a straw man, or your understanding of Cyclecraft and good riding is significantly flawed. This is the general order of importance of good and sharing road use:

My safety
Your safety
My convenience
Your convenience

I imagine you must be a RLJer yourself, yes? Otherwise I'm not sure why you would try to defend RLJing as acceptable selfishness.

OK Mikey enough of the sparing lets cut to the chase shall we ? You and I both know that, you dont spend your life in the middle of the road and I dont spend mine in the gutter. The reason that prompted me to enter this thread is your thoughts on the light that is cast on cyclists by RLJers ( I happen to agree with your position as it happens.). Continuing this further I would extend this to obstructive cycling. Now Im not accusing you of being one, but IMO you have endorsed this type of riding on occasion (the blue mini thread for example). Now I know what your response to this will be, but irrespective of who is right and who is wrong on where the OP s position in the road should have been, in the mind of the driver, he was being obstructive (the evidence of the drivers reaction was plain to see) this in turn put another vulnerable road user at risk. The motorist believed this was another cyclist being selfish rightly or wrongly.


The above illustrates the fatal flaw with cyclecraft. Nobody other than a small minority of cyclists has ever heard of it let alone knows whats in it ! Its the blind leading the blind at the cost of personal judgement and common sense.

As for the posting of videos on you tube and blogs etc. It has exactly the same effect in the eyes of the motoring majority. Cyclists are trouble. By all means forward them to the relevent authority in cases of bad driving but, dont plaster them all over the internet you re not doing us any favours.

As for scarecrows, I have no need for them.

 

[Dan B]

...you're still not good enough to find anyone who's been fined for entering an ASL "wrongly" on a bicycle.

(B-) Must try harder.

Frankly, I haven't even looked. How would it advance the argument if I did?

 

[BentMikey]

Yup, that confirms the only fatal flaw here is your misunderstanding of how good road positioning and cyclecraft works. It doesn't require any understanding by drivers. A little knowledge of the highway code, but even that, not so much.

BRSU got the mini driver to behave exactly as he intended, he successfully herded that driver as per good cyclecraft and discouraged them from overtaking through a pinch point. After that, the driver overtook easily as we would all want them to do. Job done. Even if the driver had pushed through on the pinch point as happens occasionally, at least the primary position allows two things - room to BRSU's left to dive out of the way, and it'll also have pushed the driver much further to the right through the pinch point. It's a double safety win.

BRSU was not cycling obstructively there - he didn't make it at all difficult for the driver to overtake.

 

[BentMikey]

Frankly, I haven't even looked. How would it advance the argument if I did?

Yeah, it certainly wouldn't advance your "debate", and it shows your search fu is made of this: FAIL.

 

[BSRU]

OK Mikey enough of the sparing lets cut to the chase shall we ? You and I both know that, you dont spend your life in the middle of the road and I dont spend mine in the gutter. The reason that prompted me to enter this thread is your thoughts on the light that is cast on cyclists by RLJers ( I happen to agree with your position as it happens.). Continuing this further I would extend this to obstructive cycling. Now Im not accusing you of being one, but IMO you have endorsed this type of riding on occasion (the blue mini thread for example). Now I know what your response to this will be, but irrespective of who is right and who is wrong on where the OP s position in the road should have been, in the mind of the driver, he was being obstructive (the evidence of the drivers reaction was plain to see) this in turn put another vulnerable road user at risk. The motorist believed this was another cyclist being selfish rightly or wrongly.


The above illustrates the fatal flaw with cyclecraft. Nobody other than a small minority of cyclists has ever heard of it let alone knows whats in it ! Its the blind leading the blind at the cost of personal judgement and common sense.

As for the posting of videos on you tube and blogs etc. It has exactly the same effect in the eyes of the motoring majority. Cyclists are trouble. By all means forward them to the relevent authority in cases of bad driving but, dont plaster them all over the internet you re not doing us any favours.

As for scarecrows, I have no need for them.

I have never read Cyclecraft.
The type of driver who finds some cyclists obstructive probably thinks anyone going slower than them or causing them to slow down are obstructive and speed camera's violate their human rights.

 

[lukesdad]

Yup, that confirms the only fatal flaw here is your misunderstanding of how good road positioning and cyclecraft works. It doesn't require any understanding by drivers. A little knowledge of the highway code, but even that, not so much.

BRSU got the mini driver to behave exactly as he intended, he successfully herded that driver as per good cyclecraft and discouraged them from overtaking through a pinch point. After that, the driver overtook easily as we would all want them to do. Job done. Even if the driver had pushed through on the pinch point as happens occasionally, at least the primary position allows two things - room to BRSU's left to dive out of the way, and it'll also have pushed the driver much further to the right through the pinch point. It's a double safety win.

BRSU was not cycling obstructively there - he didn't make it at all difficult for the driver to overtake.

Yup and that confirms your selfish opinion, in regard to other cyclists as it is the drivers view that puts all our lives at risk.

 

[Dan B]

The above illustrates the fatal flaw with cyclecraft. Nobody other than a small minority of cyclists has ever heard of it let alone knows whats in it !

It's a reasonable argument but the fault is not with cyclecraft or the cyclists following it, it's with the drivers who don't understand why and assume it must be antagonistic. The same could be said about riding two abreast, filtering (aka "queue jumping"), or just about any other cycle-specific maneouvre that the driver doesn't understand, and it's with the driver for assuming the cyclist is reckless/selfish, not with the cyclist for riding in a way that could be misinterpreted as such. You might, from self-preservation, wish to avoid provoking drivers int he same way as you might wish to avoid walking alone at night through rough areas, but if you don't and if they take "revenge", it is quite definitely them to blame and not you.

tl;dr "he brought it on himself"/"she was asking for it" is not an excuse for retaliatory bad behaviour, and doubly so when the victim was doing it (whatever "it" is) for a perfectly good reason