Should cycling be allowed on the pavement?

[mjr]

A simple tactic for successful pavement cycling...

Slow the chuff down and give way to everyone else, and be prepared to stop at every driveway and side road and blind corner. Which is easy if you slow the chuff down in the first place.

Because no one cycling ever needs to get anywhere at a reasonable speed?

As I understand it, the jury's out on whether cycle tracks are safer than immediately adjacent carriageways. The biggest factor is "it depends". It's possible to completely negate any safety benefit from the separation by messing up the design of a moderately busy junction. Ideally, track placement should be chosen to minimise crossings (including driveways), which is why London now closes more side road turnings when building tracks, because that was a weak spot in early CSs, as some on here know

 

[Pat "5mph"]

They should do it properly and rebuild them so they're consistently wide enough and don't have any of the blind corners or turn-on-the-spot bits that pavements often have. There always seems to be money to enlarge roads but rarely money to build cycle tracks.

True this: how there's always more money so the motorist can go faster, while they couldn't even move one of the several bus stops that are bang on in the middle of the new cycle "infrastructure"

I honestly considered giving up cycling to work after both those incidents.

I've been over the Erskine bridge several times using the path: it should really have easier access/exit, not that semi mountain bike downhill track that there is now.

Due to the above I am very reluctant to use a shared pavement, unless there are very few crossings.

Yes, you are right.
I am very careful to stop and give way at the umpteen crossings.
Once I had a driver wanting to turn around into a no through lay by that crosses the shared pavement: I was riding straight along, she looked at me, indicated, fully expecting me to stop. I did stop, of course: shows you that you need to keep your wits about even on a segregated path!
I am too slow to join the fast road alongside this shared pavement, unless it is 5am on a Sunday. Otherwise I get beeped and close passed.

 

[User16625]

Wrong. The whys and wherefores have been explained up thread... did you read them?

Truth be told I did not. There are several pages in this thread and I only usually read the replies on the 1st and latest pages in such threads. Would take too long to read everything.

Has the war against the motorist been won yet?

Its certainly not going in their favor. The upside to the war on motoring, as well as other motoring related issues, is I do more cycling. I used to love motorcycle touring. Now I cant even stand getting on the dam thing. Im also richer too. I bought a MTB last year which is worth more than my motorbike now is (both financially and personally).

Motorists have plenty to be pissed off about. This "war" isnt gonna improve the bad drivers or make the roads safer for us cyclists. Thats how I see it anyway.

 

[lutonloony]

semi-related I hope. Using a shared cycle path on the way to work this morning and front light battery died. Am I allowed to cycle without lights on a cycle path? ( did have a mini light running as back up),

 

[lutonloony]

If said cycle path was part of the highway (not all are) then you are required to comply with the Road Veihicle Lighting Regulations.

just the sort of odd question that pops into my brain, to keep me entertained when commuting

 

[mjr]

If said cycle path was part of the highway (not all are) then you are required to comply with the Road Veihicle Lighting Regulations.

And don't think it's as simple as whether a cycle track (no such thing in law as cycle paths) is alongside a carriageway: there are some in Norfolk which are highways with no carriageway - sometimes the carriageway has been removed following bypass construction and sometimes there never was one. Just use lights - I suspect unlit cycling elsewhere would be seen as anti-social behaviour or something anyway.

By the way, the reference numbers for cycle-track-only highways in Norfolk seem to be number-Y-number like 2Y1, rather than the more usual A148/B1145/C67/U0213 format - has anyone else ever seen that? They sometimes escape into the public domain in traffic orders.

 

[mjr]

I just spoke on BBC Radio Norfolk about this because they seemed determined to cover it despite it not having a Norfolk angle. I shoehorned in the ideas that we know how to stop it (build cycle tracks, including some long-promised ones), that reckless cycling is illegal wherever and that everyone should give way to people walking everywhere.

I questioned whether this is the police in Camden admitting that they can't even keep relatively slow-moving much-more-20mph-than-ours streets safe for cycling, or whether it's a rational and wise decision to focus on motorists, who are involved in 98% of collisions where people walking on the pavement are killed.

 

[MontyVeda]

Truth be told I did not. There are several pages in this thread and I only usually read the replies on the 1st and latest pages in such threads. Would take too long to read everything.

Probably worth reading a little more in future... if only to avoid posting nonsense.

 

[jefmcg]

Which goes back to the "Boateng" advice

Deal with the situation at the time, make an informed decision at the time and then either let them go, have a word, or issue a ticket as appropriate

Classic example near us with a new section of Dual Carriageway and a poor roundabout

Do we need to wait 5 years, gather statistics and evidence, or simply apply the Bosteng criteria

I'm talking about safety - an individual's judgement about which part of the road is better, not enforcement.

I also don't know what Boateng or Bosteng is.

 

[jefmcg]

Generally try this test.

Find a busy road with a pavement alongside it.
Walk along said pavement for 500m and note how many times you get hit by a car or abused by a driver
Now return to the start.
Walk into the road, start walking along the road for 500m and note how long you survive for. I'll wager you won't get 20 metres.

False equivalence.

We all agree that walking on pavement is safer. We are not talking about walking, we are talking about cycling.

 

[ufkacbln]

I'm talking about safety - an individual's judgement about which part of the road is better, not enforcement.

I also don't know what Boateng or Bosteng is.

Paul Boateng was the Home Office Minister who introduced FPNs for pavement cycling and also the advice on their use - I will edit the original post to make that clearer

 

[derrick]

Story on the BBC's site.Apparently the police in many parts of the UK are now not stopping cyclists for this.

Should cycling be allowed on pavements? - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-38688256

Anyone have any thoughts?

Only for kids.

 

[mjr]

Only for kids.

That's very ageist of you! Besides, I'm still young at heart

 

[ufkacbln]

Truth be told I did not. There are several pages in this thread and I only usually read the replies on the 1st and latest pages in such threads. Would take too long to read everything.



Its certainly not going in their favor. The upside to the war on motoring, as well as other motoring related issues, is I do more cycling. I used to love motorcycle touring. Now I cant even stand getting on the dam thing. Im also richer too. I bought a MTB last year which is worth more than my motorbike now is (both financially and personally).

Motorists have plenty to be pissed off about. This "war" isnt gonna improve the bad drivers or make the roads safer for us cyclists. Thats how I see it anyway.

The best was the Association of BAD Drivers (ABD)

A couple of years ago their spokesman led a blistering attack on pavement cycling, demanding maximum penalties and a total clampdown to eradicate this threat to the pedestrian, especially the visually impaired and disabled

How right!

Yet a few weeks later the same spokesman was uttering a tirade that a clampdown on illegally parking cars on the same pavements was a "Jihad against motorists", depriving drivers of their freedom, persecuting drivers, pursuing an easy target, a cash cow, and all the other usual sad claims

Amazing how suddenly the disabled, visually impaired and the other "victims" of the cyclists were completely unaffected by a ton of metal driving and obstructing the same pavement

 

[ufkacbln]

semi-related I hope. Using a shared cycle path on the way to work this morning and front light battery died. Am I allowed to cycle without lights on a cycle path? ( did have a mini light running as back up),

The cycle is "in use" and therefore requires a light