Sin bin for red light jumping cyclists

[mjr]

View attachment 826708
https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/road-junctions.html

That site is an old copy by a business called DrivingEd. It's stale.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

My questions is this

If you are turning right
and when the lights go green then your exit is clear
so you move forward to the middle of the box signalling right
but then have to wait for the traffic opposite to have a gap

THEN
the traffic opposite that is turning left jams up so your exit is NO LONGER clear
is that OK

after all - the exit was clear when you moved forward?
EDIT - just re-read the HC
I mean this for traffic lights ONLY
signalled roundabouts are apparently different

 

[Alex321]

Not exactly because that's not from the current edition. The flatbed truck blocking the pedestrian crossing isn't shown any more.

That is from the current online version.

I didn't look at the illustration for box junctions, but isn't only one vehicle in that illustration stopped at a red light? The white van, top right. Its position is legal but foolish because it gives them nowhere to move out of the way legally if another vehicle stops besides them. It's not a great illustration, is it?

Yes, because it illustrrates what you are normally expected to do.

You don't pull up leaving excessive space on the very remote off chance that an emergency vehicle might want to get through.
I'm not sure that has EVER happened to me in 45 years of driving, that I was at the front of the traffic light queue when an emergency vehicle came from behind on blues & twos. I certainly can't remember it happening.

Anyway, can you find any place where it says the white line "is there to indicate the point at which you should stop" as you wrote earlier? It actually says the reverse: it indicates where you MUST stop behind and MUST NOT move forward over. This is similar to the speed limit not being a target: that white line is a movement limit, not a target.

OK, I said "should" rather trhan "must". that doesn't reverse the meaning.

That's debatable, but the space is necessary in order to comply with rule 219 if a blue-light vehicle approaches from behind: "take appropriate action to let it pass, while complying with all traffic signs".

You do not need to "comply with rule 219" until it happens.

 

[icowden]

You do not need to "comply with rule 219" until it happens.

And when it does happen, the few times that I have seen it, the emergency vehicle just uses the other side of the road, albeit carefully, with full blues and twos going. Oncoming traffic which can move just moves out of the way to allow the vehicle through.

 

[Alex321]

No it isn't:
View attachment 826707
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/using-the-road-159-to-203

That is exactly the same image as I showed. So why the "no it isn't"?

 

[Poacher]

That is exactly the same image as I showed. So why the "no it isn't"?

No, it isn't. Yours has a truck blocking the pedestrian crossing at top left.

 

[icowden]

No, it isn't. Yours has a truck blocking the pedestrian crossing at top left.

Which is obviously a critical difference required to understand why cars stop at white lines and not ten feet behind them.

 

[Poacher]

Which is obviously a critical difference required to understand why cars stop at white lines and not ten feet behind them.

Whatever.
I wasn't arguing the toss about white lines, merely pointing out, as @mjr already has, that the two images are NOT identical.

Presumably DrivingEd has some financial interest in posting an old version of the Highway Code online, and quite possibly paying for it to appear above the official .gov current version, but offhand I can't think of an obvious scam, possibly because I'm not criminally minded.

Edit: I wonder if DrivingEd is in any way related to Presuming Ed in Withnail and I.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

I have been in things like traffic light queus several times when Blue Light vehicles have come up behind

in each case the cars at the front crossed the white line but only to the far end of the kerb of the lights

all other cars moved as far left/right as possible
the blue lights vehicle generally then came up the middle
as soon as all this became clear vehicle coming across stopped where they were to make a hole so the vehicle could get wherever it need to go

then after it had gone - in every case - everyone behaved sensibly to sort out that everyone got sorted out and went the right way
the normal behaviour resumed

All in all - it has generally been a thing that give me faith in humanity

 

[Alex321]

No, it isn't. Yours has a truck blocking the pedestrian crossing at top left.

Missed that.

I now have the gov Highway code site bookmarked, rather than https://www.highwaycodeuk.co.uk/ whiuch is where I got the previious one from.
Not that it actually matters, since the vehicles shown stopped for lights are stiull right up to the line.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

On a topic similar to the original

Last 2 days I have been driving along a local dual carrigeway - one of those 30 mph ones in a town

and 2 lads on bikes - about 12/13 maybe - have caused me to just stop as they were coming down the road ON THE WRONG SIDE
OK - it is a 30 mph one - not 70 - but it was 40 until a couple of months ago
and it ain;t all that light at 4:30 these days!!
naturally they were not wearing his-vis - or helmets etc etc

and then on the way back home - on a major local road, not that wide but 2 major local link
2 older lads on the right side but riding down the white line
with 2 other lads on the handlebars!!

no-one died

not yet anyway

not sure whether I should report it or not bother
probably will - if I don;t and i read in the paper that a kid died then I will feel awful
but can;t see the cops can/will do anything

 

[annedonnelly]

Driving south down this road in the summer I came head to head with a teenager riding on the wrong side of the road. I stopped in his path as he wasn't going to move across to the correct side of the road. It's a quiet road, but a national speed limit at that point. It's part of NCN 1 and I thought it possible that he was a foreigner recently arrived on the ferry.

He wasn't. He said "he'd forgot". It was a hot day, he looked knackered and probably didn't have any water with him. A lot of people enjoy driving that road fast and there's a hump-backed bridge with a blind summit. I didn't want to simply drive round him just for someone to come flying over the bridge and take him out.

 

[DRM]

I have been in things like traffic light queus several times when Blue Light vehicles have come up behind

in each case the cars at the front crossed the white line but only to the far end of the kerb of the lights

all other cars moved as far left/right as possible
the blue lights vehicle generally then came up the middle
as soon as all this became clear vehicle coming across stopped where they were to make a hole so the vehicle could get wherever it need to go

then after it had gone - in every case - everyone behaved sensibly to sort out that everyone got sorted out and went the right way
the normal behaviour resumed

All in all - it has generally been a thing that give me faith in humanity

Similar situation, in that instance, they've gone down the wrong side of the road, then gone back to the correct side after passing the traffic lights, slowing to check for traffic coming from their left & right before speeding up on the correct side of the road