Staggeringly stupid idea

[Wobblers]

One of the bridges across the Clyde in Glasgow has a cycle lane featuring this (Bridge Street, @glasgowcyclist might be familiar with it). To call it a "fecking abomination" fails utterly to describe the sheer moronic dangerous uselessness of it. That bike lane was already useless - it's at the extreme left, but most cyclists go straight on, so it neatly puts anyone using it in direct conflict with left turning traffic. This halfwittery just makes it all worse. The safest strategy is to ignore this uselessness, and take the lane.

 

[MacB]

The safest strategy is to ignore this uselessness, and take the lane.

Though true this does create its own conflicts as drivers seem to get very irate when you ignore 'cycle facilities'.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

One of the bridges across the Clyde in Glasgow has a cycle lane featuring this (Bridge Street, @glasgowcyclist might be familiar with it). To call it a "fecking abomination" fails utterly to describe the sheer moronic dangerous uselessness of it. That bike lane was already useless - it's at the extreme left, but most cyclists go straight on, so it neatly puts anyone using it in direct conflict with left turning traffic. This halfwittery just makes it all worse. The safest strategy is to ignore this uselessness, and take the lane.

I know that road only too well, I used to use it regularly a few years back, before I moved office.

I haven't had the (mis)fortune to use that facility since it was put in but that route out of town was always bad for cycling on and it leads to where I suffered my first hit & run. As you point out, the cycle lane is useless so I always rode in the other lanes available.

For those who don't know, it's a wide one-way road with 4 lanes travelling south.
Lane 1 becomes left only. Lane 2 is left or ahead, lane 3 is ahead only and lane 4 is ahead or right.

I was in lane 1 and had moved into lane 2 so I could go straight on. However, my position was not central in the lane and a car squeezed alongside me and immediately turned left. I was taken around the corner with it, thrown across his rear window and landed in the roadway while he farked off. I adopted primary in any of those lanes ever since.

Just look at where the council puts cyclists, then abandons them.

 

[mjr]

Though true this does create its own conflicts as drivers seem to get very irate when you ignore 'cycle facilities'.

They don't get irate when you ignore cycle facilities. Some are just irate anyway. I've been told many times to get in the cycle lane or on the cycle path where no such thing exists. It's just a more acceptable shout than "get out of my way".

Those plastic kerbs are rubbish: too small to deter drivers but big enough to be a hazard to people walking or cycling. I suspect nothing less than posts is worth bothering with. So anyone advocating those little pink crash hazards is probably either clueless or malicious.

 

[Wobblers]

I know that road only too well, I used to use it regularly a few years back, before I moved office.

I haven't had the (mis)fortune to use that facility since it was put in but that route out of town was always bad for cycling on and it leads to where I suffered my first hit & run. As you point out, the cycle lane is useless so I always rode in the other lanes available.

For those who don't know, it's a wide one-way road with 4 lanes travelling south.
Lane 1 becomes left only. Lane 2 is left or ahead, lane 3 is ahead only and lane 4 is ahead or right.

I was in lane 1 and had moved into lane 2 so I could go straight on. However, my position was not central in the lane and a car squeezed alongside me and immediately turned left. I was taken around the corner with it, thrown across his rear window and landed in the roadway while he farked off. I adopted primary in any of those lanes ever since.

Just look at where the council puts cyclists, then abandons them.

View attachment 364555

Sorry to hear about you hit and run, GC. I hope there wasn't much damage done to either the bike or (more importantly!) you.

I go that way quite often whenever I'm back in Glasgow. That part - Jamacia Street and Bridge Street is probably one of the worst spots for cycling in any city I've been in. Your photo shows exactly why that cycle lane is so dangerously useless: like you, I don't use it.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

Sorry to hear about you hit and run, GC. I hope there wasn't much damage done to either the bike or (more importantly!) you.

Scuffed pedals on the bike and a few scrapes and bruises for me, nothing serious.
Lesson learned on lane positioning for me though.

 

[Dan B]

They don't get irate when you ignore cycle facilities. Some are just irate anyway.

I got beeped at repeatedly and a punishment pass the other day for using the carriageway alongside cs2. Perhaps the driver in question was irate anyway, but it'd have made me happier if he'd had to find someone else performing some other perceived infraction to take his frustration out on

 

[Pete Owens]

They don't get irate when you ignore cycle facilities. Some are just irate anyway. I've been told many times to get in the cycle lane or on the cycle path where no such thing exists.

Do you realise how absurd you make yourself when you repeatedly make this claim?
To anyone who cycles regularly on roads the intimidation that comes whenever we ignore a parallel facility is a routine experience, and it is rather offensive for an advocate of those parallel facilities to attempt to gloss this over.

Whenever someone points this out there is always a reply claiming that this happens without facilities. Curious how this is always from the same person. In half a century of cycling I have not experienced a motorist telling me to ride on a non-existent facility. Not once, ever. Yet since they built a cycle path along my route to work (and don't try to insult our intelligence by pretending you are somehow opposed to it) this is a weekly experience. I really have difficulty believing that other cyclists experience things differently, or that the population of Norfolk really are the stereotypical inbred morons you would have us believe.

Now I realise that as advocate of those facilities it is an experience that you are never personally subject to, because it would be utterly hypocritical of you to not use the infrastructure you deny is dangerous. But you need to comprehend that this is a real and unpleasant reality caused by the farcilities you champion.

 

[mjr]

Curious how this is always from the same person.

Curious how the same net stalker always replies to me, too.

Yet since they built a cycle path along my route to work (and don't try to insult our intelligence by pretending you are somehow opposed to it) this is a weekly experience.

I've no idea whether I oppose that one, so how can you know? I've not seen or tried it. I oppose infrastructure that's bad for cycling, whatever it is, but unlike the hardcore who seem happy for cycling to be only for the fit and the brave, I believe good infrastructure is possible, if still rare here.

I really have difficulty believing that other cyclists experience things differently,

And that says it all, doesn't it? You have difficulty believing what other cyclists experience and have been unwilling to listen. Pete Owens knows best and Pete Owens has decreed that all cycleways are to be opposed because everyone should ride like Pete Owens or give up. We'll have no wobblies and gimps here...

or that the population of Norfolk really are the stereotypical inbred morons you would have us believe.

Yeah, I'm sure the lovely motorists abusing me on Aldgate and Russell Square this weekend were from Norfolk, and so were the ones when I lived for years near Bristol(!)

But you need to comprehend that this is a real and unpleasant reality caused by the farcilities you champion.

That's so contrary to my experience that I really doubt a causal link. Existence or not of nearby cycling infrastructure seems uncorrelated with the levels of abuse for carriageway cycling. Far stronger factors are the number of people regularly cycling in an area and time - there's far less abuse now than the 1980s/90s.

I feel it's too easy to attribute any abuse near a cycle path to the cycle path while dismissing other abuse as common-or-garden road rage - I wonder whether motorists realise that including some element of "get on the cycle path" in their rant will draw support from some cyclists.

 

[KnackeredBike]

I feel it's too easy to attribute any abuse near a cycle path to the cycle path while dismissing other abuse as common-or-garden road rage - I wonder whether motorists realise that including some element of "get on the cycle path" in their rant will draw support from some cyclists.

My advice - wear headphones. I have never knowingly been told to use a cycle path but then I have no need to hear any advice from drivers because it is inevitably complete bollocks.

 

[mjr]

[QUOTE 4901500, member: 9609"]he had to drive a similar distance to play golf, he wouldn't dream of endangering others by playing golf up and down a busy road. - I was completely lost for words[/QUOTE]
Well I guess some say cycling is the new golf Maybe you should have asked him if he endangered others by motoring up and down a busy road when there's a perfectly good motoring circuit constructed at great expense at whatever's the nearest one to you?

 

[classic33]

Well I guess some say cycling is the new golf Maybe you should have asked him if he endangered others by motoring up and down a busy road when there's a perfectly good motoring circuit constructed at great expense at whatever's the nearest one to you?

Nearly always private and seldom for the public to use. Track days aside.

 

[Dan B]

Nearly always private and seldom for the public to use. Track days aside.

Same is probably true for the golf course

 

[gaijintendo]

Given all the sightings of these things, it makes you wonder if Mr Henwood invented this thing at all... Or if he invented it, then became a councillor in various local authorities to get them to install them.

 

[simongt]

A similar idea was tried on a refurbished road in Norwich last year. They were removed pretty sharpish as cyclists were catching their wheels on them and it restricted their movement too much. To be fair though, the local council do work fairly well with the cycling fraternity. Currently part of the A.11 going out of the city is being altered to give more space for cyclists & pedestrians. Causing chaos with the motor traffic, but who cares - ?