What have us cyclists been saying for ages?

[mjr]

One estate near where I used to live built in the late 90s early 00s has a through walking route (but not through to vehicles) to a school.

Yet they built the lawns down to the road with no pavement. Okay it's a quietish road but with 50odd houses. How was that ever allowed?

I walked across the lawns.

Why didn't you walk on the road? I suspect it was a "home zone" where that was the intention.

 

[Tom B]

I've said it before but the age of travel is going to come to an end. The idea of living in Blackpool and working in Manchester and driving will come to and end.

The idea of a cheap weekend flight break will be over and foreign holidays less frequent.

We will become less car dependant and live work and play much closer to home. Someone mentioned that they drive their kids 5 miles to school, once again school buses will become the norm and people will stop making excuses and get on with it. When I was at school in the 90s my mate got a bus to town then The school bus complete with school bag, violin case and PE kit. My neighbours kids made the reverse trip to faith to an RC school. Forgotten schoolbags tough, use scrap paper, borrow / use lost and found PE kit etc. Life lesson


Anyway.. when oil dries up and less oil is refined with less waste product, aiui there will be less bitumin around what will they surface the roads with anyway.

 

[Tom B]

Why didn't you walk on the road? I suspect it was a "home zone" where that was the intention.

I was an angsty youth full of angsty youthful indignation about the absence of a pavement and it was my way of rebelling. Obviously they took immediate note and built pavements.

I get the homezone intention there was however no signage that I recall and little room for two cars passing. I thought and still think it's poor, albeit with good intentions.

 

[mjr]

I get the homezone intention there was however no signage that I recall and little room for two cars passing. I thought and still think it's poor, albeit with good intentions.

Government has a bad habit of only signposting such things where motorists enter.

Good intentions, indeed! Where has that taken us? All together now: this ain't no upwardly-mobile highway...

 

[Andy in Germany]

Just checked, and the Elder Son's school was 10km away, while the other two attend one 6 km distant. They travel by public transport or bike depending on mood. This is entirely normal here, and schoolkids get a very reasonably priced all modes/all zones pass for Stuttgart, usable 24/7.

We are frequently told that we aren't "mobile" but the boys are more independent and know their way around Stuttgart better than many of their car-shuttled peers, because if they want to visit someone or go somewhere they just take public transport instead of having to wait until the parental taxi/driver is available.

Incidentally, Stuttgart is considered pretty mediocre for public transport in Germany, so it doesn't take that much to make car free life possible.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I was an angsty youth full of angsty youthful indignation about the absence of a pavement and it was my way of rebelling. Obviously they took immediate note and built pavements.

Pavements are just another example of the tyranny of the motor car. Roads were originally for walking on. The whole width. Pavements only came about after the motoring lobby wanted those on foot confined to the very edges. Nothing should halt the progress of the motorist!

The space has been stolen and we want it back!

 

[Drago]

I had a 3.5 mile walk each way to school. No matter the weather, there were no excuses- thigh deep snow was considered no justification for turning up late or having a day off. 5 decades on and most adults probably don't walk that far in a week.

 

[Andy in Germany]

Pavements are just another example of the tyranny of the motor car. Roads were originally for walking on. The whole width. Pavements only came about after the motoring lobby wanted those on foot confined to the very edges. Nothing should halt the progress of the motorist!

The space has been stolen and we want it back!

And now they are used for parking because obviously motorists are more important because...

I think this about pedestrian lights as well: why am I standing here pressing a button? surely the car drivers should be the ones to stop and have to ask permission to proceed.

Worse, German junction lights work to a sequence and the button is often a placebo; to add potential injury to insult, cars turning right can turn when pedestrians have a green light, in the expectation that they will wait. To me this means that whenever you cross legally there's likely to be a car coming, so I have a habit of crossing when there's a gap in the traffic regardless of the light colour on the basis no cars at all is safer than a turning car that may or may not stop.

Now I think about it, there's a pedestrian/cycle crossing light in Esslingen that at least senses you approaching and changes so you don't have to wait, but even so...

 

[Drago]

Funnily enough I was at a light controlled bike crossing in Northampton today and had exactly the same thought about crossing priorities. I also believe the button does nothing at all, no matter when you press it the sequence remains identical.

 

[classic33]

Funnily enough I was at a light controlled bike crossing in Northampton today and had exactly the same thought about crossing priorities. I also believe the button does nothing at all, no matter when you press it the sequence remains identical.

We're due to get the first "super crossing", sometime before 2023. Pedestrian controlled on a five way junction.

Should go down well.

 

[mjr]

Pavements are just another example of the tyranny of the motor car. Roads were originally for walking on. The whole width. Pavements only came about after the motoring lobby wanted those on foot confined to the very edges. Nothing should halt the progress of the motorist!

The space has been stolen and we want it back!

Not exactly. The law prohibiting driving and cycling on footways is the Highways Act 1835 which predates the earliest motorists.

But I suspect pavements became much more common after the start of the motoring boom.

 

[classic33]

Those who rant at cyclists for pavement riding tend not to rant at motorists committing the exact some offence. The offence was introduced in 1835. While all other parts of the 1835 Highway Act have been either amended or repealed, clause 72 remains in force. It’s a juicy one:

“If any person shall wilfully ride upon any footpath or causeway by the side of any road made or set apart for the use or accommodation of foot passengers; or shall wilfully lead or drive any horse, ass, sheep, mule, swine, or cattle or carriage of any description, or any truck or sledge, upon any such footpath or causeway; or shall tether any horse, ass, mule, swine, or cattle, on any highway, so as to suffer or permit the tethered animal to be thereon.”

The key phrase is “carriage of any description”. That is a cover-all that is still in force. Motor cars were classed as carriages in the 1903 Motor Car Act; bicycles were so classified in 1888.

 

[DaveReading]

To me this means that whenever you cross legally there's likely to be a car coming, so I have a habit of crossing when there's a gap in the traffic regardless of the light colour on the basis no cars at all is safer than a turning car that may or may not stop.

Are they no longer so hot on jaywalking in Germany as they used to be ?

 

[mjr]

While all other parts of the 1835 Highway Act have been either amended or repealed, [...]

Only two other sections remain in force and they've only had bits removed rather than substantial amendments. Section 5 defines "highway" in law still today, while section 78 requires people to drive on the left. Strangely, almost no one rants about these being outdated Hanoverian (not even Victorian, as they're before 1837) traffic laws that need replacing...

 

[Andy in Germany]

Are they no longer so hot on jaywalking in Germany as they used to be ?

I get some pretty high-voltage scowls sometimes, I know that.

One particularly grumpy person told me "They'll take your licence if you're caught" but as I've not driven a car in years and don't ever intend to do so, that's not my greatest concern.

Funnily enough I was at a light controlled bike crossing in Northampton today and had exactly the same thought about crossing priorities. I also believe the button does nothing at all, no matter when you press it the sequence remains identical.

I've experimented by not pressing the button on a couple of junction crossings locally* and found they reacted exactly the same way, so now I wait well back from the traffic (If you look at videos of traffic light crashes most of them end up with cars skidding to the corners, right where pedestrians are supposed to wait) until they change of their own accord.

*To compensate for a lack of a social life.