Why Primary?

[StuartG]

• When you're in secondary, vehicles are more likely to try to 'stay' in your lane when they pass, so you're more vulnerable to close passes. In primary, they've got to cross the line anyway and so they're more likely to give you room.
• In primary, you'll stop a proportion of vehicles from trying to pass you at all. Personal safety when you're on your bike is as much about controlling the space around you as anything else.
• As has been said, if a driver is going to pass you close he can and will often do this wherever you are in your lane.
• If you're in primary, you've got a safety zone when he does this.
• In primary, you're easier to see.
• In primary, (in my experience) you generally get more respect as you are seen to know what you're doing).

You forgot to add the Primary pisses off many motorists - 99% of whom are likely to misinterpret your intentions. Pissed off motorists are a risk.

I am coming to terms, later in life, in riding primary. I do not do it as much as some here or my instructor suggested. That is because AFAIK the primary argument is theoretical - albeit well reasoned. However it is a strategy that is difficult to test scientifically. It is a matter of faith.

So I use primary when there the advantage is immediate, clear and the secondary position is particularly dangerous. In other words I do not do it automatically and in a 50/50 situation would go secondary.

I am as unhappy at this situation as primary evangelists. The key is educating motorists (not to mention planners and the police) of seeing primary riding as responsible safety choice. I despair every time I get a VED renewal from Swansea that it is selling me number plates or something else I don't need - NOT a leaflet updating me on changes in legislation, driving & riding practices etc. That is why as both a rider and a motorists I am trained to ride secondary (in 1950s) and drive with the lane discipline of the 1960s.

Driving & riding has moved on. Well not for too many of us ... the dissonance is a real safety issue which nobody addresses when a new bit of road legislation is easier if ineffective.

 

[jimboalee]

Here they are again.

Jimbo's 3 rules of cycling.

1/ Read, understand and obey the local Highway code.
2/ Wear bright clothing and display lamps after dark.
3/ Ride where you assess is the safest place to ride.


Rule 3. I think you are all in agreement.

If YOU think 'Primary' is safest, ride there.
If YOU think 'Secondary' provides a safer transit, ride there.
If YOU think the traffic on the roundabout is too relentless for YOU to proceed onto the roundabout, get off and walk it round the pedestrian crossings.


In this example, there was not a 'Pinch Point' or 'centre island with bollards', so I would have ridden merrily along in 'Secondary'.
No-one tell me I would have been "Wrong", because there is no right or wrong. It’s an unrestricted two lane road where the left hand lane is a bus lane.

Come to think of it, there is a "Wrong" way to ride a bike along this road. Its in the middle of the lane for vehicles travelling in the opposite direction.

 

[dondare]

Neither did I, we're talking about road positioning, and primary and secondary are elastic terms too.

Think about a cyclist safety bubble that continuously moves and changes shape according to the road conditions.

Then we are in accord.

 

[Bollo]

Then we are in accord.

I would also like to register my general agreement.

 

[hackbike 666]

You forgot to add the Primary pisses off many motorists - 99% of whom are likely to misinterpret your intentions. Pissed off motorists are a risk.

I am coming to terms, later in life, in riding primary. I do not do it as much as some here or my instructor suggested. That is because AFAIK the primary argument is theoretical - albeit well reasoned. However it is a strategy that is difficult to test scientifically. It is a matter of faith.

So I use primary when there the advantage is immediate, clear and the secondary position is particularly dangerous. In other words I do not do it automatically and in a 50/50 situation would go secondary.

I am as unhappy at this situation as primary evangelists. The key is educating motorists (not to mention planners and the police) of seeing primary riding as responsible safety choice. I despair every time I get a VED renewal from Swansea that it is selling me number plates or something else I don't need - NOT a leaflet updating me on changes in legislation, driving & riding practices etc. That is why as both a rider and a motorists I am trained to ride secondary (in 1950s) and drive with the lane discipline of the 1960s.

Driving & riding has moved on. Well not for too many of us ... the dissonance is a real safety issue which nobody addresses when a new bit of road legislation is easier if ineffective.

Agree with a lot of this.

 

[Origamist]

You forgot to add the Primary pisses off many motorists - 99% of whom are likely to misinterpret your intentions. Pissed off motorists are a risk.

I'm not interested in horse trading the percentages of motorists who misinterpret primary or are pissed off by it. What I do find interesting is that clearly there's a lot more going on than just a spatial shift when cyclists take the lane and potentially slow traffic.

(Cod) psychologically speaking, moving from the margins, "the gutter" (the language is telling) to the contested centre-ground i.e primary, raises the profile of the act cycling and this threatens/disturbs drivers and the autocentric status quo. The cyclists’ identity is also “repositioned” in the consciousness of other road users from the periphery to the fore (or so, Raj Persaud tells me) and this generates frustration as it's not considered normal/equitable behaviour...

 

[jimboalee]

I was watching a telly program which interviewed two University Professors who were being paid loads of cash to decipher a possible code written on the Mappi Mondi in Hereford Cathedral.

Probably, somewhere, there is a University Professor who is attempting to decipher a code within the texts of "Cyclecraft". No luck so far.

 

[martint235]

I'm not interested in horse trading the percentages of motorists who misinterpret primary or are pissed off by it. What I do find interesting is that clearly there's a lot more going on than just a spatial shift when cyclists take the lane and potentially slow traffic.

(Cod) psychologically speaking, moving from the margins, "the gutter" (the language is telling) to the contested centre-ground i.e primary, raises the profile of the act cycling and this threatens/disturbs drivers and the autocentric status quo. The cyclists’ identity is also “repositioned” in the consciousness of other road users from the periphery to the fore (or so, Raj Persaud tells me) and this generates frustration as it's not considered normal/equitable behaviour...

This is quite interesting. I do think cyclists need to be seen more as regular road users than they are at present (one reason we need to lose the labels of being RLJers etc).

I also agree with Jimbo's rules. I'm not taking primary to p**s off motorists, I'm doing it because I feel safer there. For example, my route home involves descending the Kent side of Shooters Hill at around 40mph. There are pinch points all the way down. In secondary, not only would I have less room to manouvre round a hazard but you can guarantee that some numpty would overtake (into my safe gap between me and the car in front) and then brake sharply. Riding primary discourages this as the overtaker would be in danger of miscalculating and hitting a traffic island.

 

[HLaB]

Studies have shown on average, the further out (the More Primary) a cyclist is the closer a car is likely to pass (Walker 2007, University of Bath)

Abstract

A naturalistic experiment used an instrumented bicycle to gather proximity data from overtaking motorists. The relationship between rider position and overtaking proximity was the opposite to that generally believed, such that the further the rider was from the edge of the road, the closer vehicles passed. Additionally, wearing a bicycle helmet led to traffic getting significantly closer when overtaking. Professional drivers of large vehicles were particularly likely to leave narrow safety margins. Finally, when the (male) experimenter wore a long wig, so that he appeared female from behind, drivers left more space when passing. Overall, the results demonstrate that motorists exhibit behavioural sensitivity to aspects of a bicyclist's appearance during an encounter. In the light of previous research on drivers' attitudes to bicyclists, we suggest drivers approaching a bicyclist use physical appearance to judge the specific likelihood of the rider behaving predictably and alter their overtaking accordingly. However, the extent to which a bicyclist's moment-to-moment behaviour can be inferred from their appearance is questionable, and so the tendency for drivers to alter their passing proximity based on this appearance probably has implications for accident probability.

My own experience would suggest it is totally random some drivers give you more space some do not. You are more likely to get a good overtake regardless of what position you are in when the opposing lane is empty. I'll stress the More Likely however because it isn't always the case.

 

[Ravenbait]

That was Ian Walker. I vaguely recall that there was some other study, years ago, maybe by the DoT, that showed a driver will give you about as much room on your outside that you give yourself on the inside. I think a lot of it is down to road and traffic conditions, and my own experience suggests that it's more to do with how much space they think they have on their outside, how much they value their paint and how impatient they are.

Sam

 

[Origamist]

That was Ian Walker. I vaguely recall that there was some other study, years ago, maybe by the DoT, that showed a driver will give you about as much room on your outside that you give yourself on the inside. I think a lot of it is down to road and traffic conditions, and my own experience suggests that it's more to do with how much space they think they have on their outside, how much they value their paint and how impatient they are.

Sam

Welcome back, Ravenbait.

It was the Walker study. However, I can't recall if he was simultaneously measuring overtaking distance and distance from the kerb/road edge. The former, definitely - the latter, I'm not so sure about.

 

[Matthames]

I possibly have on film a good example of riding in primary, esspecially at pinch points. I will review and possibly upload the footage later, had I been in secondary I would of been squished!

 

[hackbike 666]

I covered that with my final comment, I thought.

I ride in primary when I need to. If I am then I'm not concerned how drivers feel about it, but as I said the very small amount of unhappiness I'm exposed to it outweighed by the frequency of conflict if I don't hold primary at that point.

Actually I am...I have come across some right nutters.

 

[gaz]

lets get back to the incident at hand.

There is a bus lane which ends, and a lane of traffic to the right. where should you cycle? in the middle of the bus lane and continue that in the normal lane. For cars to overtake you, they should move in to the second lane. that is wether or not your cycling in primary. By cycling in primary you force them to use the other lane to overtake. You may get a few close passes doing this, but at least your not cycling next to the curb, and at least you know you did all you could to force them to give you room.

 

[jimboalee]

I was riding along a single carriageway road. A car was stationary on the crown of the road signalling right. There was enough width between it and the curb for a car to pass, but not a car and a bike. I 'took primary' so I would go through on my own before the motorist who was following me.

After the constriction, the motorist following me overtook and then swerved left for no apparent reason. I braked, hit the curb, tumbled and as a result of my impact with the pavement, my left arm broke.

What lessons can be learned?

I 'took primary', not because it says so in some book, but because it was my estimation of the safest place to ride through the constriction.


Now, if I'd NOT 'taken primary', would the motorist have seen me as a cyclist riding along the left hand side of the carriageway minding his own business and waited patiently, or 'squished' me?

Was it because I deliberately 'took the road' in front of him that got him infuriated?

Who knows, he didn't stop for me to ask.

I have my thoughts on this and they don't agree with the book's version.