Why Primary?

[gaz]

a lot of the time it's riders convincing themselves they can keep up with cars. Maybe they can if they bust a gut but being Chris Hoy is not the future of road cycling. Think Miss Marple and relax.

Some of us can keep up with cars

 

[blockend]

Some of us can keep up with cars

Indeed. The difference is Mr. Motorist is doing the same speed while picking his teeth and listening to Chris Moyles. It's an unequal battle we imagine there's a workable combat position for.

I prefer my commute to be more Pooh Sticks than Rorkes Drift and would like to know the best road position to achieve it.

 

[dondare]

There are stretches of road on my commute where traffic calming measures have been implemented. These basically consist of a combination of on-street parking and pedestrian refuges or similar obstructions which make it impossible for anything wider than another bike to overtake a cyclist, so motor-traffic is forced to adopt the cyclist's speed.
God help any cyclist who can't "keep up with cars" because they're going to get forced into the wing-mirror zone - never mind the door zone - by motorists who don't hold with this traffic calming malarky.
Calming it most definately ain't.

 

[GFamily]

That would be good to see. Do you have it?

The same research as demonstrated that drivers pass closer to helmeted cyclists and gave more room to blonde wigs.
http://www.drianwalker.com/overtaking/overtakingprobrief.pdf

No, because if in a situation you can prevent any car from passing you, you can prevent any car from passing you regardless of the driver.

Your claim was that riding primary will stop a proportion of drivers. In which case my point stands.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

Without having read this entire thread: I agree with gaz & mason (page 1 of this thread).

Primary position, i.e. smack bang in the centre of the lane, is the safest place to be cycling.

• You have more escape options,
• you're more visible, and
• you're telling the motorists that you're riding a legal road vehicle.
• There are also generally more bumps and more sharp objects closer to the kerb, and I'll be damned if I'm going to risk more frequent punctures just because some motorist wants to cut a few seconds off his/her commute.
• The centre of the lane is also a better position from which to merge into the lane on your right, should you need to do this to prepare for a right-hand turn.
• The argument that "oh, they'll squeeze past you anyway if you're in Primary position" doesn't work, because you can use the exact same logic to argue against using the Secondary position!
• The only time I ever use Secondary position is when the traffic congestion is such that by maintaining Primary position I will increase that congestion by slowing the traffic behind me (this is of course only in those situations where the traffic is moving faster than I can maintain for extended periods).

Regards,

--- Victor.

 

[HLaB]

Interesting. What type of roads?

According to the published paper; Accident Analysis and Prevention Vol 39 (2007) 417–425

The author rode 320 km at various times of day between 07:00
and 18:00 in May and June 2006 within the English cities of
Salisbury and Bristol.

Abroad variety of roads was included, including radial routes,
city-centre streets and suburban roads, with journeys comprising
mixtures of roads typically to be found on utility trips.

 

[HLaB]

Thanks. I'd be interested to know how single carriageways with two lanes on each side compared with those with one.

I like American Studies better they suggest that very thing or the presence of vehicles in the opposing lane.

There also some filtering of the data IMO which may have produced different results. Which Walker is quite open about.

On roads with two parallel lanes for traffic travelling in the
same direction, events were only counted when a vehicle definitely
overtook; motorists who were simply travelling in the
other lane were ignored. Overtaking events were also discounted
if the bicyclist was manoeuvring at the time or if the motorist’s
path might have been influenced by something other than the
presence of the bicyclist, for example, the need to pass parked
cars ahead. As such the dataset contained only overtaking events
in which motorists were definitely overtaking the bicyclist with
no obvious external influences on their behaviour.

And Walker sums up quite well:

Unfortunately, we cannot simply conclude from this finding
that bicyclists are safer riding close to the edge of the road.
First, this puts more obstacles in the rider’s path – drainage
grates, road debris and car doors – thus introducing another set
of dangers whichwould likely offset the advantages gained from
increasing the distance from passing vehicles. It also removes
the option of moving away should a vehicle begin to get too
close. Second, we know that being at the edge of a road is a particular
problem at junctions, as motorists’ search patterns tend
to focus on more medial areas where motor vehicles are found
(e.g., Hills, 1980;R¨as¨anen and Summala, 1998). The best advice
might therefore be for bicyclists to ride at a medium distance
where grates and debris are unlikely to be encountered (perhaps
around 0.5–0.75m from the edge), moving further towards the
lane centre when approaching junctions.

 

[GFamily]

Interesting. What type of roads?

It says.

Given the small sample size, what value can we put to the results?

2300 data points, not that small

 

[jimboalee]

Did the 'Cotswold Outing' 100 Audax yesterday.

Wind was due north straight down the Alcester Rd from Studley to Alcester.

The speed limit has been reduced to 30 through Studley, and I was easily keeping 26 -28 on the big ring.

"Time for an experiment" I thought.

I rode about 2 ft inside the centreline at nearly the 30 limit, with the oncoming traffic about 3 ft from my right hand side.

(Those trucks look much bigger when they are THAT close!)

Cars behind didn't bother me until we progressed into the 40 and I moved across to the nearside. AS SOON AS I DID, THE GREY BMW CAME WHISTLING PAST ME AS CLOSE AS YOU LIKE ( LESS THAN TWO FEET ) WITH ENGINE ROARING.

Annoyed, I guess he was???

 

[GrasB]

2300 data points, not that small

In the grand scheme of things this is a tiny number of overtakes to survey. This is probably about the number of overtakes I see over a week or 2 commuting to work & back. Which is saying something considering I do an out of town commute on mainly quiet roads.

 

[BentMikey]

I might see that many overtakes in a single commute, though I've not counted them. London, high density of traffic, long commute. Quite a few will be repeated leapfrogging though.

 

[Origamist]

Without having read this entire thread: I agree with gaz & mason (page 1 of this thread).

Primary position, i.e. smack bang in the centre of the lane, is the safest place to be cycling.

• You have more escape options,
• you're more visible, and
• you're telling the motorists that you're riding a legal road vehicle.

Regards,

--- Victor.

I've picked up on the first three points as they raise a few questions.

1. It's not so much that you have more escape options, but you have more space to take advantage of and more time to recover/correct yourself if you oversteer when trying to avoid a close pass for example. You also have a bigger buffer when passing junctions, it's easier to mount kerbs etc. The problem is being able to use this space successfully when speed differentials are high or you're faced with the unexpected and/or multiple problems.

2. The visibility issue is interesting. You can nearly always be seen perfectly well when riding in secondary, but what is of greater importance than merely being visible is that drivers have to take more cognitive note of you and adjust their driving accordingly when you ride in the centre of the lane. When you're closer to the kerb vehicles can pass with very little or no deviation. Motorists generally prefer this...

3. Well, your claiming road space like a motorised vehicle, but you're not seen as an equal, IMO...

 

[gaz]

Does the "give bikes as much passing space as you would a car" come into this? Passing a car, drivers will (should!) move completely into the other lane. If they do the same for bikes, then the passing distance would depend on how far out from the kerb the bike is.

There is a problem with that rule.. in short, if a car overtakes a car at 1inch, then it's ok for them to overtake a cyclist leaving 1inch.
http://croydoncyclist.wordpress.com/2010/06/02/highway-code-rule-163/

 

[Origamist]

Does the "give bikes as much passing space as you would a car" come into this? Passing a car, drivers will (should!) move completely into the other lane. If they do the same for bikes, then the passing distance would depend on how far out from the kerb the bike is.

It's just as important to consider how far you are from the centre-line as it is the road edge. Many motorists prefer not to use the the opposing lane if they do not have to and this is partly why taking the lane encourages drivers to at least straddle the centre lane markings. Unfortunately, it also causes some drivers to see red and pass you stupidly close for no other reason than they want to punish you...

 

[jimboalee]

It's just as important to consider how far you are from the centre-line as the road edge. Many motorists prefer not to use the the opposing lane if they do not have to and this is partly why taking the lane encourages drivers to at least straddle the centre lane markings. Unfortunately, it also causes some drivers to see red and pass you stupidly close for no other reason than they want to punish you...

Hooray, hooray, hooray.

Welcome to the Real World.
Make a note of this, OP.