Why Primary?

[Origamist]

These discussions are predicated on a combative and idealised vision of bicycle commuting. Taken to their conclusions, the best ride-to-worker would be a 28 year old, street savvy, camera carrying road warrior, and everything would go uphill - must mostly downhill - from that ideal.

I'd argue that if utility cycling is ever going to be more than form of fashionable expression for fit young people, our national vision of the road cyclist will have to encompass a variety of approaches and abilities and drivers will need to get used to all of them.
What superficially appears to be an in-your-face attitude to cycle safety is actually pretending to be a car, an armoured, wide, fast accelerating thing which ultimately bikes can never be.

Education seems to be the answer, public information films stuffed down drivers' throats until they gag on them and they're no longer tempted to take comfort in erroneous facts about cycling and cyclists.

Yes, yes and yes - I've said all of this previously, but I'm glad that I have found someone else who agrees me...

 

[Origamist]

Agreed, I don't think its a significant factor 99.99% of the time as the vast majority of people are reasonable only with the limited number of numpties that demonstrate tunnel vision. Its just an interesting theory from my point of view. I consider that the whole overtaking procedure is completely random regardless of your position, if there's any controlling factor (for some but not all) its the presence of a vehicle in the opposing/ outside lane (if dc).

This is a quote from the earlier discussed paper (Walker 2007):

I'm glad we're in broad agreement, otherwise we would expect to see hundreds of cyclists riding in the left tyre track getting hit from behind every week

Junctions are certainly a problem and I'd advocate a central position, but as motorcyclists know, there are a lot of other factors to consider: the size-arrival effect, the competition between fixation and the movement of the eye, change blindness, obscuration etc

This is an interesting paper, HLaB: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme2/rsrr85.pdf

 

[jimboalee]

Noted, and I am aware that this happens (has done to me once - although I was in secondary at the time. Had a discussion with the van driver in question and ended up with him hitting me with his door. It hurt. Idiots are idiots no matter where you're positioned.), though I have a feeling you've forgotten the circumstances in my OP. Empty lane behind = no-one to piss off. Being in primary meant that my sharp veer towards the kerb wasn't a sharp veer into the kerb.

I realise that I'm coming across as defensive, but it's only because I feel like you're treating me like an 8 year old Jim.

Here's The Butts in Warwick uphill where I ride most evenings.

http://maps.google.co.uk/?ie=UTF8&l...oid=Ph52Yx4H5p-LzebdU78OEA&cbp=12,321.75,,0,5

Yes, the building with the blue scaffold cover is the Police Station.

I TRY to ride 'primary', dominant here because as you can see, there's not enough room for two vehicles.

Google's camera van MUST have had to stop to give way to WVM & Co. and there's most often some idiot who pushes through every time I ride up there.

Many evenings, Mr Van driver comes round ( in the opposite direction ) the little restriction where the lamp standard is outside The Punch Bowl and leaves me with about three feet to cycle up the double yellow lines on MY side of the road.

When they say "3feet2pass", it means cars trvelling in the SAME direction


Incidentally, some jolly chappie, one hot summers evening after finishing his meal in the pub garden, placed his dining fork in the soft tarmac at that junction, so there REALLY is a 'fork in the road'...

And the moral of my story is...

Even I can have a good whinge about motorists, but I don't because I rapidly came to the conclusion "There's idiots in them there hills" about thirty years ago.
Groaning on-and-on about what part of the road is the safest... Hmm T-waste.

Jimbo's rule 3. Ride where YOU consider it to be the safest.

At this junction, safest on the majority of occasions is ....

between the yellow lines.

 

[HLaB]

This is an interesting paper, HLaB: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roadsafety/research/rsrr/theme2/rsrr85.pdf

Cheers

 

[joebingo]

That is an exceptionally nasty looking junction there Jimbo, looks pretty busy too which I suppose doesn't help matters at all.

I agree that disputing which part of the road is safest is a waste of time (I suppose my choice of topic title was asking for it though ). Words on the internet entirely fail to take into account actual situations, but there's a lot of information to be garnered from topics like this one by people who have little experience riding.

The most important of which, is of course, your 3rd rule.

 

[Shut Up Legs]

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...

Yes, I agree with all 3 of your responses. Re: 2, I believe that Primary position causes the motorists to give you more room simply because you're further out from the kerb, a psychological effect discussed in some article somewhere (but unfortunately I can't recall where). Re: 3, I'm well aware that many motorists are too bloody-minded to regard cyclists as equals, but I'm trying to put that message out there regardless; even if only some of them 'receive' the message, it won't be wasted effort.

 

[GFamily]

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.

Excellent. I look forward to analysing your data.

You do have your own figures to give, don't you?

 

[GrasB]

The data I have or haven't collected has no relevance to the number of samples taken by this person. The fact is the number of overtakes measured is small in real terms.