[pet whinge]Everyone has right of way on the canal, pedestrians have priority[/pw]
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Questions/Support/Help
6mph on Canal
(69 posts)- Started 11 years ago by Kenny
- Latest reply from Greenroofer
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Posted 11 years ago #
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[Pet whinge]pedents[/pet whinge]
;o)
Posted 11 years ago # -
[pedant]pedant[/pedant]
:P
Posted 11 years ago # -
I thought the capital thorn was the correct notation.
:-Þ
Posted 11 years ago # -
Enough of this pendantry!
Posted 11 years ago # -
Watch out for chap with two spaniely type (?) dogs. one black/dark grey with black muzzle.
We were tootling along slowly when we come upon an elderly lady trying to clean up after her dog, plus chap plus two other dogs. Chap was back with one of them and stood holding/watching as we went by and we smiled nicely at him and thought he smiled/nodded back. but about 5 feet ahead (nr the woman) the other dog plonked itself perpendicularly across the path, causing 6 yo (already going slow) to come to a complete stop, and also other female cyclist coming other direction to stop. I looked around and trued to figure out who it belonged to as neither of the two pedestrians was paying any attention to it. there were also two more cyclists coming up behind us.
Eventually I asked, 'if this your dog'? I should have said, please could you ask it to move, but I stupidly said 'it should be on a lead'. At which point he started berating me about 6mph limits (we were not going that fast) and then said 'she (daughter) did the right thing, she stopped'. Instead of saying, 'she stopped because she was scared and had no choice' I then said something about the highway code and shared use paths. At which point he said, HC doesn't apply to towpath and started yelling at me.
I still think we were in the right (well, I would, wouldn't I), and I was probably stupid to mention HC, but it does raise an interesting question, does HC advice re shared paths apply to towpath? and what does british waterways guidance say about dogs that it different if not?
Posted 11 years ago # -
From http://www.scottishcanals.co.uk/our-canals/forth--clyde-canal/walking
Dog Walkers are all welcome on the canal towpaths but remember;
Please keep your dog under control.
Don't let your dog's lead obstruct other users.
Clear up after your dog!and, from http://www.scottishcanals.co.uk/our-canals/union-canal/cycling
Safe cycling
Alert walkers by ringing your bell and always give way to walkers.
The towpath is often only 1m wide, and can be wet and uneven. Take extra care. It is being upgraded and widened in sections.
Dismount at all road crossings, bridges, aqueducts and blind bends and at canal weirs, including cobbled weirs.
Do not speed, speed causes accidents !
(Their emphasis)
[EDIT] One thing I do remember is that until about 2002 or so, you were meant to carry a permit to cycle on the canal towpath. No-one did, but you were meant to.
Posted 11 years ago # -
Dog Walkers are all welcome on the canal towpaths but remember;
Please keep your dog under control.
Don't let your dog's lead obstruct other users.
Clear up after your dog!First two are flouted on a continual basis. Haven't seen a huge problem with the last one, but I'm only rarely on the canal.
Safe cycling
Alert walkers by ringing your bell and always give way to walkers.
The towpath is often only 1m wide, and can be wet and uneven. Take extra care. It is being upgraded and widened in sections.
Dismount at all road crossings, bridges, aqueducts and blind bends and at canal weirs, including cobbled weirs.
Do not speed, speed causes accidents !
Looks as though I'm a model canal towpath cyclist! (Smug grin).
Posted 11 years ago # -
The 6mph speed limit sign at Meggetland seems to have disappeared. Are the other still there, or is this part of a 'plan' of some kind?
Posted 11 years ago # -
6mph signs? Got a Facebook comment that I should obey this. Can't find anything on Scottish Waterways site. I agree people should cycle carefully close to pedestrians but 6mph all the time? Not enforceable of course.
Is marked as NCN75 so if it was it would take days to use canal. Charity events such as CHSS Canal Ride from Glasgow to Ratho couldn't happen.Posted 9 years ago # -
It's always been unclear if the 6mph refers to the towpath or the waterway. I prefer to think the latter.
Pretty pointless anyway. Every jogger goes faster than that!
Posted 9 years ago # -
According to the Skippers advice on scottishcanals.co.uk the speed limit for boats on the Forth & Clye and Union canals is 4 mph.
Their Towpath code of conduct for walkers, cyclists etc does not mention a speed limit.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Used to have a trainee working for our service who had previously carried out an MSc in ecological psychology on the use of shared paths.
Her conclusion was that pedestrians like a bell but they also appreciate you talking to them, e.g. I am passing you on the RHS now.
I try to do this. Seems to cause less gip. Also thanking people for letting you past goes down well with some, e.g. Big John
Does not work if pedestrian / jogger is wearing earphones.
I have never dismounted and pushed at a bridge but will get out the saddle and propel myself along slowly with my foot which takes up less room than dismounting.
None of this stops boy racers. Young, dumb and full of ...(catchphrase from Gay at Times circa 1990)
Posted 9 years ago # -
Came up as was doing some cycling on the radio with Mark Stephen BBC Radio Scotland 'Out of Doors' programme.(On again 11am today).
They have FaceBook page and apart from expected 'recumbents are dangerous / too low' comment one person said that I appeared to not care that I was cycling too fast for canal limit.
https://www.facebook.com/bbc.out.of.doors
Actually the whole thing was carried out politely with us slowing right down and thanking people with bells when appropriate. I posted up teh Scottish Waterways page and as you people say there is not speed advice given - other than take care.
Posted 9 years ago # -
The 6 mph signs were near the aqueduct and maybe some bridges? As were the cyclists slow down signs.
And indeed the cyclists dismount signs
In one way they are advisory - you might fall in the water or bang into each other
I once stopped completely for a pedestrian standing in the middle of the towpath. However, it then transpired she seemed to want me to dismount and push my bike around her. Rather than her deviate from middle of path.
My mother just related a story from when she was a hairdresser in kilbarchan in the sixties when she would be giving a customer a shampoo and set and Mrs Samson would arrive in the shop from the Big House. Mrs Samson was six foot wore a turban as she had two hairs and a shoogly one. Christine Mrs samson would bellow, I am here now attend to me.
Perception you see is a tricky phenomenon
Posted 9 years ago # -
"In one way they are advisory"
In all ways really, as they are unenforceable and don't seem to have any legal basis.
Posted 9 years ago # -
"Came up as was doing some cycling on the radio with Mark Stephen BBC Radio Scotland 'Out of Doors' programme.(On again 11am today)."
On NOW!
Posted 9 years ago # -
Yes I meant you could read them as giving advice rather than a legal thing like laidback' heckler seemed to think they were.
Was once heckled by bare chested man drinking buckfast on the aqueduct whom I had slowed down for and leant into the railing to allow him to pass.
The sign says Dismount. Why have you not gotten off? He asked.
I replied because the sign is unenforceable. He seemed happy enough with this response.
Posted 9 years ago # -
6mph just about fast enough to ride at, although it is much slower than foot pace (last weekend I ran a half marathon across the Pentlands at considerably more than 6mph average pace, so I dare to say I could also exceed it on the canal ;-)
We should campaign for it to be lower so that it's even more absurd. I think 2 or 3mph, so regular pedestrians and dog walkers are also breaking the limit.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Does the 2mph include pub stops? Do I have to stay for another just to reduce my average speed?
Posted 9 years ago # -
Without average speed cameras the limit is a nonsense. Cyclists just slow down to 6mph for the sign and then floor it once they're past, back up to, say, 14mph. Of course, not having a speedo, I just have to guess what speed I'm going at when I pass the sign...
Let's campaign for Union Canal Average Speed Cameras NOW.
I tried Dave's 10mph "ride like your granny" challenge once on the way home, it was very difficult and took a lot of concentration to a/ maintain the speed, checking speedo more than where I was going and it isn't the speed at which the bike is naturally most stable / manoeuvrable. For some reason I always have 14mph as a good speed in my head for parks, it seems to offer an optimum of not feeling like you're going too slow and allows you to slow to 10mph in seconds or stop in metres. 15mph would be too much.
Posted 9 years ago # -
Ideally, your 'ride like your granny' bike will have a triple in which case you just need to restrict yourself to the bottom gear. If your bottom gear is big enough to go over 10mph then I can see it could lead to speedo-gazing :)
Posted 9 years ago # -
I just attached a flail to the front, driven off my front wheel with an old chain connected to a single speed wheel, on the front. Now I don't find pedestrians a problem anymore, indeed more and more appear to want to go swimming in the canal as I approach!
Posted 9 years ago # -
A prototype for a bike version of Hobart's Funnies?
Posted 9 years ago # -
20 mph speed limits in the Grange are "unenforceable", and yet folk on here seem very keen on waxing lyrical about car drivers approach to speed, yet when there is a suggestion that an appropriate speed for a narrow, shared space is implemented, and that dismounting is appropriate for one point, the special pleading comes out.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@mgj I'd say my "special pleading " around the speed thing is that a car has a speedo to help it be driven within a limit and a bike does not.
Posted 9 years ago # -
@mgj Safety signs should be enforceable where posted or not posted at all. Unenforceable signs encourage the mindset that such signs don't mean anything.
Posted 9 years ago # -
when there is a suggestion that an appropriate speed for a narrow, shared space is implemented, and that dismounting is appropriate for one point, the special pleading comes out.
Straw man. It would only be special pleading if one could show that the danger posed by cyclists and motorised traffic is at all similar. I don't think anyone will bother dignifying that with an attempt.
Or to put it another way... you walk home from the pub over the drink-drive limit? Why not just drive? Special pleading that the law technically only applies behind the wheel? There's no real difference between fake speed signs for cyclists and a TV ad asking pedestrians not to walk home wasted.
On a more pragmatic note, even if you lived at the pub in Ratho and worked at the basin at the Lothian Rd end, it would take 3 hours each day to do even that modest a cycle commute at 6mph. It's no wonder that it is widely ignored - in contrast driving at 20mph along the Grange takes an extra ~35 seconds. That seems like something we can reasonably expect people to be OK with.
Posted 9 years ago # -
If there was a legally enforceable 6mph limit on canal then it it more or less says the path is to be walked.
I do agree that interactions with other users should be careful. Mark Stephen saw that we slowed right down close to walkers and thanked them - not assuming they should move out of our way.
20mph road situation is different. As Dave says it's only a percentage slower than the legal speed and quite a bit faster than an urban average speed.
6mph is around half the speed that bikes move at easily.
In zones where cars are asked to go at 10mph they rarely do - but that's another story.Some cyclists do of course use their flexible form of transport in a way that bends the rules. This forum enjoys pointing out the contradictions but at least has started talking about pedestrian rights and how they often suffer convulated routes. (eg George St has some great examples of how not to make direct pedestrian crossings...)
Posted 9 years ago # -
I'm not sure what any of you mean by "enforceable". It seem to be used as meaning the same as "active enforced" whereas what it means is that if it were to be policed it could be enforced by some kind of sanction.
In that sense, 20mph speed limits are enforceable - they are backed by some law and if they choose to, the police could record people exceeding the limit and impose some kind of sanction. The only sense in which a 6mph speed limit on the canal is unenforceable is if there is no possibility of any properly qualified authority imposing any effective sanction on people who break it.
Posted 9 years ago #
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