CityCyclingEdinburgh was launched on the 27th of October 2009 as "an experiment".
IT’S TRUE!
CCE is 15years old!
Well done to ALL posters
It soon became useful and entertaining. There are regular posters, people who add useful info occasionally and plenty more who drop by to watch. That's fine. If you want to add news/comments it's easy to register and become a member.
RULES No personal insults. No swearing.
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So, in summary, the two kinds of cycling misbehaviour that the Nice Way Code is trying to change haven’t been understood in any sensible or meaningful way. It leads me to believe that they have only been included in the interests of ‘balance’ – and indeed presented from the perspective of motorists – purely in order to create the impression that ‘all users’ are being targeted by the campaign. Pretty miserable stuff.
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"Prior to consumer testing, a number of conversations were invited from a range of people across cycling, driving and pedestrian groups"
And I'll bet those conversations weren't conducted by way of leading questions at all, "What annoys you most about cyclists?", "What is the worst thing about drivers?" You're going to get standard responses confirming what you think you're going to hear.
I have just been let off with a warning from a young police officer, citing this legislation and telling me if I do it again £30 fine or court. so perhaps enforcement is also about to happen?
Drivers to comply with traffic signs.E+W+S(1)Where a traffic sign, being a sign—
(a)of the prescribed size, colour and type, or
(b)of another character authorised by the Secretary of State under the provisions in that behalf of the M1Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984,
has been lawfully placed on or near a road, a person driving or propelling a vehicle who fails to comply with the indication given by the sign is guilty of an offence.
In my defence I did not do what he claimed I did (plough through a flashing amber light without stopping on a pedestrian crossing) but I thought it best to accept my wrong doing and then attempted to engage the officer in dialogue. I had just waited for a car that had tried to drive down the waverely train station exit and then for an elderly couple walking down the middle of the road. I then propelled my vehicle up to the pedestrian crossing where many festival goers were crossing after the green man had disappeared. I stopped and waited for a gap in this happy throng and then went through safely (I very obviously stopped, if briefly). However, the flashing amber changed to green just after I started propelling my way through.
After the officer nicely let me off with a warning,
The officer said he was aware of niceway code and what he called pedal parliament [sic] and cited strict liability and also that I was taking precaution as I was wearing a helmet. At this point my work colleague and fellow cyclist came over for a chat and was shooed away. Then a woman came up and told them a man was harassing people for money so the officer's fellow officer and then quite quickly the officer himself went to investigaste further. I am reading the situation as linked to the Edinburgh Festival.
If you wanted to understand what was annoying about cyclists or drivers it wouldn't be leading to ask, "what annoys you most about ...". The question is more what you do with that information.
It's not a very good question. I mean treating people's annoyances as though they had any relevance to safety is the nub of the criticism of their 'even handedness'. Passing distance is relevant and RLJing is practically irrelevant.
"I am reading the situation as linked to the Edinburgh Festival."
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EdinburghPolice (@EdinburghPolice)
02/08/2013 10:18
Hope everyone enjoys the start of @edfringe today. Officers will be out & about to engage with public. #keepingpeoplesafe #FestivalPolicing
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Nice Way Code (@nicewaycode)
06/08/2013 11:53
@smsm1 Infrastructure can't be changed overnight. This campaign aims to help behaviours in the meantime.
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http://mancbikemummy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/grow-up-sorry-what.html
(Contains 'angry' words.)
Another one!
@cocteautriplets: Nay-sayers at @nicewaycode tell us we "can't change infrastructure overnight". The city of Seattle begs to differ http://bit.ly/11JTbo7
One half of cycling 'policy' tries to suggest that people should cycle on a narrow pavement with lamposts on it by painting a sign and putting tiny blue discs on said lamposts. The other tells you it's immature.
I know that many drivers think cyclists are riding illegally on a pavement - especially when we cycle over toucan crossings shared closely with pedestrians. Crosscauseway has got best example of this haphazard approach to encouraging cyclists to use pavement.
Most have no idea or care what is legal cycle infrastructure or not. Only when that infrastructure gives a bike an advantage over a line of cars does it become annoying.
To avoid giving too much annoyance to drivers most UK infrastructure has obstacles for bikes. A classic case of this is MacDonald Road where they ration cut throughs and use pinch points to impede bike progress.
#FestivalPolicing - Fringe crowds are taking over the streets with drivers having to drive slowly round at Gerioge IV Bridge and Lawnmarket. The spirit of the nicewaycode in action ;-)
https://twitter.com/AsEasyAsRiding/status/364696639417495553
Mark Treasure @AsEasyAsRiding
"Cyclists! Don't use the cycle lanes we paint on the road, because we haven't bothered to think about your safety!"
@Laidback: Because infrastructure is aimed almost 100% at motorists there are drivers who seem to forget this. Basically some imagine the road is a sort of rail track where if anyone ventures out at an unmarked crossing they are fair game.
I saw an example of this today at Leith Links. An organised party of around 30 cyclists (young people with day packs on their backs, maybe language school students?) were making their way to Leith across the Links and had to cross Duncan Place to proceed. They waited until it was quiet, then started making their way across. Naturally at this point a black Nova just had to come tearing up the road (doing a lot more than 20mph) as the last 10 riders were trying to cross. Driver slams his brakes on the last minute with a screech of tyres: classic 'what the hell are you doing crossing the road, get out of my way' behaviour!
Why can't people just drive slowly and carefully in town?
To avoid giving too much annoyance to drivers most UK infrastructure has obstacles for bikes. A classic case of this is MacDonald Road where they ration cut throughs and use pinch points to impede bike progress.
Oh tell me about it! Really it would be nice if the Council finished MacDonald Road properly with bike cut throughs (and lanes) all the way along. Then the car drivers could just block them by parking/loading there as per usual...
Why can't people just drive slowly and carefully in town? Because there is no enforcement and if something does happen then it wasn't the drivers fault, apparently...
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A brief insight as to how Cycling Scotland use social media platforms to promote their services.
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http://prezi.com/dyi-0mt135vv/copy-of-cycling-scotland-social-media
I stopped at "brand recognition". Any organisation that puts white text on lime background clearly hasn't considered their visual brand.
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Gary Dawes (@gazza_d)
07/08/2013 07:55
Oh look a Scottish road safety campaign that targets drivers, and isn't awful & patronising unlike @nicewaycode
http://dontriskit.info/kids-in-the-car/advice-for-parents
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Sara Dorman (@SRDorman)
07/08/2013 01:51
Some more questions for @nicewaycode @CyclingScotland @KeithBrownMSP
http://deceasedcanine.blogspot.ca/2013/08/why-do-we-need-when-we-already-have.html
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SRD: "That (we don't live in an age where people respond well to authoritarian voices) is certainly the 'perceived wisdom'. I dont know what evidence there is to back that up."
I think the Lothian buses driver (and cyclist) awareness campaign was well received and would have been a good example to follow. The two videos were informative without being patronising.
It's probably just me, and it's nit-picking really, but one thing I thought was bizarre was that the RLJ ad really showed someone amber-gambling, which in my experience doesn't happen that often. What you see some cyclists doing is crossing on a red. This is often done carefully and deliberately, but it's definitely ignoring the red light, as opposed to trying to sneak through on amber.
I'm not sure why this annoys me. Probably cos it shows a lack of research on the ad campaign's part. If they're car-drivers, they'll be familiar with amber-gambling. Did they just assume that's how some cyclists RLJ?
"Did they just assume that's how some cyclists RLJ?"
Probably.
In London it's quite often actual RED LJing - particularly at ped lights where no-one is crossing (or about to).
As various bloggers have pointed out, a lot of 'RLJing' is people going through red lights just before they change again as a 'safe' way of getting ahead of the traffic.
This is of course illegal, seen as anti-social, 'hated' by drivers (apparently) and cited as a 'reason' they are nasty to other cyclists - and part of the basis of the NiceWayCode campaign.
I'm sure many drivers and cyclists would be less upset if 'delinquents' bothered to become pedestrians briefly.
In some countries turning left (or usually right) through a red light is legal.
In a few places there are 'cyclists go first' sub-lights.
The nicewaycode project is painfully biased and regrettably immature, yet they will doubtless point to the twitter stats as being sufficient evidence of a highly successful campaign.
Meanwhile the casual road carnage will go on and on.
Keith Brown should be forced to resign for this debacle.
"I'm sure many drivers and cyclists would be less upset if 'delinquents' bothered to become pedestrians briefly. "
I don't agree, personally I think the 'problem' from drivers' perspective is not related to the fact that red light jumping is illegal.
If drivers merely disliked illegal acts there would be widespread outrage over speeding and mobile phone use, and situations in which cyclists don't break the law (such as riding two-abreast) would not raise any eyebrows.
In fact you see near complete tolerance of speeding and phone use, while acts by cyclists cause ire regardless of whether they are legal or not.
It's hard to get reliable RLJ statistics.
Best I could come up with was a 2011 Directline Insurance survey where 16% Scottish Drivers admitted to passing red "at least once a month" and then a 2012 IAM survey where 13% of cyclists admitted to passing red "at least sometimes" (only 1.1% were "regular").
Not science, but a lot more so than the NWC, and on the face of it suggests that as many motorists will pass red on occasion as cyclists, if not more.
But there's just no real, controlled studies I could turn up to prove it either way.
"If drivers merely disliked illegal acts there would be widespread outrage over speeding and mobile phone use, and situations in which cyclists don't break the law (such as riding two-abreast) would not raise any eyebrows."
Yep.
RLJ Stats - in at least some IAM surveys they depended on people volunteering their answers via the web, with no check to see if the sample was representative.
Accident contributory factors don't show "Disobeyed automatic traffic signal" in the top 10 (or 20?) causes of reported injury accidents. Even "Disobeyed give-way or stop sign or markings" was only attributed to 1% of cyclists and 2% of car drivers. (not very reliable though)
Bad driving is annoying to some other drivers too, as well as to pedestrians and cyclists. e.g.Which? survey but driving too slowly seems to upset some commenters more than speeding does.
Proper enforcement of the current laws would be good.
But it's only particular types of bad driving that annoy other drivers. We can broadly categorise them as those that cause discomfort (tailgaiting, dodgy overtaking, lane hogging and lane weaving) and making undue progress (pushing/cutting in, failing to filter fairly (you know the guy who goes right to the cones before joining the queue). They're also annoyed by people failing to make enough progress - driving too slow, indecisively, hesitantly - and by people who make mistakes. Actually, they're just annoyed by people who aren't them.
As Dave says, the annoying thing about cyclists crossing on red is that we can do it and they can't. We're making undue progress (as we do when we filter or use the ASL).
+1 for Proper enforcement
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