I seemingly came the closest I've yet been in five years of cycling to being run over this morning – this was at the zebra crossing over Research Avenue North just after entering the campus as usual from the North Gate/A71. I had overtaken another cyclist on the path after entering the campus, but then had slowed down to cross at the zebra crossing (although the metal gate that is designed to slow down traffic from the path before crossing was partly open as is occasionally the case, so I wasn't actually forced to slow down). There was one car approaching at low speed from the right and two cars approaching at a higher speed (despite the speed bumps prior to the zebra crossing), but safely within the 20mph speed limit, from the left. By my judgement, the vehicles all had more than enough time and space to give way to me so I slowly started to cross the road. I wasn't massively surprised that the first of the faster moving cars coming from the left, so at the far side of the crossing to me, did not react and continued over the crossing despite the fact that I was already crossing by this point, so I gesticulated my irritation with the usual lift of the arm in incredulity as I came to a near stop part way across the zebra crossing. What did surprise me was that, as I turned my head to follow the the car that was crossing ahead of me, I then realised that the car to my right hadn't actually stopped when I started crossing the road either... It had stopped by now, but it was well onto the zebra crossing, within a couple of feet of me. I followed through with my arm raised in the direction of the driver and made a point of indicating the existence of the novelty crossing very clearly to him before finally continuing over the road.
I've experienced similar issues of cars continuing on over this crossing when I had been starting to cross previously, although I've always felt like I was able to anticipate what would happen in advance, whereas today felt like an unexpectedly close call... There seemed to be more traffic on the campus in general this morning, so I wonder if these were drivers who are not used to the campus layout. In any case, it almost seems like, as a cyclist, I can be invisible when approaching a shared zebra crossing like this.
Anyway, rant over. I'm going to be extra cautious when crossing here (and also when dropping down from the nice new ungravelled path/pavement route at the zebra crossing on the boundary road) from now on and suggest that others are too. I would be interested to hear if anyone else has experienced issues along these lines since I think I'll send an email to Transition Heriot-Watt and see what they have to suggest (I did mention this briefly during the cycling focus group the other week but maybe not as clearly as I could have).
posts
