A703 probably the quickest way, but certainly not the way I would choose to go.
Over the granites would probably be quicker than your route, and still enjoyable.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Debate!
Today's rubbish driving...
(11341 posts)- Started 13 years ago by Stepdoh
- Latest reply from Murun Buchstansangur
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Posted 5 years ago #
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@frenchy Google does suggest kirkbrae and over the top to glencorse then A703 from Penicuik as 10 mikes and one hour quicker than granites. Not sure google has factored in lack of road. Does look straight. Always seems such a schlepp to get to granites from Balerno. Enjoyable though it is. The aim is to get to Gordon Arms then down to tibbie shiels and back up Talla but whichever way we go it is 100 miles.
Posted 5 years ago # -
A reasonable sentence, at last?
Hope the young lad isn’t discouraged from cycling though.
Cheers
ColinPosted 5 years ago # -
A car being driven from Teviot Place around the corner onto Bristo Place as I was cycling from Bristo Place around the corner onto Lothian Street - maybe someone optimistically updated Google Maps, or similar, with the City Centre Transformation plans for the area?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Two from yesterday:
I was on a takeaway bike heading west on Haymarket Terrace. Parked cars and roadworks in the bus lane so I was taking primary. Driver behind can’t wait a few seconds so overtakes at high speed (waaaay over 20mph) - he did give me loads of room and moved into the opposite lane, but he nearly crashed into an oncoming lorry.
Then on West Coates there was a very slow moving car in the outside lane. As I anticipated , driver and passenger were staring at a satnav. I had to give a loud shout as they drifted into the bus lane and my path: driver still oblivious and passenger barely acknowledged me. They’d nearly stopped at this time so I was able to head off, but I could hear other drivers beeping at them. I looked back and saw that they had tried to turn left into Balbirnie Place and left-hooked a taxi.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Dozen or so Midlothian drivers who need a reminder of what the white lines in the middle of some roads mean.
Worse was the driver of a white Mercedes (SD64 FGM), who mounted the kerb whilst turning left at Gilmerton crossroads, where I stood waiting to cross at the time. Literally centimetres away from running me over.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Driver of the black SUV that raced me along the end of Gilmore Place up the inside into the ASZ at King's Theatre. I rarely bother to try to communicate with drivers when they drive into the ASZ here, but given that we pulled to a stop at the same time I turned and pointed to the markings while shouting that they shouldn't have driven into the box. They didn't hear since their window was down but they opened it so I repeated myself. They replied with something inaudible so I just left it there. Shortly after that, a person on a bicycle overtook me to my right, cut across the far lane, and either bumped onto the pavement or cycled the wrong way up Leven Street. I was distracted from watching them by the Lothian Bus which turnef right from Home Street, cutting across the ASZ in the process - luckily nobody was there. The lights then changed with two vehicles still in the middle of the junction, the drivers of which had presumably run the amber and/or red light. I made my way through the gap behind them before the traffic from Tarvit Street had a chance to react. Horrendous junction.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@jdanielp, it is one of the worst
Posted 5 years ago # -
Driver who passed our car on the left on the motorway in the dark - thankfully mr fimm who was driving spotted him before moving back into the the left hand lane.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@fimm not wanting to play devil's advocate ....and not trying to be troublesome ...but if you were not overtaking another vehicle what were you doing in the right hand lane ..?
Posted 5 years ago # -
Overtaking another vehicle, preparing to move back left. Don't ask me exactly where the other car came from, I was not driving. First thing I noticed we were being passed on the left.
Posted 5 years ago # -
From the above:
"People from local cafes ran out and helped the man out and the driver immediately got out and started shouting at the cyclist but, after realising what he had done, and with the other witnesses, he calmed down. He was pointing to the guy on the road and basically saying 'I was indicating and could not see.'"
Just another licensed (maybe), insured (maybe), entitled (definitely) driver.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Also:
"Dominic said it's the third time in about three weeks that he's witnessed a collision between a vehicle and a cyclist on Leith Walk.
On one of those occasions a vehicle pulled out and struck a cyclist and, in another instance further up the road, a car was parked in the cycle lane and a cyclist pulled out and was knocked down by another vehicle and left with a bleeding leg.
The collision this morning involved a cyclist using a Just Eat bike and he was not wearing a helmet."
This is indeed, sadly, Edinburgh.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Total chaos this morning. Dalry Rd was backed up all the way to the Co-op, which is unusual at 9am. Turns out the culprit was a Buckstone Roofing van plonked in the bus lane outside the BHF furniture shop, narrowing the road to single lane. As I filtered to the ASZ in front (which involved a non-trivial calculation of whether it'd be free based on the shadows cast by cars) I found myself behind another van occupying the pedestrian crossing as the green man went on. Once the green light from Dalry Rd came on it turned out it could make no progress because the traffic from Morrison St was also backed up and stationary, so junction was entirely blocked. As some of the cars going west backed out to let the van through, I had the rare pleasure of negotiating the junction/tram rails without numerous cars revving up my backside.
For a bonus point, another car stranded in Princes Street at the corner with Hanover Street, driver clearly having misjudged their crossing.
Posted 5 years ago # -
I do love it when the cars are stuck in a deadly embrace, and the bikes are happily filtering through...
I recently did the good citizen bit and chapped on the window of a PHC to suggest he pulled left a couple of feet i.e. into his own lane, so that the bus coming the other way could get past him and clear the lights...which was the reason why he himself wasn't going anywhere! Absolutely oblivious to being the cause of 2 huge tailbacks. But to be fair he stopped playing his wee game on his mobile and moved over. I think there must be a rule that bus drivers can't leave their vehicles to speak to other drivers in these circumstances. Probably a good thing judging by the bus driver's face...
Posted 5 years ago # -
@Snowy - how wide was the car? I feel a lot of jams are caused by cars being too wide for the roads so that two wide cars cannot pass without scraping each other. As well as my campaign for shorter cars I think I will also go for Campaign for Narrower Cars.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@gembo what about height? Cars are getting taller.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Murieston Crescent wasn't quite joined to the Dalry/Haymarket car park yesterday morning but had a perfect arrangement of three-day mutual blockage at the wee build-out with the bollarded corner.
Haymarket stuffed again today. Only me and another cyclist were able to escape Dalry Road when it got green as only we could fit between the westbound tram and the bus in front of it.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@jdanielp, yes they have to avoid certain low bridges now
My favourite cars are - original mini and original cinquecento. I also love a Morris Traveller if fully ladened with holiday items and multiple occupants driving to the sunshine.
Saw an old Rolls Royce yesterday down Peebles way, obvs too long, tall and wide but it did look good for the very short trip it must have been on. Two occupants.
Posted 5 years ago # -
cars being too wide for the roads
You think the Audi Q7 is big...
I spotted one of those new Audi Q8s on Dundas St yesterday. It was literally wider, longer and taller than the Transit van parked behind it. In America, they call this a "midsize" SUV!
Disgusting that people think it is OK to bring these poisonous monsters into the city.
The bonnet is at shoulder-height of the lady in this picture:
Posted 5 years ago # -
A new ford focus is wider than a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow as is vauxhall astra or most so called normal sized cars.
Cars have been getting far too wide for the road. An focus/astra is also wider than an original range rover.
A new mini is wider than the 80s bmw 5 series it realy should be called a maxi.
Cars are all too wide these days. So many so called small cars as wide as luxury cars of 20 or 30 years ago. A ford escort original a normal family car is 1,570 mm a new ford KA the narrowest ford is 1,695 mm
A audi q7 is not much wider than a new vauxhall Insignia both of which are far too wide.
What makes a car bad to take in to the city is a diesel engine a diesel ford fiesta higher nox than a v12 lambo.
The council should not offer permits for diesel vehicles in the city centre unless commercial. unklike germany or france in UK diesel cars were promoted by gov when it was already know how bad they were in the late 90s and 2000s ,akin to promoting cigarettes in the 21 century, 30 years ago bmw did not even sell a diesel in uk.
I recall seeing a German plate bmw 320 in the 80s with a diesel engine thinking that is weirdI use the width from wiki and nox from nextgreen car website
Posted 5 years ago # -
@fimm scary then ...
Posted 5 years ago # -
I ended up 'chatting' with the driver of a vehicle at the King's Theatre Junction again last night. At the end of Lower Gilmore Place I looked right and spotted a van in the far distance so decided to pull out and was soon up to a speed of just under 20 mph in a medium primary position. Despite this, the driver decided to overtake me into oncoming traffic, although they did give me a reasonable amount of space while doing so. I arrived at the back of the busy (with bicycles) ASZ a few seconds after the van did. The window of the van was partly open and was wound down further, at which point the occupant started complaining at me for having pulled out in front of them and then for cycling "two feet from the gutter". I argued back that I had more than enough space to pull out given that they should have been driving at 20 mph, that I was entitled to take whatever position that I felt was safest on the road, and that they dangerously overtook me in the face of oncoming traffic. They just kept replying with the "two feet from the gutter" thing. The most worrying thing about that, despite not knowing The Highway Code (which I suggested that they consult), was that I was easily four feet from the gutter, which suggests that their spatial perception is not brilliant. Eventually I just gave up and awaited the green light...
Posted 5 years ago # -
two near car-doorings today.
1. Me, top of Queensferry St. I saw it coming and stopped just in time. Asked the lady (she was on the phone) and parked in the taxi rack, if she'd even bothered to look, apparently it's my responsibility to look she claimed as she walked off still on the phone.
2. Charging down Leith Walk, the bike just in front of somehow avoiding the door of a double parked lorry that swung open. Was awfully close. Lorry driver just started swearing so clearly again the bike's fault.
Posted 5 years ago # -
My pet hate this morning. A driver proceeding through the lights at Queensferry Rd / Clermiston Rd N junction despite their road ahead being blocked.
Cue a whole load of tooting as drivers can't get down from Clermiston Rd N as the first foolish driver is blocking the road.
Solution - foolish driver starts driving at the pedestrians using the green man crossing (most of whom are children)!
Posted 5 years ago # -
On the wider cars thing. Is this just because the car occupants are getting wider, so need more space? Is it due to SIPS? Or the "need" for mahoosive drinks holders in the doors? Or is it because cars nowadays seem to have huge leather armchairs where once they had bucket seats?
Answers on a postcard please to Points Of View, BBC Televison Centre, Wood Lane, London W12 7RJ.
Posted 5 years ago # -
@Points Of View, BBC Televison Centre, Wood Lane, London W12 7RJ 'safer' (for occupants perhaps) vehicle designs?
Posted 5 years ago # -
The width of a standard UK parking space is apparently 2.4 metres.
The width of an Audi Q7 is 2 metres, leaving only 20cm on each side once parked.
In practical terms though, the space from the adjacent parking space can be used when getting out of the car, so let's add another 20cm.
However, given the door thickness is at least 15cm on these monsters, I still very much doubt the driver/passenger will be able to exit through a 25cm gap!
Somehow these things still only seem to have the boot capacity of a Golf, despite being massive.
Posted 5 years ago # -
Lorry this morning almost wiped put a car on Durar Drive due to failing to give way from Glenure Loan. Great reactions from the car driver to avoid a crash.
Posted 5 years ago #
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