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.
Me, plus one other cyclist, went into the jug handle and then we both jumped the red light as it wasn't changing. In my defence, the traffic on the main road was stopped at the next set of lights so it was safe.
I really, really hate Haymarket especially in the dark and wet.
I rode into town last night at about 7pm, back about 9pm, travelling through the Grange, Bruntsfield Links and the Meadows then down Dundas Street. I saw about 10 bikes without any lights at all, which was between 1/3 and 1/2 of the total bikes I saw.
I don't see anything like this ratio of unlit bikes at commuting time when I'm normally about.
I don't know if it's just that I went through some of the studenty areas or whether it was the time of night, but I was genuinely shocked and apalled.
"whether it was the time of night, but I was genuinely shocked and apalled"
Aye, where are @PoliceScotland when you need them?
@Greenroofer that is interesting. I reckon it is more like 1 in 10 cyclists that I see that have either no lights or very inadequate lights - so my anecdata is that things are improving.
Yesterday evening, a cyclist came out of Haymarket station to go Eastbound, which is fair enough, across one set of tracks at sensible angle then went up the middle of the 2 sets for a bit before somehow materialising inbetween the 2 rails of the eastbound tracks and riding up West Maitland street like that. He then turned into Torphicen Street (again I winced and expected him to come down but his antigravity 23mm tyres defied the rails). At top of Dewar Place there was a car that didn't see the filter and wouldn't move off despite a barrage of horn honking from behind me so he hopped onto the pavement around the corner and past the EICC at a rate of knots before hopping back on to the road.
I waited for the confused driver to move off and he must have got about -2 seconds on me for his maneouvre as he still ended up behind me at the end of Morrison Street.
Cyclist last Thursday with a green flashing rear light, which confused me for a moment in the dark on the Roseburn Path as I couldn't tell if they were coming towards me or I was catching up on them going the other way.
Seeing an increase in cyclists on the Roseburn path between Craigleith & Roseburn with only a front light. What's that all about? Surely they can't ALL have fallen off unnoticed, or all been stolen?
the Grange, Bruntsfield Links and the Meadows
Yup.
It's par for the course around the Meadows at this time of year. It's just a lack of risk assessment (aka common sense) among the new student population who arrive each autumn.
I read somewhere recently that the bit of your brain that does risk assessment and predicts consequences is one of the last bits to mature, often only into your twenties. Males are later than females. A bit of extrapolation from the medical research cast a great deal of doubt on the wisdom of letting people drive cars before the age of 21. I'll post a link if I find it.
Anyway - I personally take it as given that the (majority of) unlit, RLJing and dedicated pavement-cycling students are not being willfully antisocial or criminal; rather that they honestly just can't figure out by themselves the potential consequences without it being pointed out to them.
Logically, the time to do the pointing-out and set the expectations is when they arrive in town. On the face of it there would seem to be plenty of opportunities to get advice across, whether via freshers welcome packs and events, email, facebook, twitter etc etc. I don't know how much of this happens already but it would seem to be not enough or not being done effectively.
Regular reinforcement of the message is absolutely vital if it's to stick. One-off communications are ineffectual. One-off enforcement exercises also have a very short term effect, although I appreciate that the police have to work with the tools they are given.
Can anyone connected with the universities say what sort of advice is issued to the new students, either around cycling specifically, or as part of a broader safety / lawful behaviour advice piece?
If you noodle around from this linK;-
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/transport/cycling
You'll see the information that is provided on the University website. I've just popped into the PhD office and asked a few students if they got any hard copy information and was met with a uniform 'no'.
You'll see that there are various training courses available, but none of the students I asked were aware of this, even the ones with bikes.
I think they probably mail out to bug members, which I suspect doesn't reach new/inexperienced cyclists.
Suggest they put it in MyEd? May already be....
@fimm - I think there may be a timing thing here. If you'd asked me before last night I'd have said it was even less than 1 in 10. The vast majority of people I see on bikes each day have lights. That's at commuter time, so, to Snowy's point, these are grown-ups with well-developed risk assessment faculties. The night-time crowd are different.
@EddieD - I went on the Essential Cycle Skills trainer course in September with the guys who (I assume) are delivering that course. One was the Uni's transport manager. I'll get in touch with them and see if they know what the story is.
The guy on the blue road bike towing a trailer who ran the red light on the bottom of lothian road and headed straight for me. I guess you couldnt be arsed waiting with the rest of the traffic.
Me this morning.
Too lazy to stop to blow my nose, thought I'd try a 'footballers snot shot'
One handed whilst blocking my right nostril, on the 'blow' a slight wobble took me off the towpath path and onto the sliver of vegetation between the path and the canal! eeejit!
"...a 'footballers snot shot'"
Someone tried one of them in front of me this morning on the NEPN. For some reason he looked round first, saw me, but then continued to perform his oafish puff anyway.
My 'oafishness' nearly got me very wet.
Lesson learned.
The guy on a yellow and black TdF Carrera road bike who overtook a cyclist overtaking another cyclist whilst all 3 were passing me on Broomhouse shared path just West of the Saughton House offices. I was walking on the pedestrian side and had to step on to the grass to avoid. When he completed his muppet manoeuvre and passed me, I saw he'd got a white blinky as a rear light.
Also special mention to the ninja on the new shared path up at the Carrick Knowe access bridge by the trams. Full black clothing and no lights at all.
A couple of cyclists of no significant note also with no front light, just a single red blinky at the rear. Are they not concerned someone will pull out of a junction on them? God knows drivers do this even when cyclists are lit up like Christmas trees.
The girl who rode from the pavement outside House of Fraser, straight across the junction with Lothian Road (which was green for northbound traffic) and came within centimetres of being yet another statistic. Luckily the car who nearly T-boned her was alert enough to stop in time. I'm ashamed to say she got a shouted obscenity ("f@ckwit!") from me - more out of shock than anything - followed by a telling off when I passed her on Princess Street.
Fscking spill-chucker! s/Princess/Princes/
@adamthekiwi
Good chance your young woman was a student and students are all geared up to learn, even if it is just learning new swear words
gembo
There is a good chance she was a student, but did you have to so pejorative about it?
Didn't' mean to be pejorative. Was attempting wit. I like to see students learning. Even basic things like how to walk in a straight line.
I fear that last remark might have crossed the pejorative threshold from Barton to town. IMO that is quite a low threshold?
I have been a student As a young man (and again when older). Definitely got better at walking in a straight line throughout my undergraduate degree.
Friday night I must admit loosing it with a rider. In a week with 5 deaths on the roads in the UK and the BBC still trying to talk to us about RLJ, a week where someone set up a trap that knocked a man off his bike and almost took out my girlfriend, I must admit my patience is wearing thin.
Riding back to the office on rutland square Friday night from Roseburn I came across a younbg chap meandering up shandwick place with no lights and chatting away on his phone. I must admit to being rather inpolite to the young wipper snapper as two buses came within inches and the busy footway was filled with people topping up their "bloody cyclists" memory bank.
I believe my words were along the lines of "Get off your f***ing phone and get some lights you massive idiot"
Now I should have perhaps been a touch more polite however he seemed coinfused and asked what I'd said. I repeated myself and suggested that he perhaps would be more comfortable walking.
his response was "F*** off" to me. My only hope is that when asked at a later date what was going on he says "and this guy told me to get off the phone and gtet some lights" at which point someone in his peer group will say "well - he is sort of right"
Anyway - I was angry. Possibly could have handled it better however maybe shock is the only way to get these people to learn.
Frankly, I'd be less concerned what the idiot thought (as long as it didn't turn violent) and think of the good you did in showing the peds that we don't condone the actions of morons like him.
On at least 2 occasions I've had a positive reaction from peds after admonishing RLJs. And yes, the second one did involve swearing as I was disgusted by the moron going through the ped crossing outside Haymarket. A light-hearted instruction for none of them to complain about him to the EEN raised some smiles. :-)
Defensive cycling fail from yours truely...
Following my boyfriend and coming up to a junction where I thought we were going left. Impatient driver behind us has been reveing her engine all the while we've been going along. I signal left. Unfortunately boyfriend is going straight on. Driver overtakes me and left hooks him. Fortunately he stopped and she missed him.
Lessons learned:
1) if you have an impatient driver behind you, don't signal
2) if you are following someone else, only signal when they signal
@ Fimm, You must have missed a bit of your story out. I can't spot the bit where your cycling was 'rubbish'
Defo one for the rubbish driving thread.
Have to agree with BE on that one - you did absolutely nothing wrong!
In comparison, while this morning I may have had mitigating factors (avoiding two serious potholes on the junction I was turning into, with a large van having just gone by and a car waiting to pull out well over the line and hinting at coming out into the side of me) I should have noticed that behind that car a lollipop lady was just stepping out. She was only a couple of steps out into the road on the opposite side from me, but I should have seen her and stopped. I did wave an apology, but got a legitimate steely stare.
Yup, it would have been one for the rubbish driving thread if I hadn't signalled left...
But the cyclist in front of you wasn't indicating left, and there's no reason for a driver to suspect that cyclists are together, or even if they are, that they are going to the same destination...
fimm, I had a similar one a few months back - I was turning left from Grays Loan to Spylaw road. It was wet and the surface was poor so my left indicating was minimal (to non-existent).
car coming toward me turned right up Spylaw Road, and when I remonstrated with him he said 'but you didnt indicate left'.
I did point out that knocking me over whether I was turning left or going straight on was still potentially fatal !
@Nelly the Highway Code says that the first priority for cyclists is to maintain control of the bike. So you don't have to indicate if you think it may be dangerous.
You must log in to post.
Cycling in Edinburgh Flickr group
Video embedded using Easy Video Embed plugin
posts