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.
Equally, sometimes cars using their horns correctly as misconstrued by cyclists as being bullies.
True dat. I've found my knee jerk reaction to a car horn directed at me is sweary/aggressive - abuse first, ask question later.
Perhaps the answer is to change to sound of a horn to something with fewer negative connotations - shouldn't be too hard in this age of ringtones. Perhaps a bicycle bell, a comedy "boing", Roadrunner "meepmeep", or a Sid James laugh.
" I am a supporter of strict liability as it establishes where the burden of responsibility lies, and what the strict order of vulnerability is."
I am not really convinced of this. The balance of responsibility between cars and pedestrians is clear simply because of the relative masses. That isn't so true for cyclists.
This more equal balance is supported by (anecdotal) evidence of the number of times that pedestrians deliberately step out in front of me to cross the road.
I'd like to think that people would cycle responsibly. But I'd also like to think that all people would use shared use paths and roads with consideration and respect for others.
" The balance of responsibility between cars and pedestrians is clear simply because of the relative masses."
May I suggest relative kinetic energy as the measure to be employed?
"May I suggest relative kinetic energy as the measure to be employed?"
I think that is too simplistic - pedestrians have the benefit of stability and manoeuvrability. This is besides the point, the imbalance is between vehicles and pedestrians/cyclists. Motorists have insurance (in general) and cause many accidents - that's the priority.
I used to have an old classic Saab 900. The horn was as far from aggressive as you could get.
One could never use it in rage...
"You stupid.. 'Toot!'"
"Get out of my way! 'Toot!'"
@amir - I can see what you're saying, and I share your wish that people on shared use paths or shared use roads would all act considerately. Unfortunately that's not the case on the roads, and I think strict liability is a way of enforcing some consideration or at least restraint on the part of the motorist.
Whilst I see what you're saying about the manoeuvreability of pedestrians, I still agree with IWRATS, and think it is the responsibility of cyclists on shared use paths to slow down (thus reducing kinetic energy), and reduce the risk.
@algo My understanding is the strict liability is most useful after an accident has happened, in simplifying and streamlining insurance claims. Doesn't have much affect in changing drivers' behaviour by all reports, for example https://departmentfortransport.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/the-liability-myth/ and I believe David Hembrow also says something very similar http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/search?q=strict+liability
@paulmilne - thanks for those links - will read them properly later
I always try to interpret a car toot as friendly gesture if at all possible.
Not strict liability but presumed liability.
I thought hembrow cited it as the third reason drivers are courteous to cyclists on the continent. Maybe it wasn't him but I do judge presumed liability to be a factor in behaviour. I think this is quite a given. People do things to avoid punishment etc.
@gembo - thanks, I think I meant to write presumed liability...
Unfortunately there is no predictably offense-free way of alerting your presence to all path-users - this much is clear from all the comments above. I have had both appreciation and disdain for both using and not using my bell.
+1 - at the moment I've settled on not having a bell and using my freewheel. I think a lot of people could still be startled, but when there are maybe 5-10 bikes a minute passing them, it's probably a more pleasant experience to not be constantly hammered with bells. Can't stand it as a pedestrian personally. (On the other hand, in the Pentlands a bell is much more civil and the way to go)
This morning I had a classic coming down NEPN towards fiveways. I'd passed a couple of wannabe racers heading along at a frisky pace. On the approach to fiveways I was going much slower to accommodate the school traffic (I'm not one to try and blast a group of kids, bell or otherwise).
The kids are all very good at making space when they hear a freewheel, incidentally. Works great so long as you slow up to make time for them to hear you.
Anyway, at least one of the riders was just behind me and trying to ping ping from behind to get me to speed up. I'm not sure why people think that I would go faster if only I'd thought of buying a 50p bell, rather than, I'm going at just the speed I want to go at, thanks...
He tried to draft me down the new path from fiveways. Unfortunately I didn't have a bell just to give him a cheery ping as I dropped him ;-)
A girl this morning who may get herself into bother sometime....
Heading up past the Playhouse I was, as is my wont, in the centre of the left hand lane, as I will be turning right at the roundabout onto Queen Street. She's hugging the left, only a mite slower than me, but is going the same way, but at least does a shoulder check before sticking an arm out and moving right. I guess there are some people happier to take primary there, I thought she was going quickly enough to do so, but there's maybe room for debate.
So to Queen Street, red light at the stop where the tram goes up to St And Sq, Skip Lorry (ah yes) at the front, no ASL, car behind, I stop behind the car. She appears on the left, squeezes the foot wide gap betwixt skip lorry and kerb, then stops perfectly... in the blind spot.
Fortunately he dallies when the light goes green and she turns up. I usually go up the next road to get to the George St Lane, and as I arrive at the lights at the top see her riding through St Andrew Sq rather than around it (is it a core path and so technically not illegal?), before riding across despite the red man (not a red bike light there, and a shared crossing, so again possibly not technically illegal).
Lights at Hanover Street, she diverts off the cycle way to the right, onto the pavement, crosses the top of Hanover Street using the pedestrian crossing, back onto the pavement, setting off merrily along the George Street pavement.
Maybe I should have said something about the skip lorry at least.
To be honest I don't think it is my place to tell anyone how they should or shouldn't ride their bike.
That's generally what stops me, and save for occasionally shouting at someone RLJing, I just keep shtum.
At the same time, if the skip lorry driver had just driven over her I'm not sure I could deal with the guilt of having seen the possibility and done nothing...
I previously witnessed a cyclist going down the inside of a citylink bus stopped at the lights on Torphichen St. (before the tramwork remodelling). The lights changed before he make it to the front and both him and his bike were picked up and squished against the pedestrian fencing when the coach started to turn for Palmerston Pl. as the rear-end swung around literally inches from the fence.
I don't know how he managed to walk away in one piece but those events are burned into my brain. I will now say something instinctively when I see cyclists doing similar things.
Advice from strangers is rarely well received or acted upon. But if it makes you feel better then by all means say something. Just don't expect it to change their behaviour.
(ironically just like this post)
To divert the subject -
Whatever the idiocy of (individual) cyclists, and wisdom/behaviour changing possibilities of telling advising them, the "pedestrian guardrail" remains a problem.
Someone red light jumped, only a few seconds mind, told them "do you mind, that was a red back there" and they took it proper badly - shouting at me the whole way down the street.
tbh, i'd hate to see an EEN article saying cyclist prosecuted for RLJ and bringing all those people out their caves. I'd also hate to see a commuter get prosecuted.
Felt bad about it later on, gonna not shout at folk unless they're being proper stupid.
The only time I can think of where I asked a cyclist to change their behaviour was when they starting swearing at a pedestrian whose actions they hadn't anticipated. I could have made suggestions regarding improving their cycling but it was the sweariness that I suggested they might want to curtail in the future.
I agree absolutely with @earthowned that advice after an event is unlikely to be well receieved. I do think though that preventative advice in the context of going up the inside of vehicles is reasonable - particularly in the context of the situation @davidsondave describes, and I am sympathetic to WC's feelings about wanting to give advice about going up the inside of the skip lorry.... it's obviously preferable to offend and get some abuse for unwanted advice than to ignore it and regret not having said something...
The skip lorry one is tricky - I have seen riders in similar situations (albeit where the lorry driver was the one at fault) where their life was flashing before my eyes, and feeling that I should shout a warning or do *something* other than just mutely watch someone get squashed but it turns out my voice is not loud enough to be heard over an HGV anyway. Fortunately in this case there were no guard rails so the cyclist escaped unscathed and then proceeded to cycle up the inside of a bus. At that point I decided they were on their own and it didn't matter what I said, they would continue to cycle that way. I would still shout out a warning in the heat of the moment though.
On taking primary - there are many places where I know I 'should' take primary but I don't because it's a choice between being squeezed and getting aggro from a driver and sometimes being squeezed is preferable. On a long tricky cycle ride, especially when you're as slow as I am, there's only so much time you can spend taking the lane and holding everyone up before the conflicting requirements of staying safe and not being a pain in the neck become too much and I give way. You just have to make the calculation over which bits it's absolutely necessary to hold your line (approaching parked cars, side roads with drivers nosing out, horrendous potholes) and which bits you'll just have to accept the odd close pass. No doubt as I'm scraped off the road in the next week this shall come back to haunt me.
Deleted as upon second reading it didn't make much sense.
If you are going to shout/warn someone, do it before they get to the back of the lorry.
Can't image that a distracted, head turning, possibly wobbling by now cyclist can be a good thing once they enter the kill zone of an artic.
I'd agree with that as well Baldcyclist, which just complicated this morning, because it really was a daft position to put herself in, but I only caught sight of her as she entered my peripheral vision, and zipped up into the space before I'd have had a chance.
@earthowned, playing Devil's Advocate, if you were cycling with your kid and someone rode past and cut in and almost knocked your kid off, would you tell them how they should ride? I'm just wondering if there's a fuzzy line somewhere in this where giving of advice after the fact is justified, or if we accept that 99% of people won't listen, or may actively become aggressive about it.
Worth reiterating that I don't give out advice (save sarky comments at RLJrs as they are actively RLJing).
@WC Until I'm put in that situation I honestly couldn't possibly say how I would react. Too many variables - was it a genuine mistake, was the cyclist apologetic, was my child in any real danger? There's a big difference between your straw man scenario (someone being a danger to me or my family) to the context in which my original remark was made (someone being a danger to themselves).
There's a guy (a cyclist) on the aqueduct in the mornings at the moment who's getting very cross about people who ride along it at commuter times. He's in a small and grumpy minority (he called me an 'ignorant pr**k' this morning, and has previous threatened actual violence). He spoils my day a bit and it's definitely spoiling his, judging by the anger he's expressing.
Is he going to change any behaviour with his 'advice'? Nope.
I am wondering how receptive he is likely to be to a reasoned discussion so we can reach some accommodation about our respective points of view, because I'd prefer him to be happier than he currently is. It would certainly make my day pleasanter.
@greenroofer, people don't do reasoned discussion when angry. Could you leave the house five minutes earlier and be over the aqueduct before he gets there?
I did have a nearly reasonable chat with a guy a few years back, he had naked torso, pit bull and was drinking liquor from bottle in brown paper bag, also had embarrassed girlfriend. He opens with why was I cycling when the regulation said I was to dismount. I said because the regulation was unenforceable. He seemed to accept this line of argument, of course I was speeding awY down the path by this point having let the couple and their dog on to the aqueduct. So this was reasoned discussion with exit sight lines all in place and indeed activated.
I do sometimes push the bike across just for a bit of variety. It is clearly much easier to pass another cyclist if both still on bikes and both stop and one leans on the fence. Interactions with pedestrians and dog walkers also easier that way but clearly some people don't think like that. Further some cyclists go too fast. On the whole most people work it out peaceably. But your guy is wee Mr angry and the cross dresser also sees the 'duct as flashpoint.
@gembo. Indeed. I almost need to catch him somewhere else before he's had a chance to get angry, because you're absolutely right, once he's got himself into a state he's not going to listen to anything.
If the aqueduct gets any busier with bicyclists and frothing citizens, it may as well have traffic lights installed. If this was a road bridge it would've been signalised a long time ago.
"It is clearly much easier to pass another cyclist if both still on bikes and both stop and one leans on the fence."
That's what I think - and practice (though I don't go there at commuting times).
SO the way of diffusing most(?) of this is to get the canal people to accept that their 'advice' will continue to be ignored AND is counterproductive and perhaps 'wrong'.
Signs along the lines of 'cycling across the viaduct may be dangerous due to poor surface, wind, ice, other users etc'.
More importantly (and may lead to other conflicts - but...) 'pedestrians have priority over cyclists'.
'Cyclists must stop for pedestrians' is perhaps one sign too far(?)
Once everyone understands that there are new 'rules' in place it ought to become more civic.
In addition it may be possible to add some 'safety measures' - mirrors to indicate that there are users already on the viaduct? Widening the towpath just before the viaduct heading east would improve things a lot - obviously this would go against 'tradition' (and need historic monument approval), but I'm sure it could be done much more neatly than the bit under the railway bridge near Kingsknowe.
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