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.
Possibly me - two separate drivers thought so anyway. Looking at the footage, I don't think I did anything wrong, but was perhaps overly cautious. I suspect the cyclist coming the other way went through the red light too.
Was I in the wrong here? Should I have done anything different?
First driver erse (a move over peasant toot)
Second driver erse (did he want you to collide with the other cyclist)
I don't think you should have went though as the lights had changed to red and was a green man on the crossing.
A very dodgy set of lights for a right turn!
I don't think you should have went though as the lights had changed to red and was a green man on the crossing.
Fair point - I wasn't in the mood for sitting in front of the second driver for another lights cycle.
Was the first hoot from one of the oncoming drivers? I had assumed that it was the vehicle behind twice. I can't see anything wrong with the initial situation in any case. The oncoming cyclist may have carried on through the red light which makes the latter part more difficult to judge - had there been nothing behind, I would probably have made the turn before the oncoming cyclist, but given that there was something behind, I wouldn't be wanting to encourage them to follow me through and risk the other cyclist so I would have waited as you did. Observing the lights change, I may then have jumped off my bike and crossed the junction as a pedestrian when safe (and probably relished the fact that the vehicle would then be left 'stranded'!), but you were waiting well within the junction by that point so I think that you did the right thing... The driver behind clearly did not since it sounds like they followed through from a less exposed spot well after the lights had turned red...
Some drivers follow vehicles in front at a safe distance in the knowledge that the person in front might see something they don't (or stall, or slip off their pedal, or lose their chain...) and stop suddenly. Others don't, safe in the knowledge that all the energy from the emergency stop can be transferred directly onto their horn. Sounds like you got one of them.
If that isn't enough to sooth your "conscience", consider that he clearly hadn't seen the bike coming across so if you'd nipped in front he might well have blindly followed and wiped him out.
@jdanielp - Thanks - the first beep was from the driver of the silver hire car. I can only assume he thought I was too far right. To be clear, the van driver behind me did not follow me through the junction.
@jonty - Cheers, good point.
I've only looked at the video with the sound off, so can't comment on hoots, but
... I may then have jumped off my bike and crossed the junction as a pedestrian when safe
is what I do if I just miss a green cycle of those lights.
There was some evidence in the past that the lights that you can see in your film go red before the lights for traffic coming the other way, so a vehicle that appears to have gone through a red light may not have done so. Just to make that right turn on a signposted cycle route even more unpleasant than it already is...
@Frenchy
It's an incredibly badly designed junction.
I think it's fair dinkum for you to clear the lights on that occasion, since you'd already crossed the stop line. Plenty of drivers do the same there, as normal practice, complete the right turn by going through the green man.
Neither driver had the right to toot you, they are both dicks.
CEC have admitted to me in the past that the junction was designed all about "traffic flow" and that they daren't touch it, because... Buses.
Only just looked at the video.
Gilmore Place/Kings, might have known.
I *think* the plan is still to close Tarvit Stret when they do the Meadows to canal cycle route.
Isn't that supposed to be current financial year??
Loads of junctions have drivers clearing it (usually box junction) on the subsequent green phase - whether green for the perpendicular direction or green man. As a cyclist I think it's totally fair to do what you did - you would be left in a very vulnerable position otherwise. If there are many pedestrians then getting off to walk seems sensible.
I have a feeling right turning car drivers are legally allowed to clear the junction on red if they've entered it in green - just as it is allowed to enter box junctions if turning right. I may be entirely wrong though.
@chdot - latest plans had Tarvit with cycle contraflow I believe but still open to allow the massive HGVs delivering actors in bulk for the King's Theatre
I sways thought the rule was explicitly 'don't enter box unless you can get out', but this doesn't seem to the case for turning -
"
You MUST NOT enter the box until your exit road or lane is clear. However, you may enter the box and wait when you want to turn right, and are only stopped from doing so by oncoming traffic, or by other vehicles waiting to turn right.
"
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-highway-code/using-the-road-159-to-203
"I believe but still open to allow the massive HGVs delivering actors in bulk for the King's Theatre"
Yes, but don't know how they intent to deal with that special (usually less than once a week) case.
to allow the massive HGVs delivering actors in bulk
Post-Brexit, it's the only way to get foreign actors in
@chdot - I think we were both at the same consultation asking that question - there was talk of bollards at the Home Street end - certainly Tarvit was going to still be open from the Brougham Street end, with parking on the Drumdryan side of the street removed to make space for a cycle contraflow...
Not that anyone but having the sharpest observation skills would realise that the junction was boxed:
@edd1e_h - :-) (on both points)
"I think we were both at the same consultation asking that question"
Probably.
That was years ago...
Horrible junction.
One of those situations where you've done nowt wrong at all, certainly legally, and whether to stay where you were, stop and push, or carry on riding, really comes down to the individual circumstances and interpretation. I think I'd have got off and walked, but I can't say for certain without being in that exact situation.
It's annoying that you know drivers are looking on and seeing it black and white.
If you'd stayed there you'd be right where a bus turning right into Gilmore Place would try to be, so moving is sensible. As above, you're already past the stop line so you're not defying the light by continuing through, and you didn't run over any pedestrians on their crossing.
@edd1e_h or surfaced...
@Frenchy ah, I'm glad to hear that the van didn't follow you!
Just to add to the general consensus that this is a really awful junction especially when turning right.
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/info/20135/cycling_projects/1129/meadows_-_canal_ncn75
"It is planned to construct the project in 2017/18."
Preferred option is to close Tarvit St except for access, with bollards at the Leven St end; two-way cycle flow.
Two-way cycle flow with the occasional HGV reversing at you?
Ta Frenchy
"
Options Appraisal Workshop
City of Edinburgh Council
25th July 2014
"
http://www.edinburgh.gov.uk/download/downloads/id/3997/design_workshop_report
As I said years ago...
"Isn't that supposed to be current financial year??"
one of many delayed schemes. can't remember the latest dates in the updated ATAP, but no time soon.
'preferred scheme'
i was at a pre-consultation event, where we considered all the possibleoptions. benefits, weaknesses, and had to agree that despite the HGV issue, this is the best possible option.
5/6-year-old-looking non-observant child who cycled into my pannier on the Leith Links path beside the croft, after being startled by my 6-year-old (who'd gone to the extreme right of the path) and swerved to their right whilst looking behind them, right towards the hedge (at the extreme left of the path, where I thought I'd be safe).
Chap in bright orange helmet on canal towpath who pulled out to overtake pedestrians at speed with the merest ping of a bell as he started his manoeuvre, causing me, cycling the other way, to jam on my brakes in order to not crash into him.
I hope he doesn't drive like that.
Wasn't sure which thread to put this in (drivers or cyclists).
Bus V cyclist, both through red light on Princes Street. Not sure if cyclist started off in front of bus or behind.
Seem to remember issues with the standard life bus last year.
On the way to and whilst eating an ice-cream after the Portobello International Festival of Compressed Air Propulsion on Saturday there was one whizzing turnip in a professional cycle racing costume to at least fifty polite walking-speed pedestrian-minding cycling Prom users.
I've had a conversation in the comments on a recent video (https://youtu.be/DLIENyddzXo) where the commenter entirely blames another cyclist.
Just a troll or does he have a valid point?
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