Highway Code consultation

"Clive George" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

(There is of course an argument that we should be persuading motorists to
use sidelights on street lit roads, since it makes cyclists more
conspicuous, not less)

Quite, but I don't know if modern cars *have* sidelights...

--
Helen D. Vecht: [email hidden]
Edgware.

wafflycat said:

I see it it proposed to change current rule 51 which includes:

You should not ride more than two abreast and
You should ride in single file on narrow or busy roads

to be in Rule 63 and amended to:

"You should never ride more than two abreast, and ride in single file on
narrow or busy roads and when riding round bends"

It's the *never* bit that gets me more than anything. This could
increase danger to cyclists when there are a lot of cyclists on road
e.g. club run... audax... As this may effectively increase the *length*
of road taken up by a moving group of cyclists... figure in impatient
motorist overtaking when not okay and hey presto, increased the
likelihood of cyclists being hit as all of a sudden the sight of an
oncoming vehicle means the overtaking motorist is 'forced' to pull in
when he's only halfway along the line of cyclists???

Cheers, helen s

Well, that's one way. the other would be to introduce a rule which
states that no convoy of cyclists can contain more than, say, 6 riders
and that a sufficient gap must then be left before the next group to
allow overtaking by faster vehicles.

druidh

wafflycat said:

"You should never ride more than two abreast, and ride in single file on
narrow or busy roads and when riding round bends"

It's the *never* bit that gets me more than anything.

.... and you'l rarely find a ruler-straight road, which means it bends!

PhilD

--
<><

Quoted message said:

Well, that's one way. the other would be to introduce a rule which
states that no convoy of cyclists can contain more than, say, 6 riders
and that a sufficient gap must then be left before the next group to
allow overtaking by faster vehicles.

As a driver, equally annoying - endless bunches of six to overtake. The
best is to _suggest_ no more than two abreast etc, leaving the final
decision up to the riders involved.

Mark Thompson said:

As a driver, equally annoying - endless bunches of six to overtake. The
best is to _suggest_ no more than two abreast etc, leaving the final
decision up to the riders involved.

Well said.

And no-one forbids more than six cars travelling in a line,
and theres no law against towing a caravan up a long hill.

Also a rule against six plus riders in a bunch would scupper the Tour de
France stage.

wafflycat said:

I see it it proposed to change current rule 51 which includes:

You should not ride more than two abreast and
You should ride in single file on narrow or busy roads

to be in Rule 63 and amended to:

"You should never ride more than two abreast, and ride in single file on
narrow or busy roads and when riding round bends"

It's the *never* bit that gets me more than anything. This could increase
danger to cyclists when there are a lot of cyclists on road e.g. club run...
audax... As this may effectively increase the *length* of road taken up by a
moving group of cyclists... figure in impatient motorist overtaking when not
okay and hey presto, increased the likelihood of cyclists being hit as all
of a sudden the sight of an oncoming vehicle means the overtaking motorist
is 'forced' to pull in when he's only halfway along the line of cyclists???

There is also the impression given that on bends cyclists should be
hugging the edge of the road, which is emphatically not what Cyclecraft
says.

...d

"Helen Deborah Vecht" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Clive George" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

(There is of course an argument that we should be persuading motorists to
use sidelights on street lit roads, since it makes cyclists more
conspicuous, not less)

Quite, but I don't know if modern cars *have* sidelights...

Not in the sense of a separate lamp, no, but they do typically have a lower
power bulb in the main unit to serve this purpose.

cheers,
clive

Helen Deborah Vecht said:

"Clive George" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

(There is of course an argument that we should be persuading motorists to
use sidelights on street lit roads, since it makes cyclists more
conspicuous, not less)

Quite, but I don't know if modern cars *have* sidelights...

Every car I've driven has four options:
* off,
* something intermediate for which I don't know the canonical name,
* dipped headlights, and
* full-beam.

I sometimes call the intermediate option "sidelights", or "running
lights" (parking lights?), but perhaps I'm not correct. These are
usually perfectly adequate for be-seen-by lights, while dipped
headlights are often too bright (will obscure objects near them in
one's field of vision, particularly in poor daylight).

Brendan

PS: Another pet bugbear is cars that carry US-style orange lights
on their sides (literal sidelights) -- when you're overtaken just
before a left turn, you don't want to see a flash of orange ...
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
[email hidden] http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

In article <[email hidden]>, Brendan Halpin

() said:

Helen Deborah Vecht said:

"Clive George" <[email hidden]>typed

Quoted message said:

(There is of course an argument that we should be persuading motorists to
use sidelights on street lit roads, since it makes cyclists more
conspicuous, not less)

Quite, but I don't know if modern cars *have* sidelights...

Every car I've driven has four options:
* off,
* something intermediate for which I don't know the canonical name,
* dipped headlights, and
* full-beam.

Though the Modern Trend seems to be to combine dipped headlights with
those lights variously referred to as "front driving lights", "front fog
lights" or "Chav-lights". Sample dialogue follows:

Grate frend gNick's cow-orker: I puts me driving lights on coz they
makes me car look lower!
Grate frend gNick: I think you'll find they just make everyone think
you're a [censored]...

--
Dave Larrington - <http://www.legslarry.beerdrinkers.co.uk/>
Beware of the opion.

See a current 'official' CTC response to the proposed changes on the CTT
forum at:-

<http://www.timetriallingforum.co.uk/index.php?s=3e4bbae2c39a0809e54f9e7b128b5b84&showtopic=4101&st=15>

which includes:

"In other words, there is virtually nothing new which will benefit cyclists'
safety, and a number of things which could actually lead to yet more adverse
legal outcomes against cyclists. In particular, there is a significantly
increased risk that cyclists could find themselves being prosecuted, or
having to accept reduced damages after being hit by drivers, because they
were breaching the Highway Code, even though what they were doing wasn't
merely legal, but perfectly sensible and, in some cases, positively
recommended by John Franklin's "Cyclecraft", the officially-backed guidance
on safe cycling!"

Cheers, helen s

Dave Larrington said:

In article <[email hidden]>, Brendan Halpin

() said:

Helen Deborah Vecht said:

"Clive George" <[email hidden]>typed

> (There is of course an argument that we should be persuading
> motorists to use sidelights on street lit roads, since it makes
> cyclists more conspicuous, not less)

Quite, but I don't know if modern cars *have* sidelights...

Every car I've driven has four options:
* off,
* something intermediate for which I don't know the canonical name,
* dipped headlights, and
* full-beam.

Though the Modern Trend seems to be to combine dipped headlights with
those lights variously referred to as "front driving lights", "front
fog lights" or "Chav-lights". Sample dialogue follows:

Grate frend gNick's cow-orker: I puts me driving lights on coz they
makes me car look lower!
Grate frend gNick: I think you'll find they just make everyone think
you're a [censored]...

I was in the right hand lane of a motorway after dark the other day, and a
BMW approached at high speed from the rear pretending to have lowered
suspension in the aforementioned manner, and me being a self righteous
idiot, I flashed my rear fog lights on and off a couple of times, and the
driver turned them off.

Fortunately I didn't faint.

--
Ambrose

Response to David Martin:

Quoted message said:

There is also the impression given that on bends cyclists should be
hugging the edge of the road, which is emphatically not what Cyclecraft
says.

Damn right, and a very good point; on tight/blind bends I take the
primary position, because otherwise, a significant proportion of drivers
*will* decide that this is a great place to overtake. Both the proposed
wording and the implication behind it are very disturbing. What the HC
is effectively saying - as elsewhere - is "Put yourself in greater
danger of injury or death, to save a few seconds of a driver's journey."

On my commute there's a point where the road narrows to barely-more-than
single lane and makes a blind turn under a railway bridge; it's
surprising that some drivers will try to overtake even there[1], and
fairly adrenalin-inducing when I can actually hear a car coming the
other way.

[1] By which I mean not surprising at all, unforch.

--
Mark, UK
"A cathedral, a wave of a storm, a dancer's leap, never turn out to be
as high as we had hoped."

in message <[email hidden]>, Mark
Thompson

('pleasegivegenerously@warmmail*_turn_up_the_heat_to_reply*.com') said:

More (hopefully constructive) wibblings:

Quoted message said:

Many cycle tracks are extremely unsafe.

I'd prefer something like 'less safe than the road', as "extremely
unsafe" is hyperbole.

Three times the risk of death seems to me 'extreme'.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

The most unsafe mode of cycling
is to cycle on a cycle track alongside a road, in a direction opposite
to the traffic in the adjacent lane. The increase in KSI in this case
vs cycling on the road in the traffic is 300%.

Quoted message said:

Cycling on a cycle track
adjacent to a road in the same direction as traffic in the adjacent
lane is only very slightly safer (87%) than cycling normally in the
traffic.

This is presumably the use that the writer of the HC meant, and seems
to show that, in general, cycle tracks (are these cycle lane or
seperate tracks or cycle paths?) are safer and so the advice should
stand.

No, they're not 'safer', they're much more dangerous. Consider the normal
case where the cycle track runs along only one side of the road. The
cycles on the left hand side of the track travel in the same direction
as the motor vehicles in the adjacent lane, and are slightly safer (87%)
than they would be if on the road. The cycles on the right hand side of
the track are travelling in the opposite direction to the motor vehicles
in the adjacent lane, and are at 300% the risk of road cyclists.
Overall, then, the cyclists on the cycle track are exposed to almost
200% of the risk of an on-road cyclist. There's no way you can describe
twice the risk of death or serious injury as 'safer'.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
"The result is a language that... not even its mother could
love. Like the camel, Common Lisp is a horse designed by
committee. Camels do have their uses."
;; Scott Fahlman, 7 March 1995

Just zis Guy said:

The revision consultation for the Highway Code is now open. Closing
date is May 1, I think.

Rule 58 is expanded to 'use cycle facilities ... where these are
provided' (instead of 'where practicable'😉. If that gets through, we
have effectively lost our right to use the road anywhere the man from
the council has been out with his paint pot, regardless of utility,
condition or quality of the "facility".

For what it's worth, I'd like to see a fundamental structural change
to the Code. As it is, there are two classes of rule: law ("must"😉
and rule ("should"😉 - this puts wearing a fluorescent jacket on an
equal footing with not overtaking on bends in terms of strength of
recommendation.

Instead, I suggest there should be three kinds of content: general
guidance and advice (preferably written in prose rather than as
numbered rules), safety-critical information, failure to follow which
may be evidence of driving without due care or some other offence, and
law.

IIRC it used to say, literally, "If there is a cycle path, ride on it".

Following on from David Martin's message. . .

Quoted message said:

dkahn400 said:

Peter Fox said:

Duh - look up how RETRO reflectors work will you?

I think David meant that they would be visible under the street
lighting without the need for reflectors.

Well I suggest he gets out more then and actually look at the
effectiveness of street lighting.
--
PETER FOX Not the same since the bridge building business collapsed
[email hidden]
2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex.
Gravity beer in Essex <http://www.eminent.demon.co.uk>

Following on from Richard's message. . .

Quoted message said:

Peter Fox said:

Quoted message said:

> 107. You MUST
> · use headlights at night, except on a road which has lit
> street lighting. These roads are generally restricted to a
> speed limit of 30 mph (48 km/h) unless otherwise
> specified
>
> So those mandatory retro-reflectors will work of their own accord then
> will they? Err...I think not.

It might have excaped your notice that there is street lighting
illuminating the road so any cyclist, pedestrian, stray dog or pet
moose will be clearly visible[1]

Duh - look up how RETRO reflectors work will you?

Duh - look up how LIGHT is scattered will you? ;-)

If the street is *lit*, then (assuming the said cyclist, pedestrian, dog
or moose is not covered with Harry Potter's Invisibility cape), they
will be *visible* regardless of whether or not they are sporting reflectors.

Not always in practice

Quoted message said:

R.

--
PETER FOX Not the same since the bridge building business collapsed
[email hidden]
2 Tees Close, Witham, Essex.
Gravity beer in Essex <http://www.eminent.demon.co.uk>

On 17 Feb 2006 03:28:48 -0800, "dkahn400" <[email hidden]>

Quoted message said:

The combination of bad facilities and bad official advice is a powerful
one. I'm sure we were better off when we didn't have to deal with any
of this [censored].

Seconded.

<snippity everything>

I think Im misunderstanding something basic here :-) What exactly is a
cycle track, and is it physically seperated from the road or part of the
road?

Oh and have you got a reference (incomplete'll do) for the study?

On Fri, 17 Feb 2006 17:17:36 -0000, Mark McNeill
<[email hidden]> said in
<[email hidden]>:

Quoted message said:

What the HC
is effectively saying - as elsewhere - is "Put yourself in greater
danger of injury or death, to save a few seconds of a driver's journey."

It is the [censored] child of retired RSOs and the ABD and should be
burned and started again.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound

"wafflycat" <w*a*ff£y£cat*@£btco*nn£ect.com> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I see it it proposed to change current rule 51 which includes:

You should not ride more than two abreast and
You should ride in single file on narrow or busy roads

to be in Rule 63 and amended to:

"You should never ride more than two abreast, and ride in single file on
narrow or busy roads and when riding round bends"

If I was cycling along and up in front were a group of 6 cyclists riding 2
abreast, would this mean that I would not be able to overtake them?