Some f*cking cycling advocates!
I used to cycle. I would like to cycle again but have too much anxiety. I support cycling infrastructure being better and safer and being taken away from traffic.
But I do not support 'floating bus stops' where the cycle path goes between the pavement and the boarding platform for the bus.
These are a nightmare for blind public transport users who dont and wont ever have the option to cycle.
They're scary - so people who are blind and who have had near misses with bikes and know they cant reliably see or hear them coming fear to use them and avoid them - having their ability to travel independently further eroded.
But because those affected dont go there any more and don't use them the statistics dont show a rise in accidents - so some fucking cycling activists trumpet the statistics showing few accidents but they dont show what I'm talking about which is fear and its effects. Spouse isn't in your accident statistics because they don't go there any more and avoid it because of the floating bus stop - thus successfully not becoming a statistic but it's still a problem that they cant go there anymore and increasing parts of public transport infrastructure are becoming off limits to them.
The callous shit I get when I point this out from some of the cycling advocates boils my blood. Some of them are no better than petrol-heads - they got theirs and more vulnerable public space users dont matter.
I see why some people loathe cyclists and vote accordingly. I wont do that, but some of the advocates are callous.
Please cycling folk, if you see these types at work on social media then call them out and remind them that blind people have reasons why they oppose this solution and we need a better one so that everyone can travel in a way that they are confident in.
But I do not support 'floating bus stops' where the cycle path goes between the pavement and the boarding platform for the bus.
These are a nightmare for blind public transport users who dont and wont ever have the option to cycle.
They're scary - so people who are blind and who have had near misses with bikes and know they cant reliably see or hear them coming fear to use them and avoid them - having their ability to travel independently further eroded.
But because those affected dont go there any more and don't use them the statistics dont show a rise in accidents - so some fucking cycling activists trumpet the statistics showing few accidents but they dont show what I'm talking about which is fear and its effects. Spouse isn't in your accident statistics because they don't go there any more and avoid it because of the floating bus stop - thus successfully not becoming a statistic but it's still a problem that they cant go there anymore and increasing parts of public transport infrastructure are becoming off limits to them.
The callous shit I get when I point this out from some of the cycling advocates boils my blood. Some of them are no better than petrol-heads - they got theirs and more vulnerable public space users dont matter.
I see why some people loathe cyclists and vote accordingly. I wont do that, but some of the advocates are callous.
Please cycling folk, if you see these types at work on social media then call them out and remind them that blind people have reasons why they oppose this solution and we need a better one so that everyone can travel in a way that they are confident in.
Comments
Ironically low KSI figures often hide the deterrent affect towards cycking too, and this is well known amongst advocates so they should be able to see what's going on.
Unfortunately, there's not a lot more we can do towards the intransigent, any more than as a motorist I can convince the anti speed camera people.
Every good cause has its numpties. It's just driving me spare this morning because it's come up on my timeline and they are out in force. I'm torn between blocking them and wanting them to hear that they are hurting other people.
I had never heard of these things until today so have searched. I suppose they are part of trying to get cyclists off the road which is dangerous because many road users (including cyclists) don't pay attention and do proceed with a lack of care.
The solution, surely, isn't to move the danger to another part of the infrastructure but to get the bad road users to either ride/drive better or not ride/drive at all.
The problem is that the government that made any attempt to enforce this would not get re-elected.
If you live in Wales you will have heard about the 20mph urban speed limit, despite reductions of road deaths, serious injuries and collisions (which in turn cause traffic congestion). The Welsh government and Mark Drakeford, the outgoing First Minister, were been widely condemned by angry motorists claiming that checking their speed interferes with driving safely, and even that cars aren’t designed to drive at 20mph.
It certainly contributed to Welsh Labour losing seats in the Senedd in May.
I do believe, and practice, conscientious cycling in regard to pedestrians of any type. To me, it's just the next reasonable degree of the same caution hierarchy that makes cyclists vulnerable to autos:
Commercial trucks/Busses --> SUVS/Pickup trucks --> Cars --> Motorcycles --> Cyclists --> Pedestrians.
And don't forget small animals!
See when I was fitter and braver and used to cycle what @The_Riv say is exactly what I'd have said - pedestrians and especially those with greater vulnerabilities from disability or being very young or old require my caution and care. I just cant get my head round people who are younger fit cyclists who think blind people can get stuffed for them.
I dont want them to have to ride in traffic - I want safe access to the bus stops - I think if they could put Zebra or proper pedestrian crossings in that could be an acceptable compromise. Perhaps a large STOP - give way to pedestrians sign in addition or better still dismount at bus stops and wheel through.
But what's there now is a problem for blind people and the sheer zealotry of some cycle campaigners is putting my back up.
A second thought - when I retired I took motorbike lessons and passed my test. I was taught to ride defensively as though other road users were out to "get" me. This does not seem to be the case with some cyclists.
I always find it amusing wben people correctly point out that bicycles are vehicles but express surprise that their riders are not perfect observers of the law, just like every other group, as evidenced by the car I can guarantee will be right up my arse because I'm observing the speed limit.
I don't seem to see cars jumping red lights or mounting pavements to avoid them as often as I see cyclists do it.
Ah, but cyclists are special.
Oh do fuck off. No-one's claiming that. I see motorists break speed limits, block pavements and cut corners every day. Mini roundabouts are driven over more often than around. More people are killed on pavements by motorists than are killed in total by cyclists every year.
You were saying, Karl?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6e3xg5we9eyo
I've nearly been taken out a number of times waiting to turn right at the end of our street by people cutting the corner.
Yes, and who is going to be a bigger danger to a pedestrian - a car or a cyclist? As a disabled pedestrian who can't ride a bike or drive a car, while there is bad behaviour from cyclists and cycling advocates (as Louise outlines in the OP) it's nothing like the sheer [word I can't say on The Ship]-ery I see from motorists every single day. Cars may not regularly mount the pavement where you live but they certainly do park very regularly in ways that force wheelchair users and people with prams to walk in the road, for instance. Motorists are also often extremely vocal in their campaigns against cycling infrastructure, making town centres into something other than a giant car park, and public transport improvement.
I can see what you mean about dogmatic cyclists. I think a lot of the problem comes from their being so dogmatic about the righteousness of their own cause. It is just another example of the trouble caused by those who are idealistically and ideologically self-righteous about their own causes and to h*ll with anyone else who is not enlightened as they are or is enlightened about something else. It is the same whether it is the virtue of cycling - or jogging for that matter - or Marxism, the Palestinians, Israel, Stopping Oil, Drill Baby Drill or whatever. It is only the scale that is different.
I wonder if all bike riders are covered in some peoples minds when they think "cyclists." Of course there are responsible cyclists, but in my neck of the woods they seem to be overshadowed by a large number of teenage lads on bikes wearing balaclavas and black hoodies doing wheelies on the roads and hurtling through pedestrianised areas in gangs with little apparent regard for the safety of those on foot or in wheelchairs. I don't know if they count as cyclists among the fraternity, but they certainly certainly colour my attitude as much as the minority of drivers who are thoughtless and terrible do.
I am another disabled pedestrian who does not cycle or drive. Cambridge is a very cycle friendly city and I am not anti-cyclist; we are an eco friendly household and my husband cycles to work. But I have been hit twice at speed by cyclists on the local ‘shared’ cycle paths and on neither occasions were they youths in black. They seemed quite ordinary people.
The first was a heads down cyclist on his way to work on the wide purpose built shared cycle path by the guided busway, who decided to undertake a group of cyclists without looking first. His speed was such that he went over his handlebars; he got up and cleared off. I had been sensibly walking on the far left edge of the path in bright clothes and would have been clearly visible - the female cyclist who stopped to help me couldn’t understand how he did not see me.
The other occasion was on the shared cycle path by the allotments which is an old footpath that is really not suitable for shared use. A young couple came round a blind corner at speed and were obviously surprised to find a middle aged woman with a shopping trolley using the local footpath. They rang their bells but did not slow down or go single file. I moved to the left to let them pass but bizarrely they decided the sensible thing to do was to overtake either side of me! Consequently, one of them hit me.
As for pedestrian crossings, I have had near misses with cyclists, cars and buses jumping the red lights. The bus drivers are the worse culprits!
Around here, scooters have replaced bikes for this type (those slim foldable razor scooters) - which tend to be more dangerous since they don't come with bells, and are quieter but faster.
I suspect that this group would be unlikely to use cycling infrastructure even where it exists. To me when I think of cyclists, I think primarily of people who commute via bike - which would include teenagers cycling to school, but not the kind who do the kind of nuisance cycling you describe.
That kind of footpath is the type of place I've had the most near misses with cyclists, also when I lived off a main road which had narrow pavements yet also served as part of a bus route - so if someone came down the pavement on a bike you could easily be forced into the road while waiting for a bus (the stops did not have a shelter as there was no room on the pavement for one). I think all have been young men but uni student age rather than school age.
Also agreed wrt floating bus stops, though fortunately I've only occasionally encountered them and only in other towns.
It's all just individuals. Cyclist A has no more connection to Cyclist B than he does to Motorist C or Horserider D. Your problem is thinking in terms of groups as if members of a group share secondary characteristics by virtue of membership of that group. We're not a fraternity. We're just individuals who happen to cycle.
I believe it's called Group Attribution Error.
Of course, it's not entirely that simple - it is possible to find oneself on different sides of this equation under different circumstances. But the phenomenon definitely exists, in one form or another.
Actually, there may be another element - and I believe that the two co-exist in the same person, as contradictory as they sound. Over time, social media has become part of something that might be called a surveillance society, albeit the allegedly private wing thereof. Cycling, and riding scooters, especially one's own - assisted by electric motors or entirely driven by the person using them - is one of the rare opportunities to escape this. There is no registration in either case, and the use of helmets, where it happens, has the incidental effect of reducing the likelihood of detection if an accident is picked up on closed-circuit cameras. Having the opportunity to zoom around undetected gives one an experience of consequence-free autonomy. The fact that it has a price for others is invisible, since these vehicles lack rear-view mirrors, real or metaphorical.
The new estate behind my house has embraced the concept of shared roads for cars and pedestrians. The cul de sacs have paved roads without footpaths and pedestrians are supposed to have priority. However, a) there is no signage that states this, and b) there is usually nowhere for a car to go to let a pedestrian pass anyway. The upshot is that the pedestrian will have to move out of the way of the car, usually to stand between some parked cars as there is no safe space for them. It is clearly an idea that just suits the house builders as they can cram more in.
The same estate also has paved junctions with priority for pedestrians and cyclists to cross but there is no signage for this either.
So we shouldn't refer to cyclists as a group?
Maybe not, but there are stupid, dangerous and thoughtless road users of all kinds, and I include pavements with roads. I’ll grant you that dangerous pedestrians are primarily a danger to themselves but simply by not paying attention, or walking across the road while using a mobile phone, they can cause road accidents.
No, what you shouldn't do is transfer the behaviour of some of them as somehow something to do with any of the others. Treat them as individuals.
People on bikes doing arseholey things are doing it because they're arseholes, not because they're cyclists.
Quite what we should do, and how we should do it, is another matter.
I always mutter to myself, "Be aware of low flying cyclists" as I get off the bus"
You're right, of course.
You've never visited Birmingham then?
I also agree with @KarlLB in what he says about "... Group Attribution Error."
It amazes me how many people in my neighborhood don't look up from their phones when they cross the street, especially when they're crossing against the light or in the middle of a block.
It amazes me how many drivers make illegal U-turns, don't look before changing lanes, don't look out for pedestrians, cyclists or motorcyclists, and don't know how to parallel park without holding up traffic for what seems like eons.
It amazes me how many cyclists, runners and scooters go the wrong way down the middle of one-way streets and don't even pause at intersections.
It amazes me that parents buy e-bikes that are basically motorcycles for their kids.
There's no shortage of thoughtless people doing stupid, dangerous things in every mode of travel.
People don't stop being self-absorbed when they change modes of transport.
I did encounter an example of the self-absorbed pedestrian a few years ago, blithely wandering out in front of me onto the wrong side of a shared-use path. Swerved to avoid him, horrible squeal of brakes, found myself with my front wheel in between the wheels of another bike that had been coming (very fast) in the opposite direction. I still don't know how we avoided hitting each other. Meanwhile the cause of the almost-accident went on his merry way without a care in the world.
Wouldn't they be just the same on non-electric bikes?
Not necessarily. Electric bikes can go up to 20 mph (32 kph). Considering the kinetic energy involved, that could be dangerous for both the cyclist and, say a pedestrian, he or she might hit.
We also have electric two-wheelers that a lot of people think are ebikes but are actually electric motorcycles - they have no pedals, are totally powered by the motor, and go as fast as a gasoline-powered motorcycle. So you have to be 16 and licensed to ride a motorcycle, but some parents buy these for their younger kids. Cops are starting to crack down on these, but usually only after someone's been badly hurt or killed. We also regularly see off-road ebikes, not street legal, roaring up and down the roads.
This. Unfortunately many people + the media here do not adequately differentiate between the max 15mph/250w legal e-bikes (on sale in most bike shops), and the much faster varieties that are mostly not road-legal unless licensed, insured and taxed like a motorcycle.
We have a legal e-cargo bike. Yes I can go faster on it than if I didn't have e-assist, but it's still broadly within the realms of "bike" speeds. The guy in the shop we bought it from characterised it that a top olympic-level sports cyclist could probably produce 250w with just their legs. So the e-assist is artificially making me fitter than I really am, but I still can't go faster than a human could feasibly go on a regular bike.