please empty your brain below

We had the same "cyclists dismount" nonsense in Newgate Street recently - where the cycle lane was not even segregated, but part of the main carriageway! Needless to say no-one did.

When a bus lane is suspended, should the passengers get out and push?

Although you might not have realised it, your article raises a very important point. Many serious accidents occur following a pattern of "near misses" such as that you described. The University of Wharton has for many years run a programme analysing near misses in complex industrial systems. In some industries such as civil aviation employees are encouraged to report anonymously near miss incidents. In its way travelling on London's roads is just as complex as travelling by plane - you have to rely on lots od individual parts and processes to blend together to get and keep the right result at the right time. If TfL and the boroughs are only counting fatalities and injuries in identifying high risk situations perhaps they are missing a trick.

There will be something very wrong when the correct thing to do when encountering an obstruction on a cycle lane is to get off and walk. Cycles have as much right to be on any part of the road as any car or lorry - and the same obligations to comply with the rules of the road.

The more that we cyclists are seen as some aberrant form of transport that needs special treatment, the worse it will be.

Local Authorities should have a quota: for every "Cyclists Dismount" sign, they should have at least one other "Motorists Push" sign.

Being (needlessly) pedantic - I think there will be two docking stations closer to the Olympic Park. the map [pdf] shows one at the eastern end of Bromley High Street, and one at Victoria Park's Cadogan Gate.

I had my first encounter with a red-light-jumping cyclist quite recently. I was using the pedestrian crossing on a busy main road, with the green man showing. A young man - 'Lycra lout', I believe the technical term is - breezed straight through the red light, aiming directly for me, and after I narrowly avoided being mown down he yelled abuse over his retreating shoulder as if it was my fault.

Do cyclists actually want to be given priority? Some of them seem to be doing all they can to demonstrate they can't be trusted.

Apologies in advance for the longish comment but following on from Mwmbwls's comment, the number of near misses I could report from my daily walk to and from the station via Cable St, specifically a stretch of 10-15 metres of the CS3 would be easily in the teens - and yet this is usually after 9.30am and 7.30pm so hardly times of peak flow.

The blue paint stops at the junction with Sutton St, with give way triangles painted on the blue lane and yet cyclists seem to think they have right of way and cycle right across without slowing down or paying any heed to the motor traffic that has priority. I've lost count at the number of times I've gasped at close shaves there.

And less than 10 metres later there's a zebra crossing infront of a primary school, and cyclists just charge through swerving to avoid young, often unaccompanied children and/or parents crossing. It's obviously got bad enough that a few weeks ago, signs were erected in both directions warning the cyclists to give way to pedestrians on the crossing - do they heed this warning? In my experience to date 3-4 out of every 5 will not, and only 1 will stop. The authorities can try to ameliorate the situation but if people don't obey the rules, then what are we supposed to do?

They ride on the pavement at speed tight through the 3ft-wide gap between those roadworks and the flats regardless on who else is about. And the circular blue "pedestrians left/cyclists right" on that distanct lamp post is facing the wrong way and thus incorrect.

To the pedestrian having problems with RLJ cyclists, I find a walking stick length brolly (preferably with a nice steel tip), thrust outwards as you step onto the crossing, makes them have second thoughts.

Mwmbwls - I read of an interesting experiment in the US where a system comprising a camera and computer sensors was placed in vehicles. It recorded only when a pattern of events that matched certain criteria occurred, namely anything which matched the chain of events leading to a collision. In most cases a crash did not actually result but instead the camera recorded a 'near miss'. What the researchers realised was that the potential for accidents were far more likely than statistics showed, just that most never happened because of a fortuitous last-minute aversion by one or both parties.

I drive regularly in the Old St/Moorgate/Shoreditch High St area and some of the cyclist behaviour I see is pretty terrifying.

Failing to stop at red lights regardless of oncoming traffic, failing to signal, failing to look before changing lanes (especially riding at speed), no high vis or lights after dark, wearing headphones and failing to give way when required to do so. On more occasions than I can count I've seen cyclists ride across pedestrian crossings while pedestrians are on them, as well as ignoring traffic signals thus forcing motorists and even other cyclists to take evasive action.

One day I plan to video it because no-one ever believes me when I tell them how hair-raising some of it is.

Beth - you're right, there are a lot of badly behaved cyclists around that part of the world, but there are a lot of badly behaved drivers too. I've had a couple of near misses on Old Street, next to 333/Mother Bar. Heading east, the road narrows and curves to the left - with the result that vans lorries thunder past terrifyingly close to cyclists.

When you're out to video the bad cyclists, see if you can spot some bad drivers too.

That comment wasn't intended to spark off a debate as to which set of road users is worse or enter into a kind of 'we do it but you do it too' exchange. I know perfectly well there are plenty of bad drivers too.

My point was more by way of agreeing with DG's final paragraph - highlighting a near miss which could easily have been another tragedy and could have been prevented had the cyclist not jumped the red light. Observing traffic signals and road laws is a vital part of road safety for ALL road users and shouldn't be subject to a snap decision on whether you've decided it's safe at that time.

But DG's (and many others') point about poor junction design and poor road planning is spot-on. I am frequently staggered by how badly roads in this country are planned - poor visibility, excessive furniture, misleading signage and markings, no consideration for who is using the road or who needs to be using it.

You're quite right - if the way the streets are designed encourages drivers and cyclists alike to cause a danger to themselves and others, something really does need to be done to fix it so they don't.

True that, I never see any pedestrian crossing a street without looking, and they always use the dedicated crossings.

My experience of fairly regularly cycling from Kings X to near Ilford recently has been that as soon as you hit Newham the cycle lanes suddenly turn to sh*t.

It's not just that the pretty blue path disappears (and all the facitities that go with it). Stratford is still a massive building site, there are so many lanes of traffic to get across to keep turning right around that stupid one-way system, it's poorly signed, and building works continually stick out into the left lane.

There's one bit where the road slopes uphill to go over a bridge, it's a fast road, roadworks suddenly block the entire left lane and then there's a bloody great big hole in the tarmac right in the middle of the now left-most lane.

The cycle lanes between Stratford and Ilford have such bad surfaces and narrow widths that I deliberately ride a long way outside them for most of the route.

Every time I hit Newham I curse their s***ing council.

Does anyone else think it might be good to organise a Critical Mass there at rush hour?

They reckon it can't be made safe for cyclists without increasing journey times? So then let's increase journey times there for everyone, say, every week until it gets fixed.

Don't live in London myself so I'm not the best person to kick this off, but me and several others I know of would definitely attend if someone else organised it. Basically just need to set a time and date and then publicise it.

The blue arrow is aimed at motorists, to keep them clear of the works. What should be done is a closure of the nearside lane and the CS being diverted into it. Fat chance.












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