Are there really cyclists who do no road riding at all and consider that they should behave as pedestrians?
For those that express a dislike for this "wrong side" cycling, how do you cope with small children on bikes who haven't yet been indentured into the regimented order of the roads and just want to be free to do something they enjoy wherever it takes them? Are they a scourge and a menaced to be stamped out in the name of all that is "how things should be for everyone and no exceptions".
For those that express a dislike for this "wrong side" cycling, how do you cope with small children on bikes who haven't yet been indentured into the regimented order of the roads and just want to be free to do something they enjoy wherever it takes them? Are they a scourge and a menaced to be stamped out in the name of all that is "how things should be for everyone and no exceptions".Yebut - if you taught your children the rules of the road and then have some oaf ride into them as he thinks it is his own personal choice on which side of the path to ride and: "It's not your place to educate me" (it happened, really) - what then? :demon:
Has anyone else noticed a tendency of some people riding on cycle paths to keep right rather than left? It's a minority of cases, but I've had it a few times that I've had to swerve right at the last second to pass someone coming in the opposite direction who is absolutely determined to keep to their right hand side. I always tell them what I think of them.
Are there really cyclists who do no road riding at all and consider that they should behave as pedestrians?
I find it really annoying.
Yebut - if you taught your children the rules of the road and then have some oaf ride into them as he thinks it is his own personal choice on which side of the path to ride and: "It's not your place to educate me" (it happened, really) - what then? :demon:
What about overtaking one of those freedom-of-choice idiots? Your ring your bell - nothing happens. You do a decent: "Hello" - nothing happens. So you think it might be save to pass on the wrong side and just then he remembers that he is not alone in the world and swerves right into you? And on top of that the resulting accident is all your fault and you were speeding anyway. :sick:
But still you can attempt to educate them by riding on the left and hoping they will see that it's a good idea to have a convention.
Wouldn't it be a better idea to educate them on how to manage themselves in an arena where their patterns of behaviour aren't consistently mirrored by others.Part of riding/driving/walking on the roads is assuming that other road users will sometimes break the rules, and being ready for it.
Hehe. I've heard they drive on whichever side of the road they like in India, so you'd like it there.Most people drive/ride on the left, most of the time. But if it's more convenient for them personally to be the right, they'll be on the right. This is interesting when you are cycling with faster traffic on your right and someone - another cyclist, a motorbiker, tractor or buffalo cart, cars do this rarely - is heading towards you on 'your' side of the road. Do they pass between you and the kerb/verge or between you and the faster traffic? The answer is yes, usually! It's all up for negotiation, as are junctions, traffic signals, etc.
Yeah but, you've taught them rules of the "ROAD". Isn't teaching them to apply them away from the "ROAD" a parenting fail? Sometimes you have to teach them something else. Obviously it's a more complex contruct, but perhaps you have to teach them that there are no specific or binary rules to govern behaviour and that they should be learning to use judgement, experience, foresight and safe practice. Even more complex, you might have to teach them that it's reductive and self-defeating to pigeonhole someone as an oaf when they're exhibiting what is quite likely, within a broader context of their life and how they've lived and experienced it up until that point in time, a justifiable pattern of learned behaviour.Trust me, they know all that and survived their infancies on bikes just fine as nobody here is enforcing their beliefs on others and rather go out of harms way.
As for your second scenario, how would you categorise the person if they were a pedestrian rather than a cyclist. Would they still be a "freedom of choice idiot"? It's not your fault because you are "speeding". It's your fault for not accepting that there simply are no rules or laws or even any hard or fast conventions governing this type of behaviour within this environment. Therefore if you wish to overtake or pass then the onus is on you to ensure your own safety or accept the absence of it. That might extend to slowing down, continuing efforts to attract their attention before passing until successful, failing attempts to gain their understanding of the actions that you wish to take; waiting until such time as you can make a manouver and abort it should their pattern of behaviour change to put them in conflict with youAgain, no accidents here because of people who impose their will on the rest of the cycling world.
or, should you choose to take the risk, sucking up the consequences if it all goes horribly wrong. At which point, you become the "freedom of choice idiot", not them.
I've heard they drive on whichever side of the road they like in India, so you'd like it there, SK.
QuoteI've heard they drive on whichever side of the road they like in India, so you'd like it there, SK.
....apart from the 130,000+ RTA fatalities anually
.. I always tell them what I think of them.
I find it really annoying.
.. I always tell them what I think of them.
I find it really annoying.
I've been pondering this reaction for two days and it bothers me. This is as polite as I can make it:
If you (or I) get told off by a BMW driver who has to steer round us a bit... and finds cyclists really annoying, we call them names, slag all drivers off on the forum and possibly report a few individuals to the police.
How is it acceptable for you to "tell them what you think of them" but unacceptable to be on the receiving end of similar advice?
???
I'm with others above - the more slow people there are meandering around on our roads and paths, the better. IMHO
.. I always tell them what I think of them.
I find it really annoying.
I've been pondering this reaction for two days and it bothers me. This is as polite as I can make it:
If you (or I) get told off by a BMW driver who has to steer round us a bit... and finds cyclists really annoying, we call them names, slag all drivers off on the forum and possibly report a few individuals to the police.
How is it acceptable for you to "tell them what you think of them" but unacceptable to be on the receiving end of similar advice?
???
I'm with others above - the more slow people there are meandering around on our roads and paths, the better. IMHO
We're talking about people who ride on the wrong side of the cycle path. I will abuse them as much as I would abuse a driver driving on the wrong side of the road.
That's about the same rate as the USA - four times the road deaths casualties (42,000 pa) and four times the population.
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We're talking about people who ride on the wrong side of the cycle path. I will abuse them as much as I would abuse a driver driving on the wrong side of the road.
But more motorbikes and animals - the vehicles which are supposed to be the most "dangerous" (ie most often involved in RTAs). However, from what I've seen of the USA (admittedly not much) I can't believe there is anything like the same chaos on the roads there as there is in India. Having said that... I do remember cyclists riding on the wrong side of the road routinely in Hawaii (but not in California) and some parts of India have more orderly traffic than others. I've been told that Bombay is one of the most orderly and Bangalore one of the worst - certainly it's much crazier than places I've been in Tamil Nadu, but then they were smaller.QuoteThat's about the same rate as the USA - four times the road deaths casualties (42,000 pa) and four times the population.
Yes, but nowhere near as many cars.
You're making up the rules (in the same way as drivers make stuff up about compulsory cycle paths and two abreast stuff.)If they took out the "drive on the left" bit from the Highway Code*, would you start driving on the right?
AFAICS in the Highway Code there's no requirement for a cyclist to keep left on a cycle path.
You're making up the rules (in the same way as drivers make stuff up about compulsory cycle paths and two abreast stuff.)If they took out the "drive on the left" bit from the Highway Code*, would you start driving on the right?
AFAICS in the Highway Code there's no requirement for a cyclist to keep left on a cycle path.
*To save trees, bandwidth, civil service wages, whatever.
When walking on pavements in Towns there's an informal, unwritten negotiation that goes on all the time. Normally it results in everyone getting on with ease. Occasionally there is a "Let's Dance" moment and very occasionally there is a collision.
There are no rules for pavements and there are strict rules for roads. Cycle paths fall in the chasm between those two areas and suffer because of it.
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We're talking about people who ride on the wrong side of the cycle path. I will abuse them as much as I would abuse a driver driving on the wrong side of the road.
Except there isn't a wrong side of a cycle path, because it isn't a road.
I'm with Gordy. I'm happy to see people cycling, and well, if I occasionally have to slow down on a path for another cyclist, it's not that much of a problem. I just had to grind to a halt for an absent-minded woman and her three dogs floating in the middle of the path. Yeah, I could have yelled at her, got all angry. But I didn't. Instead I said hello and we swapped the usual comments on the rain (which had just decided to fall), and off I went again. Yes, she was blocking the path, and yes, it would have been nice if she had corralled her mutts as I approached.
The I got stuck behind a family heading home. Parents on bikes, kid on the back. Yes, they were all over the path. I just slowed down for a bit, waiting until it was clear and passed. Again, we swapped a few pleasantries about the rain, I dinged my bell on request for the kid and off I went. I didn't feel the need to pull them over and educate them on my perceived version of cycle path etiquette.
Are you people being deliberately obtuse? On a two-way cycle path you keep left.No requirement to do so. As Gordy says it's a made up rule.
Are you people being deliberately obtuse? On a two-way cycle path you keep left. If you don't, and by doing so you endanger me and mine, you will get a faceful of abuse from me.
Thinking 'I can ride on whatever side I like because it isn't a road' is the same pig-ignorant thinking that believes running red lights is ok.No it's not.There are rules regarding red lights.
I for one quite like the whole idea of not keeping to one side or another; makes it more of what it was intended as
it's a shared path not a road; with dogs peds children inexperienced riders etc. If you don't like it and want to hammer down one side the road is that way ->
The problem with this debate is closely associated with the uncomfortable fact that there is not AFAICT a paragraph in the Highway Code that states you "MUST" drive on the left, which might give a reference to relevant statute law. If I have my facts right, much of the left vs. right stuff is from common law, with enforcement in areas of potential conflict left to traffic signs (Road Traffic Act territory). The issue came up a while ago, when Sweden swapped sides & there were debates about the costs & legislative requirements for a similar move in UK.You're making up the rules (in the same way as drivers make stuff up about compulsory cycle paths and two abreast stuff.)If they took out the "drive on the left" bit from the Highway Code*, would you start driving on the right?
AFAICS in the Highway Code there's no requirement for a cyclist to keep left on a cycle path.
*To save trees, bandwidth, civil service wages, whatever.
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We're talking about people who ride on the wrong side of the cycle path. I will abuse them as much as I would abuse a driver driving on the wrong side of the road.
Except there isn't a wrong side of a cycle path, because it isn't a road.
There are no laws but there is a DfT code of conduct which advises cyclists to stay left of paths;
http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/archive/2004/ltnwc/annexdcodeofconductnoticefor1688
I for one quite like the whole idea of not keeping to one side or another; makes it more of what it was intended as
it's a shared path not a road; with dogs peds children inexperienced riders etc. If you don't like it and want to hammer down one side the road is that way ->
The OP did not mention shared paths, they mentioned cycle paths. Pay careful attention to the following photograph. Footpath to the left, road to the right, cycle path in the middle. This is NOT a shared path. If you come towards me on the wrong side I will call you what you are: a stupid c**t who should not be on a bike.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/Minitar1/Random/cyclepath.jpg)
Again, I'm compelled to point out the edge-case of British Waterways advice to cyclists on towpaths, which is to always pass pedestrians on the water side. It makes good sense for cyclist/pedestrian interactions, but I've no idea how commonly known it is, and of course it doesn't help for bike/bike. I suspect that the ones who are canal boat users (and therefore more likely to be exposed to British Waterways literature) are more likely to be aware of it than 'normal' cyclists, and the ratio is going to vary a lot depending on what bit of path you consider.
In practice, there's either lots of room - in which case defaulting to the left usually works - or riders make an arbitrary decision about who deviates from the singletrack based on relative speed, politeness, bar width, load, off-road capability of the bike and so on. Most of the time this works surprisingly well. More so than on off-road paths where there isn't a straight choice between snagging on a hedge/fence or falling in a canal.
Define ' tithead' ???
Why cant a system be devised/adhered to that is similiar to roads, where all traffic goes on the left, with pedestrians nearest to the verge !
Define ' tithead' ???
Why cant a system be devised/adhered to that is similiar to roads, where all traffic goes on the left, with pedestrians nearest to the verge !
I took it to mean people who are unable to walk anywhere without the need to post replies on facebook etc;
the reason the road priority cannot simply be dropped into the cyclepath situation is because they are fundamentally different entities; you don't tend to get people with prams and dogs wandering down main roads; or HGV's driving down canal paths. Yes common sense would dictate that you pass on the same side as you would on a road but every path situation is different and requires a bit of judgement courtesy and common sense.
A textbox is any handheld device used whilst walking, that acts much like the blinkers on a horse, and which takes up someone's entire life without them realising that there is a real world passing them by..... whereas the Tithead is the person enslaved to it.....