Pinch point strategy

[Kim]

I wouldn't have thought there were enough cyclists, except in a few odd places like central London or Cambridge, for that to be a worthwhile traffic engineering strategy.

Yeah, I think it's simpler than that:  make the road narrower, and drivers slow down so they don't hit anything.  The traffic-calming^[1] effect of any cyclists present is just a bonus.

On the other hand, I think cycle *lanes* are often used as traffic calming.  Again, by making the lane appear narrower.



_{[1] For all too frequently negative values of 'calming'.}

[LittleWheelsandBig]

Cyclists have nothing to do with it. Narrowing visible road width tends to slow drivers; a common strategy is to bring in edge lines leading into tight corners. Pinch points are also useful for pedestrians crossing the road (particularly with lots of parking) when zebra crossings have been removed to 'improve' traffic flow.

[hellymedic]

I believe that here in Brent, the engineers are putting in pinch points as a traffic 'calming' 'facility' for cyclists.

My partner is co-ordinator of Brent Cyclists and is opposing this kind of thing every ****ing day.

[Cudzoziemiec]

What do you mean by "for cyclists"? That Brent claim these pinch points will be beneficial to cyclists? I'm sure they claim that, and maybe occasionally they actually are, by reducing general speeds, or something like that.

[hellymedic]

They narrow the carriageway/widen the footway, throw in a few advanced stop lines, put in centre hatching, put this out to consultation and claim to have 'done their bit' for cyclists.

[LMT]

All starts with a shoulder check and then goes on from there...

[Ham]

All starts with a shoulder check and then goes on from there...

Not picking nits, just taking the opportunity to remind people because there are soooo many who don't.

Actually, it stops with a look over the shoulder, it is called "a lifesaver" for a reason. Whatever else you do, whatever your riding style, a lifesaver before any maneuver is always a good idea.

[Tigerbiten]

Pinch points where the road gets narrower tend not bother me that much.
Due to the extra width of my bent trike, I'm always in primary, so I can block most silly overtakes with ease.
Where they do bother me is when you get two lanes into one, due to the fact I have less control over what's going to happen.
It's mainly exiting a roundabout, when the car overtaking me suddenly find that not only are they over the white line but traffic is coming the other way.

[ian]

Strategies are fine. Except you shouldn't need them and they all seem to be depend on you being an assertive, confidence cyclist, with the capability to move at speed. If you're new or less confident, perhaps not in peak physical condition, then you're out of luck.

(The thing I really hate is that when you hold up a car to go through, the moment they see a sliver of space on the other side, they hard rev and push past your back wheel with a centimeter to spare, after all they've been delayed by entire seconds.)

[matthew]

I fluked it this morning, normally I pull out of a side turning and crank it up to road speed, this morning I was lazy and didn't accelerate as hard. This proved fortuitous as the car that had been far enough away for me to pull out kept coming to overtake where the pedestrian island is and only just completed his manoeuvre in time. If I had been accelerated as normal he wouldn't have had room.

As to Thursdays incident, the PC has been to the registered address but no one was home. He'll try again today.

[Tigerbiten]

(The thing I really hate is that when you hold up a car to go through, the moment they see a sliver of space on the other side, they hard rev and push past your back wheel with a centimeter to spare, after all they've been delayed by entire seconds.)

One reason I leave/like my trailer behind my bent trike is because it gets the cars off my back wheel.
Plus it makes my trike-trailer combo an oblong, so cars have to pull out earlier and maybe further to get past me.

[mattc]

Strategies are fine. Except you shouldn't need them and they all seem to be depend on you being an assertive, confidence cyclist, with the capability to move at speed. If you're new or less confident, perhaps not in peak physical condition, then you're out of luck.

Ian,
Anyone can ride like this. There is no minimum speed.

Perhaps the jargon is wrong. Forget "strategies" - just think
"this is the best and least stressful way to ride a bike"

[JennyB]

All starts with a shoulder check and then goes on from there...

Not picking nits, just taking the opportunity to remind people because there are soooo many who don't.

Actually, it stops with a look over the shoulder, it is called "a lifesaver" for a reason. Whatever else you do, whatever your riding style, a lifesaver before any maneuver is always a good idea.

If someone is likely to overtake inappropriately I will do a 'hold back' signal (right hand, fingers down, palm back) and wave them through when it's clear.  Seems to work.

[Kim]

Strategies are fine. Except you shouldn't need them and they all seem to be depend on you being an assertive, confidence cyclist, with the capability to move at speed. If you're new or less confident, perhaps not in peak physical condition, then you're out of luck.

Ian,
Anyone can ride like this. There is no minimum speed.

Try riding with your usual assertiveness at 7mph some time, and see how you get on.

Like it or not, the impatience of motorists is largely a function of the speed differential, as is the frequency of overtakes.  Slow cyclists get a much harder time of it if they ride assertively.  And of course there's a correlation between ability to cycle fast and ability to not fear abusive strangers.

Coupled with the fact that surface hazards are less of a problem at lower speed, and it's understandable that slower cyclists tend to gravitate to the gutter....

[Cudzoziemiec]

The ability to ride fast tends to give you, or go along with, confidence to be assertive even when you chose to ride slowly.

[Domestique]

They narrow the carriageway/widen the footway, throw in a few advanced stop lines, put in centre hatching, put this out to consultation and claim to have 'done their bit' for cyclists.

I guess that about covers it. After that just share the road.

[ian]

Strategies are fine. Except you shouldn't need them and they all seem to be depend on you being an assertive, confidence cyclist, with the capability to move at speed. If you're new or less confident, perhaps not in peak physical condition, then you're out of luck.

Ian,
Anyone can ride like this. There is no minimum speed.

Perhaps the jargon is wrong. Forget "strategies" - just think
"this is the best and least stressful way to ride a bike"

It's easy to say until you have three and half tonnes of raging Range Rover a few centimeters behind. That's stressful even for confident riders. For anyone else, it's not exactly fun, and immensely discouraging. And we've all had agressive, bullying drivers behind us in such situations, it's hardly uncommon and the slower the cyclist goes, the more the driver will take it that you are trying to obstruct them and thus ratchet up their impatience. A year or so ago I had a driver overtake me going (slowly into a solid headwind) up the side of Peckham Rye - and yes I was in primary and yes, the driver removed a bollard and left plenty of wheel on the pedestrian refuge. I couldn't have been more assertive but you can't underestimate that desperate need to overtake and not be held up by a cyclist.

[hellymedic]

Strategies are fine. Except you shouldn't need them and they all seem to be depend on you being an assertive, confidence cyclist, with the capability to move at speed. If you're new or less confident, perhaps not in peak physical condition, then you're out of luck.

Ian,
Anyone can ride like this. There is no minimum speed.

Perhaps the jargon is wrong. Forget "strategies" - just think
"this is the best and least stressful way to ride a bike"

You can't underestimate that desperate need to overtake and not be held up by a cyclist.

This^^^
In spades

[Pancho]

Strategies are fine. Except you shouldn't need them and they all seem to be depend on you being an assertive, confidence cyclist, with the capability to move at speed. If you're new or less confident, perhaps not in peak physical condition, then you're out of luck.

Ian,
Anyone can ride like this. There is no minimum speed.

Perhaps the jargon is wrong. Forget "strategies" - just think
"this is the best and least stressful way to ride a bike"

It helps if you're a girl. Preferably a young girl with flowing locks on a sit up and beg bike. Having watched my daughters swan through traffic at pootling pace, no one seems to give them any grief.

But even for gnarly blokes, I agree. Forget strategies and just ride. I used to be full of strategies and tactics - much more stressful, IMO. I'm sure half the stress is in one's own mind. And for the half that isn't - well what are they actually going to do?

[Kim]

It helps if you're a girl. Preferably a young girl with flowing locks on a sit up and beg bike. Having watched my daughters swan through traffic at pootling pace, no one seems to give them any grief.

With a mind to this thread, I trundled to the dentist earlier on the Brompton, in civvies, at about 7mph (less uphill, more down), and was surprised by how polite^[1] drivers actually were.  More than they tend to be when I'm slogging my guts out in cycling kit on a proper bike to achieve the same speed with a heavy trailer, anyway.


_{[1] Polite in the sense of being patient and letting me out at junctions and so on, there were still close passes.}

[mattc]

Strategies are fine. Except you shouldn't need them and they all seem to be depend on you being an assertive, confidence cyclist, with the capability to move at speed. If you're new or less confident, perhaps not in peak physical condition, then you're out of luck.

Ian,
Anyone can ride like this. There is no minimum speed.

Perhaps the jargon is wrong. Forget "strategies" - just think
"this is the best and least stressful way to ride a bike"

It helps if you're a girl. Preferably a young girl with flowing locks on a sit up and beg bike. Having watched my daughters swan through traffic at pootling pace, no one seems to give them any grief.

But even for gnarly blokes, I agree. Forget strategies and just ride. I used to be full of strategies and tactics - much more stressful, IMO. I'm sure half the stress is in one's own mind. And for the half that isn't - well what are they actually going to do?

well quite

I think we've covered the important points now:
- there are simple ways cyclists can make life more pleasant on the roads
- there are a small minority of impatient dickheads out there
- the more cyclists on the road, the more tolerant drivers become.
- the health benefits of riding totally outweigh <... youve heard this before! ...>
- my commute by bike gets me to work infintely more relaxed than driving, DESPITE the occasional rant about "that f**kwit driver I had behind me today"

I know ian (et al)  means well,  but ultimately he seems determined to focus on the bad. I'd rather focus on how I have come to enjoy cycling in a variety of environments - whilst agreeing that we would benefit from a bit of driver education too (preferably with "square bullets in the face" @TM M.Larrington).

To be clear - I am a complete coward, as risk-averse as they come. I often find driving unpleasantly stressful.

[Basil]

With a mind to this thread, I trundled to the dentist earlier on the Brompton, in civvies, at about 7mph (less uphill, more down), and was surprised by how polite^[1] drivers actually were.  More than they tend to be when I'm slogging my guts out in cycling kit on a proper bike to achieve the same speed with a heavy trailer, anyway.


_{[1] Polite in the sense of being patient and letting me out at junctions and so on, there were still close passes.}

Him.  I've just had a thought.  I've been saying for a while now that, contrary to the mood of this and other sites, I've found that drivers these days are actually a lot more considerate than they used to be.  Obviously there are exceptions that prove the rule. 
I'd previously put this down to the rising popularity of cycling making it much more likely that an encountered driver was also a cyclist.
But now I'm wondering if this improvement has also coincided with my gradual abandonment of obviously specific cycling kit. 

[ian]

I know ian (et al)  means well,  but ultimately he seems determined to focus on the bad. I'd rather focus on how I have come to enjoy cycling in a variety of environments - whilst agreeing that we would benefit from a bit of driver education too (preferably with "square bullets in the face" @TM M.Larrington).

Oh, I agree in principle, I cycle because I enjoy it, not because I have to. But any new cyclist will be focused on the bad. An otherwise perfect ride will become 'that close pass' and it's a key reason so many bicycles only commute from a dusty garage to eBay. My wife won't cycle because of this very reason. Believe me, I try to reason 'what about all the drivers that didn't...' but those aren't the ones that influence future behaviour. (Mind you, I hope she doesn't try to use her bike because I've been borrowing bits off it for years.)

[mattc]

I know ian (et al)  means well,  but ultimately he seems determined to focus on the bad. I'd rather focus on how I have come to enjoy cycling in a variety of environments - whilst agreeing that we would benefit from a bit of driver education too (preferably with "square bullets in the face" @TM M.Larrington).

Oh, I agree in principle, I cycle because I enjoy it, not because I have to. But any new cyclist will be focused on the bad.

Only if they read your posts!!!   

I meet a lot of new/inexperienced riders - well ok, some - e.g. 2 guys at work who ride 1 mile and 2 miles to work,  some days. They don't talk about the danger - we talk about what gloves might work at -4'c. And why our building no longer has showers.

Now, i'm not saying you're hallucinating these Fearful Friedas,  Ian - but perhaps we should focus on how to enthuse them; how to help them make traffic less of a problem; or any of the other good stuff!

[mattc]

[Ive said this before ...]

Many many drivers were incredibly nervous when they started out. New stuff often makes us anxious. We get over these things!