Slightly OT - Motoring Myths

This is a myth. The grammar is wrong.

The message from "R. Murphy" contains these words:

"One way streets, stop signs and traffic lights don't apply to me, I'm a cyclist"

"If I'm wearing Lycra, I must keep *off* the cycle paths"

Surely, that will reduce stooping distance in the wet.

Slightly wrong there - the actual myth is "If you're on a bike, you must use cycle paths". Sensible people don't use them coz they're s*it.

clive

Quite. For proper cycle paths, visit Denmark.

Having had the sad experience of seeing a young woman knocked off her cycle and killed, on a roundabout complex with a perfectly safe underpass, I'm afraid we will have to agree to disagree on that.

Chris

The message from Johannes contains these words:

Best to get such things over with while you're young.

The message from "Clive George" contains these words:

There are some round here which are very good - they're nowhere near the road for a start.

Wear Lycra, do we? :-)

Milton Keynes is a lot closer for most of us.

Cheers,

Colin.

Milton Keynes may be designed that way. They've introduced extensive cycle paths around Uxbridge by just painting some stripes on the roads. As a result, you never see a cyclist there, just narrower roads.

Lycra: I cycle because I'm a sporty person, not because I can't afford a car.

It's been known :-)

Tend not to for utility journeys - normal clothes will do for that.

cheers, clive

That'll be the place where studies showed it was actually safer to ride on the road. John Franklin did quite a lot of work looking at the MK red routes and discovered they weren't nearly as great as they were claimed to be.

cheers, clive

Nasty. How did it happen?

clive

They're called redways. I have to admit, I virtually never use them on a bike, but I do use them a lot on foot and on skates. They are definitely one of MKs plus points. The main danger with them, as far as cycling would be concerned, is that they bring you far too close to one of the very worst disciplined of all road-user groups - cyclists.

Cheers,

Colin.

The main problems are junctions - you're emerging where people aren't looking for you, and as you hint, other users - whether on bike, foot or skates. At least the latter is controllable - see somebody else, dog, whatever, assume they're going to jump in front of you and act accordingly.

Do the redways suffer the curse of people thinking you should ride on the right? There are a disturbing number of people out there who seem to think that as soon as the motor vehicle traffic is removed, people should change the side they pass. (Does anybody knwo why this is?)

cheers, clive

When I came to UK, I noticed a different attitude about cyclists than in Denmark. Many people in Denmark use a bicycle as a means of transport, so they are equal to any other kind of road vehicle; if there is an accident, all sides will be looked at equally for faults. But here, when a cyclist is moved down, people shrug their shoulders as if "what can you expect; the cyclists must be mad to enter out onto public roads".