It’s time for another forum cycle/vehicle disagreement

[Swervin_Mervin]

It's still a pretty close pass and can't imagine it was necessary to be on the line like that, when there'll be at least a good metre on the other side.

[mik]

Yeah, marking out lanes is a bit daft if the marking don't actually designate where you want people to stay.

That. If it's not OK for a bike and a vehicle to simultaneously occupy "their" lanes - then what purpose is it serving?

Marking out an area where vehicles aren't supposed to go - when there are no bikes present in that lane (?) - and not providing anything additional when bikes are present in that lane - passing vehicles are still expected to potentially move out of their lane to maintain a 1.5m gap.

Ergo - pointless.

[Jobbo]

So many cycle lanes round the UK have been marked like that for decades - even in very cycle-friendly cities like Oxford - that you’d hope motorists understand them by now. I’m usually more pro-bike in this thread but if they were altered to give cyclists a wider lane and motorised vehicles a narrower lane, I think that would probably be a worse thing - and definitely worse if it involved putting a kerb between the two.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Yeah, marking out lanes is a bit daft if the marking don't actually designate where you want people to stay.

That. If it's not OK for a bike and a vehicle to simultaneously occupy "their" lanes - then what purpose is it serving?

Marking out an area where vehicles aren't supposed to go - when there are no bikes present in that lane (?) - and not providing anything additional when bikes are present in that lane - passing vehicles are still expected to potentially move out of their lane to maintain a 1.5m gap.

Ergo - pointless.

Would you drive that close to a lane marking with another car in an adjacent lane? The answer to whether you think that was a dick move lies in your answer to that question.

[Rich B]

Yeah, marking out lanes is a bit daft if the marking don't actually designate where you want people to stay.

That. If it's not OK for a bike and a vehicle to simultaneously occupy "their" lanes - then what purpose is it serving?

Marking out an area where vehicles aren't supposed to go - when there are no bikes present in that lane (?) - and not providing anything additional when bikes are present in that lane - passing vehicles are still expected to potentially move out of their lane to maintain a 1.5m gap.

Ergo - pointless.

Would you drive that close to a lane marking with another car in an adjacent lane? The answer to whether you think that was a dick move lies in your answer to that question.

if you're just going to ignore what we're saying and resort to "what ifs", my answer is - it depends how wide lanes and the road are - but yes, most journeys may involve driving/passing other vehicles that close to the edge of lane markings.

[Swervin_Mervin]

That. If it's not OK for a bike and a vehicle to simultaneously occupy "their" lanes - then what purpose is it serving?

Marking out an area where vehicles aren't supposed to go - when there are no bikes present in that lane (?) - and not providing anything additional when bikes are present in that lane - passing vehicles are still expected to potentially move out of their lane to maintain a 1.5m gap.

Ergo - pointless.

Would you drive that close to a lane marking with another car in an adjacent lane? The answer to whether you think that was a dick move lies in your answer to that question.

if you're just going to ignore what we're saying and resort to "what ifs", my answer is - it depends how wide lanes and the road are - but yes, most journeys may involve driving/passing other vehicles that close to the edge of lane markings.

Really? On the lane markings? You'd be touching door mirrors.

The markings are the outer limit of the lane - this does not mean it's perfectly acceptable to drive along them in any scenario, without due care and attention as to what's around you. It would be a bit mental to draw the lane margins at the literal limit of a vehicle's width (which would still be wider than a car given it would need to accommodate HGVs and buses).

[dinny_g]

I must confess I didn't know that the 2m rule applied, even if there is a designated cycle lane

[V8Granite]

There is a road in our town with parking on one side and houses on the other. It has a gentle curve and if people stick rigidly to the lane markings then traffic stops. As it does when someone new or not confident drives it. You move out of your lane to give other people the space to proceed in the other direction.

Dave!

[Rich B]

Would you drive that close to a lane marking with another car in an adjacent lane? The answer to whether you think that was a dick move lies in your answer to that question.

if you're just going to ignore what we're saying and resort to "what ifs", my answer is - it depends how wide lanes and the road are - but yes, most journeys may involve driving/passing other vehicles that close to the edge of lane markings.

Really? On the lane markings? You'd be touching door mirrors.

The markings are the outer limit of the lane - this does not mean it's perfectly acceptable to drive along them in any scenario, without due care and attention as to what's around you. It would be a bit mental to draw the lane margins at the literal limit of a vehicle's width (which would still be wider than a car given it would need to accommodate HGVs and buses).

now you're changing the question - of course not in "any scenario without due care and attention".

That's the beauty of the real world - you make your judgements on the scenario you have, not just binary answers based on the worst case.

The point I made (and Mik clearly understood it) was that marking a lane width seems daft as it may encourage people to consider that lane as an appropriate distance for passing. Obviously in this case, he was needlessly close.

[Rich B]

I must confess I didn't know that the 2m rule applied, even if there is a designated cycle lane

Might want to read the Highway Code, the suggested distance is min 1.5m (or more if speed suggests)

[dinny_g]

I read it once in 1997 before my Theory Test and have no plans to read it again...

[mik]

That. If it's not OK for a bike and a vehicle to simultaneously occupy "their" lanes - then what purpose is it serving?

Marking out an area where vehicles aren't supposed to go - when there are no bikes present in that lane (?) - and not providing anything additional when bikes are present in that lane - passing vehicles are still expected to potentially move out of their lane to maintain a 1.5m gap.

Ergo - pointless.

Would you drive that close to a lane marking with another car in an adjacent lane? The answer to whether you think that was a dick move lies in your answer to that question.

if you're just going to ignore what we're saying and resort to "what ifs", my answer is - it depends how wide lanes and the road are - but yes, most journeys may involve driving/passing other vehicles that close to the edge of lane markings.

I fully agree the Disco is close to the cyclist. I can't see if there was anything coming the other way that might have contributed to this - obviously if there were no constraints, the Disco could have moved out of their lane to give more room to the cyclist. But I am not sure that is intuitive when both cyclist and vehicle have their own marked lanes.

To answer your question - if I was in narrow lanes, then yes I would pass that close to other cars / buses / trucks. I wouldn't hang around running beside them for extended periods, but isn't the intent of lanes to allow multiple vehicles to move along the road simultaneously so long as they do so within their lanes?

Incidentally - I was driving in both Belgium and Netherlands last week - far more cyclists and more infrastructure of course, but when bikes and vehicles do co-mingle, both motorists and cyclists seems very happy to do so in very close proximity (many of them far happier than I was - holding back to provide bigger gaps to cyclists).

[Mito Man]

Yep, this is definitely a UK (and from what I can see from random dash cams) US phenomena of drivers and cyclists not respecting each other. I don't know what changed as everything was fine a decade ago and there were still plenty of cyclists in London then. Now you've got drivers trying to kill cyclists and cyclists making a point about their priority by actively trying to commit suicide and then getting a sexual satisfaction by posting it online.

[Beany]

Yep, this is definitely a UK (and from what I can see from random dash cams) US phenomena of drivers and cyclists not respecting each other. I don't know what changed as everything was fine a decade ago and there were still plenty of cyclists in London then. Now you've got drivers trying to kill cyclists and cyclists making a point about their priority by actively trying to commit suicide and then getting a sexual satisfaction by posting it online.

Social media, and algorithms promoting divisive/provocative content for engagement is what happened.

[IanF]

[dinny_g]

[Jobbo]

I listened to The Wild Ones podcast (which is about cycling) yesterday and they were talking to Cycling Mikey. Mikey seems a really nice guy in reality, despite the image he has gained from his Twitter videos.

[jamcg]

[IanF]

Bike vs person but who’s at fault

[nuttinnew]

I didn't expect that!