Transport Minster - new cycling policy?
- Thread starter shemozzle999
- Start date
When I read the headline I assume he had opened the drivers door.
Any one who cycles up the inside like that must realise that it is dangerous and do it slowly, a passenger in a car is not going to expect a bike there.
Any one who cycles up the inside like that must realise that it is dangerous and do it slowly, a passenger in a car is not going to expect a bike there.
Rule 239 of the Highway Code states that motorists “MUST ensure you do not hit anyone when you open your door. Check for cyclists or other traffic”.
As a matter of law the Highway Code is good practice however a breach of it does not render the offender liable for criminal prosecution.
Society has however recognised that there is such an obvious danger opening a car door that Section 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 has been introduced to cover the situation.
Section 42 says that it is a road traffic offence to open any door of a vehicle on a road “so as to injure or endanger any person”.
This offence is punishable with a fine of up to £1,000.00 and it is to be remembered that the offence is not just limited to drivers of vehicles but also passengers. That means that a passenger emerging from be found guilty of that offence should he injure a cyclist who is undertaking that stationary vehicle.
As a matter of law the Highway Code is good practice however a breach of it does not render the offender liable for criminal prosecution.
Society has however recognised that there is such an obvious danger opening a car door that Section 42 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 has been introduced to cover the situation.
Section 42 says that it is a road traffic offence to open any door of a vehicle on a road “so as to injure or endanger any person”.
This offence is punishable with a fine of up to £1,000.00 and it is to be remembered that the offence is not just limited to drivers of vehicles but also passengers. That means that a passenger emerging from be found guilty of that offence should he injure a cyclist who is undertaking that stationary vehicle.
Law here is much of the same. Accidents are usually with drivers side doors opening onto the road.
I have a broken big toe because a "lady" opened her passenger side door to get out and grab a loaf of bread on the fly at a red light. I was on my scooter on the inside lane and she on the outside lane... The driver tried to say I was between two cars, it was my fault and in fact I was between cars because the other one was illegally parked with two wheels on the footpath. I was going really slowly thank goodness otherwise it was my leg that was crushed.
In France a permanently broken big toe is considered a 10% handicap because it means you can't do a lot of sports. IIRC I got a one time 1500€ indemnity.
I have a broken big toe because a "lady" opened her passenger side door to get out and grab a loaf of bread on the fly at a red light. I was on my scooter on the inside lane and she on the outside lane... The driver tried to say I was between two cars, it was my fault and in fact I was between cars because the other one was illegally parked with two wheels on the footpath. I was going really slowly thank goodness otherwise it was my leg that was crushed.
In France a permanently broken big toe is considered a 10% handicap because it means you can't do a lot of sports. IIRC I got a one time 1500€ indemnity.
D
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Grayling's driver should have moved to the nearside before the door was opend. instead, Grayling got out when the car was in the middle of the carriageway, which, for me, swings a lot of the blame in his direction. His car was also half overlapping the yellow lines. I don't know if that makes a difference.
In Telford town centre, there's a cycle lane that runs on a divided footpath, right up to the curb. There's double yellow lines along the curb, but nobody takes any notice. There's always a line of cars parked there. The footpath can get moderately busy with pedestrians, so while the poor cyclists are concentrating on the pedestrians, who keep wandering into the cycle lane, somebody swings open their car door, which completely overlaps the narrow cycle lane, leaving the cyclist nowhere to go even if he sees it. Someone nearly had me like that, and I can imagine that it's a very common occurrence.
As an aside, in my case, I'm pretty sure that I disrupted an illicit encounter. I managed to stop about an inch from the door with a bit of a screech from my tyre. I couldn't help but shout a few expletives as well.
The woman, who opened the door had been waiting in her car. I had noticed a DHL van pull up a few spaces down, and I saw the driver jump out, so I was watching for the passenger to jump out on the nearside of the van, which is why I wasn't so aware of the woman opening her car door.
After the incident, the woman got out and was very apologetic, and the van driver joiner her in the apologies, so they were clearly together. The amount of apologising seemed disproportionate, as if they had something to hide and didn't want it to go any further. I remember thinking that the van driver's participation and general manner just didn't seem to fit what was basically a very minor incident. Both of then kept promising that it wouldn't happen again.That's why I figured that they were having an illicit meeting (maybe in his van). She had been waiting for him, and when she saw him arrive, she was overwhelmed with excitement and couldn't wait to jump out of the car. The last thing they wanted was a record of either of them being there.
In Telford town centre, there's a cycle lane that runs on a divided footpath, right up to the curb. There's double yellow lines along the curb, but nobody takes any notice. There's always a line of cars parked there. The footpath can get moderately busy with pedestrians, so while the poor cyclists are concentrating on the pedestrians, who keep wandering into the cycle lane, somebody swings open their car door, which completely overlaps the narrow cycle lane, leaving the cyclist nowhere to go even if he sees it. Someone nearly had me like that, and I can imagine that it's a very common occurrence.
As an aside, in my case, I'm pretty sure that I disrupted an illicit encounter. I managed to stop about an inch from the door with a bit of a screech from my tyre. I couldn't help but shout a few expletives as well.
The woman, who opened the door had been waiting in her car. I had noticed a DHL van pull up a few spaces down, and I saw the driver jump out, so I was watching for the passenger to jump out on the nearside of the van, which is why I wasn't so aware of the woman opening her car door.
After the incident, the woman got out and was very apologetic, and the van driver joiner her in the apologies, so they were clearly together. The amount of apologising seemed disproportionate, as if they had something to hide and didn't want it to go any further. I remember thinking that the van driver's participation and general manner just didn't seem to fit what was basically a very minor incident. Both of then kept promising that it wouldn't happen again.That's why I figured that they were having an illicit meeting (maybe in his van). She had been waiting for him, and when she saw him arrive, she was overwhelmed with excitement and couldn't wait to jump out of the car. The last thing they wanted was a record of either of them being there.
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"Ooh you are awful, fancy that"
But getting back on topic, my heart is with the cyclist but my head is not. The car had stopped, it's lights were showing, it was only a footstep away from the pavement, and the passenger opened the nearside door. It would have been impossible for the driver to see a cyclist, and even if the passenger had glanced back would not have seen him due to the presence of the large vehicle bus? .
Under general rules of the road, one must overtake from the rhs , the only exclusion is when in clearly marked lanes. I know we all do it, sneaking inside traffic. but it is wrong..
The cyclist is lucky that the ministers ankle had not got in the way of the wheel otherwise he could be facing a RTA conviction.
He should introduce tax, registration and insurance for all cycles and then charge both car drivers and cyclists when they break rules. The rules are already there to prevent 99% of incidents.
Some cyclists seem to ignore most road laws and seem impervious to prosecution.
Some cyclists seem to ignore most road laws and seem impervious to prosecution.
Cyclists breath harder, they should pay a breathing tax.
Pedestrians should pay a pavement tax.
Fools should pay an idiot tax.
Why stop there, those pesky pedestrians are soiling the pavement s, those prams with noisy children should all be registered and have to pay. ....
If everybody followed the rules of the road there would be no accidents,.... But life Is not like that.
There is a reason why cars and motorcycles are licenced and rollar skates and bicycles are not. It is the likely hood of serious injury to third parties. Energy is mass by velocity squared. Cars are heavy and fast , motor bikes are very fast , electric bikes which travel fast are also subject to licences, insurance etc. It is only a small class of limited power, low weight, low speed electric bikes that are exempted.
There is a recognised social good in moving more of the population out of cars for commuting., bicycles are a proven successful way of doing so. Governments want to encourage this and therefore don't tax it.
The cyclist in this clip was undertaking essentially parked cars. Grayling opened his car door onto pavement, which is where confusion arises. Pedalists make little distinction between the two, seem unable to recognise traffic lights but shout foul when inevitable happens. People open car doors to get out onto pavement. Bigger the city , bigger the problem. High time something is done, how lorries turn left in London god only knows.
Its a farce.
Its a farce.
The real problem is mixing. We have pavements for pedestrians because we realise that they and traffic don't mix well. We sometimes have separated cycle paths because bikes don't mix well with motor traffic or pedestrians. Buses and cars don't mix since buses stop frequently but cars need to keep going. But of course there's not enough space for all to have their own completely separated facilities. Therefore they all have to cross into each other's paths at times, while often not knowing or appreciating the difficulties that presents to each type of user.
I can only think of one answer. Since over 86% live in major conurbations and they work in or near those conurbations, give each conurbation a means of transport. For example:
City A designated a car only city.
City B designated a bus and tram city.
City C designated a motorcycle/moped city
City D designated a cycling city.
All heavy deliveries in all locations only carried out in a band of overnight hours.
So if you want to cycle, you move for home and work to a cycling city, drivers to a car city etc.
This might seem a completely mad suggestion, but The Netherlands is well on the way to it in one transport respect. Over 70% of their population cycle for almost every purpose and in many cities are given full priority over the minority motor traffic. They also have many town and city large areas designated for priority pedestrian use, cars only allowed for strictly access only at walking pace, and having to give way to all pedestrians.
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When do you wish to be treated the same as a pedestrian. Driver of cars and bikes as well as pedestrians break the rules, are careless and inattentive. Where does everything you mention stop. Unfortunately cyclist and pedestrians are classed as vunerable compared to cars. Cars kill and injure far more than the vunerable thus requiring greater controls.
Strange how we discriminate in favour of drivers though, as your quote shows.
We say cyclist in this context, not bicycle.
But conversely we say car, not driver.
Cars aren't guilty of killing anyone. Until we get automated self-driving cars it's the drivers that do the killing.
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Quote what I said in its entirety, especially the part where I said "drivers of cars", thanks. Having said that, you are correct if one were refering just to cars. Just like guns do not kill people, people kill people. I get that.
You're very touchy, there was no accusation. I quoted the below and repeatedly referred to "we" rather than you:
"Cars kill and injure far more than the vunerable thus requiring greater controls."
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I don't think that is a crazy idea, town planning is a modern discipline but we tend tor live in Old cities and villages . When new suburbs are being planned, that is the stage where the streaming of traffic flows should occur. Trams on dedicated paths, separate from the heavy motorised traffic and cycle Lanes and pedestrian pathways. I think we are heading towards a situation where pedestrians will have priority and vehicular traffic will be slowed down .The centre of Dublin now has had a 20km HR speed limit , which is not much above a trotting speed
Certainly there are reasons for advocating such controls, but there are two reasons why it won't and can't happen:
First it clashes with the general political desire to get everyone onto bikes. That's why most governments refuse to introduce helmet compulsion, they don't want to introduce anything that might limit cycling.
Secondly children cycle, and registration, identity, licencing and penalties on children are completely unacceptable. That's why they are exempted from such as pavement cycling controls, even though they break the law when cycling on pavements.
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Trouble with people who work for the World Bank is that they are distracted with attending to the worlds' problems and the problem with ministerial transport is that the occupants don't like to see the voters so the windows are opaque such that bicyclists can't see what the occupants are about to do e.g. open the door. Personally, I crawl past cars especially when stationary to see what they're up to. The presumption is "up to no good". It is a risky business and one day ......