Be Excellent To Each Other

Your tractor analogy just doesn't work though - it would if there was a dedicated "tractor lane", but there isn't, so unlike the cyclist he has no option but to use the main road.

Also, I don't buy this "'debris' in cycle lanes so they can't be used" nonsense, not even remotely; I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life.

Oh come on! Even on our worst day that wouldn't rank in the top five most ridiculous things said around here.

Just as I've sat down at my desk here I've remembered that there's a senior, senior manager from New York in the Glasgow office today and my boss had said the other day that even though it's a dress-down day we should 'dress respectfully'. A t-shirt covered in images of console control pads from the last decade; that conveys respect, right?

Yeah, I don't live in the country. As Ive noted before, the roads I travel along are the same roads that were used for the olympic bike race, and still are used for that same purpose, so you can't really claim that they're not good quality.

Recreational riding probably shouldn't be done during rush hour periods. But still, if you think one person isn't an arsehole for choosing to hold up probably upwards of 100, that's your view, but as before, if I were causing that, I wouldn't be able to sleep at night, and I don't really see it as defensable.

Yeah the guy in the tractor probably has no real choice. But myp's right it's his right and you have no right to get irritated by the behaviour of other road users unless you were in mortal danger.

Rule 169 of the highway code:

Do not hold up a long queue of traffic, especially if you are driving a large or slow-moving vehicle. Check your mirrors frequently, and if necessary, pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass.

Bicycles don't have mirrors. Check and mate.

No, but tractors do, so the analogy that was made about tractors is flawed.

And I used to have a mirror on my bike as a kid.

If you're trying to claim that cyclists are somehow unaware that they're holding up traffic... I have no words.

Most cycle lanes are absolute shite. I would much rather cycle on the road than in the cycle lanes. As already mentioned, they are in crap places, you have to give way every junction, they are full or crap (if you have a car crash what do they do with the broken glass etc, oh yeah brush it to the side of the road into the bike lane, or the effect of the 'racing line' being cleaned as you go, or cars decide they want to park at the side of the road) and pot holes too.

Also a cyclists is entitled to cycle in the middle of the road without pulling over to the side. If a cyclist drives at the side of the road they are doing the other road users a favour. Now, when I used to cycle I was fairly confident in my abilities, and was very aware of what was behind me and so on. So *I* would let people go past if there was an opportunity to, but the important thing is that you don't HAVE to do that. You are not being a bad cyclist if you don't. It's no worse then obeying the priority over oncoming traffic sign, even if you have seen a car coming the other way stuck there for several minutes. Or letting someone turn right when you're coming the other way.

Malc

I said 'check and mate'.

Call it a favour if it makes you feel better but the fact is that you don't HAVE to do that simply because most cyclists don't make a habit of being obstinate pricks. If every cyclist rode in the middle of the road and as a consequence every road everywhere went at 10mph then they would be mandated to make way for cars in short order. There is a large extent to which the road network only functions because the majority of road users don't behave like total dickheads.

Yeah, and pedestrians too Except they do tend to try to not hold up cars rather than continue blythely ignoring them. I'm entitled to do plenty of antisocial things. But I don't.


No, but it does make you inconsiderate.

It doesn't make me feel anything calling it a favour. It's in the highway code and everything. It's polite to move over if possible, but being rude is not against the law, and if it was, this forum would be in trouble!

Malc

You're joking, yes?

I ride between 2-3 feet from the kerb, and a car door's width when passing parked cars.

Your idea of being a good driver seems to be to drive right up behind cyclists, then blaring your horn at them. That seems like more of a joke to me.

I don't "drive right up to cyclists", but yes, damn right I use my horn if they ride two abreast and refuse to get out of the way when vehicles are waiting behind them.

I sometimes hurl verbal abuse at them as well. Twats.

I'd love to see some copper's face if some cyclist was smack bang in the middle of a single lane busy A-road, holding traffic up for miles, saying "I didn't feel like moving over to 'do them a favour'". Ever heard of the cycling proficiency test? Highway Code? Common road sense?

Utterly ridiculous, the perversely/willfully stupid stuff that gets said around here as if somehow fact and/or reasonable. 'Doing them a favour'... LOL.

Highway code says "never ride more than two abreast" but single file on busy roads.

I'd take something of a pragmatic view: if you're going to be cycling, don't increase the risks by then proceeding to piss off people that can potentially accidentally kill you, and some that deliberately will.

After all, you can't change them, you can change yourself.

Yup. So, if you have vehicles waiting patiently to pass you, that's a "busy road".

Plus you know, common sense, common courtesy.

I think every law and handbook should start with the following rule.

"Rule 1 : Don't be a dick."

Just because something is legal, doesn't make it automatically right in every situation. Cyclists have every right to slow people up, but that doesn't mean they should. Like Mr Dave, if I was holding everyone up then I would get out the way as often as practically possible, regardless of my legal right to carry on, because it is a nice thing to do.

I went to the pub last night with a three foot piece of tarmac and asked for "one for the road"

He said "No chance, that's a cyclepath"

I quite agree

I expect to see all the people in here asking for common courtesy from cyclists will extend common courtesy to all other posters at all time on this forum from now on.

Malc

Shove it up your bum.

Don't forget cyclists are lesser beings though, Malc - almost subhuman. They're deserving of pity, but not courtesy.

Mehhhhhhhh!!!

Tory Feex

ok park up and walk down one.. I have used loads. It ranges from gravel/tarmac bits, to litter to broken glass, to holes.

Granted in a car these are not massive obstacles, when you are whizzing along at mph on 23mm tyres, they are.

The cyclists main priority is their safety. if they can't move over because of the state of the road, they don't have too.

How many of us have hit a pothole in a car? It is devastating on a bike.

you really believe that?

so basically don't ride your bike any where as you could piss someone off and they could kill you!! FFS

I agree, but if you are moving up a hill, you really don't want to stop, it is hard to get going..

Mate, it's not as though I've never ridden a fucking bicycle before and don't know anything about it? FFS.

I used to cycle 100+ miles a week, but amazingly enough I managed to stay close to the kerbside in all of that time and never felt the need to hold up lines of traffic.

No, no, no! Cyclists should take fifty times longer to get anywhere, because they are second-class citizens and don't even pay road tax!

Somebody is breaking Rule 1...

The site my letting agent provide to give landlords access to general info about the let and a log of communications between the agent and the tenant just freaked out on me* and revealed the tenant's email address; I wonder if there are DPA issues with me seeing that? I already know her name and her new address because of that log, and there is a relationship between us given that she was living in a house I own. Any DPA experts in the house?

*I'm pretty sure it's running off a Lotus Notes back-end so it doesn't take much. It throws a bizarre error that just dismiss every time you click to view a document so it's not exactly the most robust implementation, though the info and log it gives is very nice.

That's fine, assuming they have the tenant's permission (which might be tied up in the contract they sign somewhere).

I know.

They got drunk last night and didn't turn up to work / other commitments today?

They brought a fittie along, but also invited said fittie's boyfriend?

A what?!

A fittie! That's a thing, right?

I think Curio made it to work today didn't he?

In your head, maybe.

It's definitely true in a lot of cases. Broken glass, piles of loose grit and so on.
The alternative is that they are full of cars like this one I use on the way too and from work.

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@52.30535 ... z1QBfA!2e0

No, I don't ride in a way that will encourageva pissed off driver to overtake in an unsafe manner in so doing risk hitting me.

Like someone who isn't a cretin.

If it I not safe to over take don't over take. You can make the time back later.

I think what Dave is saying is that cyclists should only use the road when it's empty and stop for every driver in case they're an impatient, psychotic arsehole.