Road Design for Creating More Space

One of the most popular cycle campaigns is the simple message – Give Cyclists Room.

Cars squeezing through road narrowing scheme. But, better road design could have avoided this. (It would also lead to better traffic flow)

The basic principle of ‘give cyclists more room‘ is:

1. Cycling becomes safer. Less likely to be knocked off by passing motor vehicle misjudging how close you are.
2. Cycling becomes more enjoyable (less stressful). When cars pass at 50mph with only a few inches to spare it is not a nice experience. You may not always be conscious of it, but unconsciously your nerves are being tested.
3. Sometimes it is unavoidable to swerve away from a pothole, but if a car is passing with only a few inches, you are caught between a rock and a hard place. Numerous times I have ridden over potholes because swerving out is too dangerous (A reason to ride out a metre from road)

A few months ago, I was chatting to an acquaintance from Zurich. For some reason, he thought it completely appropriate to speak a few inches from my face. Maybe I’m a country bumpkin at heart, but I couldn’t deal with this invasion of ‘personal space’ Unconsciously you withdraw and protect your personal space. Unfortunately, this chap didn’t have much tact or awareness and he kept encroaching on my concept of personal space. I was defensively walking backwards, eventually I stuck out a long leg as an impenetrable barrier. At last, I had that degree of personal space I needed.

When on the roads, it’s a similar situation, but as a cyclist there’s not much you can do, but accept it. Part of the problem is that motor drivers are much less sensitive to personal space. They frequently pass obstacles with only cm to spare. Motorists are less sensitive to space because:

• They actually feel removed from the obstacle, the car is something separate to them
• Motorists can be bad at judging where there car actually ends. (some might argue the numerous scrapes on my own car are a result of my own failure to know where my own garden wall is in relation to my car. I would defend by saying my garden wall has a tendency to move around, especially when dark)
• Motorists are protected by impenetrable armoured layers of metal. The large fall in road deaths in recent decades, is partly due to the improvement in safety design of cars. Car safety is really pretty impressive. Put yourself in an ‘armoured’ SUV and you can have a feeling of security, which is simply impossible on a bicycle. The sad thing is that improvements in car safety arguably make motorists less concerned about safe driving. If you have a collision, there is a knowledge the car will absorb part of it.

As a cyclist it is hard to protect your personal space. Like my example of person from Zurich, you can try sticking an arm or leg out – but it’s not as effective and not recommended on British roads. (though see: tips for defensive cycling)

Road Design and Personal Space

To reduce accidents from speeding cars, councils have found that traffic calming measures are quite effective. As a cyclist, I’m glad to see 20mph zones. Speed limits are not enough because they are ignored. But, speed humps can prevent excess speeding. However, the design of traffic calming measures varies enormously.

Road Hump Which Reduces Width of Road

This traffic calming measures mean that the road width is squeezed. You can fit a bicycle and car in this reduced space. But motorists tend to want to drive in middle to avoid worse of speed hump.

Compare this Traffic Calming measure to the one below a few miles away.

Ideally, the picture would show cyclist in cycle lane. The point is that if a car at been coming, you can safely avoid the oncoming car by using cycle path.

Admittedly it is nice to have trees in the road. But, I think it would have been better road design to give cyclists there own channel. The traffic calming measures where cyclists and motorists are squeezed together just creates more flash points where you get cars squeezing past you.

There seems to be no standard about cycle lanes and traffic calming measures. Everything seems ad-hoc as though it’s left upto whims of particular road designer.

Mind you it is good not to let the cycle path get overgrown like this one…. (bad cycle lanes)