When overtaking cyclists, give plenty of space. You may not be able to overtake cyclists straightaway and will probably need to move into the other lane.
This is particularly relevant for fast rural single carriageways. Often they have speed limits of 50mph, but this speed limits can be inappropriate.
Sometimes, you may have to slow down and wait.
Make sure it’s safe to overtake. Often you see near misses from cars determined not to slow down.
How much space should you give a cyclist?
- Three feet. Three feet minimum is a good rule of thumb
- As much room as you would want, if you were the cyclist. If you’ve ever been overtaken at 70mph by a car with a foot to spare, you would always have quite different approach to overtaking cyclists.
- If a cyclist had to swerve to avoid a pothole – would you be able to avoid the cyclist?
- The Highway code states:
“give motorcyclists, cyclists and horse riders at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car (see Rules 211-215)”
Too Close
Too close. This is quite intimidating to cyclist.
Related
What good advice! My rule of thumb is to always cycle as far away from the kerb to make it necessary for anyone overtaking to have to change lanes. This usually means being between a third and a half of the way across the lane. Looking at the top picture, that’s exactly what the Americans are advocating. 99.99% of cars do give you enough room, but this “defensive cycling” is necessary to stop you being hit by other 0.001% of cars. It also makes you much more visible to cars coming out of side roads on the left- if you hug the kerb then you are much less likely to be seen.
Interesting that you accidentally manage to illustrate 4 ‘interesting’ cyclist behaviours, too !
1) On pavement/sidewalk/footpath + contra-flow
2) Two abreast
3) Undertaking (bus has brakes on + sensor in road suggests maybe stationary in q at lights) ?
OK
1) might be a Bikeability class – but 2″ from kerb !
2) probably overtaking by splitting the cycle lane !
3) maybe bus is overtaking, but motorists often say :
“You don’t mind squeezing through a tiny gap to my left, but
you complain when I squeeze past the same distance to the right”
On-pavement + contra-flow are lawless attempts at self-preservation by being different:
solution = safer drivers.
2-abreast – Highway Code Rule 66 :
”
never ride more than two abreast, and
ride in single file on narrow or busy roads and
when riding round bends
”
should be
“ride in single file on roads which are both narrow and busy”
I think ‘taking the lane’ is a good thing on bends, especially blind ones !
Undertaking : best not to be in such a hurry. Invites left-hook. Keep it for gridlock only.
I tend not to use cycle lanes – too narrow.
“painting half the road green” – nice idea, but I can’t see it happening !
One problem is that the narrow cycle lanes, as shown in your photos, encourage cyclists to hug the kerb (or even worse – the door zone), and they encourage drivers to pass too closely. Drivers think “well I haven’t crossed the dotted line so I’m fine here”. Hence a narrow cycle lane can actually make things worse, especially if it’s used for parking as is so often the case.
Of course the Dutch specify a minimum of two metres even for a dedicated cycle path, for the following reasons:
– unlike cars, bikes are wider higher up. Just because I can keep my wheels in the lane, doesn’t mean my handlebars aren’t sticking out.
– again, unlike cars, bikes lean considerably when cornering, taking them even further out of that narrow lane.
– Of course cyclists might want to overtake and/or cycle two abreast, and a narrow lane has no capacity for that.
I used to think that cycle lanes were no use unless there was genuinely room for both cars and bikes to squeeze in side by side, so lanes like this seemed pointless: http://goo.gl/maps/6uqBk
But now I wonder if painting half the road green, despite not leaving room for cars to fit in the grey bit, might actually make sense. Since cars are allowed in an advisory lane (dashed line) anyway, at least it sends a message that bikes have priority here. Cars are allowed, but only if a bike isn’t there first! Of course I’m not sure if it works like that in practice, and those bike lanes near Ambleside are far too narrow and no substitute for a physically separated dedicated bike path anyway.
Actually, I was in this bit of the lakes – Ambleside/Waterhead – at the weekend, and I’d forgotten how wide the advisory cycle lanes now are. The linked streetview image is out of date (2009) and they’ve “grown” considerably since then. They do take up half the road now. I should have guessed that of course some better photos of the current lanes would be available on this very blog!
http://cyclinginfo.co.uk/blog/1680/cycle-lanes/best-size-cycle-lane/
Thanks Tejvan, and I agree with your observations on that post. These lanes are better than nothing because , in principle at least, they indicate that cyclists have the priority on the green section and car drivers should slow down and treat them with respect. But in practice drivers should treat cyclists with respect anyway, and the ones who don’t quite probably won’t start just because half the road has been painted green.
And of course, in practice, as much as cyclists have a legal right to be on the road, cycle lanes or not, and we should fight to keep that right (until a better option comes along), the drivers have won the battle for the roads by sheer weight of numbers and weight of vehicles. Those of us who even consider cycling on roads like these are now in a tiny minority, even though nearly everyone enjoys cycling in less intimidating circumstances.
Close passes by buses are all too common in Oxford, albeit not helped by poor road infrastructure. Sadly neither the bus companies nor Cyclox seem to take the matter seriously. If the Parliamentary inquiry does not achieve at least a significant rise in funding for cycling infrastructure and legislative change to match the Netherlands “strict liability” where cars are automatically liable in accidents with bicycles, a return to direct action shall be required in Oxford to match events in larger cities. We could turn the plain roundabout into a velodrome for 1 hour a week until Oxfordshire County Council pledge 1% of their transport budget towards cycling infrastructure.
@Dom, my understanding is that the Dutch don’t have strict liability. At best, they have “presumed liability”, and while that is a good idea – always presume the biiger/stronger vehicle is responsible unless shown otherwise – it isn’t the main thing which encourages mass cycling. It doesn’t make cycling feel any safer, and knowing the driver is to blame by default is small consolation as you lie under a lorry.
http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2012/01/campaign-for-sustainable-safety-not.html
Of course more funding is always a good idea, as it shows more commitment to cycling and is practically useful. And if there were central policies and funding to drive consistent high quality infrastructure so much the better.