Many and various
"Earl Attlee, Earl Liverpool, and MPs Stephen Pound and Lembit Opik will be among those illegally taking to the streets to "demand the launch of an investigation into whether the Segway could play a key role in unblocking Britain's gridlocked main roads""
Let me save them the trouble. No they won't. Segways are used by people who are to lazy to walk or cycle. If they had cars, they'd be using them.
@Richard Willetts
"Cycles on the pavement, Segways replacing them on the road, a sensible rider on a bike is not dangerous on the pavement, "
That very much depends on the pavement. And as a cyclist, I can tell you that from my perspective, there are now a solid majority of cyclists who are NOT sensible. I'd blame it on the advent of the supermarket "mountain" bike, if it didn't sound so sniffy and elitist, so lets just say there are more cyclists and less road safety training than there used to be.
"and more pavements should be split for cycle lanes... it would be much safer for all concerned that way."
Agreed, but with some reservations. There are certainly places where this would be a good idea, for instance at roundabouts (particularly multi lane roundabouts) and busy junctions, it makes sense to offer cyclists a route around, but on the other hand, there's no reason why you can't pull up on to the pavement and get off, if there is a pavement.
Another issue, as I think someone mentioned, is that simply drawing a big paint line down the middle of the pavement and painting four foot high bikes all over half of it doesn't seem to cut much with a lot of pedestrians. The coastal cycleway (NCN route 1, for those that are interested) near where I live runs along the wide pavement next to the promenade. It is extremely clearly marked. Trying to ride along there on a sunny bank holiday is obviously stupid, but even on quiet days, there are, variously, old folk, pushchairs, errant children, and a wide variety of idiots who either step into the cycle designated space without taking heed of approaching traffic, or bumble along in it.
Typical speed of an average MTB along this pavement is ~20MPH, for most of it's length the space is ~6M wide, with 2M dedicated to cyclists. At it's widest, it almost 10M wide, with the same 2M dedicated to cycles.
That would seem like plenty of space for everyone, but it isn't, and indeed I have seen cyclists both verbally and physically abused for having the temerity to ring their bells when people are blocking the way.
Don't get me wrong, I think segregated pavement is the way to go if we're going to have cyclists out of traffic (and some need to be, children, the elderly, recreational cyclists, etc), but there needs to be a bit more to the segregation. Physically segregating the cycle and pedestrian traffic is one way, but it's expensive. Slightly cheaper would be to paint "PLEASE DO NOT WALK ON THE CYCLEWAY" and/or "LOOK OUT FOR FAST MOVING BICYCLES YOU TIT" at regular intervals on the _pavement_. Those stupid dinner plate signs are invisible to peds, who naturally aren't reading traffic signs as they walk. Also helpful (and hideously expensive) would be setting pedestrian crossings back into the pavement so that they are beyond the cycleway (if it's on the outside, which it inevitably is) to stop people wandering over to cross the road and getting an MTB upside them at 20MPH, which really hurts.
Of course by far the best way to deal with all of this is for everyone to stop being pricks. I'm not going to hold my breath for that. Oh and cyclists : Get a bell.
@Elmer Phud
"Oh, and sod all this 'all cyclists/drivers/pedestrians are shite' nonsense. You get crap cyclists/drivers/pedestrians, mediocre ones and good ones. Picking scabs to make things carry on bleeding is just masochism."
I agree that there is far to much of that kind of thing, but OTOH there are a significant number (I hope a minority) of drivers who will go out of their way to make life difficult, and often dangerous, for cyclists. There are also, unfortunately, an increasing number of cyclists who are either a) have absolutely no fucking idea what they're about, or b) have had an altercation (likely more than one) with an idiot in a car and have decided to say "well, fuck you, I'll ride how I like if that's going to be your attitude". Of course, a goodly number of the motorists feeling ill will towards cyclists fell that way because of an encounter with cyclist type b). It all feeds back on itself.
It really is becoming a serious problem, at least that's how feels from the saddle. It falls heavily into the "Something must be done!" category, unfortunately, any of the somethings that would make a difference require either a large investment of cash (not going to happen, look, we spent millions* on providing cycleways already!!!), or a a change of attitude on behalf of motorists, pedestrians and cyclists. (I'm specifically avoiding the issue of horse riders, that's another rant in itself). This also requires money spent. q.v previous.
@Dennis
"cycle lanes are generally a waste of space for most cyclists: Put me in the traffic at 30mph - it's way better then having to deal with kerbs, potholes and intermittancy of the cycle lane."
For myself I would agree, on most routes. If you're a cycle commuter, either get on the road or get the bus, or walk. Cycleways have no place on the road, they are dangerous (they make everyone's lanes narrower), and serve virtually no purpose. They also encourage poor (or even dangerous) lane discipline on the part of cyclists (drivers get pissy if you try to manoeuvre out of the cycle lane, and generally won't let you through, and why should they ? The cycle lane is over there!) , and encourage motorists to assign the cyclist to their little box and forget about them. This is unhelpful when you inevitably have to manoeuvre around some tit who's parked up across the cycle lane.
"BTW the last pedestrian that stepped out without looking at me finished up with a broken arm. That hopefully learnt him."
Yeah, same here. Fractured and dislocated at the elbow. He was lucky. I was in a bus lane.
* In case anyone doesn't know, the "millions" spent on painting all those lines on the road to make them narrower and supposedly help cyclists all came from treasury coffers. LAs were awarded funding based on the number of KM of cycle lanes they introduced. This was the only metric used, and therefore the most popular implementation strategy was "bung em out, wherever you can fit em". Next time you find yourself thinking "why the fuck is there a cycle lane there ??" or "That's odd, the cycle lane just peters out for no reason", or, increasingly "What the fuck use is a cycle lane that's only two metres long ?". That's why.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
