Monthly Archives: May 2011

Cycling across Vauxhall Bridge

I strapped a new camera to my bicycle handlebars yesterday, and decided to venture south across Vauxhall Bridge. It’s a journey I’ve made only few times before (like black cabs, I don’t go south of the river) but I thought … Continue reading

Posted in Cycle Superhighways, Cycling policy, Infrastructure, London, Safety, Transport policy | Leave a comment

Spot what is wrong with this contraflow facility

Clue – it might have something to do with the positioning of the parking bay. Cardigan Street, SE11, yesterday.

Posted in Car dependence, Infrastructure, London, Parking | 2 Comments

‘Safety In Numbers’? Or ‘Numbers from Safety’?

The CTC – among others – are quite keen on the ‘Safety In Numbers’ effect. A couple of years ago, they produced a pdf on it. It contains this graph, showing an attractive correlation between the cyclist death rate, and the … Continue reading

Posted in CTC, Cycle Superhighways, Road safety, Safety In Numbers, The Netherlands | 15 Comments

Horsham Cycling Review – Route 1 (High Priority)

In a recent post, I described how Horsham District Council commissioned an independent review of cycling in Horsham, back in 2008, with a view to assessing where ‘gaps’ existed in Horsham’s cycling network, and how to go about improving the attractiveness … Continue reading

Posted in Cycling policy, Horsham, Horsham Cycling Review, Infrastructure, Parking, Road safety | Leave a comment

RAC driver helpfully adds realistic road conditions to a Bikeability lesson

My Bikeability class were practising right turns into a junction yesterday, on a reasonably quiet back street. While we were doing this, an RAC breakdown driver – sensing that the road conditions under which we were performing this manoeuvre were … Continue reading

Posted in Cyclecraft, Horsham, Parking, Road safety | Leave a comment

Lethal Superhighway Design

Gaz545 – who also blogs at Croydon Cyclist – has recently posted this excellent video, showing a particularly poorly thought-through section of ‘Superhighway’. Notice how the blue paint encourages cyclists to progress down the side of vehicles, at a point where the … Continue reading

Posted in Cycling policy, Infrastructure, London, Road safety, Transport for London | Leave a comment

More on the ‘primary position’

(This is a follow-up to this post.) UK cyclists are a curiously self-flagellating species. The cyclist in this recent video is subject to not one, not two, but three ‘left hooks’ in succession, from a series of motorists who cut … Continue reading

Posted in Dangerous driving, Road safety, Transport policy | 1 Comment

‘Britain you can drive your car’

It was the Sun that triumphantly broke the news. March 24th, 2011. The day that Britain’s frustrated motorists – indeed, all Britons – could at long last get back behind the wheels of their cars. The roads – empty for … Continue reading

Posted in Car dependence, Transport policy | 1 Comment

It’s the UN’s ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety’, brought to you by Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button

Today marks the start of the UN’s ‘Decade of Action for Road Safety.’ The campaign was launched in the UK by the serial speeder Jenson Button (bonus points for being caught speeding in three different countries, surely?), and the reckless … Continue reading

Posted in Helmets, Road safety, Transport policy, UN | 3 Comments

The ‘primary position’ – putting UK cyclists between a rock and a hard place

Don’t worry if a driver is beeping at you. In fact, it’s good. It means the driver is aware of your presence, and has seen you. I may not have the wording exactly right, but the above is the essence … Continue reading

Posted in Cyclecraft, Cycling policy, Road safety, Transport policy | 46 Comments