Push bike on Newmarket By-pass today

[anonymous-user]

Don't get me wrong I know it's perfectly legal BUT he was heading in the same direction as all the holiday traffic coming home + a few lorries where the A11 and A14 meet, very busy stretch of road, I thought there must be safer places to ride a push bike. When will common sense prevail and they ban this sort of thing like they do everything else with a slightest hint of danger??
Woe betide if you get caught doing 24 in a 20 in your car though! £££££££

[Brads67]

You are aware that roads are for traffic ?

Bikes are traffic.

[caelite]

You get them on the A82/GWR coming into Glasgow on approach to the Erskine bridge, steep hill with a lot of bad visibility, NSL dual carriageway, almost always packed with trucks and cars, and you have johnny cyclist doing 19mph in lane one completely hidden by a high sided van who will suddenly, violently jerk the wheel into lane 2 to pass the cyclist. They could cycle through the town (Bowling) and along a wide single carriageway 30-40mph road, most do, the ones who come onto the DC seem to have some kind of point to prove though and its darn right hazardous for everyone involved.

[Dammit]

If on the bike AND there's a choice I'd avoid a busy A road, often there isn't.

As the infrastructure isn't going to be built to resolve this it's in the "driverless cars" bucket, see where we are in five years.

[Lance Catamaran]

Used to see them on the A38 going out of Plymouth as well. Yes I understand it's legal, but why you'd want to dice with trucks on a 70mph dual carriageway is beyond me

[Retroman]

I find a lot of the cyclists that do use these roads tend not to drive as well.
They put a little too much faith in motorists ability to pay attention and spot them.

I'm a cyclist and a driver. Sometimes i avoid cycle paths to use the road if it's busy with pedestrians or unsafe to use but i'd say about 75% of it is away from roads.

[anonymous-user]

Brads67 said:

You are aware that roads are for traffic ?

Bikes are traffic.

It's not an anti-bike thread, just use a bit of common sense when riding one.

[eccles]

Raygun said:

Don't get me wrong I know it's perfectly legal BUT he was heading in the same direction as all the holiday traffic coming home + a few lorries where the A11 and A14 meet, very busy stretch of road, I thought there must be safer places to ride a push bike. When will common sense prevail and they ban this sort of thing like they do everything else with a slightest hint of danger??
Woe betide if you get caught doing 24 in a 20 in your car though! £££££££

If you travel that road with any regularity you'll see them having cycle races between Newmarket and the Cambridge, Quy junction on most bank holiday weekends. Usually they are well sign posted and the cyclists are aware of their surroundings, but you still get the odd one passing another competitor without looking as to what's coming behind them.

Edited by eccles on Tuesday 2nd May 08:59

[GreatGranny]

Retroman said:

I find a lot of the cyclists that do use these roads tend not to drive as well.

How on earth do you come to that conclusion?

However personally I wouldn't want to cycle on a busy dual carriageway.

O/T slightly, saw a runner this morning at about 6:15 on the A17 near Sleaford! Bloody mad!

[mygoldfishbowl]

When the tour de something went from Yorkshire to London there were loads heading up the A120 from Stansted to Dunmow & back again, totally illegal & clearly signposted as such. Still see the occasional one or two to this day.

[Monkeylegend]

You wouldn't want to be there then when the local cycling clubs are racing in one of their time trials.

[357RS]

Lance Catamaran said:

Used to see them on the A38 going out of Plymouth as well. Yes I understand it's legal, but why you'd want to dice with trucks on a 70mph dual carriageway is beyond me

My thought to, why play with high speed traffic? Used to see many of them doing a time trial (race) on that stretch of road but that use seems to have declined.

[sleepezy]

Think I must have passed the same guy - I then discussed with my son how stupid he was (not illegal but surely you must be partly responsible for your own self-preservation).

At least with the time trials there are warning signs and a multitude of riders so you can expect them - this was a sole rider.

As a cyclist who lives in the area there are far, far nicer roads (and hey, even some good cyclepaths) you can use to do the same journey. I have never even considered going along the A11, I prefer my legs in one piece too much. He looked to me as though he was on a time trial training ride, but even so it did have the ring of a Darwin contender.

[surveyor]

I remember the one of the Police shows showed an article about a cyclist who had been riding along a similar road, at night with no lights. A young lady was driving and hit his bike. He was killed.

She drove off, but called the police when home, who duly arrested her.

The conclusion was that she was not prosecuted. Might have been a different decision in the daylight I suppose.

[Grandad Gaz]

eccles said:

Raygun said:

Don't get me wrong I know it's perfectly legal BUT he was heading in the same direction as all the holiday traffic coming home + a few lorries where the A11 and A14 meet, very busy stretch of road, I thought there must be safer places to ride a push bike. When will common sense prevail and they ban this sort of thing like they do everything else with a slightest hint of danger??
Woe betide if you get caught doing 24 in a 20 in your car though! £££££££

If you travel that road with any regularity you'll see them having cycle races between Newmarket and the Cambridge, Quy junction on most bank holiday weekends. Usually they are well sign posted and the cyclists are aware of their surroundings, but you still get the odd one passing another competitor without looking as to what's coming behind them.

Edited by eccles on Tuesday 2nd May 08:59

This....
Although usually it's pretty early in the morning and I think it's time trials and not races.

You really have to keep your wits about you when they are about. It doesn't help when some motorists fail to realise that you need to pull out quickly to overtake them. They seem to expect you to jump on the brakes to slow down to 25mph, or whatever speed these cyclists do.
If I'm in the outside lane I am always aware of this.

[anonymous-user]

A lot of cyclists go up and down the A31, 70mph dual carriageway in the day and the night.
Every year several cyclists are killed, it wasn't too long ago that I saw one turned to Pâté smeared across the road.

They never learn. It's dangerous enough without the cyclists doing 5mph up a left hand up hill bend.
How long will it be before they realise that they do not belong on a dual carriageway?

[surveyor]

AVV EM said:

A lot of cyclists go up and down the A31, 70mph dual carriageway in the day and the night.
Every year several cyclists are killed, it wasn't too long ago that I saw one turned to Pâté smeared across the road.

They never learn. It's dangerous enough without the cyclists doing 5mph up a left hand up hill bend.
How long will it be before they realise that they do not belong on a dual carriageway?

But it's legal so they can....

Common-sense does not seem to come into it.

[sleepezy]

surveyor said:

I remember the one of the Police shows showed an article about a cyclist who had been riding along a similar road, at night with no lights. A young lady was driving and hit his bike. He was killed.

I remember the episode - a young musician I believe. It is of note that if I recall correctly he was drunk and from the position of the damage to the car he was in the middle of the two lanes of the carriageway, not to one side at all (and no lights, pitch black night, no street lighting at the position of the incident). She thought she'd hit a deer and they called it in when she got home.

No prosecution was made - I don't think they even arrested her.

The guy who is referenced in the topic was at least riding during daylight so I would imagine culpability would be down to any driver if he was hit (all other things being equal). Still no common sense in him cycling there though. When I saw him he was leftish of the left lane, not slap bang in the middle of both lanes, and not in the relatively wide and clean margin on the leftmost side.

[heebeegeetee]

Raygun said:

Don't get me wrong I know it's perfectly legal BUT he was heading in the same direction as all the holiday traffic coming home + a few lorries where the A11 and A14 meet, very busy stretch of road, I thought there must be safer places to ride a push bike. When will common sense prevail and they ban this sort of thing like they do everything else with a slightest hint of danger??
Woe betide if you get caught doing 24 in a 20 in your car though! £££££££

Funnily enough, on this talk of 'banning'... pretty much everywhere else in Europe trucks are banned from operating in public holidays (with a very few exceptions) and the vast majority of store, shops and malls are closed (thus removing much of the need for said trucks).

This is done afaiaa specifically to allow people to get out there in their leisure time, do stuff like leisure pursuits and exercising and so on, with all the social benefits therein...

Whereas we want 7 days a week congestion, which has contributed to us being the most obese nation in Europe and having almost the worst air quality, for which we blame diesel cars .

[Retroman]

GreatGranny said:

How on earth do you come to that conclusion?

By having conversations with cyclists who use those types of roads....