Tumbleweed wrote:




One must also take responsibility for ones own safety. If there was a
section of road that you believe was dangerous, why not get off before it
and walk past that bit? Surely its madness to cycle on a bit of road you
believe to be dangerous, just because someone painted the words 'cycle lane'
on it?

I've cycled this, though well out of rush hour (mid-afternoon on a
saturday of a bank holiday weekend, so probably about as non-busy as you
can get). I was conscious of being very vulnerable between two lanes -
cycling over the bridge with a lane each side made it feel quite
precarious. I know the bridge (and it's traffic) well, since I drove
in/around london very frequently as an engineer (and will likely do so
again shortly) - where I would assume from the conditions when I cycled
it to be fairly innocuous and reasonably safe, I had mental images of
what it's REALLY like in normal traffic as I cycled over it, and they
were none too pleasant, and downright scary!

I also had to deal with a bus that I followed through the junction on
the south side heading north, which stopped in it's bus stop to the left
of the cycle lane, while I caught up and cycled past.

I found that quite concerning, and initially I hung back while I made
sure it was probably going to stay put till I was past it, then cycled
past as fast as I could to get in front (and thus hopefully within the
driver's field of view).

Also, I found being quite slow on the initially stage where you climb to
the top of the bridge makes things worse. The cycle lane is quite wide
(as cycle lanes go) but being a solitary cyclist with so much
car/bus/van space around you feels unsafe. I spent a lot of time
looking in my mirror/around me as I crossed the bridge, expecting at any
moment to have to deal with idiot drivers of larger vehicles cutting
across my path. I was surprised when this didn't happen. I think I'd
have to seriously evaluate if there's a better way to cross the bridge
if I ever cycled it again - whether that's staying in the far left lane
until you get to the far side of the bridge before moving right to avoid
going down the slip road, or dismount and cross as a pedestrian, I don't
know... as I said, more investigation would be needed.

On the other hand, there's not really any excuse for not being aware of
what's around you on a multi-lane road like that, especially since it's
very common in london to have cars/buses/taxi's cutting other
cars/buses/taxi's up - the bus really shouldn't have pulled across the
cycle lane without looking (and seeing) a cyclist.

I have to say, if I was as concerned as she seemed to be, I'd have been
on foot - it's quite common for me to revert to pedestrianing around
junctions that I don't feel safe cycling, but I can understand the
resentment that would lead to not wanting to be forced to be a slow
bike-pushing pedestrian by a bad cycle lane.

--


Velvet