Highway Code: your views needed to improve safety Today (28 July 2020) a consultation has been launched seeking your views on proposed changes to the Highway Code.
The review is being held by the Department for Transport, to improve safety for vulnerable road users, particularly the groups of:
cyclists pedestrians horse riders The main changes being proposed The main changes being proposed are:
ensuring that road users who can do the greatest harm have the greatest responsibility to reduce the danger or threat they may pose to others making rules on pedestrians clearer providing guidance on cyclist priority at junctions when travelling straight ahead creating guidance on safe passing distances and speeds when overtaking cyclists and horse riders You can read and respond to the consultation online, complete a form or send an email to share your views.
The sad reality is that no matter what gets writtten in the Highway Code won`t make the blindest difference anyway - I don`t think most of the drivers I encounter have ever read it or even know it exists!
To be honest,Tory governments since the Thatcher days have had a problem acknowledging motorcycles actually count as a viable transportation alternative to cars...no great suprise we come below horses ,pedestrians,or bicycles,none of which normally use mirrors (or a great deal of common sense by cyclists or pedestrians) or pay road tax....but expect to be treated as equals..hmmm,best i pass the soapbox to people who know more...ride safe,trust no-one...:)> (P.S. German car drivers need take no notice,as usual..lol)
Jinx's this isn't about point scoring between the tory's and labour. Both have been crap towards us, Just under a 1/3 of the time since Thatcher got in we was under labour and they didn't give a shit about us too.
All good points above. My perennial problem is the approach of legislation that takes the 'lowest common denominator' approach. By that I mean, penalise or restrict 95% of citizens for the inadequacy or stupidity of the 5% who actually cause the problem. Horse riders I have little problem with except they should have to carry bags and a shovel as per dog owners! Now, cyclists! I am all for healthy lifestyle and fun but reality is that with the numbers on the roads today, rapidly increasing, they are on vehicles that are hugely out of sync in terms of speed and performance with the majority of other road users. Like why you don't get to use a moped on a motorway?? Too slow is as dangerous as too fast. All very well 'Green commuting' to work but causing tailbacks of forty cars waiting for a passing opportunity to get by ONE cyclist wobbling along is mental! Similarly the older/fat/unfit characters out with 'the wife' for a Sunday cycle, visibly struggling and terrified, do it somewhere with cycle paths please! I constantly see from my window at home cyclists riding on pavements.. wrong way down a One Way system because it's shorter and still many, many drivers with cell phones in hand. Even worse, kids on bikes working a cell phone while riding! Forget a paltry fine for driving with a cell. Get caught... you NEVER get a licence back! Then enforce it! Zero excuse.. ever! You can't own or carry a firearm in this country but every toad out there can operate a lethal weapon with no more than a slap on the wrist. Jeez! What a rant! Thanks for the link and.. for what it's worth .. I will put my two cents in!
Anyone caught drunk or drugged up, or using a mobile phone while driving a vehicle on a public highway should be banned from driving/riding for life. Zero tolerance to potential lifetakers!
Why aren't cyclists made to take a CBT test like motorcyclists?
Y'know.. call me an old fart or a curmudgeon if ya like but, thinking about generalities, what I observe these days is the steady erosion of an old British attitude or attribute... namely concern for and respect for other's space and comfort while exercising our freedoms? So many these days seem absorbed in their own little bubbles of self obsession and oblivious to how their actions affect those around them. The buggers in the supermarket aisle, you know the couple who stand at the bacon chiller having a discussion beside their cart for 5 minutes and no one else can get near it. The worthless POS who comes across a 40 foot gap on the street and parks slap bang in the middle because they are incapable of parking their vehicle and use up space for three. Or the above mentioned cyclist who apparently feels zero sense of embarrassment for the frustration and inconvenience they are causing others. So many examples of little things admittedly but which cumulatively lead to a low level rage in others. Awareness of your surroundings and actions is truly much harder when your head is up your own arse! Jeez! I'm on a roll today! This is why I am largely a hermit! :-)
Much as I'm enjoying all this vitriol we must remember our house is far from in order. Yes, a bunch of cyclists holding up the traffic irritates everyone (except themselves) with their inconsiderate behaviour but we're the same with loud cans. Cyclists travelling on main roads are just too slow (regardless of what their personal best strava might say) but we often use inappropriate speed* in and past traffic. I could go on, the upshot is that to most of the general public we're just as bad and should be restricted to race tracks.
* Its not inappropriate speed if there is nobody there to see you 😈
Very true Steve but it wont make any difference what is put down in a consultation. They will make more roads available to cycles and buses at the expense of the rest of the road tax paying public. Don't forget buses pay very little road tax buses pay very little fuel duty Cyclists pay nothing including no insurance they have no registration so they cant be held accountable for there actions. Why is Motorcycle road tax so high ? Why do some cars pay no road tax ? Why is the low emissions duty not on motorcycles. Got the picture yet we are the bottom of the food chain in the road group. Now stop pissing on your boots it makes them smell funny.
I'm with you JP. If you are on the roads you need to chip in like the rest of us. Quick read of the proposals.. saw 'if there is a dedicated cycle track it is NOT mandatory to use it'???
Like JP says, we are bottom of the food chain and the reason why I posted this is so we can let the powers that be know that we shouldn't be left behind and that our safety is being put at risk by the road narrowing schemes where we are fighting for space with the cars, buses and trucks when there is a mass of empty space to our left with the occasional tax dodging cyclists in it.
I had quick look at the gov website. I havent finished looking at it yet. But frommwhat i read so dar vs my experiences as a pedestrian, cyclist, biker and box driver, i say prioristisation consequence has some merits but may bring out an excessuve sense of entitlement to the higher priority road users. The website applies the terms must and should. The highway code in my opinion needs to state, all road users and especially more users MUST take adequate observation including accounting for i) the difference in relative speed of other forms of traffic Ii) recognising stationary traffic eg at lights begin to approach the observers intended path at any moment. Accordingly more vulnerable observers should either user crossings or exercise caution in deciding to undertake a manoueuvre. Failure to undertake observation before a manoeurvre is undertaken resulting in an accident will be classed as negligence and prosecutable under criminal law.
I intend, subject to finishing reading the gov cobsultation website to submit my suggestions based on 3 incidents with what would higher priority road users. The incidents were:
1) i was on bicycle onnthe street going down a very steep hill. A pedestrian emerged between two park cars without look up the steep. He had ear phones on. Luckily i had seen him in advance. He clearerly cared neither about himself or anyone else. I that had been a motor turning down that hill, he would have been hit. Ii) i was on cycle on the road going some rate. A girl.at a bus stop stepped into the road directly my bicycle without looking up tbe road. I carried her for some yards on my braking momentum. The girl cushioned by my handle bar bad but obviously shocked. My bicycle went down. It caused a £500 carbon fibre pedal set to be scratched and unravel itself a month later. iii) coming from edgeware road i'd filtered thru the traffic to red lights at marble arch. The lights went green and i on my r1 released myself like arrow. Lo and behold, a cyclist, one of these budgie smuggler types shot full pelt from the end of oxford street into park lane moving directly diagonally across a 3 lane A road, Park Lane, one of the busiest roads i imagine in the country. He got off in the road, 3rd lane and pulled his cycle up to on a grass intersection between the N and S sides of the road. I slowed and had a few words. He was aggressive despite not taking adequate observation.
Bottom line to it all... you can't cure stupid! Protecting the stupid only exacerbates the problem. Due care and attention has to apply to everyone equally.
The issue I have is with the cyclists who totally ignore all other road users. I rode into London to Hyde Park a couple of months ago (the first time in a few years), and while we respect things like - road signs, red lights, pedestrian crossing and the darn 20 mph speed limits, none of these things stopped cyclists doing whatever they want. Apart from the fact that being overtaken by a cyclist or several is frankly embarrassing! As for pedestrians or should I say, phone zombies..
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