Road crossings and The Slade

Tue 24 Jun 2008, 12:48

Roger: I'm sorry to hear that you had such a negative experience with a group of cyclists. Obviously I wasn't there so I can't really comment on it, except to say that I am disappointed and rather surprised. It's possible that you may have encountered the "peleton" of a road race and that they were more interested in jockeying for position than looking out for other traffic but that's pure speculation on my part and no excuse for their behaviour.

I have no truck with bad cyclists (of whom there are many) and I've made that point quite forcefully in this Forum before. Also, I don't think anyone has yet pointed out that many pedestrians use the roads very carelessly. For example, I am amazed that, in a rural area such as this, so few people seem to appreciate the fact that one should walk on the right-hand side of the road, not the left, when there is no pavement. I have had many near-misses with walkers when out on my bike as a result of their ignorance of this point. It is part of the Highway Code and the Country Code and was drummed into me by the age of about seven! Many walkers in Oxfordshire are seemingly completely oblivious to it, despite the fact that facing the oncoming traffic is such an obvious, logical, commonsensical thing to do. Then there are those pedestrians (mostly, but not always, children and pensioners) who blithely step into the road without looking first. If they can't hear any traffic coming then it must be safe to cross, right? Wrong! A well-maintained road bike is virtually silent but it is still approaching you (probably quite quickly) nonetheless. Can Darth Vader kindly return to earth and enforce the Green Cross Code please?

Finally, I went out cycling last Friday evening. I was obstructed and inconvenienced by both pedestrians and other cyclists. However, by far the greatest danger posed to my safety came from the constant stream of motorists whizzing past me at great speed, often with very little room to spare. The Highway Code states that, when overtaking a cyclist, a motorist should leave the same amount of space as if they were overtaking a car. How many motorists know this? How many of them actually take note of it? Not many! Earlier in this thread, someone said that the majority of motorists drive safely. I would agree with this, but even if 95% of drivers are safe then that still leaves hundreds of thousands of badly driven vehicles on the roads of Britain, endangering themselves and all other forms of road user. There are bad drivers, bad cyclists and bad pedestrians in this country and anyone who thinks otherwise is deluded. Better education of all road users is the key to improved road safety.