Safety in Numbers? More like tension

One theory is that as more people cycle, the more we, the important people, will expect bicycles. That's true, but it doesn't mean we welcome them. Instead it just makes us more frustrated.

Take this video of MJ06OSJ, going up Cotham Hill. They've been held up by a line of bicycles, and when they do finally a chance to overtake, there's another bicycle coming in the other directi0n. What to do?

As the video shows, the correct action is: continue anyway. If you've been held up by one bicyclist, you may as well punish another with a near death experience. It may discourage them from trying the same trick next time.

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Where are the 20 mph zones they promised?

Someone posted us this video complaining that it shows a car driver unable to think ahead, because the driver overtook a bicycle aggressively on the way into Montpelier, whereas everyone knows that you only put your foot down on the way out. The tax-dodger not only ended up being held up by the Audi YY03YGM, they had to drop down Brook Hill, sprintg along Upper Cheltenham Place and then squeeze past the car on Picton Street blocking the road with the hazard lights on, while the Audi was still stuck on York Road negotiating rights of way with whatever was coming from the other direction.

We feel that the whole incident documents a more fundamental problem. The 20 mph zone isn't delivering what was promised.

The opening sequence shows how a bicycle doing 18 mph held up the car, but as soon as they go a little above 20 mph to get past them, there's another oncoming bicycle before the blind zig-zags. Even the bicycle video documents the other problems: the pedestrian and their dog on Brook Hill, the two bicycles on Upper Cheltenham Place, the two kids playing with a Pogo Stick in the road -our road- at 1:14, and then another bicycle. At least the car with the hazard lights on has paid for the right to be there.

Where are the 20 mph zones? The signs show them, but the car would have been lucky to have an average speed of 10 mph across the entire journey. We were promised 20 mph limits, yet it only takes one or two people walking, cycling or even pogo-sticking around and you brought screeching to a halt. We have been betrayed.

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WX02UNH and critical sections

In computing a critical section is defined as something in which only one entity can have exclusive use of at at time, such as, say, a stretch of road or a single-lane railway track. The different bits of the system need to cooperate to gain access to these areas. One way of co-ordinating this access is the semaphore, a concept from the Dutch Computer scientist, Djikstra, based on the old railway notion of flag waving.

Of course, if a French or Italian person had come up with the idea, they'd have used a different name, like "l'indicateur", the car indicator. Because in these countries, to gain exclusive use of an overtaking area, you put your indicator on -way before you are ready to pull out. In the Alps, to put your indicator on before the turn has finished, before you can see if it is safe to pull out, tells everyone else that you intend to, that you have acquired exclusive use of the oncoming traffic lane.

This is why we have one little criticism of the Corsa WX02UNH on Pembroke Road.

We aren't going to criticise it for overtaking the bus on the wrong side of a traffic island. Yes, you aren't meant to do that, but if the anti-car council is going to conspire with Firstbus to put a bus stop in a traffic island, how else are you going to pass it.

Yes, it may be between 8 and 9 am, peak school run hours, but it is also peak commute hours, so the driver may be in a hurry.

No, what we are going to criticise them for is failing to indicate when they pulled out. They just assumed that nobody else was going to be aggressive and take the overtaking opportunity, when in fact any driver in front or behind could have -and because WX02UNH didn't indicate, they would have no warning that the other car was about to pull out. If two cars had collided while trying to drive the wrong side of a traffic island to overtake a bus -now that would be a complex one for the insurance company.

This is why our driving strategy is "Signal then commit". Your signalling is not a hint "I'd like to pull out", but a warning "Here I come", something people should see. But if you don't do such a signal, you don't help others to get out of your way.

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