Next Saturday on the Market Place in Abingdon NSPCC will have table top sales, tombola and raffle.
The last few days have been warm and sunny here in Abingdon. This Saturday the Abingdon Green Forum were getting people to talk about Active Travel and Sustainable Transport.
There were also cyclists cycling round the town centre to make the local councils aware that safer routes for cycling and walking are needed through the town.
Meanwhile there was a Clothes Swap for Teens in the Guildhall.
We’ve been building roads for cars for years, and all we end up with is more cars. How about we make the roads safe for cycles, what might happen then?
A couple of people may cycle more and hundreds and hundreds of cars will have their journeys made worse?
Out of interest…I have lived in South London, Oxford city, Witney and Abingdon in the last 22 years and I haven’t seen any “new roads” built… I’ve seen roads and carriageways restricted. I’ve seen one way systems put in.. I’ve seen dead-ends made….but i’ve not seen a single “road built for cars” in those areas, in that time…
All that expensive infrastructure has been built in a vain attempt to ease congestion caused by cars that are frequently 80% empty. Very little has gone in to encourage cycling and where that has been built, it has proved very popular and effective.
Every single mile of motorway and the vast majority of dual carriageways are built for the exclusive use of motors. Once you are in a car, you are commited to complete your entire journey by car, including the bit at each end where the roads are congested.
It is still painfully obvious for those with eyes to see that the problem of urban congestion, and the air quality health issues that go with it, is cars.
Also….I don’t think “oohhhh there’s a bit more road, let’s build some cars” is, actually, the way it’s been for the past few years…
“Mini” pumps out 1000 cars a day (depending upon ‘chip’ shortage). What about Nissan? Ford? Vauxhall…etc…etc…
A THOUSAND CARS A DAY! Try saying it again…only more slowly…
A THOUSAND CARS A DAY….
That is EVERY day….
Every….single…day…
There’s an “aspirational advert” on the televisual device every ad break begging us…engaging us…inspiring us…to “buy a new car” every 13 minutes…
I mean…sometimes “Ant and Dik” even tell us to, so we’re clearly all listening…
Whilst sitting in traffic….on Drayton Road, at 11.50 today…there was an actual queue…an ACTUAL QUEUE…of people to get in to (I assume?) buy cars that, I also assume costs 10s of thousands of pounds…
Were all those people not buying bicycles because of…what…not enough cycle lanes? Hmm…
The motor industry spends considerable amounts of money persuading us that buying a new car is our ticket to the freedom of the open road. I cannot recall a car advert that isn’t completely delusional about the experience of modern driving. That cannot be the fault of any cyclist.
People buy cars because they percieve cycles to be unsafe and that is due to a lack of infrastructure. The public highway is funded from public funds that everyone contributes to and it’s high time that cyclists got a fair share of that spending.
Cyclists must start by behaving more safely themselves. There was another near-miss on East St Helen Street yesterday with a cyclist on the pavement nearly hitting someone coming out of their front door.
This problem is increasing. Someone is eventually going to get injured by a cyclist this way.
But when you ask pavement cyclists to please stop this illegal and dangerous practice, you mostly get an earful of abuse in reply.
I never condone poor cycling behaviour but bad cycling (particularly the foul mouthed kind) is carried out by idiots on bicycles. I’ve seen idiots in cars, idiots in trucks, spectacular idiots in taxis and idiots on foot. The common factor is that they are idiots, their chosen form of transport at any specific time is entirely coincidental and no basis for berating or punishing others who behave perfectly well.
I agree.
The never ending cyclists v driver argument.
So we build bicycle lanes onto footpaths but cyclists refuse to use them because “they are not safe”. We add cycle lanes onto the road but the cyclists use the pavement because the lanes “are not safe”. What do they want us to do?!
Sounds like cycling is the unsafe activity! All joking aside, I think cyclists have to consider that motorists get v frustrated with cyclists who ignore the infrastructure that has been put in place for them and act like the own the road.
Poor cycling behaviour is carried out by an idiot on a bicycle. I see driving that would immediately fail a driving test every day, this is carried out by an idiot in a car, lorry, taxi , bus, you name it. The common factor is idiots, not their chosen form of transport.
When you say ‘build cycle lanes onto footpaths’ do you mean paint pictures of bicyles on the pavement?
When you say ‘add cycle lanes onto the road’ do you mean paint pictures of bicyles in the gutter?
Cycling is unsafe because there is no (and I mean NO) properly thought out infrastucture.
Safety is a major disincentive to take up cycling but there has never been a traffic jam of cycles. Blaming congestion on cycles can only be achieved if you have your head firmly up your fundament.
I think motorists have to consider that cyclists get v frustrated with motorists who dominate the infrastructure that has been paid for with public funds and act like the(y) own the road.
Totally correct Tim. As a cyclist I really expect more after all the road tax, fuel VAT, MOT, congestion and parking charges that I pay. I sooo hate that the motoring community thinks the roads were built around there needs.
Hi Colin. About cycle lanes. When I lived in The Netherlands, I don’t think I ever choose to avoid using a cycle lane. They are as you would expect roads to be as a driver. They are, without fail, useful. People use them in great numbers.
It’s very different for the UK. Most of the time I avoid using the cycle paths. The simple fact is that they are often not used because they are often not useful. If they were useful you, your friends and your family would likely regularly choose to cycle.
No one, least of all cyclists, wants cycle lanes that are not useful. Imagine driving and having a direct route, and then an option, a special driving option made just for you, where you are expected to get out and push.
Great photo – really captures the essence of the topic! Safe roads for cyclists who arent even wearing helmets, (apart from the two at the front)
Ah the old ‘Helmets and Hi-Vi’ distraction.
On a calm, clear, dry day in slow moving traffic how is it that cyclists are expected to bear responsiblity for the inadequate driving standards of car drivers by being obliged to wear helmets and hi-vi?
This is gas lighting or victim blaming if you prefer. It’s a similar argument to the ‘If she didn’t want to be attacked then why was she wearing a short skirt’ nonsense.
Where there is good cycling infrastructure (a) cyclists use it (b) there is little or no need for them to protect themselves from idiots in cars.
SAFER ROUTES – clearly this is the agenda of the topic. If a cry for improvement of safety is the issue then helmets should to be worn for SAFETY! instead of bringing irrelevant scenarios into conversation along with your angry hate speech, using words such as “inadequate and idiotic” in reference to Car users , perhaps understand what the point of the matter is.
The infrastucture is inadequate. That is only hate speech if it is a lie, which it isn’t.
Please refer to previous replies about ‘idiots’ and their chosen transport. Careful car drivers are not dangerous, idiot car drivers are and its cyclists and pedestrians who come off worst. 5 people are klled or seriuosly injured, by motors, on UK roads EVERY DAY. How is that acceptable? Blaming the victims is not addressing the issue.
Why is it irrelevant for cyclists to request equal consideration? They pay just as much as car drivers for the roads yet their needs are never considered.
If you don’t believe me ask Chris Boardman.
https://fb.watch/c1faDXWPuA/
I wonder…will car adverts be stopped soon – like cigarette adverts were?
Will cars be sold “behind blank hoarding”, like cigarettes are?
Will our success as a nation no longer include “Car factories”, (but bicycle ones, maybe)?
It’s an interesting proposition. Cigarettes have no benefits whatsoever which makes it easy to burst the bubble of aspiration that surrounds cigartette advertising.
Cars do create many problems but there are also benefits which many would find hard to surrender. That being said the downsides are moving relentlessly against the benefits, many of which are percieved rather than real. These percieved benefits are the basic ingredients for all car advertising. People whizzing around in empty cities, busting traffic jams in thrillingly rebellious ways, having fun with happy, healthy companions all sharing the same car. I can see how that is a desireable aspiration, but it never happens.
If car adverts showed the reality we’d run a mile, selling an aspiration is one thing, flogging a total fantasy ought to be breaching some code of practice at least, but it doesn’t seem to be.
…I wonder what reality adverts for cycling would include?
Cycling up hill on a freezing, foggy, November morning in the rain?
That’s definitely a thing, so long as cycling in beautiful weather and enjoying the space rather than being isolated from it with a metal box is also in there for balance. These thing happen.
Car adverts never show grinding grid lock, and impenetrable breakdowns. The empty cities, jam busting, happy car sharing, literally, never happens.
I don’t know if you drive Tim, but, for balance…not all driving is always “isolated in a metal box in gridlock, with constant impenetrable breakdowns”… And anyway…when I see the aspirational car adverts, I am not worried about the “open road”, I am focusing on the idyllic wife and family that they show me instead….
bicycles have their place; as do cars. One is not “better” than the other. I think it is a shame to try and limit or ban either.
i absolutely do drive, I have a car which spends a lot of time on the driveway. One of my jobs is a truck driver, (another is a bike mechanic), and I actually enjoy congestion. If I’m on my bike life doesn’t get much sweeter than pedalling through it, if I’m in a truck, I sit back and cash in the overtime.
Queues of traffic running way out of the town centre are not uncommon yet improving the situation by encouraging cycling is somehow too difficult. I don’t think it’s a question of limits or bans but the lack of adequate infrastructure demonstrably restricts choice causing congestion, pollution and damaging health in a variety of ways. Cycles are not ‘better’ than cars but for the majority of short journeys they are more appropriate yet the tin box is still the go to option and the resulting congestion always seems to be someone elses fault. As a truck driver and a cyclist, it’s often mine, yet look at a queue of traffic, count the cars, better still count the empty seats in the cars. The problem is quite obvious to me.
The Thames Valley Police and Crimes Commissioner is holding a Road Safety Summit on 9 May. Even if you cannot attend, you can always make your views known to him.
more problems for traffic, theres a couple of e scooters in town often going the wrong way along east and west st helen against the ongoing traffic