London Banter - View Single Post - Anti-bike signs on Bendibuses

Martin Underwood · March 29th 06, 02:52 PM posted to uk.transport.london

Neil Williams wrote in message
:

Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

It carves cyclists up by pulling right in front of them to a stop.
They should of course let the cyclist pass the bus stop first but
they don't.

Depends what you mean by "carves up". If the cyclist has to emergency
brake, sure. If you mean they continue a committed overtake then pull
in after the bell was pressed, I don't have a problem with it. Would
you otherwise propose that a bus (which can typically travel at up to
30mph in a city) should always follow behind cyclists (most of whom
are travelling at a much slower speed) and never overtake? If so you
are being unrealistic.

The problem is modern road layouts which put the cyclist on the left hand
side of the road. Normally this is a sensible thing to do, but it becomes a
problem when the vehicle that is planning to turn left or to pull over to
the kerb to park (eg a bus at a bus stop) has to cross the cycle lane.
Normally, anyone planning to turn left would position themselves in the very
left-hand lane, but this option is not available where there is a cycle lane
(which powered vehicles are prohibited to use in normal cirumstances).

The solution is to discontinue the cycle lane (with an implied give way sign
where it ends) for X yards before any junction or bus stop, to give
left-turning traffic to move over to the left kerb.

If you try to pass on the right the bus pulls out into you. Most
cyclists don't have time to pass 18m of bus while it's stopped.

So as a cyclist (or a car driver) you have to judge whether there's going to
be enough time to complete your overtaking before the bus will be ready to
set off. If the bus has just stopped, you probably have time even on a
bicycle; if it's been stopped for a while, as you will have seen as you are
approaching it, then it's likely that it will want to set off so you should
maybe not start to overtake. 10 mph, a fairly slow speed for a bike, is
about 4.5 m/sec, so it will take about 4 seconds to overtake the bus. Buses
usually stop for a lot longer than this!

Then the bus driver - that specific one - is incompetent. He should
not start to pull out until it is clear to do so.

This isn't a problem that's confined to bicycles overtaking buses. I've had
problems in a car when overtaking a parked bus.

If the bus is stopped and indicating left, it's reasonable to assume that it
doesn't intend to set off in the next few seconds, and that it's safe to
overtake it, having checked that there's no oncoming traffic in advance (*).

If, as you are passing it, the driver decides that he's ready to set off, he
can indicate. This *should* mean "don't start to overtake, but if you're
already committed to overtaking, I'll wait for you to pull in front of me".
Sadly, a lot of bus drivers seem to think that indicating right means that
they can immediately pull out.

In general, if a vehicle is parked in a layby (as opposed to being in the
lane in front of me), I may let it pull out ahead of me, but itf it's a bus,
I will almost always do so - I thing there's a rule in the Highway Code
which says that you should let buses pull out.

(*) Many people pull right up behind buses, then try to overtake when
they've no way of seeing oncoming traffic! I've had one guy very nearly run
into the back of me because he wasn't expecting me to stop a couple of
car-lengths behind a bus where I still had a view of the oncoming traffic.