d wrote:
Martin Underwood (a@b) gurgled happily, sounding much like they were
saying :

No, the problem is the excessive length of bendibuses.

No, it isn't. That has just been demonstrated. It takes a few seconds to
overtake a bendibus, which is about a second more than a regular bus. ...

That extra second is significant. It prevents cyclists safely passing
bendibuses at the front of the queue at traffic lights, because it's
just long enough for the light to get from red to green and the bus to
move off. With an ordinary bus, even in the worst case you can reach
the front before it moves.

The extra length also seems to reduce drivers' willingness to wait for
a cyclist to get past before moving off from a stop. And it also means
that by the time you are back at the back of the bus and can pull in,
anything behind the bus is going considerably faster than you are.

In theory, it's not good to start to pass any bus after it starts to
signal to move off. But you have the right of way, and the bus driver
should let you go if you don't give way. The reason I often start to
pass stopped buses that are already signalling is that many bus
drivers start indicating long before they are ready to go. I've lost
count of the number of times I've had to stop behind a bus because
it's signalled to start off but hasn't moved.

Colin McKenzie