On Mon, 5 Jan 2009, MIG wrote:

On 5 Jan, 16:48, "Mizter T" wrote:
John Rowland wrote:

Seems dangerous and unneccessary to me.

I've never had any particular trouble with motorbikes when cycling, at
least nothing I can recall. I've often been at traffic lights at the
cyclists advanced stop position ahead of the traffic and shared it with
motorcyclists who technically shouldn't have been there but their
presence didn't cause any problems.

(When I am a cyclist, the only problem I've had with motorbikes is that
in traffic jams they often stand in front of a gap that I could have
gone through.)

Pretty much my experience too. I was once hit by a moped rider, though.

My gut feeling is to not be happy about motorbikers in the bus lanes, but
i can honestly say i have any rational objections to it. The thing will be
to see how it goes - does it cause accidents, to cyclists, motorcyclists,
and others, and does it discourage people from cycling? I would hope the
latter will be measured in some way, but i wouldn't be surprised to hear
that Boris was suppressing it (or that pro-cycling factions were doing it
themselves with a generous helping of spin).

Putting them in bus lanes will encourage them to do 60mph, skidding
into the side of all the idiot car drivers who pull out of side roads
ignoring what is in the bus lane and what speed it is doing.

More likely to run into cars turning left across bus lanes from the main
road, from where it's much harder to see what's coming.

I've heard the latter mentioned in a few places, but both seem plausible.

I wonder if an upside to this is that drivers will be more careful in
pulling out across bus lanes when they can't see a bus, to the benefit of
cyclists!

A bus lane is a very dangerous place to be unless you are driving a
heavy vehicle such as a bus, London-style taxi or HGV.

But only because of the presence of such vehicles. Clearly, and i know
you'll agree with me here John, the solution is to ban them from bus them,
and reserve bus lanes for the use of cyclists.

tom

--
Information is not knowledge. -- Albert Einstein