On Thu, 2 Sep 2004, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 22:48:05 on Wed, 1 Sep
2004, dwb remarked:

A bike lane marked by a solid white line, that motorised vehicles are
banned from entering. Unlike a one with dashed lines, where they can
if necessary to avoid another vehicle.

Um, the bus lanes that I see in London have solid white lines, so not sure
how that works :/

Quite well, because they are mandatory *bus* lanes. As well as the
signage, the width is a bit of a giveaway. You might have to travel a
bit out from central London to see a bike-only lane.

I think there's one up Tottenham Court Road; there's certainly a bike
lane, but i actually don't remember what sort. I'm positive some of the
route from Angel to Tottenham Court Road is mandatory cycle lane.

ObCyclistNearDeathExperienceStory: yesterday evening and this morning,
going over the Farringdon road. Last night, it was some guy who decided
he'd start by breaking the law about waiting behind the stop line at a red
light, thereby pulling up almost level with yours truly (er, who was also
breaking the law, but that's not important right now - there's a bike box
there, it just hasn't been painted on the road yet ), then thought it
would be fun to try to turn left through me (i was going straight on;
bikes can do that at that point, but cars can't, so perhaps he just wasn't
expecting it). This morning, it was a guy (in a Range Rover, in London,
and who should therefore die a painful death) who decided that it would be
fun to overtake me as i was turning right. Well, or run me over - hard to
tell, really.

I have to say i'm utterly apalled by all the "get over it" comments that
have been made. When people in motor vehicles break traffic laws, PEOPLE
DIE - usually other people, and in particular, people not in motor
vehicles. A car, or a bus or truck, is a lethal weapon - we shouldn't have
any tolerance whatsoever for its misuse.

Also, i can echo an observation made in the story about the psycho bus
driver chasing a cyclist down the road, too. A few months ago, i was hit
by a motorbike: he overtook a taxi, and didn't check to see if there was
anything in front of it; there was, and it was me. Luckily, it was all
pretty low-speed, so i just fell off and whacked my arm, rather than
getting properly hurt. Now, in the ensuing conversation, he rather
forcefully expressed the opinion that it was *my* fault, since there was a
cycle lane on the road which i wasn't using (it's a nice lane, but it's a
contraflow one, and rather hard to get into from the wrong side). He is of
course mistaken - there is no obligation on bikes to use a cycle lane, and
no restriction on them using the main lanes if they'd rather. The psycho
bus driver apparently had the same misapprehension; is this common?

tom

--
I gotta handful of vertebrae and a headful of mad! -- The Doomguy