When you design roads correctly you don't really need speed limits. https://nacto.org/publication/urban-street-design-guide/street-design-elements/
The golden age of cycling?
- Thread starter ericmark
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It's about time they legalised electric scooters, they're great for shortish commutes even with hills
It's not always that simple. Sometimes a very lightly-loaded engine will produce more of a certain kind of pollutant than one that is working harder. Certainly if MPG is improved (and be wary of trusting the onboard trip computer), then CO2 emissions will be reduced, but unburned hydrocarbons might go up a bit.
What you seem to be saying in the rest of your post, is that the policy hasn't worked?
Great - except (according Wikipedia, at least) the Netherlands has 4.7 deaths per billion vehicle-km, Canada has 5.1 and the UK has 3.8. Whatever they're doing, ain't working!
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Possibly but if you look at the bigger picture (I don't know the stats), is the Netherlands a less polluted place to live and thus there are fewer pollution related deaths than the UK? They also have a higher life expectancy age.
No, their air quality is worse than ours, on average. (At least in terms of particulates).
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They still live longer though don't they?
There are lots of other factors that contribute to length of life. For example, the obesity rate in the UK is 27.80% but in the Netherlands it's 20.40% LINK
The ones that don't get killed on the roads certainly do! However, when it comes to road safety, the point is that the Canadian in the video seemed to think that a Dutch-style cycling infrastructure would make things safer where, in fact, our roads appear to be safer.
I ride a pushbike myself, and like most cyclists in this country, I also drive. I would love it if there was more segregated infrastructure for cycling, but I'm conscious of our prodigious national debts and I'm realistic enough to acknowledge that if we want that, we need to be prepared to pay for it. The Dutch appear to pay more total personal tax than we do.
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It would be even more expensive for us to implement, because at least the Dutch had this nice Austrian chap come and level many of their cities in the 1940s so that they could rebuild them with wider streets!
Our next problem, once we have the better infrastructure, is persuading certain elements of the cycling population to use it...
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Modern engines are very good at low speeds with DPF's etc. and of course electric vehicles produce extremely ow levels of pollution at point of use.
Yes, I think the policy has sort of failed but this is down to policing, the police have given up policing the roads in Scotland, and without enforcement it can never work.
But overall average speeds have come down, apparently from 34 to 26 mph, and along with the recent changes to the highway code regarding vulnerable road users, (which surprisingly has made a difference) there is a hint of something far better. The thing is with cycling, 99 encounters with good careful considerate drivers is destroyed by that one driver who doesnt give a ****. I average 150 mile per week cycling and haven't had a bad pass since April, but that is still burning within me. (pity it had not been over the border in Northumberland the video evidence would have definitely got the driver 3 points)
Maybe we're just better/more considerate drivers in the UK, nothing to do with the roads.
Maybe we're just better/more considerate drivers in the UK, nothing to do with the roads.
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Not every road can have a cycle path built alongside, which means the vast majority of roads need to be shared, special routes for cyclists create this belief in some drivers minds that cyclists should not be on "their" roads and as such promote abusive and threatening behaviour towards cyclists. Which when one party is in a 2 tonne SUV is rather worrying.
I can think of only 2 mile of cycle paths in a 25 mile radius of where I live, should I be limited to that, ?
Motorists already have their own exclusive roads known as motorways, if you really can't stand sharing the roads then go and drive on the motorways where you are legally allowed to drive FAST.
You need to keep DPFs and cats hot for them to work optimally. Reducing engine load is good for NOx emissions, but less good for some of the others.
Speed limits have been coming down (and policed with ever-increasing zeal) for well over a decade now, with pretty much all (so-called) "safety" camera partnerships claiming massive reductions in deaths and serious injuries on their patch, yet the national figures have pretty much flatlined for a decade now. I really don't know how long it's going to take them to realise they're barking up the wrong tree, but of course, they have a lucrative incentive not to look too closely! As a means of disincentivising car use, I'm sure it is pretty effective. As a means of improving road safety, the national figures speak for themselves...
I don't cycle as much as you (maybe only 20 or 30 miles a week on average), but I can only remember one avoidably close pass. I say "avoidably" because much of my cycling is done on single track roads that simply aren't wide enough to follow the prescribed "best practice". If I ride the recommended half metre out from the verge, and I'm (in round numbers) half a metre wide, a 2m wide car is not going to be able to leave the recommended 1.5m "exclusion zone" when passing me. There simply isn't enough road. Frankly, I don't leave half a metre between me and the verge - that would just be way too selfish, and I don't mind if cars pass (at modest speed) less than 1.5m away from me. That way, the car can be on its way and I don't have to cycle furiously, looking for a gateway or somewhere to pull in, with a car just behind me, where I can't see it clearly. Perhaps if I did most of my cycling in an urban environment, I'd feel differently, but if anything, I think the new HC rules (and I also think it's WAY too early to say whether they have had any effect yet, positive or negative), just make things worse.
Possibly, but if so, why campaign for it to be more like Holland?
I note the emotive language, but is it necessary? Does it not also hurt if you *only* get run over by a 1.5 tonne "family car"? Or is the intention just to demonise a particular type of road user? It's much harder to hate something called "family car" than it is to hate something called "SUV", I guess...
Nobody is saying that cyclists should be restricted to only cycling on cycle paths, that's a strawman argument. The gripe tends to be against cyclists who insist on using the road when there is a cycle path available, set aside for them and not available to motor vehicles. However, if you want more cycle paths, are you willing to pay Dutch levels of tax in order to get them?
If you're going to complain about having so few cycle paths close to where you live, I guess I can also justifiably point out that I live just under 40 miles from my nearest motorway junction. I haven't mentioned "fast" at all, you've just made that assumption. This isn't about "fast" it's about space, is it not? If you really can't stand sharing the road, it's probably much easier for you to get your bike to your "exclusive roads known as" cycle paths without riding it, than it is for me to get the car to my "exclusive roads known as motorways" without driving it...
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