> >Compulsory cycle lanes make cycling less safe for cyclists, > pedestrians and > >motor traffic, particularly at junctions. > > What about Nederlands? From what I saw, they even get their own traffic > lights at major junctions.
But are the lanes compulsory? That's the issue. The Netherlands has a completely different traffic culture to the UK, where roads, traffic etc is designed specifically with cycling at the forefront of peoples's minds, not as a begrudged afterthought as it is so often here. In London and other parts of the UK the cycle lanes tend to be extremely badly designed. Camden is the worst borough in my experience, and they even have cycle-specific traffic lights on some of their crossings, but the lanes are frankly rubbish and very dangerous, and I won't use them. Bring your bike over sometime, or hire a Boris bike, and I'll show you. > Every country road has a separate cycle > lane/ > footpath either side, lit, gotta be safer to keep cars and cycles > apart? > But it isn't, not in isolation from other measures. It may be counter-intuitive, but it's safer all round to mix traffic, and this is also one way in which the Dutch are leading, with 'naked roads' - where pedestrians, cyclists, motor traffic all mix on roads without traffic lights or street signs or separate pavements. There are some experiments with this taking place in London, particularly on Exhibition Road from Hyde Park down to South Ken. It'll be interesting to see how it works out, but to be successful this sort of measure needs some major changes in culture, and that's the main difference between the Netherlands and here, I'd say. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4789146.stm> But even if they absolutely guaranteed 100% safety, I would still be opposed to compulsion. B -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
