Cyclists MUST dismount

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London streets
must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...tions-cyclists

It's mad!

On 10/07/2012 19:50, Bertie Wooster wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London streets
must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...tions-cyclists

It's mad!

The whole hopping, skipping and jumping festival is mad. It should have gone
to Paris. Or preferably, somewhere hot near the International Date Line.
There, it wouldn't seem as mad.

But cheer up. In a few weeks, it will start to be just a memory.

In the meantime, there's an easy and safe way to avoid overtaking on the
inside and/or getting a £130 fine: don't overtake at all. Just hang back and
(eventually) only overtake when it's both lawful and safe. I would
confidently give the same advice to any road-user on wheels. Wouldn't you?

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:50:54 +0100, Bertie Wooster wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London
streets must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...tions-cyclists

It's mad!

No more than it is with respect to any other transport - games lanes
are for olympic VIPs only. Why is the fact that the restrictions
apply to cyclists as well as everyone else any madder than that they
apply to everyone else?

Motorists have to stay out of games lanes.

Cyclists have to stay out of games lanes.

Plenty of the olympics stuff is mad, but the fact that
olympic-VIP-only lanes really are olympic-VIP-only lanes and not
olympic-VIP-and-any-cyclist-only lanes is really not 'mad'.

regards, Ian SMith
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On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:21:16 +0000 (UTC), Ian Smith
wrote:

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:50:54 +0100, Bertie Wooster wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London
streets must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...tions-cyclists

It's mad!

No more than it is with respect to any other transport - games lanes
are for olympic VIPs only. Why is the fact that the restrictions
apply to cyclists as well as everyone else any madder than that they
apply to everyone else?

Motorists have to stay out of games lanes.

Cyclists have to stay out of games lanes.

Plenty of the olympics stuff is mad, but the fact that
olympic-VIP-only lanes really are olympic-VIP-only lanes and not
olympic-VIP-and-any-cyclist-only lanes is really not 'mad'.

They claim there will be 1,300 Olympic vehicles per hour using the
Games' Lanes. I reckon they could manage with 30 busses per hour, and
use bus lanes.

Ian Smith wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:50:54 +0100, Bertie Wooster
wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London
streets must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...tions-cyclists

It's mad!

No more than it is with respect to any other transport - games lanes
are for olympic VIPs only. Why is the fact that the restrictions
apply to cyclists as well as everyone else any madder than that they
apply to everyone else?

Motorists have to stay out of games lanes.

Cyclists have to stay out of games lanes.

Plenty of the olympics stuff is mad, but the fact that
olympic-VIP-only lanes really are olympic-VIP-only lanes and not
olympic-VIP-and-any-cyclist-only lanes is really not 'mad'.

regards, Ian SMith

and pedestrians on some towpaths will get a break from being mown down for a
while too, so it is win-win.

JNugent wrote:
On 10/07/2012 19:50, Bertie Wooster wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London streets
must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...tions-cyclists

It's mad!

The whole hopping, skipping and jumping festival is mad. It should
have gone to Paris. Or preferably, somewhere hot near the
International Date Line. There, it wouldn't seem as mad.

But cheer up. In a few weeks, it will start to be just a memory.

In the meantime, there's an easy and safe way to avoid overtaking on
the inside and/or getting a £130 fine: don't overtake at all. Just
hang back and (eventually) only overtake when it's both lawful and
safe. I would confidently give the same advice to any road-user on
wheels. Wouldn't you?

So if every motorist ensures it is impossible to undertake, many impatient
cyclists should get a hefty fine ? aah, how sad.

On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 21:16:05 +0100, "Mrcheerful"
wrote:

JNugent wrote:
On 10/07/2012 19:50, Bertie Wooster wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London streets
must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...tions-cyclists

It's mad!

The whole hopping, skipping and jumping festival is mad. It should
have gone to Paris. Or preferably, somewhere hot near the
International Date Line. There, it wouldn't seem as mad.

But cheer up. In a few weeks, it will start to be just a memory.

In the meantime, there's an easy and safe way to avoid overtaking on
the inside and/or getting a £130 fine: don't overtake at all. Just
hang back and (eventually) only overtake when it's both lawful and
safe. I would confidently give the same advice to any road-user on
wheels. Wouldn't you?

So if every motorist ensures it is impossible to undertake, many impatient
cyclists should get a hefty fine ? aah, how sad.

The typical mind set of a jealous motorist.

On Jul 10, 7:59*pm, JNugent wrote:
On 10/07/2012 19:50, Bertie Wooster wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London streets
must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...log/2012/jul/1...
It's mad!

The whole hopping, skipping and jumping festival is mad. It should have gone
to Paris. Or preferably, somewhere hot near the International Date Line.
There, it wouldn't seem as mad.

Where's your sense of fun or national pride? Let me guess: you'd have
no problem with the Olympics if it just didn't have any cycling in it?
You don't think you may be a bit obsessed?

But cheer up. In a few weeks, it will start to be just a memory.

In the meantime, there's an easy and safe way to avoid overtaking on the
inside and/or getting a £130 fine: don't overtake at all.

Why don't you say 'just don't do it' when drivers whinge about fines
for speeding, parking, etc? Seems like pretty blatant anti-cyclist
discrimination to me.

Everyone's known about the Games Lanes for years, but of course that
won't stop drivers using them and then moaning when they get caught.
Any moaning by cyclists will be dwarfed by complaints from drivers who
think it's totally out of order to be made to wait for a few seconds
every now and then.

Thankfully, due to their registration plates, drivers will always be
fined if they go in the Games Lanes, whereas cyclists will only be
fined if they enter the Games Lanes in front of a police officer, and
probably not even then (the police generally have better things to do
than to persecute cyclists who aren't doing any harm). This alone
seems to be a very good reason not to introduce registration plates
for cyclists. We don't want cyclists to start being remotely fined for
trifling contraventions which don't make any difference to any other
road user.

On Jul 10, 8:21*pm, Ian Smith wrote:
On Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:50:54 +0100, Bertie Wooster wrote:
*Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London
*streets must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
*http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...log/2012/jul/1...

*It's mad!

No more than it is with respect to any other transport - games lanes
are for olympic VIPs only. *Why is the fact that the restrictions
apply to cyclists as well as everyone else any madder than that they
apply to everyone else?

Because motorists take up more space, harm the environment and kill
other road users? And we are trying to encourage cycling and
discourage motoring, especially during the Olympics?

The idea of a cyclist being fined for cycling down the edge of a Games
Lane at 11.30pm, when there are no other vehicles (and even if there
were, they'd easily be able to overtake), is appalling. If there are
many such fines in practice then the likes of the LCC will rightly be
very angry. I can just see the YouTube videos of heavy-handed police
encounters. It makes no sense, and will probably encourage pavement
cycling in order to avoid the actual Games Lanes, as well as cycling
without lights in order to avoid detection, and possibly cycling
against parallel one-way streets in order to avoid the Games Lane
routes. Together with red light jumping, these are already things that
plenty of cyclists do (unfortunately) and which give us all a bad
press, and if there is an increase in this behaviour then that is not
going to help matters for any of us.

I predict that one way or another, this will be the last time that
cyclists are disallowed from using particular lanes (excluding
motorways and special dual carriageways, obviously). The experiment
will be a failure. I am rather surprised that cyclists are not allowed
to use the Games Lanes, and suspect that Ken Livingstone would not
have made such a decision. I thought we were supposed to be getting
away from cyclists being treated as an inconveniece which needs to be
kept out of the way of 'real traffic', yet that is the purpose of this
ban: to ensure that the fat cats in their BMWs are not 'held up' for
even a moment by 'bloody cyclists'. It's really quite worrying when
you think about it, isn't it? There are very good reasons why car
drivers are normally treated differently (and more strictly) than
cyclists, and I don't see why that should change just because these
lanes are 'special' Games Lanes for fat cats.

Sorry Ian, I realise you are not a troll, but I think you are wrong
about this.

On 10/07/2012 22:47, M Wicks wrote:

On Jul 10, 7:59 pm, JNugent wrote:
On 10/07/2012 19:50, Bertie Wooster wrote:

Cyclists wanting to overtake vehicles on many central London streets
must do so on the INSIDE or face a £130 fine!
http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian...log/2012/jul/1...
It's mad!

The whole hopping, skipping and jumping festival is mad. It should have gone
to Paris. Or preferably, somewhere hot near the International Date Line.
There, it wouldn't seem as mad.

Where's your sense of fun or national pride? Let me guess: you'd have
no problem with the Olympics if it just didn't have any cycling in it?
You don't think you may be a bit obsessed?

Is there a bike race as part of the Olympics?

It's of no consequence to me either way.

But cheer up. In a few weeks, it will start to be just a memory.

In the meantime, there's an easy and safe way to avoid overtaking on the
inside and/or getting a £130 fine: don't overtake at all.

Why don't you say 'just don't do it' when drivers whinge about fines
for speeding, parking, etc? Seems like pretty blatant anti-cyclist
discrimination to me.

If they were to ask, that is what I would say.

Offhand, I don't remember that question ever *being* asked.

Do you?

Everyone's known about the Games Lanes for years, but of course that
won't stop drivers using them and then moaning when they get caught.
Any moaning by cyclists will be dwarfed by complaints from drivers who
think it's totally out of order to be made to wait for a few seconds
every now and then.

And?

Thankfully, due to their registration plates, drivers will always be
fined if they go in the Games Lanes, whereas cyclists will only be
fined if they enter the Games Lanes in front of a police officer, and
probably not even then (the police generally have better things to do
than to persecute cyclists who aren't doing any harm). This alone
seems to be a very good reason not to introduce registration plates
for cyclists. We don't want cyclists to start being remotely fined for
trifling contraventions which don't make any difference to any other
road user.

Why do "we" (ie, you) want drivers fined for trifling contraventions which
don't make any difference to any other road user?