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Christchurch Bicycle Club’s chairman David Orme sprung to the wider cycling community’s defence to try to explain some of the reasons why riders might opt against using a cycle lane, choosing to ride in the road instead.
A Poole community Facebook group post took off when a local suggested, “all the cycle lanes in the world won’t help with congestion if cyclists don’t use them”… ah yes, we’re doing the cyclists cause congestion thing again…
How public transportation reduces traffic congestion pic.twitter.com/U0TLZzrYko
— H0W_THlNGS_W0RK (@wowinteresting8) September 17, 2022
Others said riders on the road “drives them nuts”…
Responding to the complaints, David largely echoed the sentiment of the Highway Code, saying cycle lanes are to be used at cyclists’ discretion, where they make our journey “safer and easier”.
> Row over Dorset cycle lane that drivers claim is “too wide”
He told DorsetLive: “If there’s a proper, designated cycle lane that is safer and easier than travelling on the road, then 99.9 per cent of cyclists will take it. The trouble is the vast majority of cycle lanes are either badly designed, they’re inconvenient or cars block them.”
Time for this classic to be reposted in all its glory…
He added that riders cycle on the road, ignoring the cycle lane, normally “because it’s less convenient or less safe — they’re usually the two reasons that people don’t use the cycle lanes.”
David said: “As a cyclist you can go the way that motorists go, or you can stop for every single junction and wait at the traffic lights. If I’m trying to get somewhere in a hurry, why should I want to stop at each individual lane, when I could just do what the traffic does which is a lot quicker?
“It’s also dependent on how efficient the lane is. If it’s inefficient and you’re trying to get somewhere you’ll take a shortest route because you don’t want to go around the house or keep stopping. Stopping takes up so much energy as a cyclist. If you have to keep stopping, it just uses twice as much energy.
“If I take people on rides, and I see a cycle lane in a place that I don’t know, I often don’t take it because I know that nine times out of ten I’ll go on it and suddenly it will dump me into a dead end road or pavement. It’s the trust in them that they’re not going to just dump me after ten yards and it becomes a bit of a waste of time going on it.”
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