Not an extremist. Hell how mad do you have to be to count as an extremist round here.

Simple. Bike average speed 20mph, into a head wind 15mph, up an incline with a head wind could easily be less than 10mph, even if you are a fast cyclist. I know we can all hit 30mph but get real guy's not for very long if you are cycling on your own.

Average car speed on a dual carridgeway 55mph, lets get real 65mph, ok not in the commute time 70mph.In the UK quite easily 80 and with a significant percentage 90mph but lets ignore these and assume 70mph is the real upper limit, you are cycling in the right hand most lane where in the US the slower traffic is supposed to yield to.

Closing speed car to cyclist 35-55mph.

Driver makes a mistake at this speed and hits you, your going to be dead.

Braking distance for 35-55mph 100-1200 foot. That's reaction time and braking time of the drivers coming up to you and shedding the speed differential, which might happen if they can't merge lanes once they have spotted you. (Haven't worked it out for trucks but it is a lot more)

Now add in inattentive drivers, rain, dusk, night time or rain, nighttime and inattentive drivers, you can triple it, at least.

Steve my friend if you really ride like this I will be writing you obituary sometime soon.

Seggragation is there for a good reason, to keep you alive, and also to speed up the flow of faster traffic. Campaigning to keep cars traveling in all circumstances at 20 to 15mph is not going to fly.

You analogy of racial divide is a good on as it is emotive, a bad one as it misses the salient point the fact that in an accident as a cyclist you are more likely to die, a real and rather important distinction.

Bike lanes not wide enough. Yep this can be a problem but a bike needs something like 3 foot and most bike lanes I have ever seen have this.

And Serge. No on is stupid enough to think that the white line designating a bike lane will physicaly stop a car hitting you, you are mixing up your logic again with emotive statements.

The purpose of the white line is to indicate to cyclist and drivers that one type of traffic, slow moving bikes are likely to be one side of it, the other side are likely to be fast moving cars, Both be on the look out and both stay either side of the line and you're paths will not cross and no one gets hurt.

I cycle down the A14 a 3 lane carridge way that is heavily used with average speed that varries from 0 to 80mph. There are also roads A23 I cycle down with out a bike lane or shoulder and I wish there was either. I have only done it a few time and I now judge it to unsafe so I detour.

OK I used the emotive statement that I beleive these is an increased risk of people dying but Serge my friend you are a cyclist and there are few enough of us already.


PS is this the general belief behind antagonism to bike lanes or is their something else?




Your beef, Bike lanes arn't big enough. Agree that is a problem but if the cars path doesn't cross my tajectory it isn't going to hit me. And don't be silly no one thinks a white line is going to stop a vehicle