Traffic Pinch Points - A Hazard To Cyclists
Pedestrian refuges / traffic islands - put there for your safety. On the one hand, they mean that pedestrians can cross roads one lane at a time. And drivers, get a greater perception of their speed, which hopefully means that they slow down.
The trouble is, that there isn’t always room for a car AND a bike in these narrows:
In fact, there sometimes isn’t enough room for even a single vehicle:
The real problem for me though is judging the width of the road
Is it wide enough for a bike to ride safely while at the same time a car / bus / lorry / whatever overtakes?
Some of them around here are that wide . . . while others look it until someone does try to overtake you, at which point you find how scarily narrow the road really is.
The official line for cyclists to take on these is to "take the primary position". i.e. pull out into the flow of traffic so that there can be no doubt at all in the driver’s mind: There IS NOT room to get past:
The thing is, I think drivers are getting worse, and you have to be MORE assertive now than ever. Last week, I had a car come past me far too close for comfort, even though I was taking up about 40% of the road on the approach to one of these narrows - roughly the position shown above.
So for the next few weeks, I’m trying a modified technique:
I. Will. Own. That. Road. (Girlfriend).
Never mind this looking over the shoulder and pulling across if it’s safe - my moves will be accompanied by the full arm-out hand signal, and I will be riding through these kill zones at about 50-60% of the distance from the road’s edge. I will be doing this on every single one, and only IF when I get into one, I find that it’s ridiculously wide, will I then pull across to let cars pass safely.
It’s time to reclaim the streets
Yep, I do that, particularly coming up to eg a roundabout, so I don’t get overtaken going into, through or out of the roundabout. Pull out dead centre into the lane and Own It.
Some drivers just don’t understand what you’re doing, though. Often, if you occupy the pinchpoint, then immediately afterwards you get overtaken with intimidating closeness in retaliation. Bah!
The blaring horn behind you is a sign you’re doing the right thing. It means the driver almost certainly would have tried to pass you in the pinch point if you’d allowed him to.
There are some videos of pinchpoints heremade on a road in Cambridge which you might, er, “enjoy.”
They’re not my videos, but it was my commuting route for a while.
The blaring horn behind you is a sign you’re doing the right thing.
It also means he/she’s seen you. No excuse for SMIDSY!
I have three in a row on Haughton Road in Darlington on my way home from work that are particularly bad. The second is right on a slight bend at the top of a rise in the road, and the third at the bottom of a hill. They’re also perfectly placed so that a stream of traffic meets catches me up after being released from a set of traffic lights further back up the road, so they’ve had a nigh clear stretch of road on which to get nice and fast.
The Streetview car was on the wrong side of the road, but here are pinch points one, two and three. When I ride there, there are usually more parked cars too.
There are more along that road, but they’re not as bad.
My pinch points: http://bikedarlington.blogspot.com/2010/03/traffic-pinch-points-hazard-to-cyclists.html
Pinchpoints are also the bane of our streets when we come to argue for quality infrastructure. Most of the main roads into our town are more than wide enough to accomodate good quality cycle lanes on both sides of the roads. But the geometry has been ruined by a stream of pinch points, including useless extra right-hand lanes for the occasional motorist to use when turning into a side street.
Karl’s advice is right. Reclaim the streets until we can get some decent space of our own.
Isn’t it sad? We have to be aggressive, claim our space, instead of sharing space with all traffic members including pedestrians in a civilised way? We have to develop a humanity on the roads in Britain or more blood is going to flood.
Let us fight for better infrastructure that Mums and Dads and Nanas and Granddads can appreciate on bikes (with their babies). And no helmets any more please!!!!!
I find growling helps……