Look Out For Those Banana Skins On The Road

If you cycle anywhere regularly, the chances are that you do most of the journey on autopilot. Your bike seems to know where every bump and slip hazard is on the road. After a while it becomes second nature to avoid these, so you can carry on without having to interrupt your train of thought.

Here’s an example from my regular commuting route into Ashington:

How much fun do you think you’d have if you hit either of these water features - especially in the wet:

It’s not a problem for me, because I know they’re there. I take the bend a little wide on the way in, and pass between the two. But someone cycling along here for the first time could easily put a wheel on top of these hazards, and then go for a short slide across the road . . . and under an oncoming car. Splat.

So I was intrigued when I saw this post on Bike Portland about some Super-Mario-style graffiti that’s recently appeared on bike lanes. One of these seemed particularly apt as a way of telling other riders about slip hazards:

Of course, putting your own markings on the road is probably committing some sort of offence (as if putting a pair of drains right on a bend is OK) . . . but what other sort of symbols do you think would be useful on the road?

Filed under: Bike Culture

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One Response to “ Look Out For Those Banana Skins On The Road ”

  1. magicroundabout on August 22, 2010 at 5:13 pm

    I think they should sort out the basic stuff first. Like telling you how to get places.

    I had an idea for a semi-coordinated guerilla cycle-path sign posting project. Swindon actually has a pretty good cycle network (http://swindon.pindar.com/) but once you’re on it it’s VERY easy to get lost and signs are few and far between.

    Contrast the National Cycle Network where there are small labels showing you the way at every turn!

    Solution: colour code certain key landmarks in the town, print lots of those vinyl signs they use on the NCN (http://flic.kr/p/vVoQw), and have a team of local volunteers stick them to lampposts showing you the way. You’d need a key every now and then saying what colour was for what destination, but this would be cheaper, and probably more accurate, than any of the existing schemes that exist here.