Just come back from a collage bar so pardon me if I get a little way ward. Firstly, I think us cycling enthusiasts have to take note of something that came up earlier, as cycling enthusiasts we see a difference between a "person on a bike" & a cyclist, most motorists don't. Most people I (we, see below about "we") consider cyclists have lights, ware some sort of high-viz clothing ad-hear to the rules of the road, notably don't usually JRL (more on this latter), most of the time & find that using cycle paths is one of the most dangerous things you can do due to peds.
Had a discussion about this with a load of Maths/Physics PhD students & post-docs, these guys are intelligent, level headed & analytical by nature so great to bounce ideas around with, too boot they were all rowers &/or cyclists (the "we" mentioned above).
First thing we noticed is that almost all our incidents were when riding around urban areas even though most of our cycling miles was done outside urban zones. Then we all got down to the idea that a big part of the problem with car drivers is their version of adequate space is radically different from ours, simply put we worked out the
minimum safe distance a car should be leaving a cyclist between any nearside obstruction & the nearside of their car is around 1.75m, this is actually quite a lot of road if you think about it.
The next thing we noticed is that when people were travelling slowly they had almost no incidents, the problem was when you get much over 13mph & gets to be a real problem once above 18mph, so one has to say that:
1) Car drivers simply aren't judging cyclists speed properly
2) As a cyclist you're going to be hyped up physically so more aggressive
We also think when drivers get into slower more restricted road conditions they start to get impatient, as you get more impatient you get less tolerant, so things like a cyclist being a cars door width away from parked cars (note: that 1.75m minimum now doesn't actually seem excessive) & staying behind a cyclist at a traffic
flow obstruction "calming" pinch points become a real annoyance.
We all agreed with the best intentions in the world we've all JRLed when riding hot as the so called intelligent lights which pick up a cyclist doing 20~25mph & phase to red at just the time you reach the lights because some idiot at the council hasn't worked out that faster cyclists tend to operate in the 20~25mph area. We also agreed that there are 2 lights which a cyclist HAS to JRL if we don't have a car or second cyclist pull up as a lone cyclist isn't heavy enough to trigger the sensors.
On a personal note today I got a middle-aged woman shout at me from her 4x4 "Bike hooligan! Don't be lazy & sit there with your brakes on"...
... sorry WTF?! I have a rear light on because I want to be seen.. k, thanks. Obviously has a bee in her bonnet about that & completely oblivious to the fact most bikes
don't have brake lights.
