Therefore, I am pleased that certain powered vehiclelists* have decided to try to make the anarchists that are the cycling community obey the rules. Such as the picture below.
Take this scene from the ASL at Stamford Hill. Thankfully the car and motorcyclists have completely blocked the ASL, otherwise some renegade cyclists might decide it is best to jump the lights to avoid the tsunami of speeding cars when the lights go green. Also notice that there is already a cyclist that has managed to evade the road-block and is waiting at the lights. This type of law abiding by cyclists is specifically to lull us all into a false sense of security. Don't fall for it!
Of course, to make the cyclists obey the rules, these motorists have had to put their clean licenses at risk by ignoring the rules about not entering an ASL, but this is the price they are willing to pay for making those cyclists fall into line. And the ASL is only for cyclists anyway so no-one really cares.
* I am not sure if vehiclelists is a word. In fact I am sure it isn't, but Shakespeare made up words and if a master like him can, I can as well.
I honestly wish cycling activists would focus more on ASL encroachment from cars and especially motorbikes. I know many cyclists go through red lights but similarly most motorists don't make any serious attempt to stop before the ASL and almost no motorcyclists do. I would say it is very very rare for me to reach an ASL without a car or two in it. It's a very dangerous situation for cycilsts for multiple reasons. Not least of which is that we can't move to the center of the lane and block the cars behind us. Also motorbikes have a tendency to whizz off in random directions (turn left from my right hand side for example) which I find quite nerve racking.
ReplyDeleteMy understanding is that going into the ASL when the light is already red is an equivalent crime to jumping the light altogether and subject to a £30 on the sopt fnie. You'd have to think that a cop could just wait around some traffic lights on a busy road and ticket half a dozen people per hour with little effort.