Half time: Green light for unicycles

We were intrigued by this traffic light on the Malton Road, on the northeast edge of York.

It's one of those curious places with a permanent green cycle signal, enabling cyclists to go through the left-hand bike channel whatever the main signal is showing.


Except the signal seems to be for the rear half of the bike only. A unicycle? A child's tagalong?

Somehow, cycle facilites in Britain always end up half-measures.

Green light for red-light jumping on lethal London Road

Here's another example where a cyclist is much safer jumping the red lights. It's London Road, which runs northwest from the howdah riders of the Elephant and Castle to the trapeze artists and clowns of St George's Circus.

The pic right shows the view looking south towards the Elephant. The cyclist has just jumped a red light. And he's quite right to do so.


Here's why. Going north (right), from the lights, the left-hand lane is buses and cycles only. The rest of the road carries two lanes of oncoming regular traffic.

So what happens if you obediently wait for the green before setting off? You probably have a bus on your tail. And, unfortunately, not all the drivers are patient enough to wait for safety before overtaking you.


Many buses, perhaps finding the oncoming traffic is oncoming faster than they expected, cut in lethally close as they overtake you at high speed (right). Riding assertively, in the middle of the lane, is no use; it only makes drivers more impatient and more liable to overtake dangerously. Roughly speaking, I'd say that if you obey the lights, you get cut up between one in ten times, and five in ten times, depending on how fast a cyclist you are.

We had a very unpleasant such incident on Monday night. A near-death experience. A brush with mortality and a bus's boundary layer. I glimpsed my doppelgänger, riding a ghostly bike identical to mine, and he looked just like me, only older. It wasn't nice at all. And what did the driver have to say for himself? 'I dunno what you're talking about', before slamming the window shut. Anyway, the matter is currently in the hands of Transport for London's email profanity filter.

A few days ago I covered the new cycle lane at the north end of Blackfriars Bridge, whose only effect is to stop cyclists while giving no safety benefit. No wonder cyclists ignore the red there. (TfL haven't done anything about it yet, though they say they're aware and that the current signal phasing is only a temporary measure. Yeah, well, the Eiffel Tower was only a temporary measure in 1889.) But busting a red there is a matter of bypassing stupidity and inconvenience. Busting the red here, on London Road, is actually a safety benefit: you can put a safe distance between you and the assassin driving the wheeled office block behind you.

As it happens, I always stop at reds. Always. It's a sort of pride-cum-PR thing: I have a superiority complex as a cyclist, and want to show that I'm better than those idiot drivers who ignore ASLs and push their luck at the lights.

But my advice for anyone cycling this stretch is, for your own safety, to ignore the reds (if safe to do so, of course). I won't. But in this case you should do as I say, not do as I do.

Innocence of kids: thinking bikes cause accidents

A campaign in the City of London was launched recently to remind cyclists to obey traffic signals.

Various signs and posters were designed by two children from a local school - Isla, aged 8, and Lola, aged 9. Apparently this was the idea of one their parents, who is evidently concerned about the Cycling Menace threatening their kids.

We went past one of the signs yesterday, fixed to a traffic signal on Fleet St (right). The charming work of Lola, aged 9, it asks cyclists to stop at red lights.


Now, this is all very well. Except that as recent studies confirmed, it's not cyclists busting lights that causes accidents. It's drivers ignoring the laws. Get that, Mrs Parent? Lola, aged 9, is much more at risk from errant motorists than she is from impatient cycle couriers.

So this version of the sign on the right is more the sort of thing I'd like to see.

Ah, the innocence of adults. Bless their little hearts.

Happy New Year (but not on Blackfriars Bridge)

I hope one of Transport for London's New Year Resolutions is stop putting in expensive and pointless facilities like this one. It's just appeared at the north end of Blackfriars Bridge.

It's a short length - maybe 20m or so - of separated cycle lane. Just after the lights, it rejoins the road, merging with the traffic that's turning left. The lights have three phases: (1) red for both bikes and cars; (2) red for bikes, with a green left filter lane for cars (right); (3) green for bikes and general-green for cars (below).


Now, even if you have a Hogmanay hangover the size of Southwark, you'll spot the flaw straight away. What possible benefit does this separated lane offer cyclists? When the bike signal is at red, traffic is turning left in front of you. When the bike signal turns green, you still have traffic turning left in front of you.

In other words, all the signal does is (a) hold you up, and (b) offers no safety benefit. It's useless. No wonder every cyclist we saw simply ignored it and rode through red (below). By doing so, of course, they're at risk from left-turning traffic in front of them - just as they are if they wait for the green.


In fact, it's worse than useless. Not only has it wasted money, it also encourages cyclists not to use the cycle lane, but go on the main part of the road with the traffic and go through the left-filter. Which drivers won't be expecting, of course, even though it's perfectly legal, and they'll and shout and complain and resolve to run over the next cyclist they see.

Integrate cyclist with main stream of traffic, or build a segregated Dutch-style system? It's one of the big debates of the moment. In London, all attempts to do the latter have failed miserably. By contrast, all attempts to the do the former have failed appallingly.

Which side am I on? Whichever side has the green signal.

Happy New Year everyone!

DSA's new TV ad shows real cycling hand signals

The Driving Standards Agency's new TV advert has just gone up on YouTube. It shows an animated man walking out of a 'pedestrian crossing' sign, driving round a cartoonland of other animated figures from road signs, and eventually getting on a bike and riding away into the sunset.

It's nice animation, presumably making the point that, er, the Highway Code is, um, something something something.

And it's good that they've made it reflect the reality of everyday cycling. For example, in the way the car overtakes the cyclist far too closely (above right) and cuts sharply in front of him, even though the road is completely empty.


And, if you look closely (right), you'll see the cyclist demonstrating his knowledge of hand signals in response.

Copenhagen vs London 4: Not waving but turning

Copenhagen's cyclists have a hand signal I'd not seen before. It consists of raising one hand level with the head, the palm flat and facing outwards, as if acknowledging a friend (right).

At first you think people are just being sociable and waving to each other, but then you realise it's a hand signal with a specific purpose. It seems to mean 'I'm turning left, but not yet'.

Turning left involves crossing an oncoming stream of traffic, because in Denmark traffic drives on the right, instead of London where traffic drives around the Thames Water roadworks. At some junctions, though, you're not supposed to turn left by waiting in the middle (which you would sign in the normal way by sticking your left arm straight out).


Instead, you join the head of the queue of cyclists coming perpendicularly across you from your right, and wait for the signal to go straight on. To show that you're going to do this, you do the Copenhagen Wave, like the two lasses in these pictures.

Of course, we have several hand signals in frequent use in London which aren't in the Highway Code, but I don't propose to illustrate them.

Confusing signs and mixed signals

Blimey - I know those Sustrans routes can take a roundabout way sometimes... but downtown New York (right)? We were trying to get to the Lea Valley Crossing...

The culprit, as ever, was a film crew: they were making a Bollywood movie. Just as Stamford is easy to disguise with a bit of sawdust as an Austen-era town centre for a period costume drama, so a fake road sign can make Canary Wharf a cut-price travesty of New York.

But it does make you wonder where you buy these fake traffic signals. Where would you get British-style ones from? Might help to slow the traffic outside our house.


Perhaps the David Mellor cafe in Hathersage might be a good bet. Mellor - no, not that David Mellor - designed the classic British traffic lights, and the visitor centre dedicated to his work offers another odd sight: of signal-controlled queues for the buffet (right). (Thanks to our Derbyshire correspondent for the photo.)


Of course, just round the corner from the faux-US signal being serviced by ice-creams above is Traffic Light Tree (right), the celebrated sculpture on Westferry Circus roundabout. No cycle-specific traffic lights anywhere in it: well, that might make it confusing.

Crossings and double-crossings

Another day, another route across central London into work. This time I went past the Houses of Parliament and Buckingham Palace, by Wellington Arch, and through Soho and Bloomsbury. I like the game of following the bike-route signs - to 'Euston', say - and then seeing where I actually end up when the route disappears into a back-street cul-de-sac.

As ever, there was lots to enjoy on the way. For instance, just off Parliament Square, at the junction of Tothill St and Storey's Gate, is officially Europe's Safest Pedestrian Crossing (right). Well, that's what the 'Eurotest consortium of motoring bodies' thinks, according to the BBC. Yes, I know. It just looks like a crossing.


London's pedestrian crossings were in the news again yesterday. The mayor is proposing 'countdown crossings', which tell you how much time you have left to cross. At some crossings this may be used to cut down the time.

Cut down the time? Hmm. My route took me past Wellington Arch (right), where the cycle path grandly goes under the arch itself. Countdowns here would panic everyone except Dwain Chambers: you have a mere four seconds or so to cover the 25 yard (22m) crossing.


A horse might come in handy, which is presumably why this is also an equestrian crossing, complete with rider-height push buttons and horse-shaped green lights (right).

As you can see in the YouTube snippet here, the jogger just about makes it, but the chap crossing at normal walking pace only gets half way across by the time the green man disappears. No wonder the cyclist, who seems to be a regular, sets off a couple of seconds early. The green-man symbol should be in shape of a sprinter.

Finally, feeling like an adventure, I followed the separated bike lane west along Maple St, somewhere in the back lanes north of Oxford St. At the junction with Fitzroy St (right) the bike slot is excitingly situated on the wrong side of the road. That might put you in conflict with traffic turning right, so there's a separate traffic light for the bikes.

Except that when you press the button to request, you might have to wait two whole iterations of the other lights before you can proceed, forcing a wait of 90 seconds or so. Most cyclists, like the one in the picture, simply plough through the red.

On the other hand, if you had a countdown crossing here, you could do something useful during the wait, such as listen to a Wagner opera, or sit out the recession.