3feet2pass
If you follow news in the cycling community, you’ll know that a petition was started to ask that all road users give cyclists 3 feet of room when passing. If you are a cyclist, you know that sometimes your not even given 6in clearance as a car overtakes you. From a motorists point of view I can understand sometimes why they get so close – I mean, you see cyclists filtering up the side of stationary traffic with little room. But thats stationary. Overtaking someone at speed and not giving enough room can lead to all sorts of problems.
Anyway, I digress – basically, the petition was rejected by “Gordon Brown” on the grounds that the Highway Code contained adequate instruction on how to approach and overtake a cyclist.
The petition lead to discussions from both camps, and some cyclists where against the idea as 3 feet isn’t enough.
This is one of the reasons I am glad that I wear a camera, as, should the case arise, I have footage to prove that the driver is in the wrong. Here are some examples of travelling too close to a cyclist.
I could list 100s more on here, but you get the point. The coach driver shown in the clip above claimed that he had given “miles of space” when overtaking. Wonder if his company would agree if I sent the footage?
Is three feet enough? Probably not. Again, 99 out of 100 drivers give enough room, but that leaves 1 out of every 100 taking the risk.
The most sensible point of view I heard about this discussion was from a driver commenting on a cyclist / car collision and they said that “You need to overtake a cyclist with enough room to allow them to fall off their bike and not end up under your car”.
A perfect way to look at it, and could you live with yourself for destroying someones family when overtaking unneccessarily [sp?] close – I know I couldn’t.
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Arses… typical response from no10… basically the look for anyway to dismiss everything.
Even if they miss the point, they won’t let you reply to them or repetition.
Isn’t the whole point of that to make it a law that can be used, rather than the “driving dangerously” that will never happen.
I suppose the 5feet2pass will go the same way.
Maybe sign up for a 4feet2pass petition and word it in a way to discredit the “highway code” rule, and request a LAW.
I think a change in the Highway Code wording is the way to go – especially after this mornings mishap.
It might help, but then again most people think that the HC code says you should gutter crawl.
And the Highway Code is just a list of rules, but not laws. If one relates to a law it usually says LAW beside it.
Having a law makes it much easier to punish for it… the best example of doing this is the mobile phone laws.
You have a point.
Maybe we should invite Gordon Brown out on a bike ride – help him shift some of that excess baggage and realise how shitty we have it sometimes?
Perhaps a more effective course of action would be to petition for a change to the highway code. I have recently had cause to refer two drivers of sections 162 to 169 of the highway code regarding overtaking and junctions. I have committed these sections memory after a previous incident where a driver refused to believe my assertions about his overtaking manuover. Anyway, Perhaps it would be better to ask for the highway code to be tightened up because as it stands it is very wooley. Although some sections are advisory and not the law they can still be used to establish liability.
I had a “run in” not two days ago.
I pulled the woman over and she said “My wing mirror didn’t hit you so I gave you enough room”.
Little did she realise that her wing mirror is around 8in and it just missed my arm – and there was a foot wide pothole that I then had to ride over.
She then told me the only reason she passed so close was because she couldn’t overtake in the other lane.
I politely told her that if that was the case, she should really of stayed behind me until it was safe.
She wasn’t happy being told by a cyclist what she had done wrong – but, to be fair to her – when she caught back up a mile up the road – she waited patiently behind me then overtook on the outside lane when safe to do so.
Lesson learned? Probably not, but she might think twice next time she sees a cyclist.
Incidentaly Haardly – it does help if you can tell them that you have their actions on camera and that if they care to put their registration plate in Google a couple of days later – then they will be able to review the situation from a cyclists point of view – people DO look when you tell them this
@Haardly
Obviously changing that would help, but the amount of drivers that will look at it after they pass is a very very small amount.
So I feel that any changes would only really “help” new drivers which are a minority on the road.
If a law came into effect, the HC would be updated anyway to reflect it, with the reference to the law… because HC isn’t a list of laws, it’s just advisory.
Getting a simple to prosecute law vs the harder “dangerous driving” would be the most effective, but probably the hardest to get into play.
I would like to see more theory retests for drives with mid to minor fines… as a fine itself only penalises the poor, having to spend half a day out at a test centre to possibly lose your licence (which also means they will probably revise the HC book which is a bonus) affects everyone, poor or rich.
How about taking the offenders out on cycles for half a day in rush hour?
Realistically that would never happen, the framework for doing such just doesn’t exist. Whereas theory testing is already there and any drive that drives, obviously managed to get to a test centre.
If there was a bicycle test/licence, then there would be the possibility of doing this, although the likely hood of a bicycle licence is even more unlikely anyway (and would be stupidly complicated + expensive).
Just need more time based punishments (bans, community service) than money based, or the wealth based fine system like the Swiss and Nordic countries use… imagine that coupled with that township that gives the other drivers the fines as a reward for not doing anything wrong… just hope you live next door to a rich law breaking hooligan
LOL – unfortunately I don’t
What part are you referring to? :/
Access to a test centre? I’m not really sure how long the theory test has been in place, but I would guess enough that you did one (I am assuming you have a car licence here, from past comments etc).
I’d say there are more test centres around today than even 10 years ago.
Living next to a rich law breaking hooligan!
The highway code does give enough information, it’s just that many don’t actually remember the content of the highway code and many choose to ignore it. Whatever happened to TV ads to remind people of correct lane use etc etc
The biggest issue is that what is in the Highway Code isn’t necessarily a law… so the Police cannot indite someone for “passing too close”, instead they need to go for the dangerous driving grounds, and they have to then prove it was dangerous (maybe easy for the Police, but not as easy as a specific law, ref: new mobile phone laws).
Highway Code says to give as much room as you would a car… now we as cyclists know that this means they should treat us as the size of a car, and then pass around that imaginary car giving the normal space… but it reads more like, you shouldn’t pass any closer than you would to a car… take a look at the space people give when overtaking cars (either on single or dual lanes), for a cyclist that would be much too close… yet it’s normal for car passing car.