ego.istic.org

Today was posted to the Cambridge Cycling Campaign members' discussion list a link to The Theory of BIG, a piece for cyclists, on effective use of road space. It's very informally written, and perhaps a bit too much ‘us and them’, but the advice it ends up with is sound.

David Martin, the author, advises cyclists to be big on the road. This means making yourself visually big by being brightly coloured and well lit (which is completely uncontroversial advice) and by acting in a manner that means other road users are forced to notice you. I find that even just wearing a shirt open so that it flaps in the breeze, making me look wider, significantly reduces the rate of people overtaking closer than they ought to.

He advises being threateningly big by looking like a hard man or a policeman, or by keeping a child seat on the back of your bike. The trick of writing “POLITE” on the back of your HV jacket and wearing a black and white helmet has been widely discussed, but isn't that practical for everyday use.

He also, and this is the point I am concerned with tonight, advises being physically big, by positioning yourself correctly on the road. Correctly means never less than a metre from the kerb. It means that if the lane is too narrow to overtake, dead centre in the lane. (It seems that motorists are trained to follow cyclists, as when I “take the lane” in a queue, the motorist behind me will, more often than not, squeeze right to the outside of the lane so I am just off his left headlight, purely out of habit.) It means never being less than a car-door's width from a parked car. It means never being less than a car's length from an obstruction ahead.

Now, that's all sound advice in itself, but where it breaks down is when cycle lanes appear. Cycle lanes are often less than a metre from the kerb. They're often in lanes where there is not enough room for a wide thing like a car to pass safely. They're often in places where motorists (and even other cyclists) will not look because they're not used to seeing people there. They're often too close to car parking and swerve at the last minute to avoid obstructions.

Novices tend to use these lanes anyway. They let themselves be pushed into unsafe road positions. More experienced cyclists will act as if the lanes weren't there, often sitting only just inside the white line, or leaving the lane when it comes to swerve around an obstruction. But this is not enough.

Research has shown that motorists tend to use cycle lane markings as a guide to safe distance when overtaking. That's not entirely unexpected, as it's the same way motorists are used to using other lane markings. But that's also why it's vitally important that there are never any cycle lanes less than the government's recommended minimum width of 2m. (In Cambridgeshire, there aren't any cycle lanes that meet this standard.) Two metres means that cyclists can stay a metre from the kerb, and overtaking motorists will likely be a metre and a half away.

This use of lane markings as an overtaking guide is also why it's insufficient for cyclists to hover just inside an insufficiently-wide cycle lane. Really experienced cyclists, like the racers who train hundreds of miles a week, will treat narrow cycle lanes as if they're not part of the road at all, and always stay on the outside. This forces motorists to treat overtaking like overtaking— the usual process of looking at oncoming traffic, looking behind, signalling, and finally pulling out a long way to pass—rather than just brushing past without deviating.

Tonight, after reading Mr. Martin's article, I became one of those cyclists. I stayed dead centre in narrow lanes where previously I'd have stayed in secondary lane position. In the less-than-a-metre cycle lane on the bend of Elizabeth Way I stayed well out of the cycle lane. When Gonville Place became East Road, where there is a cycle lane that (when the road narrows) becomes less than the width of a bike, instead of just taking the course I would take if there were no lane at all, I deliberately signalled and left the lane, taking the all-vehicles lane, well in advance of the narrow section.

The effect this had on me was one of confidence. It made me realise that I was acting more like other vehicles, and that this made my intentions clearer to non–cycle-aware road users. It caused me to signal earlier, and to merge lanes earlier and more confidently when necessary (which is more often than I would like). Dithering until the last minute when merging, changing lane, or turning right is much like riding in the gutter: novices do it all the time, because they don't feel like they should really be on the road at all, and they don't want to get in the way. More experienced cyclists don't because ⒜ the road is exactly the right place for cyclists, who have been using it far longer than horseless carriages; ⒝ if someone can't safely overtake you in two metres of space their vehicle is too wide; and ⒞ even if this weren't the case not getting squished by some impatient bod is more important anyway.

So, I conclude with an invitation to join me, and many other cyclists, in treating unsafe cycle lanes as not part of the road. My BIG rating has gone up to 9, and I feel like I'm making it harder for motorists to be dangerous at me. Try it: look big, be big, and feel big, and let me know how it goes. I'll write again in a few weeks with a report of how well it works for me.