So are you a driver who hates cyclists?
Or a cyclist who hates drivers?
None of the above? Or a bit of both?
Reading some of the feedback on articles about road safety – how to cycle safer…how drivers can be more cycle aware, etc, you’d think it was open warfare out there on the highway.
But surely, apart from the dedicated petrol-heads and the dyed-in-the-home-grown-goat-wool-hand-knitted sweater ultra-green types, a lot of these drivers are also cyclists and a lot of cyclists also drive. So why can’t they see things from the other point of view?
Strikes me that our roads would be a lot safer if as learner drivers, we get some quality insight into the experiences of other roadusers.
The standard driving test was probably fine at the end of the fifties but isn’t really adequate preparation for the 21st century Britishroad system. Answering a few questions as a result of reading a fat book full of theory is hardly preparation. Getting behind the wheel of one little car and mechanically learning to drive it isn’t good enough either. I mean, you don’t even get to go on a motorway. It’s like learning to whip up a decent scrambled egg and then being expected to keep up with service at Claridges.
There are all kinds of challenges on the roads these days. There are more cyclists for a start – including recumbent cyclists who feel that a small triangular flag on a long stick should make them sufficiently visible as they are only two feet from the road surface. Cyclists may hop off cycle lanes on to the road in front of you the driver at unpredictable points because of the ludicrous and nonsensical network of cycle lanes painted seemingly at random, beginning and ending for no apparent reason.
I’m stating the obvious here but we share the roads with all manner of cars, motorbikes, scooters, lorries of every size, buses, horses, ponies and traps (yes there are some where I live) not forgetting (especially during the days before Bank Holiday Weekends) the joy of the finding yourself behind a gleaming vintage steam traction engine. These are driven by the most laid-back people in the world who know they still have a perfect right to occupy most of a small country lane travelling at 4mph.
I’d scrap the driving test and introduce a Safer Roads System. Candidates would be required to experience driving all sorts of vehicles. See how it feels behind the wheel of an articulated truck. See how long it takes to slow down to take a roundabout – see what the visibility is like. Even better, try to reverse the thing!
Drive a bus. Drive a pick-up. Driving a big Dodge requires different skills to those required for driving a shitty little two-door. Driving a top of the range people carrier, or a top of the range 4WD you are high up there in your luxury cushioned Napa-Leather-World. Why should you give a toss about that cyclist pulled up at the lights to your left? I mean it’s hardly your fault if you turn left across his front wheel.
Ride a bicycle – learn if necessary – then ride in local traffic. See how it feels when a distracted driver late on the school-run whizzes past four inches from your bar-end at 40mph. Where, on the road, do you think you’ll be safest/ most visible? Try riding on a by-pass with traffic passing at 60-70mph on your right and stuff coming at you at 40mph as you cross over a slip road.
Ride a motorbike. See how considerate – or not – car drivers generally are. Feel the difference cornering in wet and dry conditions.
Let’s throw in horse-riding. We have to share the roads with our four-legged friends, our four-legged friends, they’ll never let you down… well they will if some prat in a soft-top comes scorching around the corner in a country lane.
It’s all about consideration really and experiencing the whole roads thing from other points of view.
Course, this kind of driving test would probably take a year to prepare for and it would be quite costly but better that than lives lost.
How many flighty seventeen year olds only learn to calm down after wrapping their first car around a tree? Tragically, some don’t even live to regret that first mistake.
Anyway, it would be worth it for the comedy value of burly would-be lorry drivers on bicycles wobbling their way through a maze of cycling proficiency cones.
I’d also enjoy watching petrol-heads trying to stay in control of a nervous mare faced with an oncoming Subaru with a roaring engine and a go-faster spoiler. Riding might be the next great challenge for the Top Gear guys. I’d also love to see Clarkson on a bloody great stubborn immoveable horse, groping around the saddle pommel for the ignition switch, trying to make it go.
So that’s the new drivers sorted. But there’s the substantial additional problem of those people who passed their test many years ago and now have as many bad habits as a convent full of lap-dancing nuns.
I should probably come clean and admit that it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that, while I am immaculate cyclist, I may have turned into a dodgy driver myself. This is based on a lot of evidence of too-casual driving and the latest incident of attempting to drive down a cycle path. Don’t think my companion was too impressed by my protestation that the last time I was there, it used to be a proper road. Honest.
For current qualified drivers, a refresher every ten years would be reasonable, incorporating all the new facets of this radical new approach
Without wanting to sound all New-Agey, my Safer Roads System would be a holistic thing. A bit pricey, granted but it would definitely cut road casualties and deaths.
It would also mean the roads would suddenly get a lot quieter. I mean, realistically, between you and me, I can’t really predict a whole lot of people passing this test….
Boadicea's Chariot 
I’m with you all the way Jan, a great read here by the way. I’m not a cyclist, the reason being, I never learned to ride a bike. That’s not strictly true actually, I can ride a bike, in a fashion, I just never owned a bike as a child. I did buy one when I was about 30, goodness knows why, I wasn’t safe to be on the road. I couldn’t let go of the handle bars to indicate my intentions. I used to get off before turning left or right and walk the bike. I was not a confident cyclist, I would wobble at the slightest thing, in the end, my husband locked it away and forbid me to use it, for my own sake and other road users. Now, if I’d had stabilisers……. 🙂
As a road user, I do appreciate and consider all cyclists; as a pedestrian, I would have all cyclists who ride on the pavement, and that includes all the postmen, arrested and charged. There was an article in our local paper a few months ago, people were complaining about all the cyclists on the pavements, again it included the postmen. When questioned, the cyclists said “It’s safer on the pavements”. Despite it being illegal to ride on the pavement, not one person is ever charged, again that includes the god damned postmen.
Ta, Val. If only someone had gone out with you and given you a few tips on riding so you knew what you were doing! Just takes time and a bit of patience to build up confidence but it’s very hard to do on your own. As adults, we have well-honed self-preservation instincts compared to when we were kids so the fear of falling is a major influence.
I completely agree re riding on pavements, which is why I think cyclists should be on roads or designated cycle routes – but we have to somehow make the roads safer.
I agree with you Jan. Make passing the driving test harder and maybe instate a new 10 -15 year rule on re-testing? And if you lose your license a re-test before being able to sit behind the wheel again? Skid pan experience would enhance the skills of how to handle difficult situations and maybe lead to fewer accidents? If everyone had to ride a two wheeled ve-hear-cule as well before becoming a car driver that may help.
I ride, though infrequently, but Cyclomaniac has had a few near misses, including being slapped on the backside by a passing passenger in a white van. Takes all sorts.
Sadly there is a rather laissez-faire attitude about driving in this country. People see it as a right and that only some of the rules of the road apply to them.
Unfortunately there are foolish cyclists who also think that the rules do not apply to them either, giving the rest of us a bad name
Good ideas, Jan – The two biggest problems at the moment are that a) newly qualified drivers are allowed unlimited access to the motorway network without ever having driven on one and b) drivers with any kind of foreign licence can swap this for a UK licence.
Hell, I used a UK licence to obtain a Papua New Guinea driving licence which I then devilishly presented to car hire companies in the UK. Nobody batted an eyelid, which they ought to have done if they knew anything about the PNG driving test.
OZ
My father passed his driving test in the army. The test entailed driving a few feet and showing that he knew how to stop and start and change gear.
His driving was awful.
(He had no lane discipline, was a rapid changer of gears, braked unnecessarily – and yet had only two minor bumps in all his driving life. When he attempted to teach me we parted company. I started learning at 17 with him, but didn’t manage to return to driving until I was 26.)
Hmm! While I might agree that a ‘review’ every few years might be a “Good Thing”, I’m not so sure about having to ride a horse before I qualify… too darn big and too temperamental (and I’m not saying whether that’s the horse or me!)
If you lose a licence in Oz you re-do the test – well my P-Plater grandson had to!
I’m afraid I’m one of those people who detest cyclists – both as a pedestrian and a driver – they all seem to think they have the right to do exactly as they please with no regard to anyone else. How about a ‘test’ for cyclists, road tax and, most important of all, identifying plates so that when they whizz through red lights or nearly knock me over on crossings I can report them…
OZ – “drivers with any kind of foreign licence can swap this for a UK licence”
This is not the case. Tests are required, certainly for holders of US driving licenses, and I suspect almost all others, unless you have a different experience on which to base this assumption.
My father learnt to drive incidentally in the early 1920s by borrowing his future brother-in-law’s car in Edinburgh, along with his younger brother, who also had never driven before, and the pair of them set off for London, with only the most rudimentary instructions on which pedal did what…they reached London safely, and very much more experienced drivers than before they set off. The younger brother kept insisting they stopped at various pubs on a regular basis for a brandy, on the journey, as they were scaring each other so much…
There would probably have been only about two other cars on the road they were travelling along, in their day…..
– and top speed? 30, maybe?
How about a licence for pram pushers?
Fortunately I don’t encounter them on a daily basis but the majority of pushers seem to think that they automatically have right of way at all intersections, park them anywhere and generally are a nuisance to other pavement / mall/ transport users.
Another for supermarket trolley drivers wouldn’t go to waste either, me? I’m a basketman!
CWJ
South African drivers licences are valid in the UK and can be exchanged for a UK one for South Africans on long visits or if their S.A. one is expiring!
Civilised flatlands, like Holland and Denmark, have cycle-tracks everywhere, properly sign-posted and maintained.
Soutie, I have observed that anyone in charge of anything with wheels presumes precedence over pedestrians – and that includes wheelchair-drivers.