Cars get the hell outta our cycle lanes...

and indicate your intentions to left turn, don't follow the 'racing line' using the apex of a corner if it means you have to cut up a cycle lane, stop parking on our lanes and stop queuing in our safety zones at traffic lights... that's ours, and for good reason. How hard can it be? Simple, if it's green tarmac it's not for you! I've had enough of it. I started a new job today, very impressed that my new employer (pipex in Manchester) had a decent, locked bike shed with shower facilities for staff. 'Great!' I thought, I will love it... well... if it was not for the commute. School runners seem to get the priority of using our cycle lanes for parking to drop their lazy fat kids off while motorized commuters seem to believe they can use our safety zones and cycle lanes while queuing at traffic lights. Some fear of staying in your own lane maybe? Or more likely just plane ignorance to the rules. I believe that our cycle facilities don't deserve the term facility on many occasions. I mean we've all seen the funny forum pictures of cycle lanes that last for 2 metres then come to a end, the ones that have a bin or lamp post in the middle of it or even worse ones but what we have is what we have and while we need to carry on campaigning for better facilities and keep the debate open as to what better facilities are, I think we've also lost the point of campaigning for enforcement of the existing rules in the midst of this.

Ok, that's my rant done... I feel better now. Will we just accept this? NO WAY! I'm all for starting a campaign/culture change but we need to do this together. I spoke with the local police about this and asked the officer whose job is it to enforce it and he didn’t know!? What?! OMG! He does not know who enforces the highway code? He thinks it the local authority but does not know for sure. I will contact my local authority to ask but I don't think anything will come of this. I think a good place to start would be to name and shame problem spots where the law is frequently broken and then we can lobby each local authority to put CCTV on that spot meaning we just have to make a phone call with the time and date to the police and they can take action from there (and they will, if not a little slow). We can of course photograph offenders ourselves but that's just plain stupid, I would double my journey time. I feel CCTV should do this on problem spots. How about a petition of some kind? Any other ideas? Let's not let the long term campaign of better facilities make us loose sign of the short term campaign of law enforcement. I'm up for ideas and anyone that wishes to join me but keep them ideas civilized, no 'reclaim the roads' stuff.

Forget about cycle lanes, they're not there for your benefit; make use of all the road.

Those green strips are not intended to make life safer or easier for cyclists, they are there to answer the main excuse that people give for not cycling. If you are cycling anyway then you can ignore them and position yourself on the road as you see fit.

I totaly agree. Have you also noticed that most motorists give you more clearance when you ride in a traffic lane, than when you ride in a cycling lane or on a paved shoulder? Why is this so?

Read this:-

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/pete.me...ycle-lanes.pdf

Ta very much.