8 ms·

I find the focus on congestion within the transport space to be perplexing. I'm guessing it is to do with the visibility of congestion. Waze recently did a surv

by awjr 10y ago

I find the focus on congestion within the transport space to be perplexing. I'm guessing it is to do with the visibility of congestion. Waze recently did a survey and identified the Netherlands as the best place to drive (https://www.waze.com/driverindex https://www.waze.com/driverindex). The Netherlands is also the only western country with a negative obesity trend expected to hit 8% by 2030, currently at 10% vs the UK's 25%. The USA I believe is getting close to 36%. We can try and blame our diets, however our built environment is creating a public health crisis of inoordinate scale. The car is very much to blame for this. The car and car sharing is not the answer to traffic. Creating segregated end to end cycle networks with good junctions enabling people to choose to ride up to 5 miles to school/work is absolutely critical to avert this public health crisis.

BlackjackCF 10y ago
Unfortunately, it's not an easy problem to solve. I live in LA and I have to drive to work because there's just not simply a viable alternative to where I have to commute to (West Adams area to West Hollywood.) The bike lanes across LA are spotty at best and there's a good chance you're going to get hit/brushed by a car because the closer you get to Beverly Hills/West Hollywood, the more impatient/asshole-ish drivers become. LA is trying to solve this right now with better public transportation, but even then the line that runs into Beverly Hills/West Hollywood requires me to take I think a train and a bus before I can even get to it (also it's not complete for another 4 years, I think.)
- beachstartup 10y ago
  surely there's a bus that goes straight up fairfax? edit: looks like the 217 bus goes up fairfax and into west hollywood. why not take that?
  - BlackjackCF 10y ago
    The 217 bus would be perfect if it had a stop in between its San Vicente and Santa Monica stop. It would probably be another mile walk from there. It ultimately does come down to convenience. :( Commuting by bus/Expo line means easily adding another 30 minutes to my commute if I happen to hit all the correct times at once.
- my_username_is_ 10y ago
  Surely the city could find a series of roads that could be made into one-way streets, and have segregated bike lanes on the other side?
  - cortesoft 10y ago
    There are a number of issues with this. One, Los Angeles is VERY sprawling; people are traveling from every direction to every other direction, there are no easy routes you can make that will cut very much traffic. You would need to turn a LOT of streets into one-ways with bike lanes. Two, the traffic density and management is crazy here. So many traffic lights and stop and go traffic. Major streets are constantly crossing other major streets, which require long stops at lights while the other major street moves through. Riding a bike in the area is especially hard, because you are constantly having to come to a complete stop, wait for 3 minutes, and start again.
    - kchoudhu 10y ago
      This also makes otherwise walkable neighborhoods very difficult for pedestrians to navigate. Red lights need to cycle much, much faster.
      - BlackjackCF 10y ago
        This. It's also really, really annoying that all the lights on an entire stretch of a street cycle at the same time. It really fucks up traffic. To make it even worse, people often try and race to the other side even on yellows and block up the intersection, which makes traffic even worse.
        kchoudhu 10y ago
        I didn't realize it was such a huge problem until I moved to Los Angeles a few weeks ago. We did a bang up job finding an apartment with grocery stores, restaurants and parks within walking distance. Unfortunately, the red light situation makes it somewhat difficult to get to these amenities. LA needs to do a better job of balancing pedestrian and motorist interests. With more and more people abandoning or at least de-emphasizing cars, I hope and expect this balancing act to happen sooner rather than later.
Justsignedup 10y ago
NYC's problem is also distance. Depending on where you're coming from biking could take 1.5-2hrs each way. I enjoy it but the problem is with extreme rising housing costs people are pushed further and further. Though to be honest, a SAFE biking lane system would be a much welcome gift in NYC. Currently in certain areas I have to work doubly hard to not get killed daily.
- awjr 10y ago
  Yup and without protected bike lanes you only get those people 'brave enough' to venture out. To get people on situp and beg bikes (or ebikes) riding in normal clothes, you have to have visible end-to-end safe lanes. Look at London. They removed two traffic lanes, installed wide cycle lanes and now move 5% more people through the space. 70% of traffci through Blackfriars is people cycling, mostly in day to day clothing.
  - 1_2__3 10y ago
    And in a dense urban core in a mild climate that makes perfect sense. Which greater Manhattan is not.
    - emj 10y ago
      What? NYC is perfect for biking.
      - pavel_lishin 10y ago
        I wouldn't say that NYC is uniformly perfect for biking throughout the year. The summer is very hot and humid, effectively requiring you to shower before going to work. The winter is cold, and the roads and frequently covered in snow and/or ice. Both of these problems can be worked around, but they are daunting for anyone who's not already fairly dedicated; a newbie isn't going to ride to his law office in 95 degree weather, or through slush. (And that's just the weather; I'm not taking into account the crappy car traffic through most of Manhattan, or the huge valley around 125th street, or the fact that going across the Brooklyn Bridge is incredibly annoying whenever pedestrians are present, etc.)
source99 10y ago
Much of the academic research I have read (Check out Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes) shows the exact opposite to be true. Our diets accounts for dramatically much higher cause of obesity than our environment and specifically cars.
- awjr 10y ago
  I'm just going to point at the Netherlands their obesity rate of 10%. They have designed in an hour or more of exercise per day into just getting around. In the UK some cities have stats where people are known to just do 20 minutes of walking exercise per year.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > In the UK some cities have stats where people are known to just do 20 minutes of walking exercise per year. No way that's correct unless the U.K. has cities full of bedridden people. 20 minutes of walking is 3.3 seconds per day. You need a catheter or a wheelchair to walk that little.
    - awjr 10y ago
      I did qualify it as exercise. In other words, somebody deliberately 'going for a walk to exercise'. It would be interesting to know how many people do no form of exercise.
      - dpark 10y ago
        You also claim that the Dutch "have designed in an hour or more of exercise per day into just getting around." You're using two entirely different measures so your comparison is useless. If only "deliberate" walking exercise counts, then there are probably lots of Dutch getting no exercise.
- ceras 10y ago
  Diet definitely has a bigger impact than exercise, but isn't there still a correlation between more urban areas and lower obesity even when controlling for poverty? There may be other factors to urban, non-car-based living besides the extra physical activity that encourages lower weight. It's maybe as simple as without a car you can't go to Costco and stock up on huge sacks of unhealthy foods in one go -- beats me, I'd be interested to learn more.
criddell 10y ago
I love the cycling idea, but for big chunks of the US it couldn't work. I live in Austin and ride my bicycle to work whenever I can, however my office has showers. Without showers here, I'd never do it (and would hope that nobody else would either). Frankly though, the obesity problem is almost entirely about diet. More exercise would be great, but wouldn't address the actual problem.
- justincormack 10y ago
  showers are part of cycling infrastructure I guess.
- hobbyjogger 10y ago
  Yeah, people tend to overlook the role climate plays in these comparisons. There's an enormous difference in cycling's viability as a primary means of transportation in a place like the Netherlands where average high temperatures rarely exceed 75, as opposed to Texas where a typical summer will have a prolonged period of temps in the 90s and multiple 100+ days. The average high temperature in Amsterdam's warmest two months is 70F.[0] Austin's average high temp is warmer than that for every month except December, January and February. In the warmest months, the average highs are 96 and 97. [1] [0]: http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/ http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/ [1]: https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Texas/Places/austin-temperatures-by-month-average.php https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Texas/Places/austin-t...
  - ced 10y ago
    Heat isn't the only issue. From Wikipedia for the Netherlands: Ice days (maximum temperature below 0 °C (32 °F)) usually occur from December until February, with the occasional rare ice day prior to or after that period. Freezing days (minimum temperature below 0 °C (32 °F)) occur much more often, usually ranging from mid-November to late March, but not rarely measured as early as mid-October and as late as mid-May. I live in Montreal. I bike 9/12 months, and just take public transit / car sharing services in the winter months, or when I need it. I assume the Dutch do the same. I also lived in Austin for 6 months until July, and I found that the weather was pretty uniformly bikable because the heat was dry, though yeah, having showers at the office can be necessary if you live far away. It almost never rained, though. That's a big plus for biking. Like most lifestyle issues, it's mostly just a matter of getting used to it.
mgce 10y ago
I'm not sure if you're already aware of this, but NYC has also been aggressively building out cycling infrastructure since the Bloomberg administration. So your point is not unknown to policy makers: http://www.amny.com/transit/new-york-city-to-reach-1-000-miles-of-bike-lanes-on-tuesday-1.10873995 http://www.amny.com/transit/new-york-city-to-reach-1-000-mil...
- awjr 10y ago
  I have Sadik Khan's book on her work in New York http://www.jsadikkhan.com/streetfight-the-book.html http://www.jsadikkhan.com/streetfight-the-book.html
  - stuaxo 10y ago
    It could get confusing if she came to London to work with our Mayor Sadiq Kahn.
1_2__3 10y ago
I think at some point you are going to have to accept the fact that no, cars are not going to go away in the US. You can crow all you want about how much better mass transportation is but you're arguing for the benefit of society to the detriment to the individual, something that will never fly in the American ethos. Biven that all the near-term technological improvements like AR systems, electric/non-internal-combustion engines and size coming down (Smart Car and equivalents have been gaining traction in the US for some time), combined with the basic geography of most of the US outside of cities, combined with the politics, combined with things like national security (why we built the international highway system in the first place), all predict a future where no, rail lines stuffed with humans who then take rideshares to their final destination are not going to be our reality. I'll also tack on that progressives' constant attempts to belittle car owners does a very poor job convincing anyone that mass transit should be or even can be our future. When you sneeringly tell, say, a middle-aged mother who has relied on cars her whole life and continues to rely on cars now, that she's just made arbitrary choices to need a car and she could eliminate the need for one easily, she's going to laugh at you, as she should. Unless you want to expand the definition of "choice" to be "anything that is not an involuntary biological function" it's just naively facile to say something like that, but these threads are full of people ready and able to tell their fellow Americans how they should live. That's just not going to effect any change at all.
- ska 10y ago
  You're largely correct, but it is also true that the car ownership centric choices made on infrastructure and city growth turned out not to work so well either. The best near to mid term developments probably involve cars still being quite central to many Americans lifestyle, while simultaneously becoming a bit more expensive and less convenient (e.g. less subsidized infrastructure, less central to urban planning). Simultaneously (some?) urban centers can become significantly less reliant on car ownership. Everyone can (and should) make their own choices, but we can work on having those choices less distorted by the policy objectives that have emphasized car (and for that matter home) ownership over other alternatives.
- pavel_lishin 10y ago
  > you're arguing for the benefit of society to the detriment to the individual Isn't that just a marketing challenge? Seems like going carless can be presented as a benefit, with many pros over cons, if the infrastructure begins to get built out. With driverless smart-cars (which, I know, might be as much of an impossible nerdgasm pipe dream as flying cars): * You no longer have to pay for insurance on a car that spends 90% of its time idle in your garage, nor gas, nor maintenance - except for the fees built into "hiring" the car, which is directly proportional to your use of it. * No more car payments, either. No longer are you taking an instant 25% hit as soon as you drive a 2017 Hyundai Sombrero or whatever off the lot. * For a lot of people, losing their car is financially crippling. If you wreck your car that you depend on driving to work in, most times insurance doesn't pay out enough to replace it with an equivalent car. Often, it doesn't pay out enough to replace it with any car. * Tired of figuring out who in your four-driver family gets to use the car this weekend? Now your husband, Tiffany and Timmy can all get to their football game, football game, and football game on Saturday. * Tired of spending three hours a day chauffeuring your kids to school and extra-curricular activities? Not anymore. etc,. etc.
sliverstorm 10y ago
IMO, less congestion makes for roads that are less terrifying for bicyclists.
sandworm101 10y ago
Netherlands is a special case in terms of human-powered transpo. It is flat, engineered, and has relatively tame weather. Some of us do not live beside calm waterways and associated setbacks and level grades so loved by bikes. The nearest waterway to me is more gorge than river. The road in front of my house has a 30* slope in places and, at the moment, is covered in ice. Bikeing to work in my town is a fundimentally different experiance than the average netherland commute.
antihero 10y ago
Segregated cycle lanes need to absolutely be a priority. I was considering cycling to work (London), and literally this morning walked outside for a break to see a load of paramedics and some poor person under a truck at the junction outside my office. Needless to say, this soured my view distinctly. City cycling in London is really dangerous, and courts are highly favourable towards drivers.
- dx034 10y ago
  I cycle here everyday and don't find it very dangerous if you're careful. The city has done a lot for cyclists in the last years (highways are only one example) and the fatality rate is relatively stable for several years now, even though cycling numbers increase by ~20% each year. Most lorry drivers are very aware of cyclists now, so if you don't try to pass them on the left (where they can't see you even if they wanted to), they'll be careful to stay away. I also don't know where you get the argument with the courts from. Any evidence for that? I've never seen police pulling over a cyclists, but I've seen several occasions of police pulling over cars that stood in cyclist areas (the ones in front of traffic lights).

by awjr 10y ago

BlackjackCF 10y ago

Unfortunately, it's not an easy problem to solve. I live in LA and I have to drive to work because there's just not simply a viable alternative to where I have to commute to (West Adams area to West Hollywood.) The bike lanes across LA are spotty at best and there's a good chance you're going to get hit/brushed by a car because the closer you get to Beverly Hills/West Hollywood, the more impatient/asshole-ish drivers become. LA is trying to solve this right now with better public transportation, but even then the line that runs into Beverly Hills/West Hollywood requires me to take I think a train and a bus before I can even get to it (also it's not complete for another 4 years, I think.)

beachstartup 10y ago
surely there's a bus that goes straight up fairfax? edit: looks like the 217 bus goes up fairfax and into west hollywood. why not take that?
- BlackjackCF 10y ago
  The 217 bus would be perfect if it had a stop in between its San Vicente and Santa Monica stop. It would probably be another mile walk from there. It ultimately does come down to convenience. :( Commuting by bus/Expo line means easily adding another 30 minutes to my commute if I happen to hit all the correct times at once.
my_username_is_ 10y ago
Surely the city could find a series of roads that could be made into one-way streets, and have segregated bike lanes on the other side?
- cortesoft 10y ago
  There are a number of issues with this. One, Los Angeles is VERY sprawling; people are traveling from every direction to every other direction, there are no easy routes you can make that will cut very much traffic. You would need to turn a LOT of streets into one-ways with bike lanes. Two, the traffic density and management is crazy here. So many traffic lights and stop and go traffic. Major streets are constantly crossing other major streets, which require long stops at lights while the other major street moves through. Riding a bike in the area is especially hard, because you are constantly having to come to a complete stop, wait for 3 minutes, and start again.
  - kchoudhu 10y ago
    This also makes otherwise walkable neighborhoods very difficult for pedestrians to navigate. Red lights need to cycle much, much faster.
    - BlackjackCF 10y ago
      This. It's also really, really annoying that all the lights on an entire stretch of a street cycle at the same time. It really fucks up traffic. To make it even worse, people often try and race to the other side even on yellows and block up the intersection, which makes traffic even worse.
      - kchoudhu 10y ago
        I didn't realize it was such a huge problem until I moved to Los Angeles a few weeks ago. We did a bang up job finding an apartment with grocery stores, restaurants and parks within walking distance. Unfortunately, the red light situation makes it somewhat difficult to get to these amenities. LA needs to do a better job of balancing pedestrian and motorist interests. With more and more people abandoning or at least de-emphasizing cars, I hope and expect this balancing act to happen sooner rather than later.

Justsignedup 10y ago

NYC's problem is also distance. Depending on where you're coming from biking could take 1.5-2hrs each way. I enjoy it but the problem is with extreme rising housing costs people are pushed further and further. Though to be honest, a SAFE biking lane system would be a much welcome gift in NYC. Currently in certain areas I have to work doubly hard to not get killed daily.

awjr 10y ago
Yup and without protected bike lanes you only get those people 'brave enough' to venture out. To get people on situp and beg bikes (or ebikes) riding in normal clothes, you have to have visible end-to-end safe lanes. Look at London. They removed two traffic lanes, installed wide cycle lanes and now move 5% more people through the space. 70% of traffci through Blackfriars is people cycling, mostly in day to day clothing.
- 1_2__3 10y ago
  And in a dense urban core in a mild climate that makes perfect sense. Which greater Manhattan is not.
  - emj 10y ago
    What? NYC is perfect for biking.
    - pavel_lishin 10y ago
      I wouldn't say that NYC is uniformly perfect for biking throughout the year. The summer is very hot and humid, effectively requiring you to shower before going to work. The winter is cold, and the roads and frequently covered in snow and/or ice. Both of these problems can be worked around, but they are daunting for anyone who's not already fairly dedicated; a newbie isn't going to ride to his law office in 95 degree weather, or through slush. (And that's just the weather; I'm not taking into account the crappy car traffic through most of Manhattan, or the huge valley around 125th street, or the fact that going across the Brooklyn Bridge is incredibly annoying whenever pedestrians are present, etc.)

source99 10y ago

Much of the academic research I have read (Check out Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes) shows the exact opposite to be true. Our diets accounts for dramatically much higher cause of obesity than our environment and specifically cars.

awjr 10y ago
I'm just going to point at the Netherlands their obesity rate of 10%. They have designed in an hour or more of exercise per day into just getting around. In the UK some cities have stats where people are known to just do 20 minutes of walking exercise per year.
- dpark 10y ago
  > In the UK some cities have stats where people are known to just do 20 minutes of walking exercise per year. No way that's correct unless the U.K. has cities full of bedridden people. 20 minutes of walking is 3.3 seconds per day. You need a catheter or a wheelchair to walk that little.
  - awjr 10y ago
    I did qualify it as exercise. In other words, somebody deliberately 'going for a walk to exercise'. It would be interesting to know how many people do no form of exercise.
    - dpark 10y ago
      You also claim that the Dutch "have designed in an hour or more of exercise per day into just getting around." You're using two entirely different measures so your comparison is useless. If only "deliberate" walking exercise counts, then there are probably lots of Dutch getting no exercise.
ceras 10y ago
Diet definitely has a bigger impact than exercise, but isn't there still a correlation between more urban areas and lower obesity even when controlling for poverty? There may be other factors to urban, non-car-based living besides the extra physical activity that encourages lower weight. It's maybe as simple as without a car you can't go to Costco and stock up on huge sacks of unhealthy foods in one go -- beats me, I'd be interested to learn more.

criddell 10y ago

I love the cycling idea, but for big chunks of the US it couldn't work. I live in Austin and ride my bicycle to work whenever I can, however my office has showers. Without showers here, I'd never do it (and would hope that nobody else would either). Frankly though, the obesity problem is almost entirely about diet. More exercise would be great, but wouldn't address the actual problem.

justincormack 10y ago
showers are part of cycling infrastructure I guess.
hobbyjogger 10y ago
Yeah, people tend to overlook the role climate plays in these comparisons. There's an enormous difference in cycling's viability as a primary means of transportation in a place like the Netherlands where average high temperatures rarely exceed 75, as opposed to Texas where a typical summer will have a prolonged period of temps in the 90s and multiple 100+ days. The average high temperature in Amsterdam's warmest two months is 70F.[0] Austin's average high temp is warmer than that for every month except December, January and February. In the warmest months, the average highs are 96 and 97. [1] [0]: http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/ http://www.holiday-weather.com/amsterdam/averages/ [1]: https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Texas/Places/austin-temperatures-by-month-average.php https://www.currentresults.com/Weather/Texas/Places/austin-t...
- ced 10y ago
  Heat isn't the only issue. From Wikipedia for the Netherlands: Ice days (maximum temperature below 0 °C (32 °F)) usually occur from December until February, with the occasional rare ice day prior to or after that period. Freezing days (minimum temperature below 0 °C (32 °F)) occur much more often, usually ranging from mid-November to late March, but not rarely measured as early as mid-October and as late as mid-May. I live in Montreal. I bike 9/12 months, and just take public transit / car sharing services in the winter months, or when I need it. I assume the Dutch do the same. I also lived in Austin for 6 months until July, and I found that the weather was pretty uniformly bikable because the heat was dry, though yeah, having showers at the office can be necessary if you live far away. It almost never rained, though. That's a big plus for biking. Like most lifestyle issues, it's mostly just a matter of getting used to it.

mgce 10y ago

I'm not sure if you're already aware of this, but NYC has also been aggressively building out cycling infrastructure since the Bloomberg administration. So your point is not unknown to policy makers: http://www.amny.com/transit/new-york-city-to-reach-1-000-miles-of-bike-lanes-on-tuesday-1.10873995 http://www.amny.com/transit/new-york-city-to-reach-1-000-mil...

awjr 10y ago
I have Sadik Khan's book on her work in New York http://www.jsadikkhan.com/streetfight-the-book.html http://www.jsadikkhan.com/streetfight-the-book.html
- stuaxo 10y ago
  It could get confusing if she came to London to work with our Mayor Sadiq Kahn.

1_2__3 10y ago

I think at some point you are going to have to accept the fact that no, cars are not going to go away in the US. You can crow all you want about how much better mass transportation is but you're arguing for the benefit of society to the detriment to the individual, something that will never fly in the American ethos. Biven that all the near-term technological improvements like AR systems, electric/non-internal-combustion engines and size coming down (Smart Car and equivalents have been gaining traction in the US for some time), combined with the basic geography of most of the US outside of cities, combined with the politics, combined with things like national security (why we built the international highway system in the first place), all predict a future where no, rail lines stuffed with humans who then take rideshares to their final destination are not going to be our reality. I'll also tack on that progressives' constant attempts to belittle car owners does a very poor job convincing anyone that mass transit should be or even can be our future. When you sneeringly tell, say, a middle-aged mother who has relied on cars her whole life and continues to rely on cars now, that she's just made arbitrary choices to need a car and she could eliminate the need for one easily, she's going to laugh at you, as she should. Unless you want to expand the definition of "choice" to be "anything that is not an involuntary biological function" it's just naively facile to say something like that, but these threads are full of people ready and able to tell their fellow Americans how they should live. That's just not going to effect any change at all.

ska 10y ago
You're largely correct, but it is also true that the car ownership centric choices made on infrastructure and city growth turned out not to work so well either. The best near to mid term developments probably involve cars still being quite central to many Americans lifestyle, while simultaneously becoming a bit more expensive and less convenient (e.g. less subsidized infrastructure, less central to urban planning). Simultaneously (some?) urban centers can become significantly less reliant on car ownership. Everyone can (and should) make their own choices, but we can work on having those choices less distorted by the policy objectives that have emphasized car (and for that matter home) ownership over other alternatives.
pavel_lishin 10y ago
> you're arguing for the benefit of society to the detriment to the individual Isn't that just a marketing challenge? Seems like going carless can be presented as a benefit, with many pros over cons, if the infrastructure begins to get built out. With driverless smart-cars (which, I know, might be as much of an impossible nerdgasm pipe dream as flying cars): * You no longer have to pay for insurance on a car that spends 90% of its time idle in your garage, nor gas, nor maintenance - except for the fees built into "hiring" the car, which is directly proportional to your use of it. * No more car payments, either. No longer are you taking an instant 25% hit as soon as you drive a 2017 Hyundai Sombrero or whatever off the lot. * For a lot of people, losing their car is financially crippling. If you wreck your car that you depend on driving to work in, most times insurance doesn't pay out enough to replace it with an equivalent car. Often, it doesn't pay out enough to replace it with any car. * Tired of figuring out who in your four-driver family gets to use the car this weekend? Now your husband, Tiffany and Timmy can all get to their football game, football game, and football game on Saturday. * Tired of spending three hours a day chauffeuring your kids to school and extra-curricular activities? Not anymore. etc,. etc.

sliverstorm 10y ago

IMO, less congestion makes for roads that are less terrifying for bicyclists.

sandworm101 10y ago

Netherlands is a special case in terms of human-powered transpo. It is flat, engineered, and has relatively tame weather. Some of us do not live beside calm waterways and associated setbacks and level grades so loved by bikes. The nearest waterway to me is more gorge than river. The road in front of my house has a 30* slope in places and, at the moment, is covered in ice. Bikeing to work in my town is a fundimentally different experiance than the average netherland commute.

antihero 10y ago

Segregated cycle lanes need to absolutely be a priority. I was considering cycling to work (London), and literally this morning walked outside for a break to see a load of paramedics and some poor person under a truck at the junction outside my office. Needless to say, this soured my view distinctly. City cycling in London is really dangerous, and courts are highly favourable towards drivers.

dx034 10y ago
I cycle here everyday and don't find it very dangerous if you're careful. The city has done a lot for cyclists in the last years (highways are only one example) and the fatality rate is relatively stable for several years now, even though cycling numbers increase by ~20% each year. Most lorry drivers are very aware of cyclists now, so if you don't try to pass them on the left (where they can't see you even if they wanted to), they'll be careful to stay away. I also don't know where you get the argument with the courts from. Any evidence for that? I've never seen police pulling over a cyclists, but I've seen several occasions of police pulling over cars that stood in cyclist areas (the ones in front of traffic lights).