Cycling on Irish motorways: not news?

doozerie

blorg wrote:

The risks for cyclists, insofar as they exist on HQDCs are entry ramps, not the hard shoulder which is very safe.

Your description of the hard shoulder as very safe seems to be based on the assumption that you'd encounter no traffic in the hard shoulder. The facts are against you there. I listed the AA figures for motorway breakdowns (of AA members only) in Ireland in an earlier post and those figures are quite high. All such incidents should involve use of the hard shoulder and those are only the legitimate users of the hard shoulder and it is anyone's guess as to how often the hard shoulder is used illegally (I've certainly seen some ridiculously dangerous uses of it, such as reversing back to an earlier exit).

blorg wrote:

Do you honestly think cycling on a motorway or HQDC hard shoulder is more dangerous than a narrow N road with no hard shoulder?

I think that cycling on a motorway hard shoulder is more dangerous than either cycling on a HQDC hard shoulder or on a narrow N road with no hard shoulder. That doesn't mean to say that the latter two are safe, just that the motorway has the added dangers of extra speed (usually, though not always in this country) and the significant fact that drivers will not be looking out for cyclists on a motorway whereas they are obliged to do so on other roads. It is commonly argued that the more cyclists that appear on our roads, the greater the awareness of cyclists to motorists and the better the safety for all cyclists as a result - I believe there is some merit in that argument, and motorways are pretty much the polar opposite given that every driver "knows" that they'll encounter no cyclist on the motorway and therefore they'll (reasonably) make no allowances for them being there. And even if you convince yourself that the motorway hard shoulder is a safe haven, despite evidence to the contrary, as a cyclist you can't safely assume that you'll actually be able to stay within the hard shoulder for the duration of your ride on the motorway.

blorg

Your AA stats amounted to 8 cars per day in the hard shoulder... across the entire Irish motorway network. The chances of a car appearing there suddenly at the exact time and in the exact place you are there is very very small.

I don't think cyclists should ride on the motorway and I agree there is a slightly greater danger than on a HQDC due to the extra speed (in some cases) and lack of expectation that a cyclist will be there.

I don't agree however that a HQDC hard shoulder is more dangerous than a busy narrow road (I would consider it substantially safer) and for a motorway to be more dangerous it would have to be some large multiple of danger over the HQDC which I am skeptical about (IIRC in the general accident stats motorways and HQDC are close.)

TinyExplosions

I'd have to agree with Blorg here... I simply cannot see how cycling on a Motorway is inherently more dangerous than doing so on a HQDC.

Any stats of cars using hard shoulders etc are just as valid for users of a HQDC, and are in fact probably lower for a motorway, meaning that you are less likely to see a car on the shoulder of a motorway than you are on the shoulder of a HQDC. Add to that the fact that there should be no learner drivers on a Motorway, and it could be argued that the quality of driver is higher, and therefore you are safer on a Motorway than on a HQDC with loads of dangerous Learners, 50cc Mopeds, Horses and pedestrians all over the place (that last bit is tongue in cheek btw).

Any talk of people stopped for petrol, cars having blowouts etc etc are just straw men, as simply being on a motorway does not make the incidence of these things higher than on other major roads, and given that the speed people drive at is similar, how can it be more dangerous on a Motorway?

Yes it's illegal to cycle on them, and so one shouldn't, but presuming that it's fraught with danger is very wooly thinking

Iwannahurl

Am I following your logic correctly?

You seem to be saying that, among other factors, the banning of learner drivers from motorways makes such highways safer for cyclists?

doozerie

blorg wrote:

Your AA stats amounted to 8 cars per day in the hard shoulder... across the entire Irish motorway network. The chances of a car appearing there suddenly at the exact time and in the exact place you are there is very very small.

Yes, that is across the entire country, but it also accounts only for AA members that used the AA service for a breakdown. The real figure for the number of vehicles in the motorway hard shoulder is higher than that - I suspect it is substantially higher based on what I've seen while driving on motorways but that's an entirely subjective assessment. Out of curiosity I just panned along a few kilometres stretch of the M50 in the satellite view of GoogleMaps and saw 3 vehicles in the hard shoulder, accidentally and briefly dropping into StreetView showed a truck apparently stopped in there too - more anecdotes, but interesting nonetheless.

What it boils down to for me is that, other factors aside (e.g. junctions), the chances of encountering a vehicle in the motorway hard shoulder is certainly not small enough to describe cycling in there as safe, and certainly not "very safe".

cantalach

blorg wrote: »

I don't agree however that a HQDC hard shoulder is more dangerous than a busy narrow road (I would consider it substantially safer)

Agree fully. I lead a small training group of 10-12 twice a week. Whenever we have close shaves they are always on narrow, two-way roads. We frequently use the N25 and N22 to return to Cork City from points east and west respectively. Both of these are HQDCs with 120km/h limits and we have never had a close shave on these roads.

and for a motorway to be more dangerous it would have to be some large multiple of danger over the HQDCs which I am skeptical about

Yes, I cannot imagine that there is any significant difference in safety between a motorway and a HQDC with a 120km/h limit. There is, of course, a big difference legally which is why I would never cycle on a motorway.

blorg

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Am I following your logic correctly?

You seem to be saying that, among other factors, the banning of learner drivers from motorways makes such highways safer for cyclists?

It makes them safer, sure. The banning of cyclists also makes them safer for learner drivers who illegally drive on them. No one is arguing that cyclists should be allowed to ride on them, just against the idea they are in some way incredibly dangerous when all the evidence indicates they are the safest roads in the country.

TinyExplosions

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Am I following your logic correctly?

You seem to be saying that, among other factors, the banning of learner drivers from motorways makes such highways safer for cyclists?

You see, I just knew someone would take it up that way.... I mean, I even said:

(that last bit is tongue in cheek btw).

But you still get someone who takes it seriously!

And what I actually said was learner drives on HQDC's raises the risk for cyclists.

Iwannahurl

blorg wrote: »

It makes them safer, sure. The banning of cyclists also makes them safer for learner drivers who illegally drive on them. No one is arguing that cyclists should be allowed to ride on them, just against the idea they are in some way incredibly dangerous when all the evidence indicates they are the safest roads in the country.

Presumably motorways are safer because traffic streams are segregated and speed variation is minimised.

Therefore it makes no sense to me to suggest that because motorways are safer then it is safer for slower moving vehicles such as bicycles to use the motorway!

I have no doubt that cyclists are at risk, actual and perceived, on narrow winding N roads with a lower speed limit and no hard shoulder. Reasons: high speed variation (motorised vehicles at ~100 kph versus cyclists), lack of segregation and inherent vulnerability of cyclists (no metal box, airbags etc).

Reduction of such risk ought not to involve cycling on the motorway, in theory or practice.

Chips Lovell

I love the way we've multiple pages of debate about a hypothetical question, i.e. if it were legal, would it be dangerous?

blorg

el tonto wrote: »

I love the way we've multiple pages of debate about a hypothetical question, i.e. if it were legal, would it be dangerous?

Well, effectively that is what riding on a HQDC is- and that is a lot safer than a busy road with no hard shoulder.

Chips Lovell

I don't know what a tracker mortgage HQDC is. Does it mean High Quality Dual Carriageway? And if so, what's the difference between it and a commoner garden dual carriagway?

Iwannahurl

TinyExplosions wrote: »

You see, I just knew someone would take it up that way.... I mean, I even said:

But you still get someone who takes it seriously!

And what I actually said was learner drives on HQDC's raises the risk for cyclists.

Perhaps you need to make the funny bits more obvious.

What you actually wrote was:

TinyExplosions wrote: »

Add to that the fact that there should be no learner drivers on a Motorway, and it could be argued that the quality of driver is higher, and therefore you are safer on a Motorway than on a HQDC with loads of dangerous Learners, 50cc Mopeds, Horses and pedestrians all over the place (that last bit is tongue in cheek btw).

It was not clear what was included in the "last bit".

blorg

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Presumably motorways are safer because traffic streams are segregated and speed variation is minimised.

Therefore it makes no sense to me to suggest that because motorways are safer then it is safer for slower moving vehicles such as bicycles to use the motorway!

I have no doubt that cyclists are at risk, actual and perceived, on narrow winding N roads with a lower speed limit and no hard shoulder. Reasons: high speed variation (motorised vehicles at ~100 kph versus cyclists), lack of segregation and inherent vulnerability of cyclists (no metal box, airbags etc).

Reduction of such risk ought not to involve cycling on the motorway, in theory or practice.

I agree with the segregation and lack of speed variation making a motorway safer and I don't think cyclists should be allowed on them. No-one has argued that cyclists should be on them.

To argue that it is "incredibly" dangerous though suggests that it must be more dangerous than other common road types (such as narrow N roads) which I think necessitates arguing that cycling on a virtually identical HQDC is also "incredibly" dangerous- which it is not.

It is the hard shoulder that increases cyclist safety on a HQDC over a narrow road, which is a limited form of segregation (by lane.)

blorg

el tonto wrote: »

I don't know what a tracker mortgage HQDC is. Does it mean High Quality Dual Carriageway? And if so, what's the difference between it and a commoner garden dual carriagway?

It is a dual carriageway built to motorway standard, so fully grade separated, motorway lane widths, wide hard shoulder and so on. The N3 would be an example that you ride on regularly and indeed a chunk of it was redesignated as motorway last year with no structural changes.

niceonetom

Footpad of the day award goes to el_tonto:

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/common-or-garden

Chips Lovell

Fuuuuuuu

Lumen

niceonetom wrote: »

Footpad of the day award goes to el_tonto:

http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/common-or-garden

Indeed. Eur "commoner garden" 'ood be an allotment, wheear ah nip on ta ten' uz spuds afta eur 'ard day daahn t' pit.

(translation from the Chicken Run Yorkshire Translator)

tomasrojo

I've always assumed the expression is from the use of the terms "common" and "garden" in popular names for animals and plants that are found everywhere. E.g. the "garden snail" and the "common sparrow".

doozerie

blorg wrote:

To argue that it is "incredibly" dangerous though suggests that it must be more dangerous than other common road types (such as narrow N roads) which I think necessitates arguing that cycling on a virtually identical HQDC is also "incredibly" dangerous- which it is not.

You are not comparing like with like here. There is at least one significant difference between a motorway and a HQDC, which is that drivers on the former are encouraged to believe that they will not encounter any cyclists (or mopeds, etc.). You may believe that this has no impact whatsoever on the attitude or actions of those drivers, but then you'd be getting into an even more subtly grey shade of argument.

At a certain point you might just as well argue that cycling down the outside of the spire is inherently safe as there has never been a record of someone having been killed or injured while doing so. And it doesn't even have a hard shoulder.

TinyExplosions

Iwannahurl wrote: »

Perhaps you need to make the funny bits more obvious.

Or care less when someone misses the point

TinyExplosions

doozerie wrote: »

You are not comparing like with like here. There is at least one significant difference between a motorway and a HQDC, which is that drivers on the former are encouraged to believe that they will not encounter any cyclists (or mopeds, etc.). You may believe that this has no impact whatsoever on the attitude or actions of those drivers, but then you'd be getting into an even more subtly grey shade of argument.

I think this is the crux of the issue. I don't agree that drivers are "encouraged to believe that they will not encounter any cyclists (or mopeds, etc.)". The law states that they are not supposed to be there, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen, and certainly it would be no defense for a driver to say "sorry guard, that learner driver wasn't supposed to be there, so I kind of ignored him".

blorg

@doozerie- as I said a few posts back, I accept that is a difference but I don't think it is a significant enough difference to change a relatively safe road type into one that is incredibly dangerous.

By your own argument motorway drivers should expect slower moving/stopped vehicles in the hard shoulder.

doozerie

TinyExplosions wrote:

I think this is the crux of the issue. I don't agree that drivers are "encouraged to believe that they will not encounter any cyclists (or mopeds, etc.)". The law states that they are not supposed to be there, but that doesn't mean that it couldn't happen, and certainly it would be no defense for a driver to say "sorry guard, that learner driver wasn't supposed to be there, so I kind of ignored him".

I imagine the onus of responsibility would fall mostly on the cyclists' side. I'm not sure that either party is ever found to be completely in the clear in *any* road traffic accident. If the car had been driving in the hard shoulder at the time of the collision then it might not go so well for the driver I'd expect.

Similarly, I once encountered a guy driving the wrong way on my side of a motorway. I didn't collide with him, thankfully, but if I had I don't think an argument on his part of "well now sure he should have seen me yer honour, sure wasn't I distinctive by virtue of the fact that I was the only one driving straight at him" would have done the driver much good in court.

TinyExplosions

doozerie wrote: »

I imagine the onus of responsibility would fall mostly on the cyclists' side. I'm not sure that either party is ever found to be completely in the clear in *any* road traffic accident. If the car had been driving in the hard shoulder at the time of the collision then it might not go so well for the driver I'd expect.

Similarly, I once encountered a guy driving the wrong way on my side of a motorway. I didn't collide with him, thankfully, but if I had I don't think an argument on his part of "well now sure he should have seen me yer honour, sure wasn't I distinctive by virtue of the fact that I was the only one driving straight at him" would have done the driver much good in court.

Well, seeing as you're encouraged to believe that you will not encounter such a maniac, well done for getting out of the way of the eejit.

May I suggest that you were a vigilant driver who noticed something unexpected was happening, and took appropriate action? Could that not also extend to the vast majority of other users at the time? Could that not also be the case that if you saw a cyclist on the Hard Shoulder, you wouldn't immediately lose control and swerve into him?

We're going round and round in circles here, so I think the best thing is to agree to disagree. Myself (and Blorg) simply don't see the massive difference between Motorways and HQDC's that you and some others seem to, and we should leave it there I guess!

HivemindXX

I don't find the HQDCs (which I have previously been calling half-assed pseudo-motorways) to be safer than other roads in general.

The N11 between Greystones and Enniskerry is not safe to cycle in my opinion. Having motorists pass me on the inside and the outside both going 100kph while craning my head around to see when it might be safe to cross the merging lane does not make me happy.

There are plenty of N roads which have hard shoulders where secondary roads join at right angles and motorists have to stop and wait until it's clear before joining. As a cyclist I far prefer this approach.

This is not to say that there aren't individual examples of narrow roads that are more dangerous than a typical HAPM. There certainly are roads which are too narrow for the speed people drive on them and these are very dangerous indeed.

doozerie

blorg wrote: »

@doozerie- as I said a few posts back, I accept that is a difference but I don't think it is a significant enough difference to change a relatively safe road type into one that is incredibly dangerous.

I think you'd have to delve into the reasons why motorways are rated as relatively safe before you could extrapolate that to include them being relatively safe for cyclists. In the absence of any contradicatory facts the argument could be twisted in any arbitrary way - for example a particularly contrary person could try to argue that motorways are safer entirely *because of* the absence of cyclists.

blorg wrote:

By your own argument motorway drivers should expect slower moving/stopped vehicles in the hard shoulder.

Of course, which brings us back to the warnings that go hand-in-hand with motorways that if you ever do break down on one, you push your car as far off the hard shoulder as you can and preferably stay out of the vehicle and even further off the hard shoulder yourself. You either believe those warnings to be based on something valid, or not. From this thread, and some of the actions I've witnessed on motorways, it seems that some people believe those warnings to be some form of scaremongering and therefore ignorable. Unfortunately, I've found it very difficult to source official figures for the numbers of accidents in motorway hard shoulders versus elsewhere on the carriageway, which might help clarify the validity of these warnings. In the absence of such figures though personally I'll continue to consider motorway hard shoulders as not being safe places to be, either in the car or on a bike.

doozerie

TinyExplosions wrote:

May I suggest that you were a vigilant driver who noticed something unexpected was happening, and took appropriate action?

No, I was lucky (as was he). I happened to be ahead of a broken line of traffic at the time and so I had a clear view ahead of me. I also happened to have moved into the middle lane moments before, while yer man was in the outer lane. Any of a number of things could have changed those circumstances to ones in which I wouldn't have seen him in time or had the opportunity to move out of his path, and as mentioned in previous posts you don't get much time to react to unexpected things at 120kph.

I do consider myself a vigilant driver generally, so I would typically watch out for cyclists on other roads (I'm a cyclist first, driver second, so cyclist safety is never far from my mind while on the road). However, on a motorway I'm busy focusing on everything else, happy to "know" that there is one less thing I have to try to focus on, and I honestly can't say how I would react if I saw a cyclist ahead nor could I predict how anyone else would react either.

blorg

My argument is quite simple and has two parts:

- HQDC hard shoulders are safer for cyclists than other common road types such as busy, narrow N roads.

- Motorway hard shoulders are not significantly more dangerous than HQDC hard shoulders.

You can disagree with either or both of the above of course.

coolbeans

blorg wrote: »

My argument is quite simple and has two parts:

- HQDC hard shoulders are safer for cyclists than other common road types such as busy, narrow N roads.

- Motorway hard shoulders are not significantly more dangerous than HQDC hard shoulders.

You can disagree with either or both of the above of course.

...yes, but what about the dangerous bits between the hard shoulders? I've not been convinced that slip roads are at all safe for cyclists.