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ASLs are pointless. We should just move into primary where we stop in the traffic queue rather than filtering to the front.
They're useful if the roads are chock full of motor vehicles, which is most of the time when I'm commuting in London.
If the road up ahead is clear I'll sit in primary behind the cars that were already there; no point applying the MGIF and then holding them up unnecessarily.
During my commute I'll (quelle horreur) happily take the slightly greater risk of filtering up the inside as I'm on the lookout for possible left hooks all the time. I tend to move out into primary when approaching a junction in order to prevent it. Likewise I'll generally filter up to the ASL at red lights as I'm aware of the timings of most of the lights on my commute and, if I do get it wrong, my natural instinct is to get in to primary to go through the lights rather than risk continuing to filter up the inside across a junction.
If I didn't do any filtering at all my 35 minute commute would take over an hour and I'm not sure it would be any safer.
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I hear you and no doubt you're right but on my commute what @NickCJ points out tends to be the norm. Watching cyclists skateboard awkwardly up the left of cars/bikes/trucks in desperate hope of getting to the ASL before the lights change is painful to watch and more importantly looks like it's putting them in a potentially dangerous situation.
I guess my point was IME motorbikes blocking potential routes to the ASL neither has any affect on my commute time or my safety but some people seem to take real exception to it and make a point of getting past at all costs.
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Hmmmm. Not really one of those people who has to get to the ASL no matter what. If it is easy to filter and looks safe I'll do it. Mostly I just wait behind whatever traffic is already there. There are a few junctions on my journey where the ASL genuinely makes my life a little safer and a few where having one would.
Constantly amazed how people will put themselves in danger to get a few yards or even a few feet on.
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Surprisingly eventful lunchtime commute.
Watched a taxi driver roll into 2 consecutive ASLs after the light had been red for several seconds - tapped on his window to call him out on it.
Me: "That's two times in a row you've stopped in the bike box."
Him: "It's not that important, is it?"
Me: "It is that important - those are there for my safety. "
Him: "OK, OK. Fair play."
Me: "Cheers mate"The smart money says he did it again at the next lights he got to.
Also, rolling serenely through Myatt's Fields I encountered an extraordinarily angry fellow rider. I saw him coming towards me, so I moved over to the left of the path, but he decided to mirror me and we ended up nose-to-nose. I greeted him quizzically, he swore at me and rode off. Is there some convention in parks to ride on the right that I'm not aware of?
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It's nice! I just modified my commute to include it:
Maximising park time. #parklife
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It was bizarre. I've no idea what was going through his mind.
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Is there some convention in parks to ride on the right that I'm not aware of?
Ah, that would explain the woman in Finsbury Park who berated me for keeping left on the roadway when it should have been clear to me that that's where she wanted to be.
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Thanks. I used that form but at lunchtime a Lambeth waste lorry decided he couldn't wait for the lights, put his foot down and sped towards me and other people crossing the road...on a green man. We moved but it could have been a nasty ending for the lady with pram. Called 101 and reported the omnishambles, heard sirens racing there soon after. Will see if it's fixed on the way home.
UPDATE: They’re fixed! Looks like it was worth making that call.
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All this talk of queue jumping has me a bit confused. My route has a queue of (single occupancy) cars at least two traffic light cycles long at every junction. I don't think it's particularly anti-social of me to filter past the gridlock. It's the one factor that makes cycle journeys quicker than car journeys. My route is almost entirely cycle superhighways though, so it's a non-issue for motorists to pass me after the lights.
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The main reason why ASLs are put in doesn't have anything to do with 'safety', but is simply because cyclists have traditionally had very poor stop line discipline, and this is something that irks designers very much indeed. (Anything that reduces observance of highway markings, signs, or other aspects is like a red rag to a bull.)
ASLs do improve that a little, at the price of adding a confusing exception and the other small problems they create (see below), but they have mainly persisted because cyclists scattered throughout a car queue at the lights disrupt motor traffic capacity calculations. It's easier to make assumptions about that if you have them in a clump at the front of the queue. Modellers have tried to 'model' cyclists since forever but have still not succeeded. (I don't think they will.)
Paradoxically, as ASLs are quite misconceived, while they slightly improve how cyclists treat stop lines, they actually increase the number of other illegal manoeuvres rather than reduce them, e.g. drivers often overshoot the first stop line and then cyclists move even further ahead, often beyond the second stop line, etc.
Needless to say, most ASLs are implemented wrongly and it's surprisingly difficult to use them correctly.
The best advice for anyone who gets hung up on them is to treat them like a (small) problem for everyone.
mashton
PhilDAS
Greenbank
jono84
MrSweary
cgg
NickCJ
hippy
skidlidsid
MCamb
Tenners
middleofnowhere
brokebroadbeat
Backstop
jimmy_james
villa-ru
hamrack
Oliver Schick
Hefty-
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This morning's commute and other commuting stories
Posted by
@RikiBanger
controversial opinion
ASLs are pointless. We should just move into primary where we stop in the traffic queue rather than filtering to the front.
Two benefits - (i) no dumb close passes from frustrated traffic that you've just filtered past and (ii) no risk of lights turning green whilst you are still filtering and getting left hooked as you may not be visible.
That's what I do - am I missing anything?