This morning's commute and other commuting stories

Ha.

Bloody loved that show, watched it fully about 10 times....am I sad?

Yes.

was good though

I thought I was going to see someone get crushed by a bus they were squeezing up the side of on a very narrow street on my way home last night. They were wearing a star wars storm trooper jersey, it would have been a very undignified affair.

Usual amount of bellendery on the way in. even if you take it easy and don't rush the twats will try to ruin your day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wheLFIdoBLA

I wished it was more clear on these videos that the only reason the person isn't driving over the top of me is because I am paying attention and slowing down, this looks like he overtook me when in fact he took the space I was already occupying I had to move out of the way to avoid impact.

This morning I cycled to work for the first time in 8months.
I got fat.
Fatty fatty fatty.

Hate that bit of road, you have the issue with the buses on your left, cars on the right find that they are in the queue for the right hand turn but want to get straight on and so do what that numpty did above, and not to mention our friends on the motorbikes who buzz all around.

the annoying thing is they have about half a mile to decide which lane to get in from all the way back at the pedestrian crossing after the "death turning" (left hand turn on the common) and traffic is never heavy enough that they can't move between the two lanes before they hit the queue at the lights, they just don't want to have to queue in the correct lane so they use the right turn one instead because its shorter and they can force some other mug who waited correctly to let them in.

A school kid about 13ish blindly crosses the road in front of me with a van just behind which honks his horn. Kid steps back but not back onto the pavement but just one step so he is right in front of me. I miss him but only just by going behind him. Kid says nothing when i look at him. Tell him to apologize and to look for traffic if he is going to ignore the lights. People give me dirty looks for yelling at a child.

Yuck. Do you reckon he saw you and didn’t care (just barging you out of the way) or was totally oblivious to your presence because of not bothering to look?

In that kind of situation a loud knock on the side of the van sometimes wakes them up.

the former definitely.

also you can't really see but the reason there's a slight gap between me and the car in front is the bus on the left at the beginning pulls up behind the roadwork truck then swung out into my lane and then awkwardly back in front of it causing the traffic to have to slow so i was trying to keep my momentum without stopping, the only person who didn't slow down was the van dickhead.

Had to do this for the first time last week when a van driver pushed through at a traffic island giving my shoulder a brush with the wing mirror. Resulted in him having a frothing mouth, spittle laden, mostly incoherent rage.

Would tap on automobile and argue again.

Yes, knocking/punching the side of a van/car always leads to the driver rolling down their window and saying "if you touch my van/car again I will knock you out/call the police". But ofcourse them 30seconds early nearly running you over, pushing you into the curb etc is totally fine.

Had a van driver slam on the brakes on the middle of Old St roundabout, get out and ask for a fight for doing this once.
Genuinely psychotic reaction, so weird

posting to compliment user name Log_e(x)

It's the team bus for https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/club/profile/122/team-terminator

Bank junction is an absolute shitshow at the moment. Heading NW on King William St, the fucking bus always manages to block the ASL, so riders crowd round left and right, and in spite of this the bus always insists on moving off as soon as the lights change, before riders can get past safely. I always pass down the right hand side of the endless queue of buses with a view to cutting back left into the ASL, but inevitably find it's blocked when I get there.

i concur with this! i have to go this way due to the diversion northbound at monument and it's actively putting me off cycling some days.

...you forgot to mention peds stepping out between the endless queue of buses.

How do you complain about bus drivers?

The pedestrian crossing between lower marsh and Carlisle lane is blocked by a bus so often I've started to ponder pressing the emergency bus off button every time it happens.

It's really annoying because the pedestrian phase is short and the traffic phase is really long, and the bus wouldn't actually be delayed as it has to wait through 2 cycles of the next set of lights to join the Westminster bridge roundabout anyway.

How do you complain about bus drivers?

Vociferously.

I made a complaint recently to TfL using this page, and got an email saying they're looking into it but nothing else as yet.

It sounds like you have more of an infrastructure complaint though - which you can complain about using this page, and most likely receive a reply 2 weeks from now detailing why they're not going to do anything about the issue (like I did when I complained about the Oval bus trap (tm)).

Damned bicyclists in my way again today. What's that about eh.

It's really annoying because the pedestrian phase is short and the traffic phase is really long, and the bus wouldn't actually be delayed as it has to wait through 2 cycles of the next set of lights to join the Westminster bridge roundabout anyway.

I'd guess (not knowing that spot very well) that your answer may be implicit in this--the bus queues on the approach to the next junction probably get too long (quite a few bus routes use that stretch), quite possibly because they only get a green phase every two phases compared to the York Road/Lambeth Palace Road alignment (if that's the case).

You could certainly try to push this with TfL via the bus driver route, but in my experience that only works for a short while before it gets forgotten again.

The problem for bus drivers is that the bus lane ends close to the junction because there are only two approach lanes left (down from three), seemingly following recent footway widening works to accommodate a stretch of segregated cycle track on the footway. The three approach lanes were rather crammed in before (the nearside lane was most definitely sub-standard in width) and in principle it's a good thing to reduce approach lanes for motor traffic, as it reduces a junction's motor traffic capacity (and motor traffic volumes will adapt over time, which probably hasn't happened here yet), but typically such schemes have knock-on effects further down the line, which may be the case here. It's entirely possible that another scheme is in the works at that pedestrian crossing but just hasn't gone on-site yet, but it also happens that such effects are not predicted (although that would surprise me). Since the bus lane doesn't continue all the way to the next junction, a bus pre-signal scheme might work (although the space may be a little too tight to permit it).

In any case, I'm sure a note to TfL can only help in putting it on the radar, especially if other people have noticed. I wouldn't use the first page skidlidsid linked to, but the second one, or you could use this:

https://tfl.gov.uk/help-and-contact/contact-us-about-buses

There are also groups like Lambeth LCC or Living Streets that may be able to take it forward. I expect Lambeth LCC would know what's going on in that particular stretch.

in principle it's a good thing to reduce approach lanes for motor traffic, as it reduces a junction's motor traffic capacity (and motor traffic volumes will adapt over time

I understand what you are saying here but does this principle still apply in Central London? The reason I ask is that it seems to me from personal observation that most of the ‘discretionary’ rush hour traffic (ie private cars) has long since shifted to tube, bus, bike etc, so the people who are still driving in must need their car or van for some reason (disability, carrying tools and equipment, estate agents that drive clients to viewing etc).

At my firm only the bosses get car parking spaces (30 or so of them). They don't need to drive any more than the other employees but the majority of them do because they always have and they don't really get public transport. There are still plenty of people out there who drive for no reason other than they can.

So many people in full hi viz boil in the bag jackets. Also saw a guy riding in wearing a Rapha pro team softshell, I didn’t get the memo to expect full winter weather today.

Fixie bellend almost wiping out a kid on a mixed pedestrian/bike bit of pathway.