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@bq
I ride motorbikes as well as bicycles and people like the LCC really piss me off with their unrealistic, biased and anti-everything-except-cycles bullshit. For a start they are not cyclists' bus lanes. They are for buses.
No-one has yet mentioned the findings of the 18 month long pilot study. They were that motorcycle, bicycle and pedestrian accidents were ALL down by roughly 50%. Everyone won. Here's why
Motorcyclists (at least those with British full bike licences) are probably amongst the most highly trained and skilled road users you will encounter. Not only do we do a shit load more training than anyone in a car or on a bicycle (which for the majority of cyclists is none at all) we also have an acutely developed sense of our own vulnerability and mortality. I guarantee the vast majority of shit riding you see will be people with L plates on their bikes. you know they are crap because they have not managed to pass their test yet.
Motorcycles have engines that make a noise. That means that pedestrians who, as we all know, blithely step into the road without looking may on occasion stay on the pavement, and perhaps even look, because they heard a motorbike engine.
Motorcycles in bus lanes means fewer motorcycles in between lanes of traffic and fewer motorcycles in the middle of the road. safer for motorbikes, but also safer for anyone crossing, anyone cycling, overtaking etc. No nasty surprises because motorbikes will be out in the open for all to see.
Motorcycles - well, at least the one ridden by me - take a protective attitude towards bicycles. I will block traffic, create space, rev my motor to warn dozy pedestrians of my presence - whatever it takes - to make an overtake or a junction or any other manoeuvre safer for a cyclist. So will many others I see. Even those bikers who are not also cyclists know how much room we ourselves like to be left. In bus lanes this means motorcyclists will also be watching cyclists backs against buses, black cabs, people turning left, etc. If left turners get used to looking out for motorbikes (who have insurance and can sue them, so maybe they will, you never know) then they will get used to looking out for bicycles too.
This includes Advanced stop lines. Yes bikers use them, and for the exact reasons that they were put there for cyclists - because it is far safer to only have to worry about what's behind rather than what is in front too - like cyclists motorbike riders need to know what is going on much further ahead than a car does. But there's another reason motorcyclists use them. Because cyclists don't. The number of junctions where these are placed in a position that is actually of any use to a cyclist is minimal, and most cyclists either stop well ahead of the ASL or just don't bother stopping at all. That's fine with me as long as they give pedestrians the right of way. Now I personally will not enter an ASL if I am already at the front of the queue, and blatantly position myself so as to set the example to other bikers (which sometimes works), but I will use them if I am filtering to the front. One thing about ASLs which is never mentioned is that the very presence of motorbikes in them is what keeps the cars and vans out of them. which allows the space not occupied by the motorcycle to be occupied by a bicycle. you know yourselves if there is no motorbike up front the ASL is usually full of car, bus, cab, van or truck.