Laser super bikeway
I feel I’ve gone on a bit too much about bicycles recently, but I’m not particularly interested in Michael Jackson so I’m not going write about him. Well, one little thing perhaps. I’d heard five Wackson Jackson jokes by 11 O’clock this morning and they all involved his penchant for children.
I will try and move onto non-bike topics, but first I want to say something about cycle lanes. Apparently, there’s evidence that special cycle paths actually make the roads less safe for cyclists. That may be so, but I feel safer riding in the little green box. Perhaps bike paths are like cycle helmets, which some evidence suggests do not improve overall cycling safety. It surely can’t hurt to wear one though.
Apparently, Boris is helping set up a network of bicycle super highways radiating through London. The first two paths run from Wimbledon to Bank and from Barking to Tower Hill and will be in use by next May. Boris was looking at the route of the east London path when the lorry almost took him out last month.
So, what will these ’superhighways’ for bikes mean? Firstly, they’ll have ‘their own identity’ with road markings and signs. That way we’ll at least know when we’re on one of these fabled routes. Secondly there’ll be ‘provision of advance stop boxes and … continuous lanes’. Most London roads already have ‘advance stop boxes’, but it sounds like Boris won’t have to worry apologising about going through red lights when ‘continuous lanes’ have been installed. I can almost hear the bubbling of the blood already as furious London drivers learn of that improvement to the capital’s roads.
Finally, ‘obstructions will be minimised and improvements made to road surfaces to ensure a smoother ride’. This is a very welcome change. My old warhorse clatters like a box of cutlery chucked down a lift-shaft when negotiating some of our pot-holed and pitted roads. Smoother roads would be lovely thanks Boris. I suppose removing the obstructions means getting rid of all those silly cycle paths – weh hey!
While we wait for the south east London bikeway, perhaps we can install our own cycle lane with the cunning LightLane. (Actually, we’ll have to wait for this too, as it’s currently a prototype.) This gadget from the US uses a laser to beam an illuminated cycle path on the ground around your bike.It’s meant to ‘encourage a driver to provide the rider with a wider berth by capturing their attention‘ according to an interview with LightLane’s designer on Wired. I wouldn’t be surprised if this didn’t actually make the road less safe for cyclists, like the counter-intuitive evidence that suggests bike paths and cycle helmets do just that too. Perhaps a laser gun would be better.
One of the slightly less rude (but not less tasteless) Wackson jokes: ‘Farrah Fawcett arrived in heaven yesterday and God gave her one wish. She asked for all the children of the world to be kept safe. Shortly afterwards Michael Jackson appeared at the pearly gates.’
Tags: bicycles, bike paths, Boris Johnson, cycle paths, LightLane, London bicycle superhighway