To think if cars don't allow enough room for my bike, I have no choice but to go onto the pavement?

[Hammy02]

I cycle to work everyday but increasingly I've found that cars are so close to the pavement that I couldn't fit my bike inbetween. What am I supposed to do? I live in a city in which there are loads of bikes so locals should be used to cyclists. Unless it is tourists but still.

Does nobody worry about the possibility of car doors opening on the pavement side when undertaking?

YANBU- as long as you don't expect me to get out of your way, if you happen to be cycling on the pavement behind me!

From a much earlier post. Motorbikes filter down the OUTSIDE of a queue of traffic, not on the inside. Also, people don't get pissed off with them because when the traffic starts moving they move off at the same speed as cars and don't hold up the traffic.

This is perfectly legal but many car drivers don't see it as "fair" and move out on you or indeed open their door.

Do you drive OP?

This may surprise you, but cars have to keep to one side of the road or they hit the ones coming the other way.

And on narrow roads, or ones with things parked on them, that means....

It is an offence to open a car door dangerously, which means it is illigal to open a car door to obstruct or hit a cyclist.

Many pavements where I live are shared between pedestrians and cyclists, which makes it legal to ride - considerately - on the pavement.

The majority of cyclists here will make their way up the left hand side of a row of queueing cars, riding between the cars and the pavement. It is safer than overtaking on a narrow street and then having to manoevre back in front of cars.

Car drivers should park and ride the subsidised buses into town

you should wait if you can't get past.

however when i rule the world it WILL BE LEGAL to ride your bike on the pavement before 9am and after 6pm

you should wait if you can't get past.

however when i rule the world it WILL BE LEGAL to ride your bike on the pavement before 9am and after 6pm

Cycling on the pavement is dangerous for pedestrians and illegal.

This annoys me too OP. I've never understood why some cars do it before,but now I see it's because some cars think cyclists shouldn't be on the left. Or indeed any right to be there atall it would seem from some of your comments.

Surely at junctions the cyclist needs to get to the front of the queue of traffic, so they can wait in the cyclists box and indicate, meaning traffic can see them and know what they are doing?

Bicycles aren't cars! They shouldn't have to behave like cars. That's why they have a separate section if the highway code.

We quite often move over to allow cyclists & motorbikes to get past on the right, ditziness. Maybe there needs to be some sort of bit in highway code that says cyclists & motorbikes pass either on the left or the right? Surely would be safer for everyone?

Feel free to correct me I don't cycle, so may have misunderstood!

I was walking from the tube station to my workplace this morning - a 15 minute walk - and I had four different bikes coming whizzing at speed towards me on the pavement. One was a blinkin' postman! I'm utterly sick of it. I realise not all cyclists are so effing selfish and these lot really do give all the rest a bad name. Grrrrrr!

A bike is a vehicle. It belongs on the road.

If you are stuck in traffic then you are stuck in traffic. Tough titty

Your reasonable choices are
1 - wait.
2 - overtake to the right and take your chances. I don't understand why it would be risky. The cars in front of you are stuck in traffic and the cars coming towards you are, er, coming towards you. Presumably they'd see you.
3 - get off your bike and walk with it along the pavement.

It really is wrong (and selfish) to think that because you aren't prepared to wait in a queue on your chosen method of transport, you should be allowed to cross over into a space meant for pedestrians, with all the hazards that doing so brings.

Bicycles aren't cars! Fgs!

I'm a cyclist. I ride my bike everyday. I maybe aren't as fast or fit as cyclist commuters or couriers or others, but I love my bike and enjoy the excersize and freedom. I don't drive a car for environmental and health reasons.

I cycle on the left of the road, as I was taught to do as a child and have always done. Cars are generally far faster than me and overtake me. I have no desire atall to "stake my claim" on the road, ride further out into the centre and have cars riding behind me, wishing I was faster.

At junctions where cars are stationary queuing at the lights I will pass them on the left (where bicycles are positioned on the road) in order to get to the front of the queue, sit clearly visible in the cyclist box and indicate what I am doing. This is the safe way to do it.

Sitting in the queue of cars , slowing them down, overtaking on the left or right when they are moving is dangerous and means you don't get seen and are in danger of being ran into.

If there is no room to pass on the left as some tosser in a car thinks cyclists shouldn't be allowed on the road, I generally dismount, walk round the car on the pavement, get back on my bike and continue. Optionally giving the driver a pitying smile.

I generally would not cycle on the pavement. Except maybe a couple of times when there's not a pedestrian in sight and although tis naughty, noone will get annoyed or hurt. But as a rule, nope I don't.

There should be more cycle paths. Cyclists are not cars , nor are they pedestrians. They belong neither on a road or a pavement. The fact that they have to cycle on the roads alongside massive metal machines that could crush them would make you think people would give them some respect and space. Can't believe some of the attitudes on this thread!

i always think that if cyclists dont care about their safety, i.e. dont have lights, wear dark clothing, cycle dangerously - then why should i be worried about them

dog eat dog in this world :)

That's a nice attitude minny!

Not surprised by the usual shit cyclist get on here from drivers. OP - you ride where you feel safest. If that is in the middle of the lane or on the pavement then that's fine, and ignore these posters who get all antsy over a bike for some bizarre reason. There.

excpet these two particular dogs are not exactly evenly matched. And what do you mean by 'not worry about them'? Does that mean you take less care about hitting one? Your attitude is pretty poor either way.

So all you people saying bikes shouldn't be in the left and cars shouldn 't make room for them. You do realise that if your child learns to cycle on the road, in the same way I did when i was 9, they'd be taught to move to the front if a queue if stationary traffic at a junction to get into the cyclist box and indicate. If the traffic was moving they'd be taught to move with the flow of traffic on the left had side, and not undertake a moving vehicle invade it was turning left. Would you still agressively make no room for them, expect them to pretend they are a car and cycle out into the road, keep up with the pace of the traffic, and weave between cars overtaking?

ditziness - that summary is spot on. It's fine for a bike to pass on the left if traffic is stationary, or to move WITH the traffic when it's moving.

I do think that bikes should move further out from the pavement (when there isn't a cycle lane) into the road as it's safer for them, makes them more visible and stops pushy drivers passing them an inch from their handlebars.

I think the entire cycle debate is dominated, in RL, by some drivers who simply do not believe bikes should be on the road, esp. if they get in their particular way.

99% of drivers I come across whilst riding to work ( I bike-train-bike) are utterly polite and good drivers. The remaining people are very bad drivers ( and a few of them on this thread) and will ignorantly make manoevres to either inconvenience me to no benefit of themselves, or potentially kill me. I can't make fine points of debate with them from 6 feet under. So I will use, thoughtfully any space I can find to stay safe and progress my journey

I think it's maybe ok if you're a fast commuter type cyclist to be further out in the road, going fast and not holding up traffic. But if you're like me and pootle along on a 3 gear bike, often with my son on the back, I feel safer staying on the left where there really should be a cycle lane anyway. Obviously not so far on the left that I'm in the gutter, but not in the way on cars. It's scarey having some pissed of rev merchant behind you, obviously thinking that a bicycle is a vehicle and therefor should be either going as fast as a car or not be there atall.

No Pan, riding a bike on a pavement is not 'fine' it's illegal and bloody dangerous. I am sick of the number of cyclists who think it's fine to whizz along the pavement not making any effort to warn pedestrians that they're approaching, then have the sheer bloody gall to look annoyed about having to share the pavement.
Cyclists are poorly served by the road system in the UK, but that doesn't mean it's ok to behave like a selfish twat and cause more people to be annoyed with cyclists.

No, riding on the pavement IS fine. In some circumstances along some stretches of road it is far better choice than risking life and limb. When I do it, I do it carefully and have never presented as a danger to any one. Unlike the drivers who's attitude sucks.