Moving into the new year I want to get a sense of what people want to see more and less of from the blog. Therefore, I’ve put together a little survey that will help me choose the future direction of London Cyclist. Your answers will help me decide what topics I’m covering.

Take the survey here:

Thanks all for helping with the survey! We received 438 responses which is way more than the previous 100 we managed in a survey.

You’ll be able to complete it in 2 minutes flat and I’ll hugely appreciate your responses.

Thank you and look forward to covering more of the stuff you love!

Also if you get some time let me know in the comments about any difficulties you have faced on your commute and any tips you have for others. I’m hoping to put together a post soon for commuters doing longer distance rides into work every day.

Some more polls:

• London cycle hire scheme poll
• Should cyclists be given harsher fines poll
• Share the road or separate poll
• 8/10 cyclists think poll results

London Cycle Hire Scheme

A very clear cut winner here! Eight out of ten cyclists think the Cycle Hire Scheme is overall a good idea for London. Whilst there is overwhelming support the main concerns raised by people were around theft, the huge cost of the project and how that money could have been spent on more bike facilities such as cycle parking.

On the positives, Jolyon talked about how this may prove to be a critical point when cycling in London gains more traction. Vrinda commented it will also be useful to regular cyclists when they happen to be away from their bike and want to get from A-to-B quickly.

With high hopes for the cycle hire scheme let’s see if it performs. Overall I too am positive about the scheme and would like to see it be a big success. With that kind of money invested, it has to be!

Harsher fines for cyclists

With an incredible total of 147 votes this was a hot topic. I didn’t know which was it would swing because some people showed real anger towards so called anti-social cycling behaviour. Overall however 74% of people decided this was not the right way to go about promoting safe cycling.

Some of the comments hinted towards the negative image skipping red lights creates for cyclists. Tim talked about how this is one of those laws that it is very tough to enforce so the fine is not as important as the difficult enforcement process. Craig agreed about the difficulty of enforcing which again rendered the fine amount as unimportant.

Adam made a good point by comparing the amount of rule breaking by motorists such as talking on phones. Of course the detriment to someone doing this is likely to be far greater to anyone in the cars path rather than in the path of the bike. Murray also compared it to pedestrians. Saying how similar enforcement should be in place for pedestrians walking carelessly in cycle paths.

Mark thinks that the government is completely missing the point. They should instead be focusing on why people are jumping red lights and whether this argument for improved safety actually adds up. In one bit of research that never saw the light of day it was proven cyclists who jump red lights are safer. Though the causes behind this are uncertain.

There were plenty more very interesting comments which you can follow here.

Share the road

This poll really split the vote. There was much uncertainty around the kind of benefits this brings. Phil argued for sharing the road because it will encourage motorists to always be looking out for cyclists. He discussed how separate cycle paths may have a negative effect by creating no-go areas for cyclists on roads without them.

There was also the argument by thereverent who talked about the poor upkeep of cycle paths and how the existence of a cycle path makes it very hard for a cyclist who decides to stay on the road. Adam raised the point that we should be taking away space from motorists as it is an unsustainable mode of transport.

I think the poll shows support for separate cycle paths when they are well maintain and they are genuinely useful. However, in most cases it is best to just learn to share the road.

Conclusion

Overall I really enjoyed this week of polls. I think as a once a month thing it could work really well on London Cyclist Blog. If you had any thoughts let me know in the comments below.

In this final poll I wanted to take a look at cycle paths versus cycle lanes. Though it’s tough to come across an exact definition, a cycle lane is one that is attached to the side of the road but not separated by any physical means where as a cycle path is separated somehow from the road.

The above picture is an example of a cycle path.

For separated cycle paths: The separation provides more safety and a more pleasurable ride. It means that there is less danger of getting doored or having a car parked up in the cycle lane thus rendering it useless. It encourages more people to take up cycling as they feel protected from the main traffic on the road.

Against separated cycle paths: The problem with separate cycle paths is they often end up sending you away from the route you want to take and a long way around. It should be more about sharing the road and teaching drivers and cyclists how to do that.

I’ll be interested to see how this poll goes because at face value it would seem separated cycle paths are a great idea. But usually when they are implemented they are in locations that people don’t often use and often go through quiet areas that end up being less safe to use in the evening.

The post back then raised a lot of debate with a total of 37 comments left.

Those for the harsher fines: Will argue that cyclists are not above the law and they are governed by the highway code in the same way as any motorist. The harsher fine may help to discourage those that keep flouting the laws. The cyclists for the higher fines will talk about how those that do skip red lights are painting a less positive picture of cycling and likely to cause less people to want to start cycling. Many people will also talk about the anger people seem to express at pavement cycling and the dangers that poses for pedestrians.

Those against the harsher fines: Will argue that the road system in the UK was designed around cars and not bikes. This often leaves cyclists in less than safe positions and the occasional bit of red light skipping actually helps to prevent danger. Whilst they don’t encourage flouting all the laws they acknowledge a bit of rule bending is necessary to stay safe. They will point out that the number of accidents caused by cyclists is extremely low and deaths even lower to none existent. The harsher fines will only serve to discourage new cyclists to join as they keep hearing stories about people receiving big fines. They may also argue that a harsh fine is not the correct way to discourage people and instead better cycling facilities should be built.

Do you think cyclists should receive harsher fines for breaking the rules?

Also don’t forget to vote in yesterdays poll on the London Cycle Hire scheme which is just 2 people short of 100!

To do the survey SURVEY FINISHED! Thank you all

It is all completely anonymous and doesn’t require any private details such as your name and address.

Many thanks to everyone who completes the survey, I really appreciate you helping me out and making this blog better.

Thank you: That is 101 people taking the survey! I hugely appreciate you guys taking the time to do that and will post the results up soon!

If the poll does not show up on your RSS reader or e-mail inbox then you should click here to answer it. If you prefer to just mail me then its andreas@ the address of this website (londoncyclist.co.uk)

Many thanks to everyone that answers you are doing me a huge favour!