Which side of the trail do you ride if there's a rider coming towards you?
The reason I ask is that there's a pavement/two-way cycle path outside Brighton where a female cyclist was killed last year after colliding with a cyclist coming the other way and being thrown onto the road into oncoming traffic. Nothing has been done to prevent a repetition and lots of cyclists there (it's near the two universities) don't seem to know which side of the trail to ride, so the same accident could happen any time. I've been asking the City Council to paint signs saying 'cycle on the left' on the trail, but I was surprised to hear from the local CTC rep that in her view there is no rule or convention that you should cycle on the left on a two-way cycle path. So she feels that I can't expect the City Council to put signs up.
Do you think she's right? I've always thought it was natural to cycle on the left of any trail in the UK, because we drive on the left. If everybody does it, you won't have collisions and I think that's what I see happening on country trails. But I must admit I've never seen it in writing anywhere. Could it be that because CTC is focused on road cycling, they don't experience bikers coming towards them very often, whereas off-road it happens all the time and we've learned to stay left?
The reason I ask is that there's a pavement/two-way cycle path outside Brighton where a female cyclist was killed last year after colliding with a cyclist coming the other way and being thrown onto the road into oncoming traffic. Nothing has been done to prevent a repetition and lots of cyclists there (it's near the two universities) don't seem to know which side of the trail to ride, so the same accident could happen any time. I've been asking the City Council to paint signs saying 'cycle on the left' on the trail, but I was surprised to hear from the local CTC rep that in her view there is no rule or convention that you should cycle on the left on a two-way cycle path. So she feels that I can't expect the City Council to put signs up.
Do you think she's right? I've always thought it was natural to cycle on the left of any trail in the UK, because we drive on the left. If everybody does it, you won't have collisions and I think that's what I see happening on country trails. But I must admit I've never seen it in writing anywhere. Could it be that because CTC is focused on road cycling, they don't experience bikers coming towards them very often, whereas off-road it happens all the time and we've learned to stay left?