My advice to Gemma and her Mum would be to contact BikeRight via the CTC or Manchester Velodrome and get some lessons with the end goal of achieving Bikeability Level 3.
But having said that .. there are some problems with mini-roundabouts for cyclists .. cars driving over the little hump of paint .. daft overtaking.. and general confusion as to who has the right of way anyway,.
Also - on bike - tight corner and both hands will be needed on the bars to steer it... so a prolonged signalling may be out of the question on safety issues here. The driver may not see the shorter signal and mis-read intention as a result.. so these are tricky and the ladies would do well to invest in a Bikeability to gain some techniques in a practical lesson.
70% of cycle crashes occur at the mouths of most roundabouts - per Franklin
(We do read it .. honest! It graces my bookshelf next to Road Craft
etc)
Danger is one of "not being seen"
So.. positioning is the key here.
Keep away from the outside edge of the roundabout - far too diffucult to be seen there
Drivers at roundabouts .. we admit it.. are busy looking out for other motor vehicles.
You are actually safer . in primary in the flow .. riding with the cars .. in full view of them and less likely to be cut up by someone turning left. (Too many do keep too far left and car driver turning left does not always see them till too late
It does not mean "nasty horrid driver deliberately cutting up cyclist - but more a genuine error which can have horrific consequences all the same. But the cyclist would also not be helping himself by keeping too far to the left (in gutter or too close to kerb) in any case here.)
Also - too close to the edge .. and you get masked by roadside furniture as well.
From the driver's point of view - Franklin very fairly admits that the drivers are looking out for other motorised traffic, making gear changes, weaving to their exit, trying to fathom out direction signs and he says
John Franklin on page 96 of Cycle Craft wrote:
This does not leave the driver with a lot of other attention to look out for other people
In context of the passage .. he does mean "bicycles"
Why this book is really a MUST READ for all road users regardless of whether they will get the bicycle bite and buzz or not .. is in gems of practical decription such as his COAST in action page on page 52 and this passage describing a roundabout on page 96.
Quote:
At most large roundabouts teh entry roads generally curve to the left
- sometimes considerably. Circulating vehicles already on the roundabout are therefore more behind than to the right of the driver approaching the give way line .. and this makes it difficult to see a car sometimes A vehicle as small as a cycle can easily be overlooked. If a driver is concentrating to the right, it will be harder for him to monitor traffic (including a bicycle) directly in front of him passing the give lines. Slower cyclists are much more vulnerable here
Franklin advocates primary to keep away from such danger by the way. It gives space and time to take avoiding action and he also advises to pace the ride so as not to arrive at the roundabout at the same time as the car - given acceleration speeds being greater than ability to get foot to brake as quickly (Average time to move foot from throttle to brake is around 0.5-0.7 seconds for most competent drivers. Wildy is unusually quick.. we recorded her at 0.3 on one track day
But she could not do that each time.
varied .. up to 0.5 seconds over a long session in which we all tried and tested ourselves
)
However, Franklin reminds that a fundamental rule of two wheeled travel is to avoid braking on a curve.. but on roundabouts there is little choice... and roundabouts have more diesel and oil than any other road surface.
A cyclist also has poorer acceleration and gearing than the motor cars... so it's actually safer for the cyclist to keep the speed up whilst on the roundabout and keep it within the traffic's flowing speeds whilst on the roundabout. On approach.. use a primary .. and make sure you are prepared to stop but ready to go.. using all COAST skills to the full .. looking for a gap and accelerating out of bother.
If you have to stop ..and often we do
I tend to choose a middle gear as Franklin suggests .. then if I can go without stopping .. it then helps give me the "oomph" I need to keep a decent and increasing cadence in my pedalling controls. and I take the shortest route across
making sure left and right signals were made well in advance.
Stopping and setting off.. again this take time and practice of low speed riding and gear changing. You cannot afford a stalling in gears when in that situation .. and again a Bikeability course will address this skill. They spent quite some time drilling our kids in this anyway.. and we made it a family thing and joined the class with them .. and also learned a few things ourselves too
He gives a graphic illustration of this on page 97.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
Members
