Over the weekend I made a rather ironic meme:
and then tweeted it out:
It did result in a serious discussion and after a lot of thought I redesigned the markings for an ASL using the new deeper ASL standard to give better visual clues to cyclists, but also worked on a set of demands that would significantly improve junction safety.
Bad Behaviour Through Design
There was some comment that the newly proposed ASL would put the onus on the person cycling along to ‘behave’. An ASL encourages a person cycling to filter to the front of traffic in a poor position to then be side swiped by a left turning vehicle. Worse still it encourages people to sneak up the inside of HGVs and pull in front of them. There is a good chance the driver may not have seen that manoeuvre.
The Real Problems
The design principles behind ASLs are bad, but so is the design of the current crop of HGVs, and the Highway code fails vulnerable users.
We need the following to happen:
- The ASL is a poor construct but can, at least be designed better to deliver better behaviour.
- New HGVs must only be sold in this country with Better Vision Cabins
- All existing HGVs must have mirror/video systems installed to mitigate HGV blindspots around the Cabin and sides of vehicle.
- The Highways code MUST be updated to give priority to pedestrians & cyclists going ahead over left turning vehicles. See British Cycling #TurningTheCorner campaign.
