My maths isn’t strong [!] but I’m fairly sure it’s going to be interesting trying to leave a pushbike 1.5m clearance on a 3m wide road in a 2m wide car - certainly in the case of most of the minor roads round here…
The middle-of-the-lane thing isn’t far behind the kind of chaos that say switching to driving on the right might cause if you decided it’ll be cars one day then buses, lorries and vans a different day - some drivers will get the message, some not; likewise, some cyclists will get the message, some not. Until everyone’s on the same page, I fear this will cause as many problems as it will solve…
I don’t suppose there are any regulations in there to enforce proper training for cyclists, or indeed to enforce having a fully functional set of lights at night/reduced-visibility?
Woodstock Road? Though most of the main roads into Oxford answer to the description I suppose. Ironic that it’s one of the best-provisioned towns for cyclists, too…
I used to cycle-commute in Oxford during the 11 years I was there - it taught me that all road users are a threat to you all of the time - fuckwit pedestrians, clueless kids on their first pushbike, geriatrics in cars, perma-rage van drivers, bus-zombies, amphetamined-up HGV drivers, bin lorries…
Me too (7 or 8 years I guess). I had a few close calls, and a friend who came within a whisker of not surviving an impact where the Woodstock Rd crosses St Giles/Banbury Rd. A car pulled out as the van in the pic is doing. The driver “didn’t see him” despite him being in what’s now the cycle lane, heading from upper right to lower left. Not exactly a complicated obstructed view.
There was a study on this and bizarre as it sounds you can even miss HGVs when looking from side to side. You see in slices and it’s possible for the object to be between slices and you literally don’t see it at all - obviously the larger the object the less likely it will slip through. They teach pilots to scan differently to avoid the phenomenon
That particular junction is a huge source of accidents, non-local drivers struggle to work-out where they should be going and who has priority, I think because the physical junction is so far from where - intuitively - you’d expect it to be. They miss things because they’re looking in the wrong places for the wrong things in their disorientation. Luckily I almost never needed to use it in car or on bike…
The scary bit for me on a pushbike was the Cutteslowe roundabout, and I was only using that because Wolvercote was even worse!
Go up the Woodstock Rd and cut east to the Banbury Rd further north. You could even ride up Walton St/Kingston Rd and avoid St Giles altogether, although Walton St used to be busy. When home time comes southbound on the Banbury Rd is much easier.
I find the opposite. The chazzer is 50p each, except Oxfam which is £1.99.
eBay (Music Magpie, World of Books) is e.g. £2.20 and buy one, get 40% off another. And most of what is advertised as second hand is clearly brand new overstock when it arrives.
I occasionally pay e.g. £6 for something that the market says costs that much, but these are few and far between.
