Moped/motorbikes in cycle lanes

Trampas

As far as I am aware neither mopeds/motorbikes are not allowed use them.

I find mopeds are the biggest culprit of this.

The drive along the cycle lane right behind you.

If i have one behind me i just sit up cycle slowly and don't let them by.

I was cycling down the canal today and even no traffic on the road a moped was still using the cycle lane.

Worse still he turn right at the ranlegh breaking a red light in the process. I only thought bicycles broke red nights.

Thomond Pk

I had a dreadful experience of this last year; I was cycling at a fairly decent clip c20mph up Mespil Road on the cycle lane and a guy on a moped with pillion passenger came up a gap that didn't exist on my inside at about 35mph. I don't know how I held it together; at the next set of lights I asked the guy what he thought he was at? Up came the visor and 'will you ever bleedin f**k off' was what I got. This is something the traffic cops should be monitoring.

robfitz

Mechanically propelled vehicles are allowed to drive in and on on-road cycle tracks marked with a broken white line. But the moped drive was driving dangerously.

See related discussion in [post]293867[/post].

seamus

I haven't done this in a long time, but when I did, I used to hang back if there were cyclists in front of me. I was very aware that they feel pressured by the bigger, faster machine behind them, so driving on their back wheel serves little or no purpose.

Mr. Presentable

I wouldn't have thought mopeds in cycle lanes would bother cyclists too much, given that cyclists are usually ON THE FOOTPATH anyway.

But, hey, I learned something new today

jman0

I actually haven't found them to be too much bother. They seem to know they're not allowed to use the cycle lane and mind their manners.
What i find more annoying is pedestrians (joggers) in the cycle lane.

saobh_ie

I have noticed mopeds do tend to hug the left of lane wherever they are. I’m always concerned when I see this because my training and experience (limited) has me knowing that generally the center of your lane is best and you have to move around within your space on the road (car sized box, or lorry sized if your feeling especially paranoid that day).

That’s probably why they scoot into cycle lanes, bus lanes etc. Because they’re used to riding up the left. I have no idea why they do it when it’s easier and safer to go around traffic on the right or down the center of two lanes. Any cyclist will agree that the left of the road approaching a junction is not a good place to be, I’d imagine half if not more of cyclist fatalities occur while they’re on the nearside of vehicles.

Car drivers* in general don’t use their mirrors all of the time, the inside mirror is particularly neglected. So passing up the inside is very dangerous.

*I say car drivers instead of motorists because professional drivers trucks/vans tend to have better observations because they’re on the road all the time, their odds on having an accident are higher so they need to take steps to get back to the norms, they also know and think about the hassle it will cause. Then there’s motorcyclists who don’t use they’re mirrors, I think they’re all dead, crippled or soon to be that way.

Scoots in the bus lane annoy me for another reason too; they’re putting me in more danger. The odds are extremely low of a car driver spotting a scoot coming up his inside and moving out to let him through because they’re usually alert to bikes and scoots filtering up the outside and moving over for us and other considerate carry on. But if somebody moves over for somebody filtering up the inside it has an effect on those filtering correctly up the outside or middle as per local custom.

Bikes, correction, Motorcycles (I’m in bicycle country here, you guys are bikes.) are kinda supposed to, it’s best practise, makes sense to, filter the same way. All follow the same path through traffic. That’s generally what happens because if everybody went helter skelter filtering like mad, even four bikes taking different routes to the front it would be chaos. 1. It would piss people off, being surrounded by loud motorcycles skipping to the front of the cue on all sides. 2. Only one or two of the bikes would make it to the top without incident. 3. It’s freaking difficult to pick your way through stopped traffic, much better that there’s a bike ahead to give you a notion of what to expect.

Anyways. If you’ve got an engine stay the hell out of the cycle lane. It’s dangerous enough already. Scared the crap out of me. Now I’ve got a nice safe motorbike. =]

Edit: I forgot!!! Two weeks after I started biking I followed a scoot into an empty cyclelane. We were pelting along and could see nothing but I didn't know any better (I was such a muppet). Anyway, scoot left me for dust (he was brave, or more likley stupid) and then a car coming the other direction turned through a hole in traffic to go into a enterance right in front of me! And that's how I did my first motorcycle stunt, a bueatiful stoppie, the biggest I ever did, the bike pitched forward at least forty five degrees. A part of the back wheel was over the roof of the car beside me. It was also the tidest stoppie I ever did , the bike dropping back down straight behind me instead of the rear swing out to the side as i stopped.
It was my first and last time in a buslane.

Victor

In the UK mopeds (not motorbikes AFAIK) are allowed use cycle lanes, but it doesn't seem to save them. About half of all casulties in bike lanes are moped.

Thomond Pk

I remeber reading a good article in the Sundaytimes written by an underwriter about 10 years ago about the number of early 40 somethings buying Harleys, not understanding how to control them, the bike would fall over on a set of traffic lights unexpectadly crushing a limb with significant loss to the companies. I hate to come across all Animal Farm but I do believe sweat good carborator bad.

saobh_ie

Thomond Pk wrote:

early 40 somethings buying Harleys, not understanding how to control them, QUOTE]

Yeah, Born Again Bikers, is the term lol. A few people who retun to motorcycling after 40 years away don't understand how much the machines have changed and can get themselves insured on 1000cc sports bikes having not ridden in decades.

Then there's the other crowd of older people who get a harley for pose value instead of riding the thing.

Thomond Pk wrote:

the bike would fall over on a set of traffic lights unexpectadly crushing a limb with significant loss to the companies. QUOTE]

errr... that's the funniest thing i've head in a while... they might drop it but they don't tend to go crushing limbs and stuff lol.