General Discussion
'This will provide a safe family-friendly cycling and walking route'.
In my experience of using these mixed paths the walker has to keep on looking behind for impending cycles coming passed at speed. In most instances you may get a feverish bell being fired off and other times just a whoosh as they just miss you as they go passed.
The walk/cycle path bridge on the Exe opposite the commando camp is especially dangerous. As you reach the top off the bridge you are blind to any cycles coming along the bridge as they come around the corner at speed, taking up 3/4's of the bridge. As happened to myself earlier in the week.
I am all up for a safe cycle and or walk path routes, but without a physical barrier between cyclists and walkers it is just downright dangerous and stressful for the walker.
I agree with Deedoodle's last sentence.
Last Sunday I walked along the joint cycle/pedestrian path from Cockwood to D. Warren. Not one cyclist who approached me from behind used a bell to alert me to their presence.
I am not anti-cyclist. Far from it. But I have had close encounters when using joint paths.
It is a legal requirment to have a bell on a bike but very new cyclist's do and no one enforces it, but a a motorist has to have a horn and it has to be working to obtain a MOT. I notice that yet again the article promises economic revival and why is there not a form for those who want to object and are not in favour of the cycle path.
Maybe cyclists should stick to the roads? Who needs a Moan-In Centre when you’ve dawlish.com?
If pedestrians stuck to the left hand side of shared use paths (ie with the traffic, rather than facing the traffic or meandering all over the place), then they’d be no problem. Without the demand from cyclists, these fantastic amenities either side of the Exe would not have been created. Be grateful rather than moan, moan, moan.
An interesting artical in this months Saga magazine.
Cycling on a pavement or public footpath is forbidden in the UK, but it's legal on a towpath or bridleway. Cyclists are advised to give way to pedestrians and horse riders, though, as a matter of safety and courtesy.
There is no legal requirement for a bicycle to be fitted with a bell or horn, giving a warningby calling out is sufficient.
Cyclist have the same rights on the road as everyone else. This means that motorists must give way to them when turning left or right.
The same goes for cyclists on a roundabout, motorists should wait for them to move on from the right exactly the same way as for anothher vehicle.
@burneside - i should have included an irony alert.
@ZIGGY - thanks for providing the clarification for those that were unaware of the law. it’s also legal, obviously, to cycle on a shared use footpath.