Cycling on fast dual carriageways – Yes or No? A road.cc reader gives his view

It’ll probably actually ameliorate the car-cyclist antipathy, to my mind, if we give this sensible concession.

Yeah, that's going to happen. The people who hate you for riding a bike will hate you no matter how much you ground you concede.

My comment has nothing to do with whether I'd ride on a dual carriageway or not. It's related to whether "the car-cyclist antipathy" - if that's even an accurate description of a state of affairs - would change as a result of this suggestion.

I live in Stafford.

My mate lives in Stone.

The most direct route is the A34 and I ride it regularly without issue as it's wide with good sightlines.

There are 2 alternatives, less direct routes. One also involves an A road and the other a very busy B road. In many ways, the dual carriageway is the safest route.

I'll also add that the cycle route between the two towns actually involves the A34 for approx 1 mile from Stone towards Stafford, coming off it at Stone Hockey and Rugby club.

There's plenty of "fast" dual carriageways that are the simplest most direct route for cycling, so the drivers have to expect to see cyclists and not drive into them. Typically the roads are straight and have good site lines, so it shouldn't be difficult to avoid collisions - if the drivers are going too fast to react, then they need to slow down a bit.

I am really conflicted by this topic.

First of all, is this not victim blaming?

Secondly, when you are taught to drive, you should have had it hammered into you to expect hazards, to expect people to do absolutely anything.  They might be indicating, and turn in that direction; they might not.  They might not be indicating, and make a turn. The car you are overtaking could have a blowout, the lorry could shed its load.  There might be ice on the road, or that little pothole could be two feet deep.   There could be a herd of cows in the middle of the road, round the next corner...or a cyclist...We should be demanding higher driving standards, not meekly accepting lower ones.  Higher driving standards would benefit everyone that uses the road network.

I used to sometimes ride on a dual carriageway to work, although Strava tells me it has been over two years.  This is the A24 out of Worthing and the traffic can be very fast, but it has a kind of hard shoulder with a white line, which varies from about 70cm wide to over a metre and a half.  I have experienced better passing on this road from some drivers; I think partly because they have a second lane to move into, a lot of them do, and they are expecting to be overtaking things on this road.  When the outer lane is occupied they either slow down behind me or half straddle the two lanes, either way is better than a close pass.  On the flip side, when you get a close pass on this road it is terrifying and the speed differential is much more noticeable. 

Most of the dual carriageways around my way are limited to 40mph, while most of the single carriageway lanes are National Speed Limit - 60mph to most vehicles. Why am I less safe on the dual carriageway Phil?

Dual Carriageways, particularly national speed limit one with a 70mph speed limit, have significantly better site lines than single carriageways with a 60 limit as well as a second lane to permit overtaking without having to wait for oncoming traffic to clear and create an opportunity to pass safely. A Competent driver should observe what is ahead well in advance and be able to change lane (and adjust speed if required) well in advance of a rider in front of them. Now they don't often drive into tractors or broken down vehicles in these situatons, so is a cyclist only a problem because the drivers aren't looking properly. Surely this is once again an education/enforcemnet issue.
And if a roadside cycle lane is the solution then please open up all those lovely motorway hardshoulder for us to use

** Saying all that, but I still don't like riding on them, I prefer single tracks as I mosly cycle for the pleasure not to get somewhere

As long as TTs are banned. Everyone else can ride.

The author of the e-mail bandies about the word 'stupid' rather freely, but makes the equally 'stupid' comment (in my humble opinion) that cycling should be banned on multi-lane roads. What next? The road from A to B seems a bit dodgy and those cyclists are a bit of a nuisance, so let's just ban them! The point is that all road users need to be educated to each others needs (cloud cuckoo land, I know). OK, I agree that it is perhaps unwise to ride on these roads unnecessarily, but to ban people? No, that is not a sensible way forward. Thin end of the wedge and all that.

Instead of banning cycling on dual carriageways, the obvious solution is that every dual carriageway should have a protected cycle lane.

"However, one thing is totally clear: he/she should not be on a 60mph dual carriageway. That is completely stupid. "

You are aware that 60 is the limit and not a minimum requirement?

So what about single lane roads with a 60 limit - are these not more dangerous? The logical solution is to make all other roads 30mph surely.

This argument is akin to not havoing nice posessions in case of thieves, blaming a sexual assault victim due to their clothes etc. 

The close pass that triggered this should have resulted in a 2 year ban, not questioning someone's right to use a method of transport... 

I learnt the actual definition of a dual crriageway recently, turns out it doesn't necessarily have 2 or morre lanes...

"A dual carriageway or divided highway is a class of highway with carriageways for traffic travelling in opposite directions separated by a central reservation"

I try to avoid cycling on any  road with 2 or more lanes if at all possible. Sometimes it's not though and I think it's the responsibility of government/councils to provide decent cycle lanes adjacent to the main road routes 

"it's also allowed to jump off a cliff on a bike, and the resultant death is not the cliff’s fault."

The analogy here, of course, being that the resultant death on a dual carriageway is not the road's fault...

There are all sorts of places where cyclists have no option but to ride on A roads but there is no doubt they are dangerous. A good example is LEJOG where my friend Toby Wallace was killed:
https://road.cc/content/news/128916-lorry-driver-jailed-8-12-years-killi...

Overalls I'm not sure what I think. Ivan see both sides

The real issue here is the failure to provide any reasonable alternative for anybody wanting to use the route who cannot reasonably be expected to travel at a speed of 60 kmph or more. Perhaps we can look forward to there being suitable (i.e. good enough for 95% of cyclists to choose over the road) provision on new or upgraded roads in the future.