Certainly true at Kingston hospital, although with the number plate recognition software most places have now you don’t need a paper ticket so a motorcycle could park and pay in a normal bay, it won’t be long!
Free, secure parking in town, bike only parking in town centres. Allow flexible use of bus lanes, and fix bloody pot holes!
Not sure where you are, but here in Essex we have a good road safety scheme for motorcycles run by the Essex Fire and Rescue service, along with the police. They take you out for a day's biking, and have regular stops to discuss your riding. I found it useful despite riding for years. I agree with other posters about getting younger people into biking. It was apparent form riding in France last year that there is a hug biking scene, and mostly younger people. Here in UK it seems the opposite - mostly old gits like me. Surely the best thing is a mixed demographic. However, it is too complicated for most people to get a bike licence and also expensive. How that gets changed, I don't know.
I was caught by one of these a few years back. Rural road, 11am, lovely sunny day, 2 houses. She jumped out form behind a hedge waving this speed camera at me. Didn't realise what she was up to until I went past and she videod the back of my bike. I should have stopped dead and wheeled it back and she wouldn't have got my plate. She was parked on a farmer's field (without permission as I know the farm manager), hiding behind a hedge and she tried to make me think she was a copper (talking about "her" sergeant etc.), hi viz, checked hat, police on the van. Thinking back, I should have reported her for impersonating a police officer. Rant over.
Question: How can councils promote? Taster/awareness days Subsidised courses (bike safe is an example run by police-make CBT free) Promote fact that more bikers = greater biker safety-therefore better drivers. Promote sustainability and accessibility. Give toad tax sunbaidies. Provide high visibility, free and secure parking,with storage. Promote Town then to bikers. Promote biker friendly venues. Promote biking to more women. Encourage biker events,ie:charity and Christmas and festival rides outs. Take all our forum experience,suggestions and frustrations with you to iron out. Aim for exemplar and biker community award!! List:continue by all means. M
All good ideas lads but you can bet that any council won’t want to spend much if any money on promoting motorcycling, they’re strapped for cash as it is.
They can in some boroughs but not in all. Unless you are in heavy traffic or for the odd short cut there isn't a lot of benefit. Most of the time you end up stuck behind a slow moving bus.
As you say, it depends on the location and traffic levels. But I have found them to be great here in Edinburgh. When they introduced them for use, my commute dropped from 45-50 minutes to 30-40 minutes. On the main arteries into town, it's long stretches of queued back traffic with a near empty bus lane, straight to the front no problem. The further into the centre you go, the less benefit you get though, as all the buses converge and it's a stopped bus every 50m. But hey, I'd rather be able to use them than not.
Having to do runs into central London, at night, on a regular basis, there is a huge benefit to me to use bus lanes, for one it generally keeps my progress fairly steady and two it means I only have to worry about cab, minicab drivers pulling in from one side and not have to worry about them doing U turns unexpectantly. Theres a wonderful junction where the bus lane is for buses only, it goes to a filtered left turn at the lights the normal lights take an age to change, extremely frustrating and also a massive cash cow as it is marked very clearly as a left turn only lane but not as clear that its bus only 24hrs, so the eye gets drawn to the former
Helmet lockers by bike parking ranks would be a great idea, like all such things while the notion is good when used correctly I strongly suspect that they would be abused by the great unwashed.... for drug dealing dead drops etc. Would be a way for councils to effectively charge for bike parking indirectly - think parking meters but for locker storage. Bus lane use should be a universal thing. I avoid them like the plague when in London, because I am too busy concerning myself with idiots in cages to be looking whether any particular bus lane is okay or not to ride in - and I am not there enough to know from experience!
Thanks for everyone's input. We had a productive meeting, especially with the local HMC Traffic Officer (a keen biker and colleague of #1 Daughter) and Beds Fire and Rescue, also keen bikers, who are both looking for opportunities to promote safe riding, riding skills and to support any events we have in mind with blues lead riders and escorts.
How exactly do the rubber tubes measure your speed? They rely on air being pushed along the tube to a sensor. The reason there are 2 if them is so they know which direction you are coming from. They have no idea how long your wheel base is. If a car goes over them followed by a double axle lorry, the time distance between the car axles will be slower at higher speed than the double axle at slower speed.
They are for traffic data surveys. They are mostly used to find volumes of traffic. But they can be used to determine average traffic speed (85th percentile). The main use is for planned road works and road planning reasons. Unless there was a serious issue, the police aren't all that interested in other peoples data.