pedestrians and cyclists

Recently, I have been struck by the behaviour of some people. Firstly there was an elderly jogger stubbornly jogging along on the road, despite there being a perfectly decent pavement right beside him. He was jogging in the direction of traffic, but the road was quite quiet, so any traffic just gave him a wide berth. Then there was a woman cyclist who was stubbornly cycling along the road, but cycling into the traffic. I suppose that this had the merit that she was facing the traffic and could therefore take evasive action if required, and because the oncoming traffic was looking her in the face, it might treat her as a person, rather than dehumanising her.

These people made me wonder whether there would be benefits to all cyclists doing the same, cycling into the oncoming traffic. In terms of how much road it takes up, and safety, it might well be an improvement on the existing system.

Of course I did eventually see the drawback to my brilliant idea, junctions. You are going to hit problems every time you reach a junction, if you are on the wrong side of the road. Nonetheless, there might be some merit to rethinking such things. There is thinking around slowing down traffic, and this sort of thing could be part of that process.

Anyway, an idea to park for the time being, but possibly one to come back to.