Changes to the Highway Code

Agree with Mike, there are a lot of thoughtless cyclists who appear more than happy to put themselves in danger - e.g. the ones who go down the inside of trucks at roundabouts or just go through red lights.

Driving standards have taken a massive fall though and there are plenty of instances of them almost ignoring cyclists.
One of the worst I saw was someone who came round a blind bend behind a cyclist and as soon as they could see they passed even though I was coming the other way. They barely gave the cyclist any room. What made it worse was that the offender had 2 bikes on his bike rack so in my eyes he was a double tosser.

Ok.
I was actually following the main road through the town though so the junction was to my right.

^
I Understand that the new regs also give distances for passing pedestrians on roads with no pavements. In my current job, when I go for a lunchtime walk there's no pavement on both sides of the road for the first couple of hundred yards and passing vehicles give almost zero space. There are some places where there is a small grassy embankment and even occasionally when I stand on that, traffic passes unbelievably close, the bigger cars (such as SUV's) generally being the worst offenders.

Just round the corner from home, there's no pavement on one side of the road for a few yards, and I've been hit by a passing car (a Corsa) once, enough to turn his door mirror round to face the side window, and leave a bruise on my arm despite nothing coming in the other direction at the time

And that's exactly the sort of cyclist that gives the (apparent) well-behaved majority a bad name. It's also exactly the type who deserves to have a nice big stick flung into his front spokes while carrying out such an example of blatant two-wheeled bellendery.

I have nothing against cyclists or cycling in general. I was wearing Lycra and doing training rides in the late 80s and early 90s, long before helmets, body cameras and arguments about rights of way existed. You deferred to cars, vans and lorries because they hurt and that additional awareness is what’s completely lacking in a percentage of current day cyclists. These days road cyclists are in cliques:

- clueless airheads, generally ladies or new-graduate male city riders that are unaware of the fact roads are dangerous and big metal objects hurt
- arrogant arseholes, generally men that have suddenly felt empowered due to some changes in societal attitudes. These are the ones that generally jump lights, shout at other road users and have a sense of road entitlement that belies their vulnerability in the face of an 18 wheeler.
- weekend TdF wannabes, generally men that have more money than sense and think they’ll improve themselves spending money on nitrogen to fill their tyres. Often ride in packs and imagine they’re gaining aero like a 50kph 50-rider peloton when they’re averaging 29kph in a group of 7. Often commute as well and act like they’re attempting a time trial up Mont Ventoux each day to relieve the ennui of their lives.
- old school commuter riders, generally well to do and middle aged or live in some bygone era and drink tea from bone china at 4pm with battenburg cake. Never owned a helmet. Otherwise known as normal cyclists.
- thugs, generally male yoof who ride 80% of their journeys on one wheel. When killed by a car they crossed a t- junction against all sensibility everyone says what a great son / nephew / friend / nice bloke they were even though they had a pocket full of wraps, a switchblade, three mobile phones and £2k in used notes on them at the time of the accident.

There are many others, mainly children - because don’t forget since the advent of the internal combustion engine bicycles became toys and nothing will ever alter that fact. My main issue with the legislation, the arrogant ones and the clueless ones is that having commuted on two wheels for decades I never expected my own lane, never thought to go through a red light or a zebra crossing in use and I always accept my vulnerability against the weather, pedestrians, cars, animals, lorries and road debris. A London circuit judge I play squash with calls cyclists “the entitled filth” because of these things. He drives a Bentley.

Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any guidance for pedestrians at light controlled junctions. Common sense would say they should wait until the lights change but that's usually lacking.

The new rules try to address this. 

To be honest, I have no idea why the new cycling rules are causing so much uproar. Cyclists are being told to ride more defensively (i.e. Don't ride in the gutter and own your road space on narrow sections and at junctions) and drivers are being told to give them adequate space. To play devils advocate the latter part would be unnecessary if drivers behaved themselves. I lose count how often I'm overtaken by cars with inches to spare.  The new rules won't change how I cycle or how I drive because I already follow these rules. I would hope most people on here do too.
 
The one  I'm unsure about is giving pedestrians priority at junctions. I can imagine turning off a busy shopping street might be nigh on impossible.

I don't cycle any more, I just can't. I do the rest and have always given space for other users which makes me unpopular at times with much hooting and nonsense but, this charter seems to give the idiots 'right' which they wear like a shield of "You can't touch me" but as has been said elsewhere that armour or shield is no use against two or more tons of vehicle. How is this going to affect the poor sod with months of waiting for a court case and potentially a manslaughter verdict? Is this a way of rewarding the folk with no spatial awareness and a device clapped to their heads? Madness and as mentioned I have several times inspected bonnets and the road surface. I was going to say we should use common sense but that would make me the pillock.

You're right Tim. The Highway code used to say you had to leave sufficient space to allow a cyclist to fall in to the road. The problem is the new rules are now traffic law and cyclists are being encouraged to carry cameras and report those not keeping to the rules (or their interpretation of it).

I think the only thing we can be sure of is that there are numpties, airheads, selfish fuckers and the militant wing using every form of transport available - from foot-power through to 16 wheeled horse-power.

The new rules are probably aimed at the numpties and airheads, who of course will never read them, or if they do will not understand them. The selfish fuckers will just continue as before. And of course the militant wings will use the new hierarchy and rules to further their hate of anyone not in their particular mode of transport.

Oh, joy....