4ucycling

It is no minimum age limit for the issuing of fines in the traffic regulation by the police. Bicycle riders who break the road rules will be given the same fines as motorists, but will not accumulate demerit points. Offences common to both bicycle riders and motorists include: failing to stop at a red traffic light disobeying a 'no U-turn' sign at an intersection failing to stop at a 'stop' sign at an intersection using a mobile phone exceeding the speed limit in a speed zone by less than 13km/h. Common offences specific to bicycle riders include: carrying more passengers than a bicycle is designed for failing to give way to pedestrians on a footpath or shared path failing to display a light at night or in hazardous weather conditions failing to wear an approved helmet. Motorised bicycles Legal motorised bicycles You can ride a motorised bicycle on all roads and paths, except where bicycles are prohibited. There are two types of legal motorised bicycl...

A bicycle storage area is a section of the road, before an intersection with traffic lights, where you can wait (for the traffic lights to change) in front of the stopped vehicles. A bicycle storage road area will have painted bicycle symbols, be between two parallel stop lines and may be painted green. Bicycle and motorcycle riders are allowed to cross the first stop line to enter the bicycle storage area but must stop at the second stop line at a red traffic light. Motor vehicles, other than motorcycles, must stop at the first stop line. A bicycle rider may choose to enter a bicycle storage area from a bicycle lane. When you enter a bicycle storage area, you must: give way to anyone that is already in the bicycle storage area give way to any vehicle that is entering the area on a green or yellow traffic light.

For the safety while cycling, we need to know something about SA laws. The National Traffic Act 93 of 1996 and the National Road Traffic Regulations 2000 promulgated on 17 March 2000 in Gov Gazette 20963 (as amended from time to time)  includes the following bicycle-specific laws: * You must be seated on your saddle * You must ride in single file * You may not deliberately swerve from side to side * If you are riding on a public road where there is a bicycle lane, you must use that bicycle lane Note: Regulation 296 of the National Road Traffic Regulations 2000 states: “A person driving a vehicle on a public road shall do so by driving on the left side of the roadway … .”. Driving is defined in the Act to include riding a bicycle. There is no requirement to ride on the far left of the roadway or on the shoulder. The Road Traffic Regulations impose the same obligations on a bicycle as on a motor vehicle in this regard. Regulation 298(1) requires a vehicle to pass a cyclis...

 Bike sharing is a concept originating back to the 1960s. However, it was slow to catch on until better technology was developed, which could provide real-time information about the scheme, track the bikes and help safeguard against theft. Now, bike sharing is booming at an unprecedented rate, largely due to the reasonably low cost of the schemes, and how easy they are to implement compared with other transport infrastructure. And it’s an easy win for governments and urban societies, which can boost their green credentials by embracing such an environmentally friendly design. In 2004, only 11 cities had adopted bike sharing. Today, more than 1,000 public bicycle schemes of varying sizes and specifications run in more than 50 countries, across five continents. Europe’s biggest scheme is the Paris Vélib’, with 1,800 stations and more than 20,000 bikes. Hangzhou, China hosts the world’s largest system – three times bigger than Vélib’ – which is set to expand to 175,000 bikes by ...

CYCLING IN AUSTRALIA: I’m living in the middle suburbs of Shanghai – a great cycling metropolis. Bike-riding rates are 30 to 40 times higher than Australian cities. Hardly anyone wears lycra or rides a mountain or racing bike here. Cycling is all about “effortless” propulsion at low speeds on cheap, upright city bicycles in everyday clothes. People ride at half the speed of my mates in Australia, never breaking a sweat. Everyone rides here: grandmothers, professors, street sweepers, office workers, my guitar teacher, children. It is these “missing” bicycle riders we don’t see in Australia. Those going to the shop, the train station or the pub on a bicycle, instead of walking or driving a short distance. So how do we target these groups? We are certainly going in some good directions with bicycle policies and programs in many of Australia’s major cities, turning back 60 years of disinvestment in cycling. But how do we take the next step? Here are some suggestions, based on com...

Riding in the Rain American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, best known for his epic Hiawatha, observed that ‘into each life some rain must fall’. As cyclists, we’re more aware of it than most, but British Cycling club coach Dan Bennett, who runs Progressive Cycle Coaching, highlights the benefits of a good soaking. “Riding in the cold and wet gives you the mental toughness to handle a change in the weather in a race or sportive. It also increases your bike-handling skills, teaches you where the limits of your tyres are, and keeps you in better tune with your bike. Apply the brakes in equal amounts – 50 per cent on the front, 50 per cent on the back – and ride a little further towards the middle of the road: you’ll be less likely to pick up flints and other stones washed off the verges that may cause punctures.” The real key to winter riding is your clothing. “Wrap up with the best training clothing you can afford,” he says. “And when you’re riding in low temperatures on a windy w...

Over the past year along with B’Twin and Decathlon UK, we’ve been encouraging people to get themselves and others riding with our getbritainriding campaign. It’s been a huge success too: over 10,000 cyclists have pledged to get friends or family on bikes saying that they’d help a whopping 42,000 people take up riding this year. In total, you lot have pledged to ride a hard-to-comprehend 23 million miles over the course of the year. Sit yourselves down, you must be worn out! British Cycling, coincidentally, have been doing something similar this year and they’ve just published the first results from their ‘Bike Shed’ studies, a collaboration with behavioural scientists at Colombia University and their partners HSBC looking at “how best to encourage, motivate and dispel the fears associated with getting on a bike.” Given, they say, that 50% of UK adults are ‘lapsed’ cyclists, they developed a series of studies to identify new and tangible ways to inspire people to get out pedalling. ...