I’m rarely ever going below 21 kmh average (!) on my 16km commute. Of course I am going slow where it’s necessary and dangerous and try to be as responsible as possible. Nobody wants to get hurt. But using 20 km/h speed limits beyond local hot spots would be very unrealistic given a road bike easily reaches 40+ kmh on flat terrain without a mandatory speed gauge. And the latter is also a crucial obstacle. How should speed limits be enforced when people are not forced to mow their speed? And if they are not, what’s a number on a sign worth? I am guessing not much.
While I agree that a 20 km/h limit is too strict on a good bicycle path, no one should be doing 40 km/h on a path that’s shared with people going 10-15 km/h. Where I live, most roadracers just drive on the road.
Cycling on the road is not allowed in most cases in the Netherlands, if a bike path exists. Bike paths are usually signed with a round blue sign, which means the bikepath is mandatory for all cyclists.
Same in Germany but I agree nonetheless. Where there’s people, one (including me) should drive responsibly. It’s no different from car driving. We don’t speed in a narrow alley either.
For once the Italians have a reasonable rule that using bike lanes is mandatory only if they are not shared with pedestrians. Now to get them to stop walking on the separated bike paths…
Shared bike/pedestian paths are very uncommon in the Netherlands, and I don’t think there are any mandatory bikepaths that are explicitely shared with pedestrians.
I’m rarely ever going below 21 kmh average (!) on my 16km commute. Of course I am going slow where it’s necessary and dangerous and try to be as responsible as possible. Nobody wants to get hurt. But using 20 km/h speed limits beyond local hot spots would be very unrealistic given a road bike easily reaches 40+ kmh on flat terrain without a mandatory speed gauge. And the latter is also a crucial obstacle. How should speed limits be enforced when people are not forced to mow their speed? And if they are not, what’s a number on a sign worth? I am guessing not much.
While I agree that a 20 km/h limit is too strict on a good bicycle path, no one should be doing 40 km/h on a path that’s shared with people going 10-15 km/h. Where I live, most roadracers just drive on the road.
Cycling on the road is not allowed in most cases in the Netherlands, if a bike path exists. Bike paths are usually signed with a round blue sign, which means the bikepath is mandatory for all cyclists.
Same in Germany but I agree nonetheless. Where there’s people, one (including me) should drive responsibly. It’s no different from car driving. We don’t speed in a narrow alley either.
For once the Italians have a reasonable rule that using bike lanes is mandatory only if they are not shared with pedestrians. Now to get them to stop walking on the separated bike paths…
Shared bike/pedestian paths are very uncommon in the Netherlands, and I don’t think there are any mandatory bikepaths that are explicitely shared with pedestrians.