Why Are Roads Called Roads if Bicycles Can Go On Them?

silverwhistle

PenguinJim wrote: »

learly, as bicycles do not consume oil products in operation, they do not belong on the roads, unlike cars and lorries.

So that's why my chain is rusty...

Retrogamer

Why are bicycles called bicycles if bears can ride them?

marleyboy

PenguinJim wrote: »

If bicycles can go on roads then why aren't they called "bicycleroads"? It makes no sense to just call them "roads" and then allow bicycles on them.

Blame the Romans, they created the roads, long long before there were cars on them, yet did not deem it fit to call them caroads.

Suggest you look in the history books, as most of us learned this in infant school. ')

ElefantEd

They are called Roads, because as marleyboy correctly points out, they were originally built by the Romans, who wanted to go to Rhodes for their holidays. It's a good job that the village of Carp, in Albania, was not their favored vacation resort.

Norman_Castle

What have the Romans ever done for us?.

armyknife

silverwhistle wrote: »

So that's why my chain is rusty...

That's a euphemism isn't it?

cookie365

You can travel on trains, and you can travel on coaches.

So why can't you travel on a learns or a tutors?

prowla

Bicycles aren't allowed on MOTORways.

thescouselander

What about roads that are made of concrete - what sort of vehicle can use these? Something like this perhaps?

modsandmockers

Somebody recently mentioned the Magna Carta, and I very much doubt that it prescribed a pecking order for highway users.

I have no idea when pavements were first provided for the convenience of pedestrians, but I daresay it was a long time after the Magna Carta. And it now seems to be universally accepted that pedestrians belong on the pavement and have no place on the carriageway except when crossing. And sometimes pedestrians are required to make a considerable diversion in order to find a safe and legal crossing point. If a pedestrian chooses to walk on a road which has no pavement or footpath, then there seems to be little doubt that the pedestrian is taking a considerable risk.

In the closing decades of the 20th Century, cycling as a means of personal transport was being gratefully phased out and replaced by the motor car, until the point was reached that, so long as it wasn’t too cold or wet, somebody worked out that biking to work could sometimes be better than driving.

We have now reached the point where it seems to be accepted that cyclists are in some way better people than non-cyclists, and should therefore be allowed to choose at will between riding on the road and riding on the pavement, and that the highway should be re-designed in order to satisfy their demands.

Until there is a dedicated network of CYCLEWAYS, to match MOTORWAYS, RAILWAYS, BUSWAYS and PAVEMENTS, then, imo, cyclists need to understand that they have no place to call their own, and they should behave accordingly.