Cyclists Dismount ! At last I've found one...

Perhaps it's a surprise that I'm so enthusiastic about this sign, but I've been looking for years for this most elusive of Dutch cycle path signs, and at last I've found one.

Yes, "Fietsers Afstappen" means, literally, "Cyclists Dismount." And it's combined with nasty big metal fences. Remarkable. When I first saw it, I had a strange thought that maybe I'd merely dreamed about emigrating but that I really still lived in the UK...

Actually, I've been aware of it for a few months, but it's taken this long for me to get around to going there to take a photo. It's not on the route to anywhere for me.

The situation is a bit unusual. A new recreational cycle path crosses the access to the water of the local rowing club. I guess it's going across rowing club land. You can also see it on Google Maps Streetview:


Two years ago I blogged about the relative absense of such signs on the Dutch cycle path network. On the Study Tour Back in 2006 I offered €10 to the first person in our group from the UK who saw one of these signs, knowing that even though we were going to places I'd never been before I had very little chance of losing my money (and yes, I kept my money).

I've now lived in the Netherlands for nearly three years and cycled tens of thousands of kilometres in that time. I know that there are other Fietsers Afstappen signs, as occasionally Dutch people email me their photos of such signs. Often this is accompanied by text describing how "terrible" it is. However, this remains the only permanently mounted "Fietsers Afstappen" sign that I've ever seen with my own eyes.

In Britain, "Cyclists Dismount" signs are a ludicrously frequent feature of cycle facilities. I once started to make a web page showing all such signs in Cambridge, but gave up when I realised how much time this was going to take...

I still think "dismount" signs, all of them, are a blot on the cycling landscape. However, when they are as uncommon as this they make practically no difference at all to cyclists. Unless, of course, you ride past one of the few which exist every day. When there are 29000 km of separated cycle paths, built up over a number of years, there are bound to be some which fall below the expected standard. There are various initiatives in the Netherlands to identify bad cycle facilities and have the problems caused by them addressed. This is one of them.

The Outlaw Cyclist

Many years ago when I worked for a computer company on the Cambridge Science Park, a circular came around telling us that the then available informal cyclists entrance at the Western end of the site was being closed because undesirables came through it. This resulted in those of us who cycled to the Science Park having to make a considerable detour to use the always open car entrance at the Eastern end of the park.

Many years later the entrance in the photo above was built - joining up not with a road or cycle path but with some waste ground at the other side next to a disused railway. The photo shows how the cycle and pedestrian entrance to the Cambridge Science Park is closed during night-time hours for "security reasons".

Show larger map Initially, the parallel road for motor vehicles had no restrictions on it at all. When it gained a gate and restrictions, the hours were more generous. The front entrance still provides very generous 24 hour per day access for any size of motor vehicle including anonymous Ford Transit vans which were once used in 95% of all robberies. Logic would suggest that these vans are more likely to be used by criminals than bicycles, but the time restriction on the bicycle gate of the Science Park has nothing to do with logic.

How does one explain the need for cyclists to be kept out of the Science Park when it is possible to drive a truck along the roads into and through the Science Park at any time of day or night ? I am pretty sure that the majority of England's criminals, like the majority of other people in that country, are drivers. However, cyclists are painted as being "outlaws" and a greater threat - even though you'd be doing very well indeed to carry off as much swag in a bike basket as in a car or on a truck.

The answer to this mystery is to be found in sociology. In societies like the UK's, where only a small number of people cycle, cyclists are an out-group. Apart from cyclists being considered to be on the edges of society, and quite possibly criminal, cyclists also suffer from homogeneity bias. An example of this is the way in which newspapers in the UK often carry accusations of cyclists "all" being law-breakers.

Well intentioned campaigns to improve the position of cyclists in society by improving their behaviour, such as those to encourage cyclists to always stop at red traffic lights fail due to a mis-understanding of what causes cyclists to be disliked in the first place.

While many people in places with little cycling may express that they dislike cyclists because of such things as going through red lights, this is simply an expression of a dislike due to cyclists being cyclists. If it were not red lights that they commented on, it would be something else (as demonstrated by this letter, or this one). In some places, even providing sidewalks is thought to draw in undesirables (see comments here).

There is only one way to improve the public perception of cyclists, and that is to make cycling attractive enough that everyone becomes a cyclist. For this to be the case, cycling must be safe as well as direct and convenient.

Of course, some cyclists genuinely are outlaws. Here's a video of Great Train Robber Bruce Reynolds talking about cycling. But bear in mind that while some outlaws are cyclists, that does not imply that all cyclists are outlaws:


Read other posts about campaigning for more cycling when cyclists are an out-group.

To illustrate this phenomena I had to use a photo taken when we still lived in Cambridge and links to letters to the newspaper there as this sort of thing simply doesn't happen here. In this society, cycling is a normal thing. It is part of everyone's life. As a result, newspaper letters pages and editorials are free of complaints about "outlaw cyclists" even though the actual behaviour of cyclists here is quite similar to elsewhere, and there are no arbitrary restrictions against cyclists. Quite the reverse in fact.

Cyclists Dismount !

We've now lived in the Netherlands for a year, and I've still not found a proper "Cyclists Dismount" sign.

I know what they should look like. the Dutch equivalent is "Fietsers Afstappen", and I have plenty of experience of encountering these things from cycling in the UK so I know what I'm looking for. However, they appear to be a theoretical possibility rather than a reality.

All I've found so far have been temporary signs erected around roadworks (though roadworks don't normally hinder Dutch cyclists), and cyclists are (quite reasonably) asked to dismount here in Assen when the market has completely filled the street. However, as of the time of writing I've not ever seen a permanent sign.

At the start of the 2006 Study Tour I offered €10 to the first person to spot a sign which read "Fietsers Afstappen", knowing that even though we were going to places where I'd never cycled before, there was very little chance of finding such a sign. I kept my money.

These signs can be seen as a bit of a joke, but they're much worse than that for cyclists. The problem is that each time you slow down and stop you lose a lot of momentum. It's like increasing your journey length by several hundred metres. This is why direct and uninterrupted cycle routes are such a good idea. Luckily, the planners here provide exactly that.

Of course it's not just important for commuters that routes should be convenient. It also makes cycling holidays far more relaxing and enjoyable.

The photo above was taken in Cambridge near where I used to live. At one time I had a plan to try to take photos of all such interruptions for cyclists), but I quickly realised this was an infeasibly big undertaking and the web page where the project started languishes out there in "cyberspace"...

The best photo of cyclists dismount signs that I've seen is to be found on Warrington Cycling Campaign's amusing "facility of the month" website. The Netherlands can't begin to compete with that...

At the end of this you may be wondering what happens in the Netherlands to avoid this problem. Try looking at these examples of making cycle routes direct.

(Sorry about no picture of a genuine "Fietsers Afstappen" sign to accompany the above. I've not been able to find one...)
Update 2010: I found one at last, built new here in Assen. There are extenuating circumstances...