Why cyclists need to get a jump on life

David Short

You need to take more care. Either that, or you might be cycling beyond your ability or age.

It's nothing to do with jumping red lights.

redlightjumper

Too right Mary. What the sanctimonious non-cycling multitude fail to realise is that cycling in London (pretty well anywhere in the UK actually) is a seriously dangerous activity. The danger does not derive from jumping red lights (after all, you only do it if you are certain there is no hazard) but from idiot drivers and pedestrians. Drivers who drive too close and cut you up, the unnanounced left turn being a classic. Ever had a door opened in your face? Stupid peds who run out into the road because they don't bother to look and can't hear you. As a cyclist you are the one to end up on the road with cuts and bruises if you're lucky, broken bones if you are not. Drivers get away scot free, as do the peds you've avoided at a cost to your own health. Cycling though red lights, on pavements etc is not really a matter of choice - more a matter of survival.

B.C.S.

The moral case is not always as clear as Melanie Philips assumes? Have we perhaps discovered a universal truth here?

London Calling

With good intention, Melanie Phillips defended the Pedestrian's point of view, but to fully understand the problem, like yourself, I to cycle in London, and although I never jump the lights, even on a quiet road, you cycle at your own peril and its very dangerous.

I suggested the following on Melanies post regarding this very problem:

"I therefore propose that traffic lights at all junctions be fitted with Cycle Control to allow cyclists to leave the junction first in which to turn left or go forward"

See its simple :)

Chris D

As a pedestrian and driver who can't ride a bike, I don't object to cyclists setting off slightly early at lights. However the number of cyclists who:
- don't stop at pedestrian crossings at all
- wear dark clothes with no lights at night
- ride on the pavement
- don't wear helmets
does wind me up quite a lot.

Ian Patterson

Well done for being safe - and I hope your bike is fine too.

I'm tired of cyclists being treated as second class citizens on the road - pedestrians walk out in front assuming we're not there or that we'll swerve or break to avoid them. (These are the ones that a Prius will hit someday soon). And cars pretend they have right of way - pulling out in front of us etc. A van overtook me yesterday on a narrow stretch of road - and its left wing mirror came dangerously close in front of my face.

I've seen community officers ticketing people for riding on the pavement - but have yet to hear of anyone going after the offending vehicle or pedestrian in cases like this. It'd also be good to enforce cycle lanes and boxes also - I'm tired of getting to the front of a queue of traffic to find the cycle boxes taken by cars and drivers irate at the idea of a cyclist using them for their true purpose. Time for action I think.

Also, its time to update the Highway Code to allow more safety concious cycling - particularly where there is a left turn like this which seems to be the most dangerous. A few weeks ago in Shepherds Bush I took some abuse from a pair of twenty-something yobs for not undertaking a bus using the cycle lane given there was room to pass. A few seconds later the lights changed, the bus moved off swinging left taking out not only the cycle lane but mounting the pavement also.

I wonder what the police would do if you'd caught the taxis number and went to report him for dangerous driving?

Finally - I'm surprised by it being a taxi - I usually find them more observant and better behaved.

TrevorH

If cycling is a dangerous activity then do not do it. The roads are for cars.

Driving in London is deadly dangerous -- the number of cycles and scooters and motercycles constantly disobeying the law makes it a nightmare.

This article is typial of the pompous ignorant self indulgent cycling mafia.

Ian C

I used to cycle around London inthe 70's and 80's when the traffic was far less, the traffic lights fewer (e.Hyde Parker Corner was a roundabout -look 'em in the eye and go, was my very successful method there), speed bumps were a twinkle in the eye of some town planner. Nothing, but nothing would induce me onto a bike on our crowded roads today - let alone London. There are 10m more vehicles on the roads since 1997 So, cyclists, you may not be "sunk in a pit of moral blackness" but you are darn fools, as far as I am concerned to even contemplate their use.

salieri

Chris D has got it right. The undeniable fact that cyclists are endangered by thoughtless drivers and pedestrians is no justification for being an insufferable menace themselves. Setting off ahead of other traffic at the lights is one thing - everywhere in central London there's a priority box marked for that very reason - but the cyclopaths' tendency totally to ignore red lights, one-way street markings, the need for lights when it's dark and the fact that pavements are for pedestrians, in fact sneer at everybloodybody but themselves, is indefensible. This isn't sanctimony and has nothing whatever to do with 'survival'- just a plea to obey the law.

Fergus Pickering

What do you mean, the roads are for cars? Of course they aren't. The roads are for getting from place to place. The roads are for pedestrians if there isn't a pavement. They are also for horses and herds of cows. And of course they are for cyclists. They pay their taxes, don't they? And why is that other fellow wound up by cyclists not wearing helmets. What's it to you? No law compels them. Frankly I don't care whether you wear your seatbelt or not. Don't be such a bad-tempered busybody. I have a bike but I'm far too idle to use it at my age and avoirdupois. I have never owned a cycling helmet.

TrevorH

I make no apology for saying roads are for cars. They are and people on bikes should realise they are interlopers. Instead they act like they own the place.

Cyclists do not pay road taxes and they ignore every road law available.

ChrisD and Salieri have got it right. If there is anything worse than cyclists it is motorcyclists and scooters whose acts defy motorists to run them over.

Interesting to read that buses, the friend of the green brigade, are also the scourge of cyclist - I have observed that as well.

BTW - I always try to be aware of cyclists and give them wobble room, and I would have more sympathy for them if they gave the slightest indication of wishing to comply with the rules and share the road.

John W

Rage against cyclists is absolutely ridiculous. It is patently absurd to hold those humanly propelling two wheeled machines about the streets of our towns and city's to the same standards as hurtling, explosion powered juggernauts of steel and death.

Adolf Hitler didn't like cyclists either.

On the point of roads being for cars - they are actually for geese who hold right of way over all other travellers. Cars in fact come a long way down the list.

John W

I might have mage up the bit about Hitler.

Fergus Pickering

I pay booze tax but that doesn't entitle me to drum fruit juice drinkers out of the pubs. The Road tax, like the booze tax and the fag tax and the sex tax (oops I don't think we have that YET) is simply a revenue raiser, not something you pay in order to use the roads. Are you suggesting that people who have big cars and pay more tax have more right to the roads than people who have little cars?

dexey

Road taxes do not pay for roads.
I pay road tax for my car and haven driven 8 miles since last November. I cycle instead. I don't wear a helmet nor a fluorescent jacket. I do use lights.
My choices because it is still a relatively free country in spite of the motorised twats who think nothing of hurting me.

Familiar Clown

Mary- Perhaps the answer lies in the picture above. Learn to ride a penny-farthing with ease and you'd have the road to yourself, perhaps even with a police escort. But don't forget the deerstalker!

Hambledon

It was because of cyclists, ironically and sadly, but contrary to the views of TrevorH, that the roads were paved in the first place.

London Calling

Have we gone off road here?

Cycle Bashing, Car Bashing Pedestrians at War playing dodge the Cyclist, cyclist at war playing dodge the dodgy motorist
or die?

The question is, how can cyclist be safe on the roads when at the traffic lights? Cars and Lorries
that turn left either do not see cyclists at their side, or worse don't care as long as they can turn first.

Since 7/7 cyclist's in London has trebled according to Cycling
manufacturers, although I would add the appalling travelling conditions of overcrowding on Buses and trains also, its a chaotic nightmare for motorists also held in traffic congestion.

The pollution from motor vehicles in our city is attributing to high increases of
Asthma and damaging our immune system, the young and elderly suffering the most.

I applaud a cleaner city and if Cycling contributes towards that
then its got to be a positive step forward and encouraged, the problem is that our Roads, environment and transport system, simply cannot cope with the overload and neither has there been enough done to make traffic lights and junctions safe for the high volume of cyclist's who now use the roads.

Lets keep this debate on track, London needs solutions to these problems, and fast.

Commondog

A small ditty for the endearing TrevorH.

Two piles of tarmac sat at the bar.

Door bursts open, in walks a huge pile of red tarmac.

One at the bar nudges his mate and gestures they take a seat in the corner.

They sit down. "Why have we come over here?"

"Him that's just walked in, don't even glance his way. He's a bleet'n cyclepath he is"

John Daniel

I'm a partially sighted padestrian and have to be very careful crossing roads, a number of times I've nearly been hit by cyclists coming through on red. There's a reason that little green man is there, selfish idiots.

Milo

"Drivers who drive too close and cut you up, the unnanounced left turn being a classic."

I ride a motorbike, drive a 4x4 and yes occassionaly cycle. Cyclists are a menace, if you dont break the highway code by vertaking on the left you wont have a problem with car drivers turning left.