Cycling in Central London

[TUS 2 CON]

Obviously it's been a horrible few weeks for Cyclists in London. But I think it's wrong to just point the finger of responsibility at the Mayor or the layout of the cycle-highways.

I have just got back from my usual commute from Central London and, as usual, I have seen numerous cyclists:

- cycling through red lights;
- riding without lights (well after dark);
- riding without helmets;
- overtaking large vehicles on the left in left filter lanes;
- not looking behind properly before changing lanes;
- etc

Before I receive a barrage of replies, I would like to say (a) I am a cyclist in Central London myself, and (b) most cyclists are much better than this.

However, there is a significant minority of cyclists in London who are quite simply dangerous.

I think the only solution to this will be to introduce a basic registration requirement. I would suggest that anyone wishing to cycle in, say, Zone 1 or the Congestion Zone, should have to display a registration number on the back of their bike (rather like Taxis have license numbers displayed). I think that if riders knew there was some sort of come-back, they would be less likely to cycle through red-lights etc.

I would also suggest that in order to obtain a registration, you would have to do a day's proficiency training - rather like the CBT for Scooters. Not something you can fail, just training in basic cycling safety.

Other requirements could be that you have to wear a helmet and have working lights after dark. If you get caught without, you loose you registration number.

There are problems with this approach. I know a lot of cyclists would see this as encroaching on their 'freedom' and a step towards requiring cyclists to have insurance etc. Also I don't know where it would leave the Boris Bikes...

It just worries me that anyone who has no road experience at all, can buy or hire a bike and be in the think of Central London traffic minutes later.

[kiethton]

It just isn't practical to register bikes or enforce testing - who would actually stop the cyclists without registrations?

Surely it's just better carrying on in the status quo, recommending people take training and offering it to those that want it whilst allowing Darwinism to take effect

Yours, another C. London cycle commuter

[grumbledoak]

Cyclists can protest about deaths all they like, nothing will happen.

But registration means enforcement means costs.

I think a cyclist organisation should have a voluntary yearly £50 'license' and literally spend that money buying bits of suitable road and turning them into cycle paths designed, built, and maintained by and for cyclists. It would work. It was how the roads were originally built. Money talks.

It would give cyclists the moral high-ground and genuine control of their infrastructure.


Yours, G.Doak, Central London pedestrian, ex-cyclist, and very occasional Boris biker.

Edited by grumbledoak on Friday 15th November 20:22

[Magic919]

Big fines and some actual enforcement would be a good start. You won't be able to stop people making every deadly manoeuvre though.

[neenaw]

TUS 2 CON said:

I would also suggest that in order to obtain a registration, you would have to do a day's proficiency training - rather like the CBT for Scooters.

Have you not seen the way scooterists ride in London?
Even with a CBT, license, insurance and what ever else, they're probably one of the most dangerous bunch of road users I've ever seen!

[Gizmoish]

Yep. See it all from my office window in Shoreditch.

[okgo]

Actually red light jumping has f all to do with the deaths I would imagine. And red light jumping in itself is usually pretty harmless as long as it's done with some degree of awareness (not advocating, just saying) and it is just something that annoys people more than anything.

[il sole]

Being a regular commuter by bike, but never in massively built up areas, surely the main problem with London and why there have been these terrible deaths recently is that there is just so much traffic there. I have driven loads in central London and I have always found it a truly hateful place to get around. Drivers are aggressive, thus making others aggressive or overly defensive, the roads in places are narrow, with multiple lanes, there are literally millions of bl**dy buses and taxis, the traffic light phases favour pedestrians and hold up all traffic, both peddle powered and engined. It's just so stressful!
I know I'm not offering suggestions to make it better, just thought I'd proffer up my thoughts. Feel free to disregard!

[craigthecoupe]

you ride like a vehicle and expect to be treated like one, or, a pedestrian and the same goes. whats so hard about this? don't jump red lights, wear a helmet (why this isn't law is beyond me) have lights if riding after dark, and above all, car, truck, van, bicycle, pedestrian or bus, don't behave like a fkwit, as shirley, in the end, someone will die.
aside from this, when you squeeze so many people into such a small area, human error is always going to be an unfortunate consequence at some point

[anonymous-user]

I doubt that wearing a helmet would have prevented any of the recent deaths. Probably wearing anyway..
From the mid 90s I spent a few years commuting through London by bike. Used my 9 lives.
There are 10 times as many bicycles on the roads now, unfortunately casualties will multiply proportionately ..

[paranoid airbag]

TUS 2 CON said:

Before I receive a barrage of replies, I would like to say I am a cyclist in Central London myself

If you need a justification like that, you've already admitted you're wrong. And putting quote marks around "freedom" tells me all I need to know: you really don't understand what freedom means from a legislative point of view in the slightest. Losing the ability to cycle without a helmet doesn't matter to you? fking irrelevant. If it matters to anyone, then the onus is on show to show to a pretty high standard of proof that it would make a sufficient difference to justify the loss of freedom - and you don't have that.

<Ponders whether or not I'll have to deal with some moron who thinks a cracked helmet, and/or the words of a single doctor who has read precisely zero studies of the subject, comes within a hundred miles of "proof">

As for legislation - so, how's that worked out for speeding then? Anyone been caught and admitted they'd seen the light and changed their behaviour as a result recently? My arse they have. The only reason people stop at lights in cars is because once the first person stops it's not physically possible to ignore them.

The sad thing is, I would mostly agree with you. There's only so much a motorist or govt could be expected to do, and after that it's up to you. But did it honestly not occur to you that these are not new ideas?. They're not. You could have googled them, read counter-arguments, and at least attempted a response. But you didn't, because your opinion is too important for research, isn't it? Now we have to go through the same old bullst, again and again and again.

I worry far more about idiots who *think* they can come up with legislation than I do about idiot cyclists.

[Gizmoish]

Jimboka said:

I doubt that wearing a helmet would have prevented any of the recent deaths. Probably wearing anyway..
From the mid 90s I spent a few years commuting through London by bike. Used my 9 lives.
There are 10 times as many bicycles on the roads now, unfortunately casualties will multiply proportionately ..

Interestingly - no, a helmet wouldn't have prevented any of the deaths. But wearing one did prevent another death, the girl who got trapped under a car near Spitalfields.

[TUS 2 CON]

paranoid airbag said:

TUS 2 CON said:

Before I receive a barrage of replies, I would like to say I am a cyclist in Central London myself

If you need a justification like that, you've already admitted you're wrong. And putting quote marks around "freedom" tells me all I need to know: you really don't understand what freedom means from a legislative point of view in the slightest. Losing the ability to cycle without a helmet doesn't matter to you? fking irrelevant. If it matters to anyone, then the onus is on show to show to a pretty high standard of proof that it would make a sufficient difference to justify the loss of freedom - and you don't have that.

<Ponders whether or not I'll have to deal with some moron who thinks a cracked helmet, and/or the words of a single doctor who has read precisely zero studies of the subject, comes within a hundred miles of "proof">

As for legislation - so, how's that worked out for speeding then? Anyone been caught and admitted they'd seen the light and changed their behaviour as a result recently? My arse they have. The only reason people stop at lights in cars is because once the first person stops it's not physically possible to ignore them.

The sad thing is, I would mostly agree with you. There's only so much a motorist or govt could be expected to do, and after that it's up to you. But did it honestly not occur to you that these are not new ideas?. They're not. You could have googled them, read counter-arguments, and at least attempted a response. But you didn't, because your opinion is too important for research, isn't it? Now we have to go through the same old bullst, again and again and again.

I worry far more about idiots who *think* they can come up with legislation than I do about idiot cyclists.

I was going to type a reply to all that, but I think I'll just point out that you're obviously an ahole.

[TheLemming]

TUS 2 CON said:

paranoid airbag said:

TUS 2 CON said:

Before I receive a barrage of replies, I would like to say I am a cyclist in Central London myself

If you need a justification like that, you've already admitted you're wrong. And putting quote marks around "freedom" tells me all I need to know: you really don't understand what freedom means from a legislative point of view in the slightest. Losing the ability to cycle without a helmet doesn't matter to you? fking irrelevant. If it matters to anyone, then the onus is on show to show to a pretty high standard of proof that it would make a sufficient difference to justify the loss of freedom - and you don't have that.

<Ponders whether or not I'll have to deal with some moron who thinks a cracked helmet, and/or the words of a single doctor who has read precisely zero studies of the subject, comes within a hundred miles of "proof">

As for legislation - so, how's that worked out for speeding then? Anyone been caught and admitted they'd seen the light and changed their behaviour as a result recently? My arse they have. The only reason people stop at lights in cars is because once the first person stops it's not physically possible to ignore them.

The sad thing is, I would mostly agree with you. There's only so much a motorist or govt could be expected to do, and after that it's up to you. But did it honestly not occur to you that these are not new ideas?. They're not. You could have googled them, read counter-arguments, and at least attempted a response. But you didn't, because your opinion is too important for research, isn't it? Now we have to go through the same old bullst, again and again and again.

I worry far more about idiots who *think* they can come up with legislation than I do about idiot cyclists.

I was going to type a reply to all that, but I think I'll just point out that you're obviously an ahole.

Funny because I though paranoid was spot on there.
Removing a little of the hyperbole, read the papers or at least the summaries of the research.... Surrounding mandatory helmet laws and how they tend to have very little bearing on ksi statistics and act to strangle take up of cycling...

[TUS 2 CON]

TheLemming said:

TUS 2 CON said:

paranoid airbag said:

TUS 2 CON said:

Before I receive a barrage of replies, I would like to say I am a cyclist in Central London myself

If you need a justification like that, you've already admitted you're wrong. And putting quote marks around "freedom" tells me all I need to know: you really don't understand what freedom means from a legislative point of view in the slightest. Losing the ability to cycle without a helmet doesn't matter to you? fking irrelevant. If it matters to anyone, then the onus is on show to show to a pretty high standard of proof that it would make a sufficient difference to justify the loss of freedom - and you don't have that.

<Ponders whether or not I'll have to deal with some moron who thinks a cracked helmet, and/or the words of a single doctor who has read precisely zero studies of the subject, comes within a hundred miles of "proof">

As for legislation - so, how's that worked out for speeding then? Anyone been caught and admitted they'd seen the light and changed their behaviour as a result recently? My arse they have. The only reason people stop at lights in cars is because once the first person stops it's not physically possible to ignore them.

The sad thing is, I would mostly agree with you. There's only so much a motorist or govt could be expected to do, and after that it's up to you. But did it honestly not occur to you that these are not new ideas?. They're not. You could have googled them, read counter-arguments, and at least attempted a response. But you didn't, because your opinion is too important for research, isn't it? Now we have to go through the same old bullst, again and again and again.

I worry far more about idiots who *think* they can come up with legislation than I do about idiot cyclists.

I was going to type a reply to all that, but I think I'll just point out that you're obviously an ahole.

Funny because I though paranoid was spot on there.
Removing a little of the hyperbole, read the papers or at least the summaries of the research.... Surrounding mandatory helmet laws and how they tend to have very little bearing on ksi statistics and act to strangle take up of cycling...

My objection was to the personal abuse.

Thank you for the more considered response. And yes, I see your point and suspect you know a lot more about these things than I do.

[mdavids]

Not saying you dont have some valid points but this topic comes up in one form or another about once every week, usually started by someone with a thinly veiled anti-cycling agenda and/or an ill-informed absurd sense of logic.

Here you go, fill yer boots:

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

[S10GTA]

Yey, this again.

[Hackney]

okgo said:

Actually red light jumping has f all to do with the deaths I would imagine. And red light jumping in itself is usually pretty harmless as long as it's done with some degree of awareness (not advocating, just saying) and it is just something that annoys people more than anything.

It certainly doesn't help with the perception of cyclists amongst the population as a whole though.
And you're much less likely to die if you don't go through red lights.

I do have to confess that I chuckle to myself every time I recall the two cyclists who collided with each other after both going through red lights. You could actually see the self righteousness evaporate.

[heebeegeetee]

Gizmoish said:

Interestingly - no, a helmet wouldn't have prevented any of the deaths. But wearing one did prevent another death, the girl who got trapped under a car near Spitalfields.

I read that too, and also read that it was the first time she had worn a helmet.

A significant part of the helmet debate is the sizeable evidence that cyclists wearing helmets take more risks and and that drivers give less room, and it has to be said, this girl cycles wearing a helmet for the first time and literally ends up underneath a car - and the helmet is credited with saving her life.

I don't know what the solution is for London, but I would make a couple of points - one is that I think Boris Johnson is being misquoted - it's said that he has made his comments after 'cyclists have been killed' but he actually made them after it had become clear that one of the dead cyclists had ridden up a wrong way street the wrong way.

My other comment is that cyclists have already paid tax so they shouldn't have to pay more or pay again to get some facilities that suit them.

[londonbabe]

The only solutions that will really make any positive difference to cycling safety in London are too politically or practically difficult and expensive to implement.

1: banning HGV traffic during typical commuting hours. If approx half the deaths are commuters being crushed by trucks then this eliminates half the deaths. You could lift the night time ban to allow nocturnal deliveries instead, and set up out of town distribution centres for some things.

2: providing true cycle-only roads that are direct, wide, well surfaced and go where people need to go. This would need at least one Thames bridge to be completely closed to motor traffic, and a complete set of east-west streets. And pedestrians would need to be made not to treat it as a footpath. This would cost a fortune, but anything less seems to be worse than doing nothing.

3: stricter liability laws. It's a mystery why most of the rest of Europe has these laws but Britain doesn't. They make a noticeable difference to the way drivers take care around cyclists and the way cyclists take care around pedestrians. Perhaps it's because of the Daily Mail style war on the motorist rhetoric that we don't have them. I would gladly accept these laws in return for a 90mph motorway speed limit.