To ask how we stop dangerous cyclists

I’d like to see a licence/registration scheme for all vehicular users of the roads
Dear god, we should be making it easier and safer for people to get around on foot and on bikes for the sake of our health/the environment/public finances etc, not requiring kids to have a licence to cycle to school. Motorists are the problem but we're conditioned to prioritise/indulge/fund them. See "Motonormativity - Wikipedia" en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motonormativity.

Let's stop indulging motorists and start holding them accountable for their actions before moving on to cyclists.

Or maybe we could do both at the same time? 🤷‍♀️

And, no @Redpeach, it's your lack of comprehension skills leading you to think that.

Fury? you're the one putting a death wish on cyclists

That’s true enough. The driver who nearly killed me and the poor bastard he crashed headfirst into whilst speeding I think escaped with points on his licence.

As they say, if you want to kill someone and get away with it, use a car

Looking at a thread quoting statistics above, I have checked them and indeed, you are more likely to be killed by a tree than a cyclist. Which is very interesting 🌳 🚲 🤔

A few things I witness as a pedestrian every fucking morning: dickhead motorists jumping red lights - even the pedestrian crossing in front of a police station!, dickhead motorists parking in cycle lanes - even those outside schools!, dickhead motorists parking on pavements so that pedestrians have to walk in the road, dickhead motorists not indicating/indicating right while turning left or going straight across junctions, dickhead motorists completely ignoring road signs (when is a righthand turn only lane not a righthand turn only lane? when a dickhead motorist feels like it), dickhead motorists not understanding how keep clear/box junctions work, dickhead motorists turning into side roads on the wrong side of the road ... Motorists kill and injure thousands of people - thousands! - every year in the UK (collision/pollution). They make the gun lobby look rational and altruistic. Let's stop indulging motorists and start holding them accountable for their actions before moving on to cyclists.

Well, obviously I don’t think I’m talking bollocks but I can see the idea of cyclists being registered, licensed or insured certainly appears to evoke strong emotions in some quarters.

As for my ‘unlicensed’ status, yes, I am a pedestrian, though I’ve cycled in the past. There hasn’t yet been any suggestions to bring in licenses for pedestrians but who knows? You may operate as many vehicles as you like - but it doesn’t necessarily make you a good driver so I’m not really following your argument there.

So far, I have been a passenger in two car crashes, the first of which I was critically injured and left with a permanent disability. I am well aware of the dangers of cars. At the same time, I’ve regularly felt threatened and startled by cyclists careering past me at speed on pedestrian only pavements. In some cases, it’s been sheer luck I wasn’t hit - had I been hit, I suspect I wouldn’t have been as badly injured as I was in the first of the two car accidents I’ve been in, but someone upthread has posted details of a number of fatal cycling-pedestrian accidents.

You’re right that everyone should have the right to be able to use the roads and pavements safely, even if it’s just a pedestrian “ambling” about, So yes, in principle I’d like to see a licence/registration scheme for all vehicular users of the roads and pavements but I do appreciate there are other elements to consider. Just not sure I understand the fury that such musings seem to provoke. Not every cyclist is a licences car driver (I wasn’t) and not every licensed car driver has good road sense or would make a good cyclist.

Registration plates won’t solve dickheads. We have them on cars and people still clone them, put covers on them so ANPR cameras can’t pick them up, use screws or tape to make them read something else etc. We also can’t identify any murderer, stabber, shooter etc by number plate, yet somehow we do occasionally manage to bring them to justice. Most sporting equipment, diy equipment and gardening equipment is deadly in the wrong hands. Some people on bikes are dicks. The vast majority are not. So many of these problems are city specific for starters (there’s next to no pavements or traffic lights where I am, and many traffic lights there are are part time signal just in rush hours, and the only zebra crossing is in the supermarket car park). For the hard of thinking this is not the only reason I don’t jump lights or ride on the pavement, I don’t do those things because they are wrong, but EVEN IF I wanted to, I can’t, because the opportunity is not there, so why do I get stuff thrown at me and abuse yelled at me ‘because cyclists run red lights’. When there aren’t any on my regular routes. I’m not kicking cars just because someone close passes me once, but this is what law abiding cyclists face daily.

Believe me, law abiding cyclists want shit ones to be better as much as everyone else, because it is fleecing our own totally unrelated ride safety, but we think the better way to do it is by better infrastructure, better facilities for everyone and getting more people on bikes and out of cars (so many traffic lights in London are because of volume of cars that actually they wouldn’t be needed at all if you could bring traffic down to a sensible level). The number plate brigade are the stick method that won’t solve wankers, because they do not give a fuck when committing crimes in cars and they won’t care on a bike either, but will probably put off a percentage of the law abiding, pushing them into cars too and making the congestion and overall road safety worse due to greater number of motor vehicles on the roads.

@Butchyrestingface Sorry, but you are talking b*llocks. We have eight (yes eight) cycles between us two, so should each one have a license? Some will never go more than a half mile on a public road, merely to get to an off road track. I have a license, I drive a car, four different ones in fact, so given your unlicensed status, I would say my road awareness, car, bike (and on horseback for nearly 15 years) perhaps trumps yours? Also, members of Cycling UK (and the BHS) get third party insurance.

There are bad, uncaring cyclists. There are bad horse riders, but they are vastly outnumbered by atrocious drivers who have a much deadlier weapon at their fingertips. I have had two friends killed by bad drivers while their riding horses. My OH has been hospitalised twice, thankfully only A&E by bad drivers knocking him off his bike while commuting to work. I have been subjected to punishment passes, cursing and swearing while on my bike. This is the reality, not your amble along a pavement. Everyone using pavements, roads, shared paths etc…..deserves respect.

Making the roads safer is easy: reduce the number of cars on them.

This means no stupid ideas about cyclists needing to registered or any other daft barriers.

Make getting on a bike as easy as possible, and get people cycling as young as possible. The more bikes on the road means less cars, which means less traffic, less accidents, less pollution and people enjoying the health benefits of travelling under their own steam. Simple.

I represented an elderly (pedestrian) client who was lucky not to be killed by a cyclist who cycled into him at considerable speed (having picked up momentum down a hill) on a crossing. He suffered a life changing brain injury.

Thankfully the cyclist stopped and was insured, so he got compensation for his injuries.

I've represented a number of injured pedestrians who've come off badly vs cyclists.

So few cyclists seem to be considerate of pedestrians, from personal experience. They need to learn about the hierarchy of vulnerable road users and realise that pedestrians are more vulnerable than they are, and act accordingly!

Regarding deaths and injuries causes by cyclists, this article in the Telegraph reports that many deaths and injuries caused by cyclists aren't recorded in the official figures.

The Telegraph has uncovered glaring failings in how the data is collected because it excludes those killed and seriously injured in public spaces where bikes are often ridden at speed. Official statistics also ignore those who take more than 30 days to succumb to catastrophic injuries caused by being struck by a bike.

Polly Friedhoff, 82, was hit and killed by a cyclist as she was walking along a canal towpath in Oxfordshire in 2022.

But the Stats 19 data states there were “no deaths” in 2022 caused by a cyclist hitting a pedestrian. A DfT official has now confirmed that towpaths are “not in the scope” of Stats 19 data.

Jim Blackwood, 91, was hit by an e-bike being ridden on the pavement in Kent last year. Because it took three months before he died from his severe injuries he will not be recorded as “killed”, only seriously injured.

John Douglas, 75, suffered 15 broken ribs and two broken collarbones after being hit by an e-bike ridden on the pavement near his Birmingham home last year. But because he died six weeks after the collision, official data will only record him having suffered a serious injury.

The official statistics shows 462 pedestrians were injured by cyclists in 2022, compared to 437 in 2021 when one person is recorded as dying, and 308 in 2020, when four people were killed.

A 2011 DfT document lists the public places which need not be included in the Stats 19 data.

The file shows a “footpath or bridleway with no lawful access for motor vehicles” is exempt from being included in official data. A “cycle path/track with no lawful access for motor vehicles” is also excluded.

Other excluded public areas include bus, railway and petrol stations, picnic areas, service areas, municipal or private parks, private industrial estates, pedestrian malls and private retail shopping parks, private residential estates, harbours, unadopted roads which are not maintained by public money and car parks and their access roads.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/25/cyclists-collisions-pedestrians-government-data-transport/

https://archive.ph/y7iLv

I said cyclists are A problem, and even if motorists pose a bigger problem, that's no reason not to deal with badly-behaved cyclists too.

Even if they rarely kill people, what they do can terrorise pedestrians. I was knocked down once by a cyclist jumping a flashing amber light when pedestrians were finishing crossing - he rode so close to me that his handlebar went through the strap of my shoulder bag and pulled me down to the ground. And then he had the nerve to blame ME!

Walking to the station each morning when I commuted I would walk along a stretch of main road approaching traffic lights. There's always a queue of traffic waiting at the lights, so cyclists routinely queue jump by cycling onto the pavement, at speed. It happens so much that after a while, I noticed that every time I turned the corner onto that road and walked towards the lights, my body would tense up, my heart rate would speed up and my stomach would knot. My body was reacting instinctively because it was scared, anticipating that at any moment a cyclist would probably come speeding up behind me, and pass within a foot or so of me. If I happened to move slightly to the side as he did so, he would hit me.

Why should pedestrians have to walk along pavements in fear of cyclists, when the pavements are supposed to be safe spaces for us? Why shouldn't we try to find ways of educating selfish, badly behaved cyclists that this isn't on and they have to stop it?

Of course we should deal with badly-behaved motorists (who are a serious threat to cyclists), but we should also be tackling badly-behaved cyclists.

The hard fact is that deaths and serious injuries caused by cyclists are astonishingly rare, which is why they're newsworthy when they do happen (as in the case you cite from the Radio 4 program)

The life-changing injury to the man's wife wasn't being reported in the news (i.e. because it was rare). It was simply mentioned in a general discussion about cyclists' behaviour on the roads.

Licence & registration schemes (as I’m sure has been mentioned on this thread already, but NRFT), are too expensive to administer to make them worthwhile for the level of harm cycling does, especially when set against the harm reduction that comes from active travel.

Googled to see whether there has ever been a successful licence scheme for cyclists and can’t see anything. Apparently a registration scheme does run in some places. I’ll do a deeper dive later.

It just seems incredibly unjust to me, even as a theoretical possibility, that someone could be hit and severely injured (even killed) by a cyclist breaking all the rules of the road, and they would be able to jump back on their bike and pedal away, potentially evading justice because eye witnesses cannot identify them by registration plate, for instance. A bike is still a dangerous weapon in the hands of the wrong person.

It isn’t quite the same as a death threat, imo, though I’ll grant you it’s a bit concerning that they’re on the road. 😬

However, she quoted ME as making “death threats”, which I didn’t.

I don’t even have a driver’s licence so in a situation of me as a pedestrian versus a bike, I’d probably come off worse.

Oh I read a number of the comments as "I would rather put a cyclist at risk of death than slow down " and " cyclists are always in the wrong so if I hit one it would not be my fault"

That's quite threatening

Just a desire for cyclists to fight to the death then? And you call me ridiculous

Surely the goal of any civilised society is that it's safe enough for kids to cycle to school

Always threats of death against cyclists on these threads, so depressing

This is why I’ve sold my road bike and only cycle on cycle paths by the river and in the park on my MTB, taking the quietest routes to get there. Motorists are so hacked off by the behaviour of road racers, that they appear to hate ALL cyclists now…

It's not just that motorists pose the larger problem, the difference is massive. Of pedestrian road casualties reported to police, only 2% involved a cyclist, and these were mostly minor injuries. As such, motorists must be the major focus when considering how to improve road safety for everyone, especially when there are limited funds and resources. Any talk about cyclist being "the problem" is just a distraction from the elephant in the room. The two problems just don't deserve equal attention.

The hard fact is that deaths and serious injuries caused by cyclists are astonishingly rare, which is why they're newsworthy when they do happen (as in the case you cite from the Radio 4 program). You just don't hear about the thousands of cases every year where pedestrians are similarly permanently affected by drivers.

The cyclist was stupid, but if you had hit him, he would have come off much worse. If the car behind you had hit you, it was driving too close - that would be their fault, not the cyclist’s. All vehicles have a legal responsibility to keep suitable distances so they can make an emergency stop safely.

Licence & registration schemes (as I’m sure has been mentioned on this thread already, but NRFT), are too expensive to administer to make them worthwhile for the level of harm cycling does, especially when set against the harm reduction that comes from active travel.

I cycle, motorbike and drive - and I feel the safest in my car when faced with poor road behaviour from anyone - especially cyclists. Jumping a red light on a bike isn’t the same level of risk to other road users as jumping it in a car.

There’s no point pretending otherwise.