Cyclists have made my home city too stressful to live in any more

Bikes on pavements make walking in Cambridge unpleasant and dangerous

We live in a university town and I’ve nearly been run over by an e-scooter and an e-bike on separate occasions. Obviously the riders were doing illegal moves-one cut across the pavement right in front of me. If he’d collided with me, I’d have gone flying!

I think they’re great inventions, but please remember the pedestrians!

I know which city. The attempted theft was widely discussed on social media.

I'm a cyclist. And I am 100% with you on the issues that this significant minority of cyclists are causing.

Totally agree I love walking, and can no longer have s relaxing walk around our beautiful city. It’s not just the E-bikes, but school kids on lime bikes, the only place to walk safely is on the grass in the parks!

My town was chosen for a mini Holland project. There are now proper cycle lanes on all the major arterial roads. They took out bus lanes to make room. It cost £30million!

I was wondering this too.
whilst there are good and bad cyclists and good and bad drivers, the drivers ultimately carry all the responsibility for not hitting cyclists as they have the more ‘deadly’ machines. It’s very stressful driving in Cambridge.

To add, so many other countries have had fantastic cycle routes established for decades, an area we are lacking in. Not the narrow lanes which end half way down a road.

Yup, they (electric scooters/mopeds/quads) are lethal and too often used by balaclava clad idiots. Dangerous speeds, deliberate goading to traffic, lads having 'fun' in public places with families. Yet so difficult to do anything about with the lack of resources, physically stopping them etc.

I'm so tired with the cycling twattery.

So many cyclists have no shame, no manners and no decency.

And another here wondering if you're talking about Cambridge. It's a lovely city and I live 10 minutes away but I avoid it like the plague. I'm generally a happy confident driver but I stopped driving into Cambridge in the evening sometimes (no park and ride late enough) because it was so stressful trying to avoid all the cyclists in the dark. I seemed to be much more concerned about avoiding injuring a cyclist than the cyclists ever seemed concerned about being hit!

I sympathise. I was actually an avid city cyclist. Once I had my baby in a sling and was standing in the middle of the pavement at traffic lights waiting and looking to the right where the cars were coming from. It was quiet and I was standing 3ft away from the road because I didn’t want to stand with the right next to the road. There was 3ft behind me and no cycle lane (you’re expected to cycle on the road in the bus lane).

The lights changed and I stepped forwards to cross still looking right. There was a huge screech and a cyclist hit me and the baby from the left. The s* had been cycling on the pavement and had tried to squeeze through on the pavement in front of me. I have never been so furious at someone. He mumbled a sorry and then carried on cycling on the pavement!!

I was going to suggest is this Bristol? - drive my H nuts driving in the end ( I don’t drive) and it doesn’t have great public transport either -

no children are fine, little children who wouldn’t be safe on a road. Admittedly I don’t live somewhere with these issues, cyclists , the adults are on bikes that are probably worth as much as my car. An adult on a pushbike on the pavement for no good reason id just keep going and assume they’d get out of the way and go in the road.

The main problem seems to be food delivery riders. If we all stopped using Deliveroo/Just Eat and went back to picking up our own takeaways it would probably help.

@valianttortoise Sorry I am being a bit grumpy. Where I am in Cambridge, some of the infrastructure is very poor so it is partly that. However, I agree it is mostly the delivery cyclists weaving in and out of traffic, up and down pavements causing major problems. Perhaps that is also to do poor roads for drivers so they’re weaving around traffic and in pedestrian areas where cyclists aren’t allowed. I’ve found in the Netherlands more cyclists obey the rules than here.

I think the issue is really wider when it comes to going on the toad. It's the entitlement mindset to be fought, regardless on how many wheels.
I walk, cycle and drive, and try to be considerate regardless.
When I walk, I look left and right before crossing, try not to press a pedestrian traffic light if there are no cars coming, I don't take up the whole path.
When I drive, I don't take risks, I respect cyclists, I keep my eyes wide open and get no distractions.
When I cycle, if I am on the road and a queue is forming behind me, I pull out at the first opportunity and let fastest vehicles go past. If I am on the pavement, I dismount when I cross a pedestrian, or I make sure to slow down enough/move to the side enough not to cause any harm.

Does anyone do the same? Very few in my experience. I see drivers speeding in busy roads, including in front of schools at drop off time. I see cyclists not stopping at a red traffic light, and carrying on cycling slowly even when there is a queue of 30+ cars behind them and plenty of opportunity to pull over for 30 seconds.....

I agree it’s terrible but like I said I work in one of those places and would love to have cyclists on a pavement as my biggest problem on the way to work. Imagine having to cycle to the station, get on the train for 40 minutes then cycle again to work and think how lucky you are.

I don’t think cyclists should break the law. However, I would love to be able to afford to live in a beautiful city where cycling is easy like Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford and think you just have to accept poor cycling compared to commuting for 1.5 hours each way on the train. Move to a village on the outskirts and take the park and ride and I’m sure you’d rather put up with cyclists rather than standstill traffic.

Unfortunately relying on people to do the right thing isn’t that effective in road safety. Many will because they understand the effect on others, but others just won’t. At least in this situation the cyclists have an excuse that the road design is poor (unlike other problems such as drink or drug driving or driving using a mobile phone).

There’s just no way that you can compel people to do what you want here - any more that I could compel the driver I saw on his mobile last week to stop.

The only solutions that actually work are safe road designs to solve the more low level problems and police enforcement to tackle more serious ones (where there is actual criminal intent not just people trying to cope with poor street design). LTN1/20 (which I mentioned earlier) is very clear that this situation is poor design for 3 reasons:

1. Cyclists shouldn’t be treated as vehicles not pedestrians in urban areas and should be separated from them (so no shared paths).
2. On busy streets, cyclists need their own lane physically separated from traffic (eg by bollards)
3. Cyclists shouldn’t be expected to dismount because some can’t (as bicycles are a mobility aid).

Police enforcement seems to vary between forces, but some forces are doing some really interesting pioneering stuff - West Midlands for example has had some interesting initiatives. It’s a real shame that this (and road safety issues in general) isn’t better reported.

If you are in Edinburgh, there is a fairly well-known cycle campaign (Spokes) so it might be worth seeing if they have any current campaigns to improve the issues that you mention.

(Also thanks to @cowleycyclist- I very much appreciated your kind post).

So, I posted earlier about the floating bus stops we have round here - bus users and cyclists are made to share the same piece of pavement (in front of the bus stop). The idea is that everyone is co-operative and looks out for each other. It is used a lot in Europe apparently.

The big problem here of course is that people here are used to spaces being clearly assigned to either cyclists or pedestrians and often people rail against the other lot getting in their way. And it isn't safe for eg deaf or blind people.

Here is an article about them including a video - possibly coming your way https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-69001698.amp

Oh good, another cyclist bashing thread. Yes they’re the spawn of satan OP. All of them.

Hi OP. I can see from your post that you're in my city (I saw the clips on SM of the bike theft, it's doing the rounds). I am also a cyclist, but agree with you. A lot of the problems are to do with ebikes/scooters, the roadmen kids & delivery drivers, not help by the council's poorly planned cycling infrastructure in the city centre. It makes it hard for a bog standard cyclist like me too!

I like to cycle myself and the delivery drivers are a menace. Regular cyclists, well there's a few who are arseholes (Yes, Lycra and showing off) but much less of an issue. Infrastructure improvements would help for the regular cyclists but I'm afraid that the delivery drivers will do just about anything. I remember visiting the Netherlands over 20 years ago, so pre ebikes and Deliveroo, and the cycling infrastructure with the dedicated paths and separation made such a difference.

To answer your original question, rural north Hampshire.

We had one teen with an escooter. It's just been confiscated by police for riding two-up, in the dark, without lights.