Cyclists in London are insane

It’s a fucking joke and dramatically worse in the last couple of years. So many dickheads on bikes, electric bikes and scooters coming up on to the pavement, cycling at speed across pedestrian crossings, running red lights.

This week I narrowly missed being run over by a kid on a Lime bike going at full speed around a big roundabout and clearly struggling to control the bike, and then by a cyclist on the pavement coming so fast at me round a corner I had to jump into the road to avoid being hit.

What can be done about it, though? Who to complain to? There are no consequences for dangerous cycling.

I think it probably depends where you live. I've never had to leap out of the way of a car on the pavement thankfully. I have to dodge bikes daily.

I live on a one way road, one lane is a cycle lane and the other is a car lane. They both have lights. Never once have I been nearly knocked down by a car going through a red light. I've never seen a car go through a red light on this road. The majority of bikes don't stop at the red light, you just have to wait for there to be no bikes. You cannot use the green man crossing for that half of the road because the bikes, unlike the cars, do not stop.

I'm not doubting that cars kill more people overall. But in terms of what is an issue for me, in my daily life, the bikes are definitely worse. Which doesn't mean I think road deaths are ok or that we shouldn't do whatever we can to bring them down. I'd just ALSO like the dangerous cycling to be addressed. It's my preference that I don't get killed or maimed by a driver OR a cyclist. I'm lucky enough to be able to worry about two things at once!

How about dog walkers with 3 metre extendable invisible (black) leads wafting along shared use paths without a care in the world for the hazard to any passing cyclist they're creating

Passed a dog walker walking home in twilight/dark tonight, his dog had a red bike light on the collar (black dog). Utterly fabulous!

Again, you are being silly. Drivers are killing hundreds of people every year. Cyclists are killing at most two.

Yet you want to divert police time and attention away from the drivers to the cyclists.

Make it make sense.

Hopefully they tag the local council as well as it's not actually the mayor who licences the lime and forest bikes in the boroughs

this ⬆️

'Electric bikes' are legally permitted to be programmed to travel at 15mph maximum. They are frequently souped up to travel at speeds of around 45mph, and I understand one rider was caught in London with such a vehicle capable of travelling at 75mph.

Throw in ignorance of travel rules (most riders of these are young foreign men) and/or criminal intent...

Nope. Statistically cars injure more pedestrians on pavements as well. You are just so used to cars being around that it doesn't register that actually it's cars not bikes that are the real risk.

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Apparently we should only focus on one thing at a time. Cars are the biggest killer. And so we shouldn't worry about cyclists and their bad behaviour until they kill more people than cars. Then we can shift our focus onto bikes.

Presumably we shouldn't worry about dangerous dogs until we've solved malaria as mosquitos kill far more people than dogs do.

We live in the corner of a main road and a one way street that connects to another main road. Not a week goes by without a cyclist being knocked off their bike from going down the one way street the wrong way, or pulling straight out onto the main road without looking. I’ve been hit and knocked over by a cyclist while using a pedestrian crossing. He just shouted “Get out the fucking way next time” as he rode off. And don’t get me started on the cycle lanes around Vauxhall, which are barely used by the cyclists, who prefer to use the road.

You could literally ban every single cyclist and the roads would be no safer whatsoever.

That's definitely not true, at least not in London.

And that's disregarding how much safer the pavements would be without cyclists. I think it's fair to say cyclists are more of a problem on the pavement than cars.

Agree

I don’t think anyone on here is saying to prioritise cyclists? Just that they feel something should be put in place as it’s becoming more dangerous. Why can’t we look to prosecute both drivers and cyclists who break the law?

What a disgusting way to refer to what sounds like a hell ish incident - you should be ashamed of yourself. Poor poor form.

Don't be silly.

Drivers are not diseases. They are human beings in control of what they do. They can be policed and prosecuted and lives will be saved.

I really do not understand why someone would prioritise policing cyclists, who are bloody annoying and yes, sometimes dangerous, but not actually killing people very often, over drivers who are killing hundreds of people a year. It is like they have an enormous blind spot over where the real danger is coming from.

You could literally ban every single cyclist and the roads would be no safer whatsoever.

I think unless you have experienced this in central London, you don't understand what it's like. It is absolutely crazy. The cycle super highway or whatever it's called is really fast, hordes of cyclists all speeding along at once at about 20 mph, and they don't stop for pedestrian green lights so it's dangerous for pedestrians to cross on green when it should be safe. I've even seen them going the wrong way down a cycle lane, so a pedestrian wouldn't expect to look that way. It is nothing like encountering the odd cyclist in any other town.

I own an e-bike. I don’t ride fast, I don’t like speed that much. I used to live in London and the biggest A-holes were the Lycra Bros. The would ignore the Highway Code constantly and complain because I wasn’t fast enough.

I’ve moved to an East Midlands Town and I’m finding that pedestrians are the biggest problem. They don’t look before stepping into the road. There’s a street I use to get to the station (the main reason now, that I ride is that the buses are infrequent and very slow) which is solely a bike and bus lane and pedestrians just don’t look. As before I don’t go fast even though I could, theoretically. I’ve nearly run over one person because they suddenly stepped into the road. I almost sh1t myself.

I don’t think the person was talking about saving lives? They were talking about stopping illegal behaviour. Or at least a way to prosecute it. You know the same way if a driver goes through a red light camera they get a ticket?

I also think you should start campaigning for all research scientists to stop any research to cure any diseases other than cancer. How daft that some doctors might be trying to motor neurone disease!!! Hardly anyone has that compared to cancer! Everyone should only be focusing on cancer. Nothing else at all.

We were talking about electric hire bikes, which one hires through a bank card supported app, so already completely traceable

Once you've sorted out the drivers obviously. I mean, it would be madness to spend a load of money to save one or two lives when apparently you have everything you need already in place via existing car license plates to save hundreds. Surely no one would suggest that!

No need - cars have registration numbers, and so do drivers for that matter. It's usually possible to match the two up if a car is driving inappropriately.

We could insist on bike licences. Good idea.

I had a terrible fright a few months ago - not in London mind - a dad was driving down one of the most used arteries of the city, with a six year old on his own little bike behind him in the bike lane. Because of the metal barries that go down the side of the bike land (apparently to make it a visual barrier) you couldn't see the little guy well until they came to places where the lane opened up so cars could make a turn into the side street.

I'd say I had no idea what this man was thinking letting his child ride his own bike in this situation, except the city is all about promoting about the bike infrastructure being inclusive for all "ages and stages."

Motonormativity - the bias in which society accepts risks and harms from motor vehicles that it would not tolerate in other areas of life, because driving is viewed as a social norm.

It is so depressing to see so many people would genuinely rather accept hundred of people being killed as just one of those things than consider that drivers might be a bigger issue than cyclists.

I don't think this is the case at all.

This thread is about cyclists, that's why it's focussing on cyclists.

If you start a thread about dangerous drivers I very much doubt that everyone will say "I don't mind dangerous drivers and road deaths it's just one of those things". There will be the same response there as there has been here about cyclists.

People want to be safe. From cars. And bikes.

Pointing out bad behaviour from one group doesn't negate bad behaviour from another. Arseholes can drive cars AND bikes. In fact, they probably do! People who have got no regard for anyone else's safety on a bike will be the same in a car and vice versa. The problem is the person behind the wheel/handlebars not the mode of transport.

If we have sufficient capacity to focus our attention on all dangerous behaviour, how come drivers are still killing hundreds and maiming thousands?

I mean, it's not rocket science is it? Deal with the behaviour that kills hundreds and maims thousands a year first, then deal with the behaviour that kills single digits and (maybe) mains tens.

It is so depressing to see so many people would genuinely rather accept hundred of people being killed as just one of those things than consider that drivers might be a bigger issue than cyclists.