to still be fuming today about this cyclist?

[microserf]

i have to rant. i have form ranting on here about how much i hate ill mannered cyclists, but this one really took the piss.

last night, at 5pm (so still sunny) i was walking with my 2 kids in the double buggy and we had to cross a busy road at a crossroads. i waited ages at the crossing for the green man. green man light flicked on, i checked the cars had actually stopped and stepped out onto the crossing. all seemed fine.

only for the buggy to be nearly hit by some fucking asshole who came flying around the corner on his bike and ran the red light (he was going downhill, so had built up a bit of speed) swerved at the last second and cycled off without a word of apology.

i am still furious!!! i was really shaken up by it, and i am really tired of bad cyclists running red lights and cycling over pedestrian crossings when i'm crossing, esp with the kids. it's not like a fully loaded buggy can jump out of the way!

i think we should put license plates on the cycles, so the bad ones can be weeded out! if i did that in my car, i'd not be driving for much longer.

AwesomePan - I am genuinely not sure that you'd accept that anything was the cyclist's fault, even if they disobey the rules of the road or cycle without due care and attention, and get hurt as a result.

Yes, there are drivers who put cyclists at risk, and yes, many cyclists get hurt by bad drivers every year - as the mother of three boys who do daily paper rounds on their bikes, do you honestly think I am not aware of that - but I don't think that gives cyclists carte blanche to put other people at risk.

I believe you (rightly) count every near miss on a cyclist by a bad driver as an instance of danger against cyclists and equally rightly condemn it. Yet you have shown no indication that you accept that near misses on pedestrians are anything other than acceptable in your book. Only one of the examples cited by Fanjo in her post early this morning (tsk tsk, very late night, Fanjo ) led to a cyclist actually hitting a pedestrian, but all are examples of dangerous and inconsiderate road use - and trying to excuse them by saying that drivers are more dangerous cuts no ice with me.

i was in bed by 10 but DD had me up between 12 and 2 (and again at 430) (she is nearly 5 and not a newborn too , grrr)

AwesomePan, you are obviously a considerate road user.

The guy who hit me mounted the pavement at a bus stop as a bus pulled up so that he could get around the traffic. He was charged by the police but conveniently disappeared when summoned to court. I think it is legitimate for me to share this story as I was injured and required a trip to hospital.

I certainly don't think all cyclists are like this but a distinct minority are.

Also, it's not just cyclists i have an issue with; my life has been impacted negatively by other road users but they're not the subject of this thread!

OK - I'll let you off then, Fanjo. Is dd poorly? And are you going to get a bit of a rest today to make up for the bad night, or survive on caffeine?

Seconding everything LDNmummy said - as a London pedestrian I see far, far more dangerous behaviour from cyclists than cars & I'm afraid to say good, considerate cyclists appear to be in the minority. I've lost count of the times I've been going over a pedestrian crossing with buses or vans at a stop & a cyclist comes whizzing past on their inside. FFS, if the vehicle is stationary then it stands to reason someone is crossing! Have had so many near misses with lunatic cyclists on pavements, flying round blind corners, running red lights & pedestrian crossings. There always seems to be someone who tries to justify this behaviour by pointing the finger at car drivers. Not relevant!

OP is not BU to be angry at this particular cyclist, but I seriously wonder whether she would have started this thread if it had been a near-miss by a driver jumping a red light, and if she had it wouldn't have included posts saying all drivers are jerks and shouldn't be allowed on the roads.

I am a boringly law-abiding cyclist and commute by bike every day. I've been hit by an opening car door and then yelled at by the driver, almost squashed against a set of railings by a driver trying to squeeze past me when there wasn't room, yelled at by a taxi driver while waiting at a red light (he was ranting about red-light-jumping cyclists - to this day I don't know why he picked on me), and I've almost been killed twice by drivers jumping red lights at speed. Not just sneaking through as the lights change either, coming through a red light when the other direction is already green. If I hadn't been keeping an eye out for jerks like that, I would be dead.

I get pretty sick of the cyclist-bashing, to be honest, and I do wish people would think about it a bit before doing it. This thread isn't nearly as bad as some, but there was one on the Guardian bike blog where someone had posted specifically to say that he/she didn't care how many cyclists got killed by HGVs in a year, because we all had it coming for having the nerve to be on the road on bikes in the first place. Why is it OK to express that kind of attitude about cyclists when it wouldn't be about other groups?

NO, DD has SN and does this every night, going to survive on caffeine I think!

Yes, YABU. Cyclists have a really hard time with cars and while that doesn't excuse them perhaps you should put yourself in their position for a moment. The same nice White vans hat stop for mums with buggies often go out of their way to 'get' cyclists. The cyclist wasn't in the right but might have been trying to get away before the car for reasons of safety. whatever the issue, you need yo get over it and move on.

bobthebuddha, you notice the cyclists breaking the rules more than the law-abiding ones - it's called confirmation bias. As a cyclist, I'm noticing the drivers breaking the rules, and there are loads of them - driving while talking on a mobile and jumping red lights are most common. Stand by a junction and watch: at least two cars will probably go through after the light turns red.

I think it's fine to talk about incidents as many posters have on here. Unfortunately it brings out some posters who think it is perfectly acceptable to use words like hate towards ALL a section of a minority section of society in this case cyclists.

If you replaced cyclist with any other minority group name some of these posts would have been removed and would be really offensive.

It is not okay to generalise on a group of people and spread hatred because of the actions of some. Whether there is one poster or several posters writing these generalised posts it is too many.

Please take the time to read some of the generalised statements and replace cyclists with your choice of minority group and see for yourself whether you think it is okay.

P.S. LDN mummy we have debated this before and I have produced links to stats disproving your observational conclusion that MOST cyclists are not law abiding on the road. I suspect you would be quite shocked if you read a post that stated MOST of a (any) minority group had a certain negative trait based solely upon one person perceived observational evidence!

Thank you, microfight, glad it's not just me being oversensitive!

Tadlow
Just realised we have just posted near enough the same view at the same time

Taplow - can I ask you your views on the incidents described by pedestrians and drivers on this thread, involving inconsiderate or dangerous riding by cyclists.

For example - I accept that cyclists cycle on the pavements because that is safer for them than the roads - but I believe that, whilst on the pavements, they should cycle with due care, attention and consideration for the other people around them - slowing down at corners so they don't come speeding round into someone coming the other way, not weaving in and out of pedestrians at speed so if someone who hasn't heard them coming up behind (because bikes are quiet), steps into their path they have time to stop before hitting them, not abusing pedestrians who have the cheek to be walking on the pavement and have got in the cyclist's way by mistake etc.

As far as I can see, when they are on the pavement cyclists are no more vulnerable than the pedestrians (and in some instances might be less vulnerable, as their bike is a heavy metal object that could do real damage to a pedestrian when momentum is added to the equation), so should have equal care for the safety of the pedestrians around them. Saying 'we are put in danger on the road, so it's OK for us to put people in danger on the pavements' - which I have seen said on other sites on similar threads - is not acceptable.

If the cyclist in the OP was trying to get out of danger, and was forced to cross the pedestrian crossing, nearly hitting a buggy with a small child in it - wouldn't it have been good manners to stop (because whatever was causing the danger had presumeably been stopped by the traffic lights, so the danger no longer existed) and to apologise to the shaken mother with the buggy? A quick "So sorry, I was dodging that van so I didn't end up being run over" would probably have defused the situation.

And if a cyclist does cycle dangerously/carelessly/against the rules of the road, for whatever reason, and they are involved in an accident - is it their fault, or the fault of the innocent driver who just happened to meet them as they jumped the red light/went the wrong way up a one-way road etc?

TadlowDogIncident, it's not 'confirmation bias' or 'noticing' people doing things wrong...it's years of actual experience, observation & continual, continuing near misses. I speak as an ex-cyclist by the way.

I cycled home from work on Wednesday and in one journey I had

• a car overtake me narrowly, stop in front of me and the passenger door opened into the cycle lane and passenger leapt out (I hit him, but luckily not hard as I braked very hard and almost managed to stop)

• three miles later a pedestrian stepped into the cycle lane right in front of me, without looking. I managed to swerve and not hit her - luckily as it would have been nasty: she had a buggy.

So I think pedestrians, and passengers in cars

• should have license plates so I can take their numbers and report them when they are dangerous
• should wear walking helmets / driving helmets for own safety
• I also think mothers should have compulsory safrty lessons before being allowed to push buggies. surely it's not right to have completely untrained buggy pushers endangering the lives of innocent children

On another point, I'll say that no car driver has ever driven straight at me or my children while I've been on a pedestrian crossing. Cyclists do this to us roughly twice a week, every week.

stubbornhubby, what a facetious post.

Must point out when I was hit by bike I was crossing a road at the green man.

Bob, do you live in a university town?

if 'ego-centric' means a desire to stay alive then yes, massively so.

can't see anywhere I have defended or excused poor behaviour which causes harm, or potential harm to anyone else. But riding safely on a pavement, using one-way streets etc, which I do regularly, isn't poor behaviour. Just illegal, but necessary.

as I said above, I am a big bloke, on a big bike in a dazzlingly yellow/lemon jacket, but still some otehr road users just don't get round to seeing me. Last time was end of last year when a truck decided to take up my space on the road - result was me lying on the ground, twisted knee, and facing on-coming traffic. Am just lucky the car bearing down on me had sufficient time to stop.

getting amused by SDTG's demands for a cyclist to actually say what she wants us to say. Not going to happen from this end.

and don't get me started on 'bike lanes' and pedestrains/cars/delivery vans.

AwesomePan - I want cyclists to take some responsibility for their actions - why isn't that going to happen?

As a cyclist my thoughts fwiw:

YANBU. There is a highway code and it's there for all road users, including cyclists.

Cycling lanes in city centres are dangerous. They should get rid of them and re-educate both cyclists and drivers (remembering that most cyclists usually are drivers too) that cyclists should take up their position in the middle of the lane. If we want to be treated like small cars then we should act like one and obey the rules too. Then bikes don't need to weave in and out of lanes so much.

More cyclists should be fined for dangerous cycling though that's a difficult one unless spotted by the police.

A hi-vis jacket should be an essential piece of kit. I feel safer wearing that than my cycling helmet.

The media should stop making references after cycling accidents along the lines of "the cyclist, who was not wearing a helmet, was severely injured when the car slapped into him" like we deserve to be in an accident if we don't wear a helmet - it is not against the law!

microserf

YANBU about the cyclist in your particular incident. He was a complete idiot.

Anyone who even attempts to defend a cyclist behaving like that is also a complete idiot.

The wearing of hi-vis clothing is very important, as are lights in winter/poor visibility, Voluptua. But pedestrians need to be aware of this need too. I think maybe some pedestrians don't realise how damn-near invisible they are, even in a street-lit area, if they are wearing dark clothing at night.

We make sure that the boys are appropriately and safely dressed when they are on their bikes and when they are walking to school. Dh spends quite a lot of money and time making sure they all have working bike lights and use them!

Oops - pressed enter too soon. I can see what you are saying about the reference to the cycle helmet, but I don't think it's suggesting anyone deserves to be in an accident if they don't wear a helmet, but not wearing a helmet may have made their injuries more serious, and that is worth pointing out, I think. The dses have to wear their helmets when they are out on their bikes, and get a HUGE row if they don't.