to ask views on the 5-year-old cycling and Sajid Javid video?

[allswellthatends]

Maybe this has been debated to death already because the story came out Nov 11 but it's not showing up on search here. A dad's helmet camera catches a driver passing his 5yo by what he felt was too close, and Sajid Javid and Jeremy Vine got into a disagreement about what the driver should have done.

I live in London and I think (hope) I'm very good with cyclists if only because I'm not usually in a rush. Also I cycle, and my children cycle more. And I'm used to the countryside rule of not coming too close to horse riders . In this particular case, a small child, I would have stopped completely or slowed to a crawl.

Still, London roads are very narrow, traffic is generally quite slow-moving anyway, and so observing a 1.5m distance isn't always practical. It seemed to me that it also makes a difference if the driver is coming towards the cyclist (who can therefore see the car) or from behind (which as a cyclist I find much more unnerving). The type of cyclist in general: 20-35 year-old racing steadily, I'm less worried than with a shaky-ish person on a heavy rental bike; I'll stop for a cyclist panting uphill. I totally get why my fellow-cyclists don't always stop for red lights: sometimes it's safer to go first while the cars are forced to stop, and also it's bad to lose your momentum and your balance. Then again I LOATHE those cargo bikes where parents move very slowly in a vehicle that blocks the full road, with precious cargo, but commonly at school/work rush hour. And cyclists who don't wear reflective gear and lights at night are idiots IMHO. (Actually so are pedestrians. Don't you folks realise that even to the most careful driver you're basically invisible?)

I kind of want to hear some thoughtful real-world practices from my fellow drivers and cyclists and parents.

That's fair enough, but don't complain when they overtake you whilst passing through a junction when it was completely avoidable.

I cycled to and from work through the centre of Liverpool for ten years. Never did the undertaking at lights thing, never bothered by exhausts. I used to settle into the traffic just behind the stopped cars, moving slightly out from the kerb, to discourage people from overtaking until I was back up to speed, and so I wasn't inadvertently in the blind spot of someone turning left because I'd pulled alongside them.

Before electric vehicles, I probably had better acceleration over 10-15m on a bike than most cars from a stand still, so never held anyone up, and never had anyone trying dangerous overtakes close to me across a junction because they were also avoiding someone turning right.

This, with bells on.

The age of the kid is completely irrelevant. He was cycling competently irrespective of his age.

The driver was the one who broke the rules of the road.

undertaking to sit alongside a car that might turn left, and may not even be aware of the cyclist, or not give enough space in order to avoid a car turning right, is a more dangerous space in my opinion.

The safest space in traffic stopped at lights is to move slightly toward the middle of the road, behind the queue of traffic so the car infront of you has clear sight of you in their rear view, and the car behind isn't tempted to overtake as you set off because you aren't tight into the kerb.

Once I started doing this, I felt hugely more visible and hence safe, it also avoids the ire of the diskhead drivers who'll deliberately pass as close as possible to make some kind of point / revenge for the cylcist seemingly making quicker progress - and I know it shouldn't be the way of things, but, there's no point winning the argument if you're dead.

Obviously most people would be careful, but many are not!

Some drivers are on mobile phones, fiddling with the radio, day dreaming, angry drivers, talking on loud speaker, sorting out kids fighting out in the back, arguing, lost, feeling exhausted, drained, not able to concentrate, music is too loud, old and frail, poor eye sight, distracted by too much rain, lights, other drivers, lack of experience if new driver, boy racers, poor judgement, on the way to hospital, in labour, driving for too many hours - to name just a few.

This is all normal on the roads and behaviour I see most days

You are subjecting your precious tiny children to all of the above, and more, every single second you are all on a busy road.

A 5 year old on a bike in the middle of the road is bloody idiotic. Some wagon/lorry drivers struggle to see full size adults and even cars, a 5 year old is bloody tiny and easy to miss if any one has a lapse of concentration.

Watching the video the kid also wobbles towards the other side before the car comes. The father is a prick end of, it might be legal for a 5 year old to ride on roads but its also legal to jump of a bloody cliff.

So what, just because something is invented doesn't mean we have to let it dictate our future if it is not the best solution. The government need to have the balls to make radical changes. Local councils are doing half arsed schemes which are not joined up and sometimes dangerously inadequate.

You are subjecting your precious tiny children to all of the above, and more, every single second you are all on a busy road. This is true if you are driving a car or walking down the street too.

It is nothing like it!

If your children are in a car they are doubly protected by a car seat and strong metal casing and cars are designed to withstand very powerful collisions these days.

If you are walking you are not sharing your walking space with anyone, the pavement is a safe place free of cars and bikes. It is very rare for a car to use pavements.

On a road you are at the mercy of every single car and motorbike. A completely different ballgame, don't be an ostrich. The levels of risk are stratospheric compared to a child travelling in a car seat nestled in a strong car.

It's not a belief they're entitled to use it, it's a fact

This is really all that needs to be said.

You’re entitled to think that the father was stupid, pig-headed, a ‘prick’ and whatever else for letting his child ride in the road. You can choose not to ever let your kids do so because you don’t think it’s safe. None of that changes what actually happened or who was actually, legally and according to the Highway Code, in the wrong here: the driver.

And the argument that the driver maybe can’t see something child-height at that distance is idiotic. If they can’t see anything below that height then they also presumably can’t see traffic cones, pot holes, birds, squirrels… if you’re seriously saying you can’t see any low-level stuff over your bonnet then you urgently need to adjust your seat!

For that to happen we would have had to have been bombed to high heaven by the Nazis

Blame the RAF for doing there job so well we kept towns and cities standing and the fact there are many alive today who wouldn’t be if their gps/ ggps hadn’t survived such bombings that cleared the old structures

Whereas in reality nearly 600 people were killed by cars driving on the pavement between 2005 and 2018

Please don't call me an Ostrich @Venetiaparties , I don't like it and it's not accurate. If you don't see anyone parking on the pavement in your area you're unlucky or really unobservant. To park on the pavement you have to drive on it - and people do with full intention of entering pedestrian space. They also drive across pavements to get places. Add in the accidental pavement mounting and it is unsafe. I don't have access to the statistics between pedestrian/cyclist casualties but I doubt there's much in it.

Completely agree.

I walk my son to and from school. The number of cyclists that have almost crashed into me or someone else because they went through a red light is ridiculous. They need to wait

The way I see it is if a 5 year old were to be hurt by a motorist driving badly, the driver is probably an arsehole. The father who lets a tiny child cycle on the road and relies on others' good driving is also an arsehole.

We never have had pavement parking, ever. Is that even a thing? And I have been driving for thirty years and have never seen a car mount the pavement, ever. The only time it really happens is in a terrorist incident.

If you want to subject your child to the dangers of the road, that is a matter for you but you can not compare the safety of a child in a flimsy cart in the middle of the road surrounded by speeding cars, lorries and buses with a child secure in a heavily tested car seat in a solid modern car. The two are incomparable which is why most people do not cycle with children - particularly in rush hour traffic. It is very very unsafe.

We never have had pavement parking, ever. Is that even a thing? And I have been driving for thirty years and have never seen a car mount the pavement, ever. The only time it really happens is in a terrorist incident.

You've never seen off road parking?

Im amazed at the sheer idiocracy of people who claim its legal so its fine for 5 year olds to be cycling in the middle of the road.

Wow whoopy doo, the law says its fine so stick a tiny kid on a tiny bike on a road where huge metal boxes weighing many tons are shuttleing back wards and fowards. If you think this is fine then your not even worth conversing with, Idiots.

Not mounted on pavements, no.

why do we live in a country where it’s considered normal for a 5 year old not to be able to ride on the road safely and people

Because 5 year olds are tiny and ride tiny little bikes. Nobody would object to a child that young riding on the pavement.

Oh so you do understand that cars spend quite a lot of time, cumulatively, traversing a pedestrian space though?

This, all the way!!

This never happend though.

What didn't?

The 600 deaths in 15 years caused by cars on the pavement?

Oh yeah the other thread where you said that supermarket shelves would be empty because of cyclists.

Good one 🤣