To ask how we stop dangerous cyclists

[Everythingisnumbersnow]

Why do the most dangerous ones wear those stupid little headcams too? YOU'RE the problem, guy.

There are loads of un roadworthy bikes out there.

I used to run an afterschool club for bike maintenance and repair and the state at which some parents allow their children's bikes to get to is appalling.

As per posts at the start of the thread there are people out there that are riding bikes that are not legal road bikes (and I am not talking about the e-bikes), this doesn't take into account those without lights etc.

Not every cyclist is a member of a club and not every cyclist regularly checks their bike for wear.

And the main damage that happens to a cyclist is to themselves.

As a trainer once taught me, The first safety check happens before you get on the bike.

So more kids cycling to school is not a goal?

Whose goal?
Not sure where you have got this from at all?

@FrippEnos Where did you get riding on the road is 13 from? 😆

My 11yo has been riding on the road since he was 6. I can assure you that pedestrians would be rightly pissed off if he cycled on the pavement now.

Motorists get away with far worse behaviour than any cyclist does. Posters seem to be blinkered to the drivers that go through red lights, mount pavements to park, double park, drive too close to horses and cyclists so can pass as their journey is more important than the other person’s safety, fail to give precedence to pedestrians at zebra crossings, park inconsiderately around every school in the country. Motorists killed 400 times the number that were killed by cyclists in 2023. Yet cyclists are apparently the problem.

YANBU, and I say that as a cyclist, motorcyclist, car driver and pedestrian! My parents made me/my siblings cycle and then have motorbikes before going for our car licenses. They said it would give us a better appreciation of the road and safety. They were strict with ensuring we checked our bikes before cycling and wore good high vis protective gear. We weren’t allowed on our bikes if we didn’t check our bikes or have our gear on. My Dad was quite high up in the BMF and the FIM (motorcycle organisations), and did a lot of campaigning for safer motorbike riding etc. Crash helmets only became compulsory in 1973!

The other evening, I was driving home from work: on a dark road, there was a young chap on a bicycle, doing wheelies all the way along the road. Dressed in black, no lights, no protective gear, no reflectors. Insane. I’m a very cautious driver, and spotted him. Had someone been speeding, they may not have spotted him.

I get cross when I see people on illegally modded electric bikes, and when I see people on bicycles go through red lights or don’t observe crossings etc, and when I see kids using their headphones and phones when cycling. Also I get cross when people don’t make sure their bicycles/motorbikes/cars etc are road safe.

On the other hand, I get cross when I see drivers and motorcyclists doing dangerous things on the road. You get idiots in charge of all different vehicles.

But it was the (unsafe) car drivers that caused me/my family the most problems: I’ve been knocked off my bicycle twice - both times I was on the road (this was before cycle lanes were a thing in my town), I was obeying Highway Code, and wearing high vis protective gear. And it was a car driver who caused my XH to sustain a life changing brain injury when he pulled his car out in front of XH’s motorbike. Another car driver, whilst I was stationary in traffic on my motorbike, opened his door on me, to try and knock me off!!

I’m unsure how this could all be addressed really. We depend on people following the law, but not all do. Goes without saying that my car and motorbike are fully insured, taxed, MOTd and serviced. I also have insurance for my bicycles (including cover for accidents, injuries etc). My bicycles get serviced every year and I check them over before I ride them. I wear high vis protective gear every single time without fail. I make my kids do the same. If I’m on the road (and no cycle lanes available), I do pull over regularly, at safe spots, to allow cars to pass me. But I know not everyone does this.

I wish there was a simple way of addressing and enforcing things, to make it safer for everyone!

They are A problem, even if they aren't as big a problem as motorists. They are both problems that need to be addressed.

Many years ago, I heard a discussion on Radio 4 between a cycling advocate and a man whose wife had been knocked down and injured by a cyclist. The cycling advocate said smugly that cars killed lots of people and cyclists weren't a problem because they only rarely killed anyone. The other man pointed out that his wife's hip had been broken, and that she had never been able to walk confidently again. It had ruined her life.

Just because a cyclist probably won't kill you, it doesn't mean they can't do serious damage to you.

Yes, cyclists need to be identifiable so that they can be prosecuted when they break the law, as motorists are. Insurance and licence plates would be good. Cyclists need to take responsibility for what they do, just as motorists have to.

Last year, waiting at a red traffic light in front of a junction, for some reason I mistakenly thought the lights had gone green and started moving forward. I moved slowly across the pedestrian crossing (there was no-one on it) but just as I was about to enter the junction itself I realised in horror that the lights were still red and I stopped.

No-one was ever in danger from what I had done, but I had broken the law and could rightfully have been punished for it (as it happens, I wasn't - maybe the cameras weren't working).

A few minutes later, I was turning right across a box junction. Traffic waiting to go onto the junction was held at a red light, so it was safe for me to go onto the junction. The front vehicle in the waiting queue of traffic was a double decker bus. Suddenly, a cyclist appeared from behind the bus, jumped the red light and came onto the junction right in front of me. I had to brake sharply to avoid hitting him.

What he did was dangerous. I could have hit him, or the car behind me could have hit me. Yet there was never any chance that he would be punished for doing this. The cameras on that junction would have spotted it, but he couldn't have been contacted or fined.

(As it happens, there is a police station on that corner. It would have been good if a police officer had been walking past and caught the cyclist!)

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.

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.

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…

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

@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.