Fed up of cyclists not wearing hi viz clothing and no lights on bikes

[Jdot]

Yesterday about this time I saw about this time 10 cyclists including food couriers on bikes with no lights and no hi viz clothing. Black clothing

This really makes me cross. If car drivers hit cyclists that are not visible, drivers should not be punished for this

Just what the police need, checking bike insurance policies

I’m pro cycling and it really pisses me off. I run and cycle at night and do neither without high viz gear and lights

would you go out in the car without putting lights on? Of course not
if I hit them it’s my fault!

Theres a youth subculture of wearing black and riding black bikes. Dangerous but kids always like doing things like that. Mods and rockers sort of stuff.
I'm sure they like being tutted at by matriarchs. It's just the same as boy racers but on bikes.
Cyclists tend to use bike lanes when they're safe, a huge number are not. Dark, littered, bumpy, end suddenly so you have to rejoin traffic somehow, have endless give way marks for driveways, slippy with leaves, covered in roadsigns you can hardly see, bushes overhanging that can knock you off, etc.

It's the law that you need them, and reflectors after dark. Fitted ones would get nicked and need a power source anyway. They tend to be removable so you can recharge them.

Saw a couple of plonkers riding bikes yesterday about 5pm, only noticed them because they were talking to each other.

No lights… don’t know why some cyclists are so stupid and reckless.

(I’m not anti cycling at all)

And who exactly will this tax apply to and how will it be enforced?

The government is trying to promote sustainable transport for all our benefit, this will not be achieved by making it more difficult

We have this problem locally . We have lots of working men going to the farms and factories early along rural unlit roads and they are invisible . It’s all very well saying it’s the drivers responsibility but that doesn’t help a dead cyclist . They need to be sensible no matter the law placing blame elsewhere .

Bikes need lights
Cyclists need hi vis
Cities and towns need way, way fewer cars
Active transport is the way forward
Can't give that much of a shit about bike lights when you see drivers going around texting while in charge of a moving ton of metal most days.

Ahem. Did I say I live in Cambridge?
We also see a not inconsiderable number of cyclists riding while also on their phones....
At least texting while driving is illegal, people can and do get caught and
prosecuted. And if you were to have an accident that caused injury while you were driving and using your phone at the same time then they would rightly throw the book at you.

If you had to get out of your car and walk every few hundred yards, would you use a different road?

In the Netherlands "Fietsers Afstappen" signs are incredibly rare, unlike the "Cyclists Dismount" signs erected by lazy councils in the UK, with their half-baked disjointed schemes.

But it's in the Highway Code that you should have lights on your bike at night, so yes it is of course the drivers responsibility to drive safely and to look out for cyclists, but it is also the cyclists responsibility to have lights to enable the driver to see them at night.

A cyclist going without lights at night is no different to a driver not turning their lights on, both are hard to see and very unnerving to come across as it gives you less time to react.

I have lights and I also have a Proviz reflective jacket. I feel vulnerable still if I’m cycling with just the lights, but can feel cars genuinely back off when I’m wearing the jacket. That’s the difference that reflective clothing makes.

You have to cycle with the mindset that every driver is out to kill you, and that includes properly asserting yourself on the road, particularly when you need to avoid potholes, debris close to the kerb, pulling out to go past parked cars and taking up your rightful position in the cycle box at a junction, even if the front car in the line of traffic has stopped in it.

Some cyclists are a danger to themselves but we’re all vulnerable.

Why can't cyclists without lights be a bad thing and drivers texting whilst driving also be bad? It's frustrating when these discussions become whattaboutery, people driving badly does not excuse cyclists cycling badly and vice versa.

Although there is definitely a breed of driver that just can't stand having to share a road with a non-car, or who just don't know how to share a road with bikes.

totally DISAGREE pal drivers are HUMAN they make mistakes theve got stresses!!! it should be COMPULSORY to have lights ON a cycle in de middle of winter!!! bludy hell u can get both GUD lights for a £10 in asda!!!! i remember when i first started cycling in the dark big every ready light that tuk enormous batteries that the fixture wss on the lower low side of the fork!!! now the lights on haddlebars no batteries charged by adapter!!! in fact my back light brightens when i stop give DRIVERS a break help dem oot be VISIBLE!!!!!!!!

It is annoying when cyclists won't use safe off-road cycle paths, but I think a lot don't because they don't have priority at side roads and have to keep stopping (that may have changed when the priorities changed for pedestrians).

And some cyclists won't use them because people let their dogs off-lead and they wander all over them.

Cycle paths should be for bikes, and if a dog walker wants to use one, their dog should be on a short lead.

TOTALLY agree on my way to work i cycle through a small park no of dogs on leads that span the path some RESPONSIBLE owners have a fluorescent collar or even better a light up collar making it visible to cyclists but if i had a dog on a lead id make sure it WAS'NT on the othrr side of a BLUDY path!!!! its dangerous enough cycling at night whst with drivers/ drunks/people on phones / people who r wired to the moon listening to music in an other world !!!! oh i and BLUDY potholes!!!!!!!!!!!!!😎

Didn’t you realise, the Highway Code apparently doesn’t apply to some cyclists ….

…… and some motorists

More than some, in my experience

True though most tend not to jump red lights as a matter of course.

Darwinism in action.

Yes cars are awfully dangerous aren't they? thousands of humans killed on our roads every year. You'd think the human race would have come up with something safer by now

Most cyclists don’t jumper red lights as a matter of course.
You would be surprised how many motorists do jump red lights too, and the potential impact of this is far greater.

Then there’s the speeding, mobile phone use, causing a hazard by parking where they shouldn’t …..

They have, they are called self driving cars...