I can completely sympathise with your point of view having found myself, on occasions, similarly questioning the merits of continuing to cycle on the UK's increasingly crowded and hostile roads.
It seems that not a cycling day goes by without some close call - a too close overtake, a SMIDSY, another example of attempted intimidation or abuse. Cyclists continue to die on our roads and their deaths, usually at the hands of careless motorists, go relatively unpunished. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the motor vehicle is probably the best tool of choice for those looking to commit murder. Don't bother with trying to buy a gun from some seedy supplier in Peckham, just hop in a car and drive over your intended victim. You'll probably end up with a fine and a few months driving ban as opposed to life imprisonment.
Oil prices may be rising, petrol becoming increasingly expensive and the roads more crowded but that doesn't appear to stop people from buying ever larger gas-guzzling vehicles, many of which now insulate the drivers from the outside world so effectively that they could be likened to the sofa-in-front-of-your-TV on wheels. Witness the preponderance of monstrous and totally unsuitable SUVs on our roads. Is it any surprise that, to people whose experience of driving is effectively only one step away from that of playing a computer game, their attitude towards more vulnerable road users should be so careless? Surely if you run over a cyclist they just get up and cycle off, don't they? Just don't scrape the paintwork or dent my bumper, mate. In fact, the last time I was knocked off my bike the young driver got out of the car and, with me lying groaning in the road, proceeded to check his paintwork for damage!
Of course, the total gridlock which the ever increasing numbers of vehicles promises to deliver to our road system has prompted the powers that be to encourage us all to get out of our cars and onto our bicycles. This, or perhaps the relentless rise in petrol and public transport costs, has certainly resulted in a spectacular increase in cycling in the major metropolises. What it has also resulted in is a noticeable hardening of attitudes against cyclists. Like Crankarm, I've been cycling for many years and many thousands of miles and can, with confidence, state that the effects of this anti-cycling mentality, as exemplified by motorised road users, have never been so obvious to me as they now are.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, the main reason I come across for people choosing not to cycle here in London is that they perceive it to be just too dangerous. With the same administration that is exhorting us to get on our bikes being strangely silent when it comes to legislating and implementing measures protecting cyclists' rights to safe passage on our highways , who can blame them?
It would be very easy, at the very least, to legislate minimum overtaking distances (In fact, it amazes me that neither the CTC nor the LCC are campaigning for this when passing too close is one of the major bugbears of road cycling in the UK). It would be relatively easy to train Police officers to take cyclists' complaints seriously rather than with the somewhat dismissive attitude many of us have encountered. It would be relatively easy to legislate greater sanctions against motorists causing death by dangerous driving or using their vehicles as intimidatory instruments. It is, after all, a great many people (not just cyclists) who favour dramatic increases in penalties for the latter. And yet the silence on these matters from our administration is deafening.
We are at a time when there have never been fewer Police patrol cars on our roads and when there has never been a greater perception by motorists that demeanours carried out on those same roads (save those governed by speed cameras) will go unpunished. Is it any surprise, therefore, that there is an increasing number of the more bone-headed type of motorist who are prepared to take the piss with our wellbeing? Especially when the likelihood is that they
will get away with it? Sure, we can all go out and get helmet cams; indeed, I've done so myself. That's not much good, however, when you're lying in the road dead at the hands of some idiot motorist! Still, at least your video evidence will help secure them a slap on the wrist and paltry fine.
Yes, Crankarm, I thoroughly sympathise as I've been
so close myself on a number of occasions! But I'm still here.......for now.
My apologies to all if this post is too long for anyone. Just be thankful that it's very rare for me to be confined to bed with a temperature and sore throat……..and too much time on my hands.
