From Today's times
Crampton, as he most often does, is talking sence.
Cycling used to be cool. Now, too many bike riders are jerks
Robert Crampton
Tuesday May 07 2024, 12.01am, The Times
I was a regular cyclist, for transport not sport, ever since my stabilisers came off 55 years ago. I cycled to school, at university and then around London for work for 35 years. Now, I’ve pretty much stopped. That’s partly laziness, partly loss of confidence, partly the discovery of a bus direct to the office. But it’s also because I realised that I was no longer proud to identify as a cyclist.
Quite the opposite. Cycling used to be cool. Now, too many two-wheelers are selfish jerks. The guy who knocked over and killed the old lady in Regent’s Park may not have been breaking the law, technically. But I think he was behaving like an entitled shameless bozo. His “apology” in court was a wholly inadequate embarrassment.
Packs of City boys using Regent’s Park as a racetrack is a localised issue. The more general problems, I think, are fourfold: mounting the pavement; running red lights; not having a clue about hand signals, road positioning, braking distances (what people my age were taught in our cycling proficiency tests at primary school, in other words); and fourth (the newest menace), heavy, chunky, near-silent electric bikes that are basically motorcycles, but not legally treated as such.
This last, most serious threat is posed by electrically assisted pedal cycles. They do not require a licence, tax or insurance. Their batteries are supposed to be speed-restricted, yet a Google search yields video instructions on how easily they can be souped up. They are allowed in parks, unlike mopeds, and are thus a danger to unsuspecting pedestrians, especially kids, the elderly and the disabled.
The ebike problem could be solved swiftly, by bringing them within the scope of existing regulations governing more powerful vehicles. Similarly, the lack-of-road-sense issue could be addressed by reinstating the proficiency test.
But the pavement-invading and light-jumping issues are trickier because they are already illegal, yet flouted anyway, and not by a minority of self-consciously anarchic bike bandits, as was the case in my heyday 30 years ago, but routinely and brazenly by what appear to be otherwise respectable people.
At my bus stop in the morning, a bottleneck often leads to traffic jams. Held-up cyclists, impatient to keep moving, do so by using the pavement. They don’t lower their speed or look shamefaced. They just plough on, smugly, sometimes even tut-tutting at anyone in their way.
These jokers include middle-aged men and women, all decked out in hi-vis gear. I’ve witnessed several near-misses. As for red lights, many if not most cyclists now view them as optional. The police seem to include these illegalities on the long list of offences they no longer investigate.
Sometimes, I’m tempted to take direct action with a well-aimed shove, but that wouldn’t be very grown up, would it? Vigilantism isn’t the solution. Instead, a huge cultural reset is required, and it should be initiated within the cycling fraternity.
Those who know better should tell those that don’t to behave themselves, or the full panoply of registration will be coming for cyclists before too long, such is the public disquiet. I might even saddle up again myself, this time less as a commuter, more a road marshal, marauding around east London, distributing a piece of my mind as appropriate, a proper grumpy old man. I might even get some bike clips.
