You see it every day: cyclists ignoring red lights and pedestrian crossings and pedalling furiously on their way as if the lights don’t apply to them. A cycling colleague yesterday witnessed two cyclists colliding at right angles, having run the lights from separate directions. He observed with some gratification that they were both taken to task by an infuriated pedestrian.
I notice this now because a couple of months ago, I was knocked down by a cyclist and hurt when I was crossing the road at the bottom of Ludgate Hill. I was focused on the countdown on the pedestrian crossing so it didn’t occur to me to look round for the cyclist who was jumping the red lights from the right. He fell off his bike and was surrounded by indignant fellow-cyclists. “You’re the kind of prick who gives the rest of us a bad name,” one declared. The others asked whether I needed their details: “We’re all witnesses.”
There’s been a marked increase in the number of pedestrian-cyclist collisions
I could have taken a personal injury case against the man, but when you’re shaken you just want to get away. And so I contented myself with telling him in a whisper not to do it again, and thus added myself to the thousands of pedestrians whose accidents with cyclists are not recorded, because it’s just too much bother. But even given that most cases aren’t officially recorded, there’s still been a marked increase in the number of pedestrian-cyclist collisions.
The number of pedestrians hit by cyclists in the UK increased by a third from 2020 to 2022, with 462 collisions recorded in 2022, according to a parliamentary answer elicited by the former Met commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, but the figure covers roads, not those killed or seriously injured in public spaces. I bet you anything there’s been a steep increase in the two years since, not least because there are so many hire bikes in use and, perhaps unfairly, they and delivery cyclists seem more insouciant about traffic lights than anyone else.
Cyclists who kill or seriously injure someone can be jailed for up to two years for “wanton and furious” riding under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. In theory, a cyclist who kills could be convicted of involuntary manslaughter. But the thing is, the figures for transgression are a wild underestimate. In many cases the cyclist doesn’t hang around to be charged, although the bloke who knocked me down was decent enough to help me up.
It’s a problem which is insufficiently recognised
It’s a problem which is insufficiently recognised, let alone addressed. Last year, Chris Boardman, the Government’s Active Travel Commissioner, declined to back calls for updated laws tackling injuries caused by pedal bike users because “there were more people killed by lightning and cows than by cyclists”. Really? Actual fatalities maybe, but the number of injuries is another story. And trust me, I am not one to underestimate the problem of being followed by stampeding cows (terrifying).
In London, there is little official focus on the number of pedestrians injured by cyclists rather than on the numbers of both who are hit by cars. In 2023, cyclists were involved in seven per cent of serious injuries to pedestrians in London, though this is, I say, a guaranteed underestimate.
There are few people more angry about the issue than nicely behaved cyclists, the ones who lose whole minutes of their journey by staying put when there’s a red light. They get the opprobrium due to the cyclists who feel the Highway Code does not apply to them. And it must be said that pedestrians can injure cyclists too; one colleague was badly hurt when an idiot ignored his bell and stepped out right in front of him, knocking him over. The first rule of the road is mutual courtesy from all parties. And all cyclists, and indeed all motorists, are in other context also pedestrians.
The psychology of the bad cyclist isn’t hard to discern; he (sorry, but it’s usually a he) is so conscious of his own vulnerability vis a vis cars that he feels that he can regard the rules of the road with latitude since his objective is to avoid getting on the wrong side of a turning car. He’s unconscious of the fact that there is another party just as vulnerable to him, viz, the pedestrian crossing the road. And of course, many cyclists, like the rest of us, are in a hurry; most of the ones I see going through red lights — and I see it every day — are plainly in a rush. But I’m afraid red lights apply to two wheels as well as four. A cycle going at high speed can kill you, especially if you’re frail, and that’s not even considering electric bikes which are that bit heavier and faster.
Most of the ones I see going through red lights are plainly in a rush
There are already penalties for cyclists who transgress the rules, drawn up for those Victorian cyclists who were such a menace to hansom cabs and ladies in bath chairs. But have you ever seen a cyclist who jumps red lights pulled over by the police, the way speeding cars are? If the police want to address the issue they have only to hang around junctions and pedestrian crossings long enough; try Holborn or Ludgate Hill. I guarantee that they’ll see cycling behaviour to make their hair curl within an hour.
The City of London had the excellent idea of establishing a Cycle Response Unit to help combat road offences as well as deal with phone thefts; police on bikes are way more flexible than those in cars and faster than those on foot (if they still exist). In Paris you see them on roller skates, which is funny, but they’re actually rather impressive. What we need are more of them and for those police to deal on the spot with offenders. I’d confiscate the bike of anyone jumping red lights and in the case of hire bikes I’d impose a hefty fine based on the card details held by the hire company. There is really no point, except for fatalities or injuries, in clogging up the criminal justice system, though this should always be an option.
But we must do something about homicidal cyclists. A useful mode of transport has been hijacked by lunatics.
Melanie McDonagh is a London Standard columnist
