A Pavement Sideview
As I was walking to work this morning, I was almost run down by a cyclist bearing a healthy speed down the centre of the pavement. I quickly called after him to ‘stick to the road’ but he was long gone, his presence a mere memory of the whirling dust and honking horns on a dry morning in Wimbledon.
Some Lycra-loving readers may strongly disagree with this post, as they ring the necks of their squeezy water bottles in disdain. I wouldn’t get on the high-horse if this had been an isolated incident, but more and more I am seeing how so many London cyclists seem to have an arrogant, blasé view of the rules of the road.
A statistic published a couple of weeks ago in the Evening Standard showed that a staggering 1 in 4 road users in London are now on two wheels as opposed to four – a large figure I am sure you’ll agree. Has it made London greener? (that’s open for debate) has it made roads safer? (I would be very surprised if it had) and has it caused massive inconvenience to those who still drive in the capital and those who walk the pavements? (of this there can be no doubt).
When I used to work on Millbank and then The Albert Embankment I would pass through Vauxhall Cross everyday where cyclists would risk serious injury to cut up double-decker buses, stay a hairsbreadth away from being clipped by motorists when lights turned green, completely ignoring traffic lights and mounting the pavement when a cycle-path had been made available. Anyone who has been to Vauxhall Cross will know what a busy area for traffic it is. It astounds me how reckless the cyclists were coupled with a complete lack of awareness for car, bus and taxi drivers who would be directly responsible if any accident were to happen. I’m afraid it’s completely symptomatic of a culture in which we have let cyclists think they own the roads through moral superiority. And it is not just at Vauxhall, such behaviour can be viewed at every busy junction across the City of London and Westminster!
Boris of course – who I generally like as a Mayor – should shoulder some of the blame through constant campaigning, infrastructural initiatives, cycling focus groups and even an ‘expert’ in City Hall to get Londoners on their bikes. It’s a difficult one because if you say your against it you get all the sanctimonious environmentalists, health police and politicians declaiming you as the scourge of modern civilisation, a philistine from a time long forgotten! To justify such mad projects as Boris Bikes and Cycle Super Highways ‘cyclophiles’ will then start using examples of cycle friendly cities to back up their arguments, Amsterdam being one of the most abused. perhaps they might consider going to Amsterdam at some point and taking a proper evaluation of the wildly different infrastructural of a city comprising mostly of wide, concentric boulevards and a vast network of canals – it is barely comparable to London, yet so often used as a case study!
Taking off my environmental/infrastructure hat, as a pedestrian I find cyclists very inconsiderate as they fail to realise that it is very difficult for someone to hear one coming round a corner or down the road if they do not indicate through some horn or bell. They also seem to be allergic to red lights as they never seem to stop, plowing straight through when the green man is lit, the list for me seems to go on and on.
There is indeed an arrogant disdain that they seem to hold for pedestrians like me, and they look at me as they swoop past me on the pavement as if to say ‘What are you doing here? This is my turf’, so I suppose the feeling is mutual on both sides, but as long as I am treading the flagstones of London, cyclists beware for I will give you no truck for your infringements!
Henry
