David Prosser: Lazy motorists endangering cyclists
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Independent Minds
It is now four months since the car knocked me off my bike, breaking my pelvis in three separate places. Time has healed the injuries – I’m even back on the bike – but not diminished the sense of outrage I feel about the carelessness of the driver who could so easily have added my name to the worrying statistics on cycling fatalities.
On a beautiful sunny summer evening, he somehow failed to see me coming in the opposite direction. Without indicating, he turned right, straight in front of me, and I hit him head on, snapping my bike frame in two. His moment of madness could have deprived my children of their dad, and I thank my lucky stars that I got away with a month in a wheelchair.
It was six weeks before I heard anything from the police officers who had attended the scene. They had decided no action was to be taken against the driver, despite his admitting that he was entirely responsible for the accident. When I kicked up a fuss – pointing out how serious my injuries had been – the police reluctantly sent him on a “driver awareness” course.
I’m not one of those cyclists who believes that it’s them and us on the mean streets. In the decade I’ve been riding in London, I’ve seen as many cyclists do utterly stupid things as motorists. And I know it makes motorists – and pedestrians – mad when cyclists jump red lights or ride on the pavement, as so many routinely do.
Still,the fact is that the consequences of drivers’ misbehaviour are almost always more serious than what happens when cyclists break the rules or just fail to take proper care. Too many motorists behave as if they believe cyclists have no right to be on the road or, equally culpable in my book, as if they should not be expected to think about whether there might be a bike about.
That disregard is then reinforced by the punishments doled out to motorists who mow down cyclists. My experience of the authorities’ near total indifference to a driver seriously injuring a cyclist is the norm rather than the exception.
No doubt the increase in the numbers of cyclists on Britain’s roads partly explains the increasing number of accidents. I also buy the theory that, by and large, female cyclists tend to be less assertive on the road and suffer disproportionately for that.
But that is not to accept that we cyclists are to blame for our own misfortune. Most of these accidents could be avoided if motorists weren’t too lazy, selfish and reckless to just do the basics: concentrating on the road ahead and checking their mirrors properly.
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Comments
As is the article above.
I want to underline the fact stated above that cyclists themselves should obey all traffic laws, and be punished if they don't (ie: traffic lights etc).
However, the fact remains that many drivers will happily endanger the life of a cyclist if they think it saves them 2.3 seconds on their journey.
I ride the same route everyday at the same times, and see the same cars. I see the same usual suspects: wankers who will rev past me on a corner in third gear and 7000rpm only to come head to head with oncoming traffic. And I suppose, it's only a matter of time before one of them does it and decides their best bet is just to run me over in order to avoid a head on collision with something that might actually damage their precious (shitty) Mini Sports version.
There is a basic culture in the UK that cyclists are weird and eccentric oddities that don't ACTUALLY have any right to be on the road. This is shared by motorists and pedestrians: two mornings ago I rode straight into a road construction worker who stepped into the road, despite obviously seeing me coming. I braked hard and luckily no damage was done to either of us. However, it was obvious that he felt he had right of way over me.
The Volvo effect: he wouldn't have walked out in front of a Volvo, because he wouldn't have been killed.
And this effect is found in drivers, too: drivers will do to a cyclist what they wouldn't dream of doing to a Volvo.
I ride my bike because it saves me a HUGE amount of money, it keeps me VERY (very...) fit, and it is in fact quicker than using a car. But we live in a country where people think Jeremy Clarkson is a laudable human being with rational views. Therefore, I don't have hope the culture here will change.
Get some of those spiky leather bracers, pauldrons, tassets, wristbands and suchlike from a motorbike place. Become a real threat to his paintwork, and Mr BMW will suddenly stay further away from you.
We have a problematic culture of entitlement in this country. Cases keep ending with someone escaping a driving ban because if he was banned from driving he wouldn't be able to drive. It's insane.
Maybe we could ban them from driving anything except a 50cc motorbike for 24 months and see whether the resultant terror wakes them up a bit.
Bad idea, I know, but some drivers just deserve it.
But no more. The last time I ventured into
central London, on a Sunday, with my 700lb touring bike,
a car rubbed up against my left leg at some red traffic lights.
Asking the driver through their open window what they were
doing the young woman occupant explained she was going
to race me once the lights went green. I replied that since
I was fondly attached to my leg I would stay put while she
could go ahead where I could keep her safely in sight.
Thats what we did.. and the 3 red light runners I also
witnessed that day covinced me no more London on 2 wheels.
There's nothing good humoured about any of it, either. It's all very chest thumping, testosterone filled nonsense (yes, even with the women). When I was out for a ride on my "posh" bike some idiotic boy racers pulled up alongside me at lights and started jeering at me. I thumped his car and asked him how much it cost him (because that bike probably cost quite a lot more than his car, but hey, I like my bikes...). The boy in the car literally started spitting over his steering wheel with fury, and I had to point out that the lights had actually turned green.
Quite often on my commute ride (it's a pretty rural ride) cars will pass me, but I know that I will catch them after a mile or so, given that there are junctions that they get caught up at. And when I pass cars that have honked their horn at me (simply for having the temerity to be on the road) it REALLY IS quite hard not to whack their wing mirrors off...
People in this country really need to chill out.
And learn that cars are expensive, destroying the planet, and destroying their drivers' health.
I would also like to comment on the apparent orthodoxy that cyclists must behave like cars in all circumstances, and in no event run a red light, ride on the pavement, etc. Cyclists are not like cars in all circumstancee, they are a cross between cars and pedestrians. My peresonal rule of thumb is that a cyclist should observe the normal rules of traffic when riding with the flow of traffic, and the rules of pedestrians in other circumstaces. By all means cross through red lights if it is safe, particularly when pedestrians are being allowed to cross. It is hardly conducive to the flow of traffic or the safety of cyclists for them to accumulate at the head of a busy intersection needlessly. Cyclists also should be allowed to ride slowly on wide pavements, especially next to dangerous roads, subject to an absolute obligation to yield to and anticipate foot traffic.