Sick of all the push bikers jumping lights on Borough High St

wow 200 comments and quite emotive

[quote EleanorT]I've often been aware, as a cyclist, of the number of people who bad-mouth taxi drivers, as being really disrespectful and hence dangerous towards cyclists. Personally however, I've generally found that taxi drivers are careful and even helpful. Of course there is always going to be the odd exception. Until now, I was blissfully unaware of the anger and hatred being directed at cyclists by non cyclists. The energy that is being put into this thread quite takes me aback. The dislike of the (Ken)bike users being expressed here is also unfortunate. We should be encouraging people to use them. I don't like the thought that I'll be regarded with less respect whenever I choose not to be on my own bike! Some cyclists are more experienced than others and we should all go to lengths to make the less experienced feel safer on the road (and that can include giving them a wider berth)to allow them to build up their confidence and hence become safer.

I recommend all non cyclists to give it a go. Redirect your energies! Get a taste of the reduction in spending, the freedom, the ability to predict how long your journey will take with some precision, the improvement to one's health, the discovery of new places, quieter routes...the list goes on. You might find it actually has some benefits, and not just to yourself. You might also find your contributions to this thread being rather different.


What a well spirited and balanced comment Eleanor. Hail you x

One last thing. What also MASSIVELY gets my wick is cyclists who cycle over the pavement to cut a tiny corner by el vergels.

I cycle every morning the correct way ON THE ROAD and this morning there were 6 people 6!! who did this, i still got to the lights in the same time as they did. SELFISH IDIOT GITS

Guy's Street wrote:

Show me where I've dismised you opinons.
Show me where I've claimed 'it's never me and everyone else is at it as well'.

You've got the hump with me, I'm not sure why, but you have. I've tried to engage in a constructive discussion, have tried to answer all your points, and those of others, but for some reason you don't want to engage with me. Fair enough.

sorry, but you're hugely wrong here. EW has been very reasonable and consistent, whilst you haven't.

To avoid tedious semantics, I would happily remove "very" from my post directly above. Unnecessary emphasis.

Julia7239 wrote:

One last thing. What also MASSIVELY gets my wick is cyclists who cycle over the pavement to cut a tiny corner by el vergels.
I cycle every morning the correct way ON THE ROAD and this morning there were 6 people 6!! who did this, i still got to the lights in the same time as they did. SELFISH IDIOT GITS

Isn't this just one of the problems here....for every sensible cyclist on here who tells us a how well they use the roads there are many many others who have very poor roadcraft.

There are a lot of atrocious users of Ken Bikes, but I don't think that's a casual use issue. It appears to be more commonly an issue with tourists simply not having a clue what the rules of the road are in England - what those funny white stripes running across the road are, why there are lots of people on their way on foot on the lumpy bit of road next to the bit where the cars are, why all the vehicles are going a long way round a circular junction when the road they want is right there, that sort of thing.

Mind you was nearly run down by regular cyclists twice today in the space of around a hundred yards between my bus stop and my office, so it's not just the blue-bikes that are an issue...

I met my son on friday from school and we crossed Stamford street (with a few other boys)-the traffic had stooped both ways except for a cyclist who came straight across the crossing and brushed my son backwards and never even bothered to stop or say sorry. I wish there was some form of identifying him but what made it worse was the fact the kids said it happened all the time

Julia7239 wrote:

One last thing. What also MASSIVELY gets my wick is cyclists who cycle over the pavement to cut a tiny corner by el vergels.
I cycle every morning the correct way ON THE ROAD and this morning there were 6 people 6!! who did this, i still got to the lights in the same time as they did. SELFISH IDIOT GITS

That's one of my "annoyance points" too, along with the lights on the north side of W'loo Bridge. Maybe 70% of cyclists go through them... then I overtake them shortly afterwards when the light goes green. I've noticed that it's often (by no means always) the slower cyclists. If they cycled a bit faster then they wouldn't need to run the lights :)

Hey - I've found some facts from TfL in 2007 here. Paragraph 7.2 states:

"A total of 7502 cyclists were surveyed across all of the sites. Of these, an average of 16% violated red lights, whilst the remaining 84% obeyed the traffic signals. Therefore it can be concluded that the majority of cyclists do not ride through red lights. However, the 16% that do must be discouraged from ignoring traffic signals"