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London cyclists are a different beast.

I can watch them from my office window at a busy crossing and it genuinely seems like they change their path to put pedestrians in front of them just so they can then get angry at them.

The crack down they should keep doing is on those, particularly delivery drivers, on illegal mopeds which the riders claim are electric bikes. 

What we really need to do is segregate cycling infrastructure from cars, and give it priority over pedestrians and cars.

It may be unpopular, but if we make it better bad less stop start they’ll be a lot less infractions and disregard for others. The Dutch did it and they have far better outcomes than we do.

Cars have no real place in a city like London anyway.

Every 10milion times a cyclist jumps a red light someone stubs their toe. It’s a crisis!

What the article is addressing is an example of where a pedestrian who stepped into the road without looking died from her injuries nearly two months later, and the cyclist was never charged. This is exactly the same treatment a cyclist would have received if killed by a car driver, and is a common theme. When Kim Briggs was killed Charlie Aliston went to prison. The law was changed afterwards and now cyclists can be given the same sentences as drivers for causing death by dangerous cycling. Given drivers regularly walk free from court for killing the same will probably happen for cyclists.

Such a small proportion of people even cycle regularly at all in this country (~1.6% of journeys), given how cycling on roads can be. I really wish the infrastructure could be safe, direct & coherent, enabling everyone to consider cycling to make everyday journeys instead of it being something that “other” groups does.

It’s only then do I think it will be possible to see the actions of a questionable individual as that & not something an entire group is responsible for.

If it is only things that are bike shaped, tackling delivery riders in Illegal motorbikes (not cycles) maybe something to pursue.

Pass any law you like, but if austerity stricken police forces don’t have the resources to enforce them.
Well, not much will change.

This really should read as London cyclists. Come to a busy traffic light near me and you won’t get a 100 cyclists nor a big chunk skipping rred lights. 

I am a London cyclist. Everyday, for my commute.

I am guilty of the occasional red-light and I do realise how annoying and potentially dangerous it can be.

Most of the time though, I get off my bike and walk, bike in hand, since this makes me a pedestrian by law, which means the green-man applies to me.

How about we sort out every little thing people speeding in multi-tonne death machines first do wrong first, then worry about people on 15kg bikes moving more slowly Usain Bolt on a bad day.

The counter to this isn’t „We can do both!“, because we’ve not tried doing the first one yet.

As a cyclist, messing around with traffic lights is the number one way to get yourself killed. I don’t jump lights because I don’t want to die or get seriously injured. I also don’t want to give a potential nutter in a car an excuse to „teach me a lesson“. Used to live in Oxford and cycled everywhere, pretty rare to see people jump lights there once again mainly because they don’t want to die.

Always curious to see exactly what red lights these death defying cyclists are jumping in great numbers, the only examples I have seen of mass cyclist jumping lights have been filmed on virtually carless semi pedestrianised streets when its been perfectly safe to do so.

This accident that killed this unfortunate woman was not the cyclist’s fault and had nothing to do with a traffic light 🤷

People experiencing emotional turmoil will often wonder what could have happened to prevent their pain and maybe should happen to prevent it from happening to someone else. They make an easy story to parade around in the news. Unfortunately this doesn’t really help up and there’s a reason why issues like judicial practice and legislation get debated and decided in the cold theatre of committees and parliament. Careful, scientific consideration of the full and broad picture of data and evidence should always be the cornerstone of good governance.

Should cyclists face tougher penalties? Maybe.

The reality is that we simply don’t have enough information to support this assertion. Very little enforcement is actually done one cyclist behaviour (and I say that as a cyclist and former campaigner on cyclist rights and provisions (I retired from that because I developed arthritis and now cycle far less, not for any moral issues or disillusionment)). Without any consistent levels of enforcement, its almost inevitable that adherence is going to be low. If you want any evidence of that, look at the speed drivers on clear and open roads. It very frequently exceeds the speed limit and only falls in line when there is an indication that it is being monitored and enforced (r/drivinguk will deliver endless examples of complaints about drivers slamming their brakes on as soon as a speed camera is spotted). Perhaps the most compelling reason to increase penalties on cyclists braking the law, mainly in the form of fines, is to fund the levels of enforcement that would contribute to behaviour change.

Note: several studies on the comparison of the severity of penalties for crimes largely confirm that they do little as a deterrent, especially when the probability of being caught isn’t considered.

Also a point of consideration. A large amount of the improvements in safety around drivers is less to do with enforcement and more to do with design of our road spaces. Yet the same hasn’t been applied to the increasing numbers of people who are choosing to cycle. At least not at the same scale. If you want to have higher penalties and enforcement, you should probably be willing to accept better infrastructure that also supports your aims. If you don’t then it sounds like you just want harsher penalties for people you don’t like. LBC may be veering into this territory given the attention they have piled on this case and Kim Briggs when they were far more silent on the death of Eilidh Cairns and her killer who, having paid his £200 fine, went on to have three more collisions before killing Nora Gutmann. LBC barely covered the calls for the driver to have his licence revoked and certainly skipped out on investigating other drivers with defective vision. It speaks highly of their agenda.

How about tougher penalties for the people that are actually a meaningful risk on the roads: motorists?

This stuff pisses me off, not because I condone weaving through pedestrians through a red light at a crossing (I don’t!), but because it’s such a tiny risk and social ill compared with cars. If these people actually cared about safety they would compare for better cycle infrastructure and more cycling. But what do you want to bet they drive everywhere and don’t even see the irony?

The case quoted in the article is a Darwin award candidate, she stepped out into a road without looking right in front of a fast moving vehicle. If she’d done that in front of a car it would have been lethal, too. The Charlie Alliston case was the same – yeah, he should have had brakes, but the pedestrian stepped out so close in front of him it wouldn’t have mattered, and if they’d done that in front of a car they would have died too.