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Labour MP's anger after London cyclist leaves him bruised

Toby Perkins says he was left with "massive bruises" - but author Owen Jones defends capital's cyclists...

A Labour MP has spoken of his anger after being left with “massive bruises” when he was hit by a cyclist in Central London.

Toby Perkins, MP for Chesterfield and shadow minister for small and medium-sized enterprises, was heading to yesterday’s Prime Minister’s Questions at the time.

He tweeted:

It is unclear whether the cyclist was riding through a red light at the time, or whether Mr Perkins was crossing at a green pedestrian signal, although from a subsequent exchange, the implication is that the rider ignored a traffic signal.

Political commentator Owen Jones, author of the books Chavs and The Establishment, leapt to the defence of the capital’s bike riders, and received a reply from the MP which suggested the cyclist had ridden through a red light:

In November 2012, Mr Perkins announced he was supporting the road safety charity Brake's Go 20 campaign, aimed at making the roads safer for cyclists - and pedestrians.

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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Initialised | 9 years ago
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Was the MP wearing high visibility and a helmet?

The comment about cyclists not wanting to stop shows a fundamental misconception of most cycle policy and a cause for poor infrastructure design.

Forcing a cyclist to stop from 25 kph is equivalent to making the rider do an extra 100 metres in terms of energy used. To encourage more people to switch to cycling should be designed to minimise this impact to cyclists by making red lights "Give Way" and granting cyclists priority over pedestrians on shared routes and over motorised traffic on roads. In a large city this could be done with vastly bigger, 15-20 metre, ASL zones at busy junctions.

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kie7077 replied to Initialised | 9 years ago
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Initialised wrote:

...and granting cyclists priority over pedestrians on shared routes ...

Lol, you can grant all the priority you like, the bastards will still walk on the bike path even if it is exclusively for bikes with a footpath next to it.

Ring
Ring
Ring ring
Ring Ring

HHHHOOOOONNNNKKKK, Airzound for the win!!!  19

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JonD replied to kie7077 | 9 years ago
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kie7077 wrote:

Highway code Rule 66 and 67.

Is there anything that says a pedestrian can not cross a road? No? Then de facto they have right of way.

IIRC, there is no 'right of way' in the HC - it's priority, which is a different thing. Much as people confuse 'must' and 'should' in the HC.

66/67 not withstanding,

http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/highway-code-rules-103-158
"The rules in The Highway Code do not give you the right of way in any circumstance, but they do advise you when you should give way to others."

Which is why there is specific priority assigned to pedestrians when they're already crossing a side road (lost on some drivers *rolleyes*), which doesn't apply otherwise - ie those on the carriageway they're crossing have priority - ie you can't jump out into the traffic (other than on a pedestrian crossing) and expect someone to instantly stop.
There's a similar case with vehicles pulling out into traffic from a side road and expecting traffic to stop for them - if there's a collision they *will* be deemed at fault because they don't have priority.

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