Commuter diaries – 1st ride of 2011

Straits of Hormuz closed. Petrol predicted to rise to £2.00 a litre. Let's see how underused cycle lanes are now!

exactly - cyclists generally don't need saving from themselves hopefully, this will mean more resources put into general roads policing

If a spell cycling around london were to be a prerequisite for traffic officer and video reviewer posts I suspect we would see a huge improvement in the police response to poor driving around vulnerable road users.

“ In 2026, I can get from almost anywhere in the capital to the various centres of London using separated bike paths” Sorry, but that’s not true. If you cycle in central London there are lots of separated paths. But they are far from contiguous. For example, Westminster and Kensington and Chelsea don’t offer much, if any. In some outer boroughs there are also CS lanes (but only in a minority of boroughs) and they are not ‘separated’. They are often ‘quiet ways’ or paint. But it is loads better, I agree. I started cycling to primary school in London about half a century ago, so I have experienced a lot of change, indifference, neglect and improvement.

Something nobody seems to have remarked upon is that the Cycle Safety Unit was primarily concerned with cyclist behaviour rather than taking action to keep cyclists safe. They didn't go around ticketing cars parked in the cycle lanes or reporting on how junctions could be improved to make cyclists safer; they generally gathered in groups stopping cyclists and telling them off for not having lights, riding through reds et cetera. I well remember seeing them in action a few years ago as I was riding through Elephant and Castle on the top deck of a bus: it was the day after a cyclist had been tragically killed through no fault of her own by a left-turning lorry driver. The cyclist safety unit was out in force, but rather than stopping lorries and checking their paperwork and advising them on how to drive safely around cyclists, as one might expect/hope, I saw three of them surrounding and haranguing a cyclist who had stopped at a red light with his front wheel over the stop line. The closure of the unit will make little or no difference to cyclist safety in London.

Key word is "combination". To be clear: their wheel with one specific tyre is tested as safe. When your first set of tyres wear out you'll very likely stick on a set of tyres that they haven't tested as safe.

I have just sent off for a helmet mounted mirror, partly because an average week’s riding includes town centre roads (food shopping) and the A603, a single carriageway road with 50mph traffic including eighteen ton lorries. If anyone is seriously interested I will post a description of how useful it is. I wrote the above in answer to to two people's comments, but re-post it here in case it is not accessible for everyone else.

I have just sent off for a helmet mounted mirror, partly because an average week's riding includes town centre roads (food shopping) and the A603, a single carriageway road with 50mph traffic including eighteen ton lorries. A few years ago my right shoulder side tendon (supraspinatus) was totally torn, too close to the shoulder for repair surgery. I (slowly) learned to use all the other muscles around the shoulder to compensate... I hope you too will be able to adapt. If you are interested I will post a description of how useful the mirror is.

I have just sent off for a helmet mounted mirror, partly because an average week's riding includes town centre roads (food shopping) and the A603, a single carriageway road with 50mph traffic including eighteen ton lorries. If anyone is seriously interested I will post a description of how useful it is.

People do ridicule cyclists for wearing helmets though They certainly do! I remember being mocked with shouted abuse for wearing a helmet (I had been after one ever since I saw Americans wearing Bell helmets some time before) on Maryhill Road in Glasgow in 1976. Somebody brought one back for me after a holiday in the USA.