It’s more than two years now since West Midlands Police put themselves at the forefront of trying to make Britain’s roads safer for cyclists through their award-winning close pass initiative, since adopted by forces across the UK.
But a tweet from their Road Harm Reduction Team yesterday emphasises that cyclists too have a responsibility for their own safety.
Jumping a red light at any time is of course illegal, though there is perhaps a difference in doing so at a pedestrian crossing where no-one is crossing the road and there are no motor vehicles around, and this example where a rider – unlit at night – takes a chance going through a busy junction.
“We'll do all we can to protect vulnerable road users but we need them sometimes to protect themselves,” the tweet read.
“Behaviour like this is inexcusable,” it continued, adding that the rider concerned had been prosecuted.
Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.