"Why I skip red lights": Journalist makes the case for cyclists riding through reds; Finish fisticuffs as Benoît Cosnefroy grabs British rider after sprinting incident; Jumbo-Visma pro tests positive + more on the live blog

"99% of traffic installations are there for cars, to solve problems caused by cars - so nothing to do with me, thanks" vs the idea that we have to set the example to drivers - e.g. I'm looking at you, Mrs horse rider with you 'phone out yesterday, or idiot cyclist filming himself riding along the road a few month back.

Funny how some wierd parity argument suddenly comes to the fore "cyclists will have to obey 20 mph limits". Stop killing 4-5 people each day and injuring dozens more and we might think about it. 

The red light jumping and pavement cycling are both lies that drivers have been pretty successful at installing in the public's mind as "always" happening - a brilliant distraction from the industrial scale offending by drivers.

All a big roundabout or one way system does is degrade life for everyone else; as with the Rotherham housing estate / no road markings story shows, drivers are increasingly having to be spoon-fed the most basic common sense or skill - which is all fine & dandy because the Road Tax and fuel duty (every Penny of which is bitterly resented) will cover the costs. 

I feel like I've come back to this thread and missed a really big change of tone... 

Why the heated discussion of lesser known 1960s skiffle bands?

I am going to declare red lights a hate crime, then just ride through them.

I will self identify as a law abiding citizen, I just need to be sure not to say anything like #LesbianNana to the police arresting me. 

Pierre Rolland in the Équipe French TV coverage today said that he thought that if BC hadn't given his comments in the interview straight after the race the commissaires would have come down more heavily on Askey

My slight concern is that there's a thin end of the wedge argument - if you allow cyclists to go through red on the proviso that they do so slowly, carefully, ceding to pedestrians etc, drivers might reasonably ask why they can't also go through reds on the same basis. I guess, to answer my own question, the reason it's different is because (a) if the driver gets it wrong, the result is likely to be far more injurious; and (b) that drivers also need to obey traffic lights for traffic network management, which doesn't affect cyclists in the same way.

Agree with Sophie, not the end of the world a cyclist crossing a red light, especially in a country where there are no jaywalking laws and a bicycle/rider can have the same weight and speed of a fast jogger.

If we convince ourselves first as a community, then we may demand for it, with careful thought and adapted to local situations. But as I see here in the comments not even the cycling community is convinced about it, so maybe too early.

At least you had the backbone to share Dr Of All THingsd Bizarre's post, Dan

Why I don't use the cycle path

“The path itself is covered with silt and debris and the safety fencing is mangled from where a car hit it. It is also wildly overgrown. It’s not exactly safe or attractive."

So Ms Wilkinson's argument is basically - all the other road users behave badly and are breaking rules /laws so it is ok to do the same.

Apart from that being a lazy Tu Quoque logical fallacy, on a more practical level: FFS grow up and be an adult in the room even when everyone else is a toddler.

I think that racing involving trade teams should be allowed to have bike development and choice involved as is the current case, but anything that involves National Federations, including World Championships and Olympic events, should be on standardised equipment. As there is little to no franchising in track racing, perhaps having events like 6 Days and the UCI Track Champions League involve trade teams to showcase these innovative equipment, and keep the "available for the public to buy" rule.

I made a similar observation on TT bikes in the comments of a GCN video (I think what we would like to ban from racing) how TT bikes also favour the richest trade teams, and that there is no affordable equipment available to buy new that is anywhere close to what's being developed.

Ten years ago you could get a third teir groupset equipped alloy frame TT bike for well under £2000, and an alloy framed track bike from a number of manufacturers for as little as £700. But becuase that market was so small the equipment doesn't exist any more (with the exception of Dolan Pre Cursa which is pretty much every velodrome hire bike too)

getting into the competitive side of the sport has become much harder as a result, and the introduction of a Road Bike category at CTT level has gone a long way to help, but a number of people who are new to the sport but are serious about track or TT racing and are on a limited budget are unable to afford any dedicated equipment and are forced to look to the secondhand market, which is both fairly scarce of equipment choice, and a minefield of item condition and usability.

In France there will be a little sign with arrows on the trafficlight telling you which directions you can go on red. Whether or not there are these signs depends whether or not there is a cyclist working in the local town hall (this can also be determined by looking at the width of the cycle lanes). I commute 50km by bicycle everyday in Paris and I generally go through red lights in the outer Parisian region where there is very light traffic and no pedestrians, however I would never do so (except at a signalled junction) in central Paris (there is just too much happening to be safe).

I once got hit on a pedestrian crossing by a cyclist*, so I've got some reservations about allowing cyclists to jump red lights.

Fundamentally this is an issue about motorists endangering cyclists and the solution is to tackle that, ideally with better infrastructure.

* 8 years old walking to the Post Office to buy sweets, I pressed the button and when the green man came on I crossed the road without looking.