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London Cycling – Commuter Experience

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  • October 19, 2013 at 11:50 am #20090
    Colin Peyresourde

    I have a feeling that this may not go down well with the tribal cyclist, but having had a few ding-dongs on the comments pages about the need to educate cyclists in road usage over say infrastructure and HGV driving I thought it might be useful to document daily experiences of both crazy road usage by motorised transport and cyclists to give a feel for the average experience in the capital.

    I’m going to document a journey (on a bus) from Ludgate to Liverpool Street:

    1. Cyclist veers across buses off-side, into path of bu,s after undertaking at St. Paul’s crossing, as bus is accelerating. Fortunately the driver took his foot off the gas and cyclist veered back to the left. Cyclist never looked over his shoulder.

    2. Bus has slight encroachment on ASL, still enough room for bike.

    3. At junction of London Wall, cyclist on left-hand side of bus turns right with no indication.

    4. Narrowing of road into Liverpool Street bus station pedestrians stray into path of bus.

    5. Bus driver slowing for pedestrians gets undertaken by cyclist, approaching pinch point. Bus driver again, looking to apply gas and forward momentum sees bike at last second and avoids.

    I’m not saying that drivers are angels by any means, but this for me was an eventful, but not atypical journey that had the potential for numerous incidents. At no time, beyond an ASL encroachment, did he do anything wrong. I fear, that in the case of the other parties, ignorance/inexperience put them in danger.

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  • October 19, 2013 at 5:26 pm #760903
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    Colin Peyresourde

    Yeah. Fixie’s are totally ‘de
    Yeah. Fixie’s are totally ‘de jour’. My friend who has probably not ridden a bike since he was 15 talked effusively about fixies. But if they are the proper thing, in the wrong hands, they are a menace. Though I imagine that people, like my friend, would either find such a bike unrideable and wouldn’t bother to commute on it.

    Kudos to those who can make it work for them, but it’s for the few and not the many.

    October 19, 2013 at 2:47 pm #760901
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    OldRidgeback

    Colin Peyresourde

    Colin Peyresourde wrote:
    Perhaps an orchestrated TFL/police stop and educate for offenders. ‘We’re pulling you over today because of the paucity of your road skills and offer you the chance to undertake some ‘free’ road handling skills’ sort-of-thing.

    I didn’t mention lights, jumping reds or anything else ‘minor’ on the basis that they are a given, but usually done without real risk to bodily harm. The instances above were ones where I was severely concerned with the individuals safety precisely because of the proximity to danger.

    Yep, sounds reasonable to me. If the police use the carrot approach rather than the stick, it’s more likely to stick.

    I don’t commute into London any more but did do so for 15 years and along some of the most congested routes. Another thing that some people used to do that really got up my nose was slipstreaming (or whatever else you want to call it).

    Now that’s fine on a velodrome or on the Tour or on a club ride out with consenting adults, but on a commute through busy London it is a recipe for disaster, especially when the person giving the tow doesn’t know at first he or she has picked up a passenger. This happened to me a few times and I used to get pretty loud and make it pretty clear that I was not going to allow it, especially in the case of one dunce who was on a fixie with no brakes. Some people clearly don’t understand what braking distances are.

    Fixed wheel bikes with no brakes belong at the velodrome, not on the road.

    October 19, 2013 at 2:40 pm #760899
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    Argos74

    Give them a leaflet for their
    Give them a leaflet for their nearest free Bikeability course? Or helpful and constructive comments at the time? (tried being sarky, but none of it came out right).

    I end up just riding safely and trying to set a good example, and shaking my head to myself when I see an idiot, whether they be motorist, cyclist or pedestrian.

    October 19, 2013 at 2:30 pm #760897
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    Colin Peyresourde

    Perhaps an orchestrated
    Perhaps an orchestrated TFL/police stop and educate for offenders. ‘We’re pulling you over today because of the paucity of your road skills and offer you the chance to undertake some ‘free’ road handling skills’ sort-of-thing.

    I didn’t mention lights, jumping reds or anything else ‘minor’ on the basis that they are a given, but usually done without real risk to bodily harm. The instances above were ones where I was severely concerned with the individuals safety precisely because of the proximity to danger.

    October 19, 2013 at 12:54 pm #760895
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    sm

    Amen to all of the above.
    Amen to all of the above. I’ve been commuting in London for over ten years. Whilst it is great to see the quantity of cyclists on the roads, the quality leaves a lot to be desired. On any typical commute I’ll normally see:

    – red light jumping at every set of lights
    – no lights at night
    – undertaking
    – hand signals to turn right without actually looking over shoulder
    – dangerous filtering
    – poor positioning at junctions
    – cutting up cars
    – not stopping at pedestrian crossing
    – carrying shopping bags
    – on mobile phone
    – not using hand signals
    – etc, etc

    The list goes on. It’s still a minority but its a very visible minority.
    What to do? Tests? Licences? Police fines?

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