"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...
Apparently, the Mayor is now in favour of bike user/vehicle registration,
and wants a private bill put through Parliament to achieve this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5225346.stm

I definitely have mixed feelings about this. I disagree with the guy from
British Cycling who says a "tiny minority of cyclists" are flouting road
regulations - in my reasonably frequent cycling experience, I reckon about
half of cyclists go past me through red lights, and as a pedestrian I come
across people cycling on non-shared-use pavements nearly every day.


Yes, it isn't a tiny minority. I'd even say it's a majority.

But I don't understand why everyone agrees that jumping lights is such a
terrible thing for cyclists. Is there not an argument to be made that
different rules do apply and *ought* to apply to cyclists, simply because
cyclists are making life or death decisions every second they are on the
road.

If you follow the Highway Code to the last letter while driving a car, the
consequences of another road user making a mistake are sometimes but very
rarely fatal. When I'm driving, I don't always slow down to check whether
someone is jumping their red light as I approach my green light. I don't
always glance to the right behind me when turning left, to check if someone
might cut me off as they try to make a left turn.

When I'm cycling, I do these checks 100% of the time, because if I didn't I
would have been killed several times by now. Following the Highway Code to
the letter does not protect me in the same way as it protects a car driver.

So what I'm saying is that cyclists are checking if the coast is clear all
the time, regardless of whether a green light or the rules tell them it's
safe or not. Their reasoning is that the green light is useless to them -
they need to double-check regardless - so why should they be bound by a red
light, when they can see that it's perfectly safe for them to cross.

And if you force cyclists to follow the letter of the law in all situations
(thereby telling them that their own safety is no longer in their own
hands), I think the actual accident statistics would increase.

j