"Paul Terry" wrote in message
...
In message , Neil Williams
writes

I may have just fed the troll, but surely it's time for nothing of the
sort. Surely it's time for more police, out on the streets and
visible, issuing fixed penalty tickets for cycling infringements as
well as ticketing motorists for dangerous driving (can't do that with
a camera), deterring other crime and assisting the public where
required?

Possibly they already are - a friend of mine got an on-the-spot £30 fine
for riding his bike on the (wide) pavement of Bayswater Road last week.
Apparently he rode straight towards the policeman - foolish man!

I'd rather that offences committed on a bicycle (exceeding speed limit,
riding while over the alcohol limit, riding through red lights or occupied
zebra crossings, overtaking on the left a vehicle that's indicating left)
were treated as motoring offences and generated points on your driving
licence if you hold one - or a summary fine if you don't. And I'd like to
see cyclists required to carry third-party insurance to cover damage to cars
when they try to overtake and scratch your car or when they cause other
drivers to swerve to avoid an accident, hitting something else in the
process. They should be subject to the same legal responsibilities and
restrictions as car drivers. And that's speaking as an occasional cyclist!

I'd regard riding on pavements as a fairly venial sin if you're riding
slowly and safely, with regard for pedestrians. Sometimes if there's no
dropped kerb where a cycle lane turns into an ordinary pavement, I've ridden
very slowly (probably less than walking pace) until I've got to a dropped
kerb so I can join the road itself.

As a cyclist, I always resist the temptation to overtake on the left because
as a driver I know how dangerous it is. As a car driver I pull close to the
kerb if I've overtaken a cyclist near a junction where indicating to turn
left, to block him from overtaking me on the left. I've even seen cyclists
overtaking (on the right) cars that are stopped in the middle of the road
indicating to turn right! I know someone who was prosecuted for doing this
while driving his car, but I wonder what punishment would be applied to a
cyclist who did this?

I've seen many many cyclists go through red traffic lights: they seem to
think that they can treat lights as give way junctions. It's fairly rare to
see cars etc go through red lights (I've probably seen under ten in the 25
years I've been driving) but almost every time I go to Oxford or Reading, I
see a cyclist go through red lights some time on my journey.

The other day at the lights on the Milton Interchange (A34 Didcot junction)
I overtook a cyclist in bright yellow cycling clothes (legally) doing about
40 mph downhill who then rode straight out into the traffic (overtaking me
on the left hand side as I was stopped at the give way line), causing
everyone on the roundabout to ram on their brakes, and then under the bridge
he went through the red light, narrowly missing colliding with another car
coming off the A34 who would have had a green light. That's the sort of
riding that is indefensible and is a reason why (IMHO) bikes *do* need
recognisable registration plates. If he'd had plates, I'd have stopped as
soon as it was safe and reported him to the police, as I suspect many of the
other affected motorists would.