I’ve written an article about cyclists/cycling before… and now here’s another.
I’m still absolutely shocked at the level of disregard that cyclists have for the rules of the road. Let me set the scene. I’m driving home. It’s about 6pm and the roads are unseasonably quiet – probably because it’s a Sunday. It’s dark. There’s a light rain coming down. I pull up at a set of lights carrying little speed as I anticipated the red light.
A cyclist pulls into the left lane. He (yes it was a male) and he keeps edging further and further forward. Let me reiterate that the lights were red. The green man lights up, signifying it’s safe for pedestrians to cross. Only it isn’t really safe, because this idiot cyclist decides to roar across the road at maximum speed. So why does he decide that not only can he cycle in an unsafe way but he can also flagrantly breach the law?
I knew, I predicted, prior to his doing so, that he was going to take this action too. I could see it in his body language. Yes, it was cold and no doubt he wanted to get home. But so does everyone else, but we all have the same duty of care to each other when using the roads. If the sequence had of been red for us but green for the cross road, he could have been completely flattened. But the car driver would have been in serious trouble rather than the cyclist (well, he’d have been in hospital possibly in intensive care).
Secondly, I had another cyclist on another day swerve dangerously around on the pavement – on a path that is littered with MANY ‘No Cycling’ signs! You may not like the rules of the road, but you should obey them. They are there for a reason and that reason is very simply safety…
The thing that really winds me up are the cyclists who insist on riding on the busy road when there’s an empty cycle lane next to them. You’d think self preservation would kick in as the lorries rumble by inches from their heads.