National Bad Driving Week

I have a bit of bad day on the bike today but, despite checking on the internet, I can't find anything about it being National Bad Driving Week. I do however stumble across yet another incoherent anti-cycling rant, which was printed in yesterday’s Daily Mail.

Presumably the journalist, Robert Hardman, must have had a bad day himself (in his car of course) to cause him to write such drivel. His day on the roads couldn’t possibly have been as bad as mine. Perhaps he was annoyed because all the ‘Lycra louts’, as he calls them, got to work before him.

Nice title by the way Robert, 'Lycra louts drive me crazy'. Inaccurate though because very few commuter cyclists wear Lycra. Lycra is only really worn by the more serious and more experienced cyclists. Most of which avoid cycling in cities completely and those that do are the ones most likely to obey all the rules of the road. His article even included two photos of cyclists NOT wearing Lycra.

Despite him going onto criticise cyclists jumping lights and riding on the pavement, both those cyclists were pictured on the road; one of them was even stationary and waiting correctly at a red light.

I do partly agree with him. Cycling on the pavement should be banned full stop but it’s the governments fault for actively encouraged it with its shared use policy, and now they're reaping what they've sown. Personally I think being on the pavement is more dangerous to a cyclist than being on the road and certainly slower. Occasionally a pedestrian gets killed by a cyclist but statistics show that for every one killed by a cyclist 150 will be killed by a car that has mounted the pavement.

I also agree that some days you see a mad cyclist go through a red light but every day I see at least half a dozen motorists do the same thing.

In short, there are far too many cyclists behaving like motorists but this is probably because most of them are. Bad ones that is. The ones that haven’t got their licences yet will presumably be just as bad when they do. These cyclists will be the ones that once they get home and into their cars they’ll be out jumping red lights, talking on their mobile phones and other bad habits, such as not indicating left at roundabouts. I reckon 50% of motorists don’t indicate left at roundabouts, which is very hazardous for a cyclist when you’re moving up the inside of them (legally) in a queue.

I think the original point of his article, before he lost track of it, came from his misinterpretation of the suggestion by the chairman of Cycling England that the ‘legal onus be placed on motorists when there are accidents’.

Under current law, if a bike and a car are involved in an accident it is the cyclist who has to prove the car is at fault. As the majority of these sorts of accidents are caused by cars this doesn’t really make sense. The proposal would mean that the car is presumed to be at fault unless there is evidence to the contrary. A cyclist running a red light would of course be a case where the cyclist would be at fault. This is how the law works in most European countries and seems to work to everyone’s satisfaction. It does not imply that the car driver would always be deemed the guilty party, which is what Mr Hardman thought.

He even rang the Department for Transport to check with them. They confirmed that Hardman's interpretation was 'absolute nonsense' but still he thought it worth writing the article.

He even finishes his article by saying that ‘Cycling is, unquestionably, a good thing. It is good for the body and every traveller on a bike is one less exhaust fume for the pedestrian.’ Then ends up praising our Olympic cycling achievements and the new velodrome that is being built for 2012. He’s one confused journalist.

Glad I got that off my chest. Still hasn’t help me forget my day though.

First I came across a woman edging out of one of the junctions. She had a fag in hand and her window down, through which she was blowing smoke. I was so close to her that I could breathe it in. She obviously hadn't seen me though, she had that vacant look in her eyes, looking straight through me and she wasn't moving forwards either. So I started to go around her, at which point she manoeuvred the car forward, one finger on the wheel, although she also appearing to be holding it firm at the bottom with her stomach. I had to veer into the centre of the road to avoid her. I thanked her loudly through her open window but she didn't hear me of course.

This is all bread and butter stuff for a cyclist, almost an everyday happening, unlike the second incident which almost required a trip to A&E. A BMW almost wiped out my front wheel as it raced me, trying to beat me to the next junction, which was a left turn just ahead. I didn’t know I was in a race until he shot past me and cut across my path, clearly not realising I was travelling at 40kph on what is a pretty quick stretch of road. He tyre screeched around the corner turning left across my front wheel, I was going straight on. Grabbing the brakes hard, and thanking myself for recently putting new blocks on, I manage to scrub off enough speed to avoid parking my front wheel in his rear wheel arch. I got a rather elegant sideways slide on too but manage to keep the bike upright.

That was worrying stuff, less so was a run of the mill incident on the way to the swimming pool later. A chap drove straight across the road in front of me but then he swung his car around in the entrance to a side street he'd just entered and came back for a second go at me. Suddenly, and at long last, he sees me. We're on a collision course now, that is if neither of us deviates from our current path, and I would have been able to nicely head butt him through his open window, grating his nose like a block of cheese with my helmet but at the last moment we both take evasive action in different directions.

All far too 'exciting', even for me.