From Bath to Middlesbrough, anti-social cyclists in the firing line again

I think the police are just hitting easy targets so that they can boost their stats. I agree that daft cyclists who hoon around through busy pedestrian areas deserve a stiff talking to, however this type of personality would just go and do it again anyway, you aren't teaching anyone a lesson. They are the same type of person who rides his motorbike like Rossi through a 30 zone or drives his corsa past a school at home time like a d**k head. These people in society will not change no matter what you throw at them.

However there are areas where sensible cyclists would use the pavement. That crossroad where to go straight on I am required to cross two lanes of traffic, the city centre where my bike route ends and to get to work I either take a 10 minute detour round the busy one way system or I cut through the one way street on the pavement. I think in the main, most cyclists are law obiding but because our roads have not been designed for cyclists and our cycle routes are far from joined up there is a need to 'flaunt' the laws in order to get where you want to be without having to cross 4 lanes of traffic or argue with buses. It may not be right but when 'might is right' on the road, we tend to be the ones that loose out. I'd rather pay a £50 fine than leave my daughter without a mum.

"they don't know what its like to stand there at the side of the road, shaking in fear because someone has just shown you how they don't like cyclists and how little your life is worth."

I've experienced this too - the cortisol response where your legs turn to jelly. Eg when a car hit my trailer at maybe 20mph. (Accelerated me a lot and shook me up, but it turns out box steel beats plastic bodywork ). Not due to malign intent, just bloody careless driving - which is dangerous by definition, I'd say.

By and large, following traffic laws and the Highway code is the right thing to do - but there are times when the law or code just doesn't make sense, when it's clear they were'nt thinking of bikes when they wrote it, when it would put you in danger - when you're safer doing it some other way.

Bit surprised by the "subsidized mountain bikes" mentioned in the article - is Middlesborough particularly mountainous?

Good!! It's about time they really clamped down on the morons who give the rest of us a bad name. There is never an excuse for riding on the pavement (unless it's designed as a shared one), jumping red lights etc.. and all it does when people do it is gives the rest of us a bad name.

I live in SW London, and see it all the time, particularly across the commons on footpaths that are clearly signed as 'no cycling', and jumping up the kerb to pass stationary traffic. (I make a point of blocking the pavement as much as possible when I see these ignorant morons!!!)

He claimed that “It is only a matter of time before some innocent walker is injured by one of those irresponsible and couldn’t-care-less cyclists.”

More likely that a cyclist will be injured when some dozy twit wanders out into the road in front of them without looking!

I am an Anti social cyclist. According to the CPS i am also a bad character. In 2005 a driver swerved into me knocking me from my bike. He then Drove up the road turned around and then drove full pelt at me. i managed to avoid him, but caught his wing mirror. I was arrested and prosecuted for criminal damage. He was not arrested for anything.
In 2008 I had cosh swung at me from the passenger side of a vehicle. Luckily it only hit my bag. Also in 2008 I was passed by a post van so close that its wing mirror hit my arse. I asked the driver what he was doing and he told me 'I hate cyclists, f***in w*nkrs, If i see you again i am going to run you over. Naturally, I punched him. I was told at the trial that the law says you cannot be killed by a motor vehicle and therefore cannot be afraid of being killed by a motor vehicle (Stella Massey QC). As a result of all this I am known to the police who haul me in and stop me on the street constantly. If I ever report an incident of dangerous driving, such as the chap who disliked being overtaken while he was waiting in traffic and who turned right on me hitting me with his van, the incident is ignored, or as one policewoman said 'are you hurt?' 'No, but...' 'Well, what are you whinging for?. i was hit and my bike was destroyed a couple of weeks ago. The copper who showed up half an hour later told me the CPS don't bother prosecuting in these cases because 'they happen all the time and its your word against theirs.'

The law is not something to respect, it is something to fear. the police and the CPS are driven by targets and cyclists are easy to catch. Since public opinion is driven more by the media than any sense of reality these sort of schemes are greeted with enthusiasm by the more retarded sections of society.

The fact is that cycling in this country is very dangerous. If you want to jump a red light to get ahead of traffic or ride on the pavement when things get hairy then go for it. No law is worth more than a life. The people make and enforce those laws and come up with these schemes have no experience of having their life put in danger, they don't know what its like to stand there at the side of the road, shaking in fear because someone has just shown you how they don't like cyclists and how little your life is worth.

The above examples are a very small selection of my experiences on the road. I calculate that in 20 years of riding I have been hit about 30 times and had ten times that number of near misses or close calls with idiots. I don't count mistakes by drivers, that's fair enough, I am talking about incidents with malicious intent

its worth noting that in middlesbrough the sustrans route 1 gets funneled down a lot of these 'pedestrian' areas in the town centre.

In the case of pedestrian areas your not 'avoiding dangerous roads' by using a path, your taking a shortcut thats away from any roads so you can do as everyone else does, get off the bike. I do, its not hard, i find having 2 legs makes the short walk quite easy.

Example: Northumberland Street in Newcastle is pedestrianised, with 'no cycling' signs on it and although there are plenty of alternative routes around it plenty of folks still try and cycle down it. Now this isnt a problem when its quiet (ive ridden part way up to grab a Burger King on the way home from a night ride) but during the day and on weekends its just stupid. You can hardly walk along it with everyone aimlessly walking in/out of shops and cutting across the street in all directions.

At busy times you see bikes going down the street almost taking people out and aiming for tiny moving gaps at speed. If the police are about these people get stopped and given a £50 ticket, and rightly so, but thankfully the police understand that in other areas of the town riding on the pavement alongside roads is safer and they dont stop you if you are being careful.

DFT figures say 85% of accidents involving cyclsits are not the fault of the cyclist. You have to ask if the person/people responsible for this crackdown have bothered to look at the statistics on who is endangered by whom.

This is an easy fix in my opinion. Paint a cycle path down the pavement making it shared use. Problem solved?

I'm seeing a lot of comments from people on the news coverage saying "cyclists can't pick & choose which laws they abide by" yet drivers pick & choose all the time which laws *they'll* abide by. Except when they do it (e.g. speeding) it's about "individual driver responsibility".

The disproportionate targeting of cyclists relative to the harm they do is a symptom of a country that doesn't know what the hell to do with cycling.

Some cyclists want to be in the road; I cycle in the road because there's no alternative, not because I want to. Most potential or leisure-only cyclists want don't want to be on the road, and end up on the pavement if they cycle at all.

What's clear is that this conflict will continue while cyclists aren't accommodated properly and motorists are given the impression that they can drive without restraint.

Crikey. These people have got a lot of time to kill haven't they.

Here is a clip of a cyclist jumping a red light. Before you watch it, lets reiterate what Gurminder Marwaha said:

"Motorists and cyclists both have a right to use the roads - a right to safe and enjoyable travel; drive safe and cycle safe,” he explained. “All road users share a responsibility to understand each other’s needs and must obey the laws regardless of their mode of transport.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORqVMuOKCGs