Police to target red light jumpers and pavement cyclists... in Denmark, of all places

"chosse"? "THose"? "cotext"? Your proof-reader's been drinking...
Those louts in the photo look decidedly touristy- possibly Americans?

Christ! can we just respect each other as human beings??? & maybe stop putting others & ourselves into imaginary categories e.g cyclist or driver (most are both)... it is this divide & conquer nonsense that gets us nowhere, constant blame of the percieved other side... instead of taking some personal responsibility for the way that we act in public.

There wouldn't be any need for cycling specific laws if we could achieve this

"Home Office guidance is that it should only be enforced if the riding is dangerous."

and that decision is entirely down to the uniformed dolt handing out the tickets. I have been fined £30 for riding past 2 shop fronts on an empty pavement at 3mph.

Contrary to the article, riding on pavements is not breaking the law, unless it is endangers the public. I have to agree with others here that a cyclist jumping a red or not paying attention is more a menace to himself than anything else. Impact equals mass times velocity. Even a heavy human is soft and mushy, and relatively very light; unlike a tonne plus vehicle or hundreds of kilo motorcycle with exposed moving and inflexible parts that can mame, dismember, burn and crush humans at even very slow speeds.

Getting angry at cyclists for jumping reds safely is like getting angry at j-walking pedestrians. Worse; thinking that by abiding the law we will make motorists respect cyclists is as pointless as avoiding racists and hoping they will forget their biggotry - there are much bigger and more important road safety issues than cyclists jumping reds. I say this as a cyclist and motorist living in central London.

There are areas in london, like joining the cromwell road from queens gate to then turn left, joining queensway from hyde park to go right to paddington, joining putney bridge from either direction, and many other key cycling routes where jumping a red is the safest way to avoid being cut up by buses, lorries or cars or simply just being able to cross lanes safely at all. To this effect both paris and london ministers have called for jumping reds to be legal:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097882/Paris-allow-cyclists-run...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16942781

Can we please get to the key issues of drivers on phones, not looking or indicating before turning, invading cycle lanes; idiotic cyclists trying to overtake everybody along the middle and forcing cars into cycle lanes, idiotic cyclists treating a commute in rush hour as a race track, drivers seeing cyclists as second class road occupants, etc, etc and most of all stop bitching amoung ourselves hoping that if we are all real nice, stop at reds, have a crease in our trousers and say please, pretty please with sugar on top, that motorists who think they deserve to be on the road more than anyone else will suddenly start respecting cyclists????

I'd hate to see "zero tolerance" introduced, because the one thing we have is a sense of elasticity. I'm in favour of clamping down on the more dangerous behaviours (in car / on bike) but there's needs to be a bit of breathing space.
To do otherwise just isn't British, damn it.

I think we need a clamp down on all cycling offences here too. Until cyclists behave within the laws of the road we're always going to be fair game for criticism. I know plenty of drivers fail to obey the rules, but we're the minority trying to fight our corner. Every time a cyclist jumps the red lights or shows aggression towards motorists we're just giving them ammunition. I do agree with zoxed's final point though!

Yes: selfish people can also ride bikes.

My take: on the road I would rather meet an idiot on a bike than an idiot in a car !

I have a theory that cycling conditions in the UK, London especially, select for more daredevil scofflaw cyclists.

I'm afraid the situation i Copenhagen doesn't bear this theory out. There are of course lots (!) of law-abiding cyclists in the city, but there are an incredible number of scofflaws. RLJ'ing (and not just turning right on red) is particularly common, as is talking on a mobile phone while riding. A lot of Danes think that cyclists have a holier-than-thou attitude that makes them/us think that they/we can do what they/we want. I don't think that's the case, they're just self-centered, just like the drivers.

About once a year the Police do this, but they invariably announce it ahead of time, which I just don't understand.

I have a theory that cycling conditions in the UK, London especially, select for more daredevil scofflaw cyclists.

Cautiously in favour. I do see a lot of bad cyclist behaviour, which does the reputation of law-abiding cyclists no favours. Hell, I get nervous cycling around people on the phone while on their bikes, without proper control or awareness and liable to change direction without warning.

But it shouldn't be disproportionate to the actual danger that cyclists present, especially when compared to motor vehicles. Are there similar crack-downs on bad driver behaviour?