City of London Police claim 1,200 cyclists fined in a year is "great result" for "Cycle Response Unit" tackling "road safety and anti-social behaviour"

How many drivers were fined for running red lights, not wearing seatbelts or for using phones at the wheel by the City of London Police?

Very few, obs, because most respectable drivers have to do those things just to keep the country moving- as opposed to the layabout Terror Cycling Menace, who must be punished

And this would be a good FOI request for comparison story, as I might have said more than once.

In principle, I'm fine with nabbing cyclists who break the rules

The problem with this noble sacrifice of other cyclists on the altar of equality is that, in Lancashire at least and I'm pretty sure in other police areas also, it's not at all equal because of the laxity and forgiveness demonstrated by the police towards motorists committing much greater offences which put others at risk- because 'oh, everybody does it' (passing red traffic lights, use of mobile devices while driving, ignoring unbroken white lines, ignoring MOT and VED regulations etc.)

What did I see all within 5 minutes of setting off on my bike today? Guy driving straight at me on my side of a narrow road while looking down at his phone, presumably because the road was clear when he last looked up a few seconds ago. Then a queue of traffic with plenty of drivers texting. Then I have to delay setting off from the lights as two cars are jumping their red light coming from the other way.

What happens on the way home? I have to stop in the middle of the road as a car pulling out from a side road hasn't seen me, I can't go round behind him as he comes to a dead stop blocking most of road. He winds his window down to apologise and blames not being able to see due to all the parked cars obstructing the view. They're illegally parked like that all day, every day.

In a situation like that it's tempting to wait until the last minute to make your presence known to the first phone user in the hope that he will panic and brake hard so that all the other phone users behind him crash into him / each other.

I had one stupid close pass when I was already indicating to turn right, a driver who I'm damn sure drove through a red light, and a driver who managed to block a road to all traffic, pulled forward a bit and stopped on double yellows and then I spotted the driver was taking a clearly very important phone call. I should have gone all CyclingMikey on them but i didnt, And that's just one ride, doesn't even include the crazy roid rage driver I had to deal with earlier in the week.

No one argues there aren't hundreds if not thousands of more important stuff the police could deal with on the roads in terms of safety. It doesn't mean then tackling this one aspect is waste of time, and because these things are always framed as one offs we never hear what they're doing about all the other stuff.

Last time this came up I proposed why not FOI how many drivers the same police force have dealt with for red light offences. Then we can make the comparison.

eburtthebike wrote:

The risks posed by cyclists riding through red lights are mostly to themselves, except for pedestrians at crossings

(my italics)

Exactly - the City has huge numbers of pedestrians at peak times. 

Yes and i think it's a very noticeable problem in central/city parts of London

I'm actually surprised there aren't more collisions reported, because its pretty endemic. And it's not just riding through the lights, theyll often use a pedestrian crossing at a major junction if their light is red to hop up the pavement & shortcut the corner.

It's not to do with motorists - of whom there aren't a huge number in the City. As the quotes suggest, it's more likely to do with the countless thousands of pedestrians, mostly arriving via public transport, too many of whom have to get out the way of selfish cyclists riding though the green man. Fortunately, both sides have the manoeuverability and awareness to avoid collisions in almost all cases - but that doesn't make the cyclists' behaviour OK.

Hopefully in the future if there are sufficient cyclists relative to motor vehicles they can simply narrow the carriageway on those streets and make it a bicycle street (20mph max).  Hey presto!  Far less need for formal crossings!

... of course that does depend on the volume of motor traffic / rely on good behaviour from those pesky motor vehicle drivers (including illegal electric motorbikes of course...)

The City has narrowed streets, lowered speed limits and made driving more difficult in many places. But there are many bus routes through the area (moving far more people than cycling), as well as the need for goods access  to support the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the City.

Where is the evidence that bus routes on roads in the city of London transports more than cycling?

I'm not aware of a perfect source but this chart - which accords with my own experience - of 'vehicles' suggests you wouldn't need many people getting on and off each bus within the City boundaries to exceed the (relatively high) numbers of cyclists.  Six people per bus would do it - and many buses carry far, far more than that. Even if you see a half-empty bus, you aren't seeing all those who got off earlier or will board later along its route.

while it doesn't detract from your main point finding the number of people moved by bus isn't as simple as multiplying the percentage.
For example 40 people using the bus wouldn't make it 200% of road users but 66%.

You're right - I didn't mean to suggest that but my blue text annotation could be interpreted thus. The point is that for every five cycles counted there was one bus. So lots more cycles than buses in the City (and there are a lot of commuting cyclists) - but still lots more people on buses than people on bikes.

Dnnnnnn wrote:

The City has narrowed streets, lowered speed limits and made driving more difficult in many places. But there are many bus routes through the area (moving far more people than cycling), as well as the need for goods access  to support the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the City.

That all sounds good. I can believe that's true while London is improving things. Though ultimately space used for cycling has greater capacity to move people *

It's a long project ... but in general bikes and buses don't mix well **. It's not pleasant to cycle with buses (which in UK means buses, taxis and chancers). Cyclists will want to keep moving, buses keep stopping then accelerating back up to speed - so they impede each other.

Presumably having narrowed the streets next move is to add more cycle paths / re-plan bus networks. Cycle paths generally don't require formal pedestrian crossings ***.

It's a project (and London *is* a bit different because large size) but other city centres have managed this so hopefully they'll get there!

* https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_capacity

** short exception: https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2022/05/04/a-cycle-street-where-buses...

*** https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2019/06/12/how-hard-is-it-to-cross-th...

Dnnnnnn wrote:

It's not to do with motorists - of whom there aren't a huge number in the City. As the quotes suggest, it's more likely to do with the countless thousands of pedestrians, mostly arriving via public transport, too many of whom have to get out the way of selfish cyclists riding though the green man. Fortunately, both sides have the manoeuverability and awareness to avoid collisions in almost all cases - but that doesn't make the cyclists' behaviour OK.

So they should be able to quantify the reduction in pedestrian injuries caused by cyclists jumping lights then? Given that there aren't a huge number of motorists in the City, the fact motorists are responsible for 80% of pedestrian deaths and serious injuries (tfl statistics) would make it even more important to focus on bad driving if they were genuinely interested in pedestrian safety rather than appealing to the taxi/HGV/petrolheaded ignorants. Why is there no call for creating an offence of pedestrians crossing the lights when they are red, to make it 'safer' for motorists? Because people would be angry they are focussing on the wrong side of the problem, yet it's perfectly ok to do that if one side is a 'cyclist'. 

henryb wrote:

I expect they're also fining all the taxi drivers and van drivers who stop at traffic lights beyond the Advance Stop Line... 

And motor cyclists.  

Steve K wrote:

henryb wrote:

I expect they're also fining all the taxi drivers and van drivers who stop at traffic lights beyond the Advance Stop Line... 

And motor cyclists.  

I'm always a bit unsure about motorcyclists (and scooterists).  I know that as motorised vehicles they are not supposed to be in the ASL.  But, they are way more vulnerable than the four-wheelers so I'm usually willing to give them the benefit of the doubt… 

brooksby]<p>[quote=Steve K wrote:

henryb wrote:

I expect they're also fining all the taxi drivers and van drivers who stop at traffic lights beyond the Advance Stop Line... 

I'm always a bit unsure about motorcyclists (and scooterists).  I know that as motorised vehicles they are not supposed to be in the ASL.  But, they are way more vulnerable than the four-wheelers so I'm usually willing to give them the benefit of the doubt…

They are not permitted in the ASL box. Now, if the law were changed to allow them to use it, I'd be quite prepared to share it with them.

BUT, a significant number of boxes around the UK would need to be enlarged to enable both cyclists and our motorised two (and three) wheeled motorised brothers and sisters to use them (imagine how well that would go down with the 4+ wheeled crowd!), and it may need a rule that the powered bikes must queue to the right of a lane with cyclists to the left to reduce potential conflict. Could get messy once a majority of motorcyclists start using them.

Until then, I tell motorbikes in the box to start pedalling their bikes if they want to use it!

Cayo wrote:

it may need a rule that the powered bikes must queue to the right of a lane with cyclists to the left to reduce potential conflict.

Not sure this would work though - what happens when the cyclist wants to turn right and the moto rider wants to turn left?