Two-wheeled fascism: the trouble with London's cyclists
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By Michael Hodges
Updated: Thu Jul 30 2009
Ten Commandments for the London Cyclist
1 Once a human steps into a car they cease to be human. Their strength is magnified beyond their effective control. They become heavy, polluting and dangerous. They are the enemy of the cyclist. A battle line is drawn between the car driver and the cyclist. The cyclist is responsible not just for his own survival but for the effective representation of all fellow cyclists. To this end the car driver must be antagonized and challenged constantly.
2 Traffic lights are designed for large heavy vehicles that have catastrophic effects when they collide with a human. They are not relevant for human-scale transportation devices. When a cyclist reaches a red light and all the cars are sat still belching fumes. She is duty bound to cross the red light. This is one way of making it clear to a driver how inappropriate their vehicle is for a dense urban setting.
3 When a driver passes too close to the cyclist the cyclist should follow the car until the next light and shout in the window at the driver. Appropriate comments include "get out your car and get some exercise… you are rotting in there and those fumes are killing the rest of us". Should the driver be of the aggressive, anti-cyclist variety things can heat up quickly. Be ready to make a quick exit.
Feature continuesAdvertisement4 Pedestrians are like cyclists but without a bike. They should be viewed with sympathy and always given room for safe passage. However, on pelican crossings they do not need the entire strip for their safety. As discussed in 2 the bike is light and nimble. A cyclist can circumnavigate a pedestrian without total stoppage. If they have problems explain how traffic architecture is designed for the car not the bike.
The Admiral Melson
5 Slip streaming increases the efficiency of cycling in London. If cyclists in the front do not like it they can signal and shift left allowing others to take the lead. Cyclists should help each other at all available opportunities. Competition between cyclists is natural and healthy. However, never forget, it is the car driver who is your enemy.
6 Death is a real prospect for all London cyclists. Around 20 are killed every year by cars. It is useful to meditate upon death for at least 5% of all cycle journeys. Imagine being hit by a car and falling into an on coming bus. Imagine your relatives weeping. Then take care and assert yourself boldly to the car.
7 Car drivers get angry when they cannot pass you. They will normally rev their engines releasing excess fumes. When they can pass they will do so at unnecessary speed. Usually they will break soon after as they approach the next light/bumper of the front car. As you pass them shake your head and tap your head. These people are dinosaurs.
8 Sometimes the only safe way to continue your journey is to mount a pavement. Some pedestrians feel threatened by this. It is important they understand that pedestrians and cyclists are extremely closely related. They are of the same scale and both can move slowly and carefully. They need to understand that it is the car that: congests cities taking space away from other crucial needs of citizens; causes increases in asthma, lung cancer, brain damage and other illnesses caused by pollution; hit and wound 2 teenagers per week; contributes to soaring obesity and heart disease by promoting inactivity; prevents school children walking to school because of car-danger; leads to the delocalization of our basic needs leading to the death of local shops and the genesis of out of town shopping hell zones and also… contributes to global warming. Never accept that a bicycle is a threat when there are cars in the vicinity. By removing cars from London, cyclists and pedestrians could easily co-exist in peace.
9 The government pays billions of pounds every year to subsidize the car. They do this through road building, traffic management devices, police fees etc. the police are employed by the government to maintain a dangerous, potentially catastrophic system. Reasoning with policemen is not known to ever have worked. They should be treated with extreme caution.
10 Cycling is joy available to nearly all of us. It is amongst the most ingenious of all humanities inventions. Love your bike. Love your fellow human. Love this precious earth that we were inexplicably born onto.- Add your comment to this feature
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83 comments
I drive in london almost every day and constantly see cycle users who seem to think that a red traffic light does not apply to them, some will even go to middle of a junction and practice their balancing act and wait for a small opportunity to sneek across crossing traffic.
I was listening to a radio broadcast recently which did the now protective statement of"MOST CYCLISTS ARE GOOD AND OBSERVANT OF THE LAWS OF THE ROAD AND ITS ONLY A SMALL MINORITY WHO DISOBEY THEM".
I having observed the actions of cyclists in london and local areas KNOW that this is not true and would welcome any gov official or similar body to occompany me on a drive through the heart of london to witness this total stupidity of londons mass cyclist communitty.
Let me now say that cycling around london and other citys is a great way to get around but i cannot remember the the number of times that i have pulled at a junction "indicating left" and have gone to move off only to be startled by several cyclists on my nearside who seem oblivios to my indicator and seem to feel it is their god given right to kill them selves under my van.
Once again i am not anti cyclist but i am anti STUPID cyclist who seem to feel that because they are small they can avoid the big lorries and vans and ignore normal traffic road rules.
Many junctions are not perfect for cyclists in major citys but the actions of cyclists at these and 90% of what i see meens that these two wheeled road users more often than not will risk their own lives for the sake of a 15 min less journey.
I have no doubt that this will offend those cyclists of you who are responsable road users "BUT I AM SORRY " in my experience the majority in london have no idea of the laws of the road and have very little care for their own safety.
AND TO FINISH ARE VERY QUICK TO BLAME OTHER ROAD USERS FOR THEIR OWN COMPLETE DISREGARD FOR THEIR OWN SAFETY.
Terry Allen
Well, today I am home with two enormously swollen knees, unable to move and under a lot of pain killers, because yesterday, a cyclist in London incorporated to an avenue, at full speed, turning her head towards the opposite side (to make sure no vehicles were coming) and never stopped to check if there were people crossing the street ahead. It was fortunate that I did see her or I would probably wouldn´t be writing this today. She stopped, checked I was still conscious, mounted and pedalled off. Believe me, I´m NOT against cyclists. But the problem in London is that most of them just don´t get they have to follow the same road rules as everyone else! They are always hitting pedestrians, or getting killed themselves because they are often reckless and in such a hurry that they don´t stop at red lights, pedestrian crossings, etc. And of course, this makes many pedestrians and drivers truly hate them. They need to be regulated!
When the cyclist who drove without looking and at full speed around the corner of my south-west London street, without his light on, without the legally required reflective clothing on, first into my two-year-old son and then into me, he was not liable to prosecution as he would have been had he been driving a car. Had he been in a car he would have had a license plate to track him down. I am a life-long pedestrian, and increasingly for the last fifteen years, if not longer, I have had my pavements, my pedestrian crossings, even my passenger seat impinged upon by self-righteous and quite frankly offensive cyclists. I have no intrinsic love for motorists, but they are at least held accountable. Cyclists in our capital believe they are above the law: in fear of sounding bitter, I truly wish the law would prove them wrong.
It is a shame that the majority of cyclists have issues with other lifestyles around them. Befor they even get on their bikes they are ready for a fight and cyclists must realise they are hated for their behaviour. If a pedestrian walked down the pavement bumping into, hurling abuse and punching people, he/she would be thought of as mentally disturbed. Yet cyclists behave this way and feel this behaviour is justified. Mental.
This poor little mind Mr Hodges, is a shame to human kind and to TimeOut too who are in turn accomplices for allowing him to vent his stupidity.
Cycling on pavement is selfish and not right, Skipping lights is very selfish & not right but those offences are so minor & harmless compared to the danger and damage that the private use of cars & vans cause to the city life and population every second that make the exacerbated complaint against some rogue cyclists insignificant. I believe that for some reason some of the media ( for instance this incendiary disproportionate and senseless article) has an interest to reverse the only sensible increase of popularity of cycling in town. It is an undeniable truth that cycling in town AND ITS PROMOTION AND PROTECTION is only RIGHT. PRIVATE USE OF CARS IN TOWN DO NOT WORK AND WILL NEVER DO, ACCEPT IT.Complaints against to an obvious HUGE society benefit & the rest of attacks against the most sociable efficient and peaceful means of transport, are expressions of the childish desire of continuation of selfish and undeveloped behaviour. Join us start cycling today and experience it you'll understand if still in doubt. Louis
Afraid of aggressive, threatening cyclists?
Stop moaning - and carry a stick to fend them off!
Use your civil right to self-protection!!
"Change the law so that cyclists only have to give way at lights, just like pedestrians, rather than stop like motor vehicles.
As long as they do give way, is there any harm done to anyone?"
Quite.
What the motorist mentality will never understand is that cyclists are pedestrians in everything but speed.
They are just as vulnerable, and just as non-polluting.
And as there is no 'jaywalking' offence in Britain, meaniing that the pedestrian ALWAYS has right of way, it would be in the spirit of that law to allow cyclists the same rights on the road.
People on bikes are not vehicles, they are people.
The reality of the situation is that cycling on pavements mainly represents a glorious piece of co-operation between people, not the nightmare of paranoiacs like the writer of this piece of trash.
It is the very fact that this behaviour reveals just how peacably people can co-exist which infuriated the reactionay neurotics.
The only thing missing is a sufficient level of expertise by cyclists. This is actively discouraged by the insistence on helmets and the armchair riding style encouraged by the pernicious bloated 4x4 of bicycles, the misnamed, overspecified, overpriced mountain bike.
It's wrong to lump all cyclists in with those who ride on the pavement and skip lights - quite simply because most don't. I cycle regularly in London but just because some pedestrians walk out into the road in front of me without looking I don't tar them all with the same brush.
Just as pedestrians can feel threatened by careless cyclists, cyclists in turn can feel threatened by those motorists who have scant regard for their safety. I was assaulted in central London this month because I tapped on the window of a car that was being driven very aggressively. It's not the first time I have witnessed aggressive behaviour from motorists. However, despite requiring stitches on my face, I wouldn't ever suggest that motorists are highly-strung maniacs. The bad ones, like bad cyclists, are a minority, albeit a very dangerous one.
There's something rather sad about this article, and Michael Hodges for writing it. The comparison with fascism exposes it for the nonsense that it is. If you want a lesson from history is is that we're not going to learn to live together if we demonise people.
The increase in cycling in London seems to me to almost totally made up of pavement cyclists. Yesterday I walked home from the town centre (Barking) with a friend, a distance of 1mile.
In that mile we were passed by 12 pavement cyclists; only one went by slowly and considerately although as this was not a shared path even he had no right to be there. The others went by at speed and within inches of us. If one of has had moved out of a straight line we would have been injured.
By the time we arrived home we were exhausted, angry, upset and stressed. This is the reality of increased cyclng in London for many people. Pavement cyclists are bullies; they are brave men (11 of the 12 were men) who enjoy dominating people who are older, slower or weaker than they are and get a kick of swearing at, threatening and abusing women.
We have always walked for exercise and because we (used to) enjoy walking under the trees in the pretty street that we live in. Now we are going to have to take the bus because this problem is getting worse week on week. Who is looking after the rights of people like us?
Is this piece of garbage still milking it?
Any serious publication would have drawn a line under this thread years ago. Does Time Out still need the traffic this scrap of sneering scribble generates?
Pathetic.
"Two wheeled Facism"?!? These articles are getting ridiculous. I wish you would look at real problems and dangers on the road such as the endless number of motorists still using mobile phones while driving; speeding cars in residential areas; blaring horns left right and centre; taking red lights in cars (yes I see it every day!); agressive drivers; impatient drivers etc etc etc.
Let's compare the problems caused by motorists compared to cyclists shall we?!? Deaths? Injuries? Pollution? Noise?
Is there really a 'trouble with London's cyclists' in comparison?
How about just writing an article called 'trouble with Time Out's low quality journalism?'
Motorcyclists - take a leaf out of the cyclists' book, and use those nice cycle paths!
Why not?!
It really is a shame that ego man Hodges has to use his undeserved pedestal to exacerbate this already ugly argument and promote further intolerance on all sides. It is a great shame that there seems to be so much hatred towards cyclists in London. It is a great way to get about and I believe you can experience a true sense of freedom when cycling.
While there are probably many people who use bikes who are inconsiderate, isn't this the same with drivers, pedestrians, tube and bus users?
It would be nice to see more focus on the positive aspects of cycling, together with more education about its benefits and greater investment in proper infrastructure that would move London closer towards other cities where the urban planning has been designed to consider all road users.