City cycling clinic

Dave, I take your point about taxes! However, I still think that genuine improvements in cycle networks need the support of the public which is currently being lost because of pavement cycling. When I mentioned Holland I meant the real, segregated cycle routes in the country areas not Amsterdam where pedestrians have to share the pavements with cyclists. I don’t think that you are qualified to say what is a hindrance to the blind and I think you are feeling more than a little defensive as there was no need to mention your charitable donations which are in no way connected to what we are talking about. Can you quote where I equated pavement cycling with disrespect for the blind? I never said that. I stated the pure facts of what has been my friend’s experience. I do believe-and here you can quote me-that pavement cyclists are showing disrespect for all pedestrians. You are fond of saying “assumptions are the mother of all f**** ups. You talk about a “simple mantra� that would remind cyclists that slower moving “traffic� has right of way. At the moment most pavement cyclists that I see are young, male and aggressive; they weave in and out of people as if they are just a human slalom there for no purpose other than for them to show off their prowess and if someone gets “clipped,� what’s the harm? This is what happens now when pavement cycling is still illegal but you believe that if it is made legal and cyclists have far less to fear from the law if they injure someone, that they will magically become considerate and respectful. Assumptions are the mother of all f***ups Dave. In this country, by both custom and law, pavement cycling has been illegal since the nineteenth century. Pavement cyclists are not “being criminalised� they are criminalising themselves by breaking the law and putting people in danger because they won't cycle in the road where they belong. This week a 20 year old man was sent to prison for 7 months because he killed an innocent 84 year old man in Weymouth whose only mistake – assumptions are the mother of all f*** ups- was to assume he was safe on the pavement.

i am blind and have a guide dog. with my dog i should be able to assume that the pavement will be a safe place for me to walk independently. yet it has become increasingly dangerous for me because of adults cycling on the pavenents (which is not a shared space) rather than in the road where there is a cycling lane for their use. i have had cyclists hit me as they passed. terrified my guide dog so that not only is he frightened by their sudden and speeding appearance from behind us but is then unable to work for a while... which puts me in danger too. there is no excuse for this behaviour. pavements are for people not cyclists and i must totally agree with kit on this. if the road is too dangerous... even with the cycling lane... then let the cyclist get off and walk like the rest of us. or have cyclists lobby councils to create safer cycyling lanes in the road... perhaps have them put in some kind of "cats eye" bollard about a foot high... spaced just close enough together to prevent cars entering the cycle lane so it is free of parked vehicles and totally safe for cyclists to use. instead of making pavements unsafe for pedestrians why not make the roads safer for cyclists? then we can all be happy. though i think there are some cyclists who simply get a kick out of going in and out of people on the pavement... gives them a sense of power and invulnerability. whatever the reason they should not be there. pavements are for people not bikes.

Yes Sean, you can cycle in the road. I cycled in the road from the age of 8. In the last 10 years there has been a 50% drop in mortality rates among cylists riding in the road. The more cyclists there are in the road the more car drivers have to be aware of them and accidents decrease. If you cycle on the pavement you make the roads more dangerous for the responsible cyclists who do ride in the road as well as making pavements dangerous for pedestrians. Statistically cyclists have more accidents on pavements than in the road. Whe you drove a car you hated cyclists and never gave a thought to pedestrians. Now that you cycle, you hate cars and never give a thought to pedestrians!

115 cyclists were killed by driving on the road in 2008 in england. Not one pedestrian was killed by a cyclist on the pavement. By law, Cyclists are forced to drive on the road, some not licensed in road rules. As a car driver, I use to complain at the cyclists but now i know they have no choice because of this Evil Law! I hate this government!!! You can't bring bikes on the tube or buses, can't ride on fottpaths/pavements/footways, can't drive on the road unless you want to risk your life but you litter as much as you damn well like.

Some valid points Kit. What's to be done tho? Pavement cycling is hardly the greatest hinderance to the elderly or the blind. A law to prevent respectful users like me from using the public spaces we pay to maintain isn't going to stop direspectful cyclists causing a threat to vulnerable people, whether on bikes or not. (This is England - 90% of our taxes go to people thatpiss us off!) Cyclists don't simply go around colliding with everything that isn't able to leap out of the way. The problem is that they assume people will move, and "assumption is the mother of all f*ckups" Criminalising pavement cycling creates animosity, unpredictability and disrepect for the law (as it is unenforceable). It would be better to create a simple shared mantra - "slower moving pavement traffic has the right of way" to remove the assumption that people will step aside, without turning normal people into criminals. Take the Amsterdam example - it takes some adjustment to walk around Amsterdam safely, as their cycling population expects their pedestrians to be wary of them at all times. If all London cyclists rode like that our problem would be a lot worse. It's also drawing a long bow to equate pavement cycling with disrespect for the blind, the amount I save on train fares per month is about the same as my monthly donation to sightsavers.org - but not becuase I've ever run over a guide dog!

Dave. Thanks for info on Knightrider. Explains why I did not know it; it's a bit before my time. I willl look out for it on one of the golden oldies channels. Dave, you sound very sweet but you are wrong about pavement cycling. All the incidents I have witnessed have been totally black and white; people (nearly always men) cycling illegally and at speed on pavements, causing fear and injury to pedestrians. I have mentioned here before that I have a friend who is blind who has been hit 3 times while on the pavement ( and I do mean pavements, not shared paths) and a fourth time a cyclist stopped one inch in front of her terrified guide dog. You can't get more black and white than that! I am assuming that you are quite young and perhaps you don't realise the fear and anxiety this creates in the elderly in particular. I know some neighbours and relatives who are nervous of going out where I live (East London). Around here there are often more cyclists on the pavements than in the road. I totally support genuine cycle paths of the kind that they have in Holland and would love to see that here but that kind of infrastructure costs huge amounts of money and pavement cycling is haemorrhaging support for cyclists among the general public. People don't want their taxes going to people who piss them off!

@ Kit: Bless! "Knightrider" was an 80's TV series starring non other than Mr Baywatch (David Hasslehoff) as Michael Knight, a crimefighter who beat baddies with the help of his talking car, a sardonic black "Trans Am" called Kit. @ Pete: Thanks for that, I'd written off my railing concerns as paranoia but I'll take more care now. The pavement cycling incidents i've seen are never black and white. The worst I've seen was where a cycle lane exited a park, crossing a pavement onto the road. A guy rode out of the park, watching for vehicle traffic. (This cycle lane also had a green "cycle" light telling phased to go when the vehicle lights were red). Unfortunately there was a tiny kid (about 4yo) on a little bike, riding along the pavement and they collided quite badly. This example shows how the best laid plans (ie a clearly marked cycle lane with it's own traffic light) is no substitute for simple caution. The lamest i've seen was while I waited outside an off licence for my girlfriend. I was sitting on my bike, stationary. A pedestrian was crossing the road towards me, using his mobile and not looking where he was going. As he stepped onto the kerb he looked the other way to check out some girls, and he walked straight into me! I copped some colourful abuse as usual for "riding" on the pavement. I've been on both sides of this problem - as a student in NZ I drove a public school busses. The most dangerous situations occur when people make assumptions i.e. they think if they can't hear a car, it is safe to step into the road without looking, or that if a queue of traffic is stationary, they can ride or walk through it with no danger of being hit. Commuting 18 miles a day by bike I avoid accidents by assuming that I am invisible to everyone, drivers and pedestrians - unless I have eye contact. I use the pavement whenever the road is blocked by anything other than other cyclists. When I encounter pedestrians I slow down to walking pace and say "excuse me" instead of ringing the bell. However riding along the road through areas such a Clapham Junction and Putney, near misses are much more common where it is pedestrians stepping on to the road.

OK, i give in. Will someone tell me who this Knightrider is/was?

@ Dave, I've got some cut railings on my road - and I'm in NW5, not East London where bike crime is far worse. In the worst case scenario a well placed kick can break a railing - some of them are very old and brittle. They really are a 'false friend'. If you don't trust me here's a quote from the Standard: Such railings - at traffic lights, around squares, in front of old houses - may be loved by cyclists but offer a totally false sense of security. "Wrought-iron railings can be very easily cut," says Sergeant David Prashner, of the City of London Police's cycle squad. (Or, indeed, broken with a single hammer blow.) "You need to fix your bike to something more solid." Come on Kitt, you were always pretty sarky in knightrider I seem to remember!

How brave of you Dave to be so sarcastic at a distance. I was asking you to clarify your comments because it wasn't at all clear how you were equating pavement cycling with crossing a road. Pavement cycling is dangerous to pedestrians Dave. A lot of people have been injured; elderly people have had their hips broken, very young children have had head injuries inflicted on them and blind people have had their confidence crushed when hit by these selfish people. Could you comment on that please rather than making peurile little digs at people?