Spiral Notebook: Red is the new green

There is a busy T-junction near my home. It is guarded by traffic lights. Cars obey. Pedestrians wait for the little green man. Cyclists ignore it all and do what the hell they want.

I cannot recall a single time a cyclist has stopped at these red lights if jumping them posed no risk to their safety (and theirs alone).

This observation could be made of any traffic light anywhere in London. Cyclists see them as mild inconveniences, much as they do the pedestrians they target when they take to the pavement for a shortcut.

(Full disclosure – I have been hit by such a bike. The cyclist was baffled by the concept of rules and seemed keen to blame me for bloodying his spokes.)

Day in, day out, lawlessness. The young kid on his BMX, the commuter on his fold-away. Day in, day out, a red light means nothing except for a quick check for danger threatened (not danger posed).

“I'm a road user too,” they bleat when challenged. No, you’re not. You’re pollution. Get back in your pram and let a grown-up do the driving.

One day a cyclist will be killed at these lights. There will be gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. There will be the usual wah, wah, wah and it will be a tragedy of sorts.

TfL officials will be hauled a site meeting. Tax payers money will be sent adding extra signs or foam barriers or Fisher Price mobiles or whatever cyclists have the IQ to understand and it will make not a jot of difference because cyclists, as a matter of course, go through red lights.

Without compunction, without care.

Those who speak for the cyclists earnestly, honestly and with good hearts face a mountain to climb. Because, much like those who speak for gipsies or drug users or those who put lit fireworks in their orifices, a large proportion of what they represent is a feckless, lawless constituency which cares not a jot for those who are trying to help them.

Until such times that a majority of people see a majority of cyclists obey the majority of the laws of the road they will be second class citizens, a bumper splat waiting to happen.

I write this fully in the knowledge that cyclists have recently died in road accidents in London. I do not suggest they were anything other than victims of sad circumstances.

But there is something fundamentally wrong when a significant chunk of our road users want a city to be cycle-friendly yet pursue a policy of misanthropic, tax-free, aggressive, anti-social, law-breaking, leg-breaking, don’t-give-a-crap anarchy.

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