Lycra louts drive me crazy!
By Robert Hardman
Last updated at 9:32 AM on 22nd September 2009
You never hear them say ‘thank you’. If they say anything, it’s either a warning as they approach or an expletive as they pass.
And they are a daily hazard of life on the average urban or suburban pavement.
Wheeling a pram through West London the other day, I met them twice in less than an hour.
New laws which lay the blame for accidents with cyclists with motorists could lead to them taking more risks on the roads
On each occasion, I had to steer the pram to the side of the pavement to make way for an oncoming cyclist who simply could not be bothered to go through the irksome business of using the road.
I could have stood my ground, I suppose, but I’d rather not use my daughter as a roadblock.
I could have pointed out they were breaking the law on pain of a £30 fixed penalty. But why invite a stream of invective or saliva – or both – in front of a child?
So I just did what most people do in 21st-century Britain when faced with low-level anti-social behaviour and zero expectation of any police support. I stepped aside.
I do exactly the same when I’m driving, too. If I’m about to turn left or right and I see cyclists in my wing mirrors tearing up from behind on either side, I pause to let them past.
Blame: Under proposed new rules, a motorist involved in an accident with a cyclist who jumped a red light would be at fault
By rights, they should observe my indicator light and wait for me to move, but life’s too short for the abuse and the kick in the door or the thump on the window.
I may be in the right, but I cannot be bothered to have a showdown.
Besides, I have no wish to inflict harm on these people, however objectionable their behaviour.
The odds of cyclists hurting or killing themselves are bad enough already. No wonder members of the medical profession refer to them as ‘donors’.
I prefer to think of them as the Mai-Mai, the Congolese militia who believe that they are endowed with magical qualities making them immune to bullets.
I sense a similar contempt for human mortality when I watch a pumped-up Lycra lout bombing through the London traffic in the belief that he (and it’s usually a he) is some sort of superior being with a superior ideology – two wheels, good; four wheels, bad.
To question this orthodoxy is, simply, environmental heresy.
And now the zealots want it enshrined in law.
This weekend, the Government’s chief cycling quango demanded that, henceforth, cyclists should be treated as blameless Kings of the Road.
Philip Darnton, the chairman of something called Cycling England, has insisted that, in future, the car driver should be deemed the guilty party in any accident involving a car and a bicycle – or a pedestrian for that matter.
‘I would like to see the legal onus placed on motorists when there are accidents,’ he told a Sunday newspaper as he outlined his organisation’s vision of a new, more bike-friendly Britain.
So, in the case of a law-abiding driver who runs into a meandering two-wheeled moron bursting out from a side street with no lights, the law will clobber the driver.
If you drive through a green light when a cyclist has decided to ignore a red – or a drunk rider falls into your path – it’s your fault. You (or your insurance company) can foot the bill.
This would be a very serious affront both to natural justice and common sense.
But, according to Mr Darnton, such a measure will help to persuade more people to take up cycling.
Really? That argument is either naive or deliberately misleading.
The wholly predictable consequence of such a law is that some cyclists will take even more risks with the traffic in the knowledge that the law is on their side regardless.
It will make the dangerous cyclist even more convinced of his own invincibility. There will be even more Mai-Mai on our roads and even more yobs pedalling nonchalantly down our pavements.
Now, if Mr Darnton was just another evangelical cyclist, I’d not be too bothered.
But he is the chairman of a government-funded organisation which spends a hefty £47million a year of taxpayers’ money to promote getting on one’s bike.
And very cosy it is, too, since he also happens to be a former chairman and chief executive of Raleigh, the bicycle manufacturer.
When I called Cycling England yesterday, I was surprised to discover that there was no one capable of discussing this matter.
Mr Darnton has gone off to a ‘conference’ in Canada where he is, apparently, unable to receive phone calls.
All questions are steered towards a swanky London public relations company which has been hired, no doubt at considerable expense, to speak on his behalf.
But it has nothing to say on the matter and suggests I call the Department for Transport.
There, a spokesman says that it is ‘absolute nonsense’ to suggest that motorists will become ‘automatically liable’ in the event of accidents. And yet its chief two-wheeled adviser is proposing something pretty similar.
If this is how Cycling England cares to spend its £47 million, it should be right at the top of the queue for David Cameron’s proposed ‘bonfire of the quangos’.
Except, of course, Mr Cameron is an ardent fan of the bicycle. So, too, is his Conservative confrere, Boris Johnson, Mayor of London.
Cycling has never had such influence in high places (even if an official limo is usually close at hand to transport the suit jacket and briefcase for the saddle-sore VIP).
Everyone wants to flaunt their cycling credentials.
In the more liberal regions of polite society, it is now more socially acceptable to break wind at a dinner party than to leave the party by car rather than bike.
Now I am certainly not antibicycle. Cycling is, unquestionably, a good thing. It is good for the body and every traveller on a bike is one less exhaust fume for the pedestrian.
With British cyclists grabbing fistfuls of gold medals at last year’s Olympics and a new velodrome taking shape for the London Games in 2012, Britain has much to be proud of in the pedalling department.
But cycling still remains a dangerous business. Last year, 115 cyclists were killed on Britain’s roads.
And while this figure was down on the 2007 total of 136, the number of serious injuries rose by one per cent to 2,450 and the total number of cycling casualties was up by a similar amount to 16,297.
Although London has seen cycle journeys increase by 60 per cent since 1997, national figures show a steady decline.
To its credit, the Government has started beefing up cycle proficiency in schools, with an extra 100,000 children getting proper training every year.
Only this weekend, much of Central London was shut down for a cycling free-for-all which pulled in 65,000 cyclists of all shapes and sizes.
All this is entirely commendable. For a child, riding a bike is a vital first step to independence.
If more adults used bikes for modest journeys, urban congestion could be slashed. And if the whole world could do more pedalling and less vroom-vroom, then I am sure it would be good news for the rain forests and polar bears.
But that is precisely why we should be teaching cyclists that they have responsibilities as well as rights.
We know what happens when people are taught that they are always victims, that everything is someone else’s fault. They cease to have any grasp on reality.
Demonising drivers is not the answer. And nor is putting cyclists above the law.
After all, there are quite enough of them who think they are there already.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1215131/ROBERT-HARDMAN-Lycra-louts-drive-crazy.html#ixzz0RrhXqWDY
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