Dangerous Cycling

An important part of the governments ongoing, and evidently futile, attempts to “End the War on the Motorist” has been to generate additional resentment for people just trying to get to school, work, or the shops by bicycle. One of the ways that they have done this has been by making a big issue about “Dangerous Cycling”. Whilst this won’t now be made law it will almost certainly made some drivers fell less need to drive considerately around people riding bikes on the roads.

Once again local politicians in Lancaster have been a step ahead of Rishi Sunak and were already raising concerns about dangerous pavement cycling almost a year ago.

According to Crashmap there have been 14 pedestrians injured by people riding bikes over the last 24 years in and around central Lancaster (the most recent year that data is available for is 2022). However, all of these injuries are reported as slight.

Something that we haven’t heard local politicians expressing any concern about is the 164 pedestrians that have been injured in and around central Lancaster over the same period by cars, including one fatality and 51 serious injuries. There have been a further three pedestrian fatalities caused by goods vehicles, and two by buses over that time too.

We also haven’t heard local politicians expressing concern about the 189 cyclist casualties, that include three fatalities and 52 serious injuries.

Whilst we aren’t trying to claim that pavement cycling might be a problem we are certainly not convinced that it is very often dangerous, and there certainly are much greater dangers to pedestrians than people riding bikes. Anybody raising concerns about dangerous cycling certainly isn’t trying to make people any safer.

We also think that it is important to point out that for a very long time there has been a national police policy on pavement cycling.

“The introduction of the fixed penalty is not aimed at responsible cyclists who sometimes feel obliged to use the pavement out of fear of the traffic, and who show consideration to other pavement users.

"Chief police officers, who are responsible for enforcement, acknowledge that many cyclists, particularly children and young people, are afraid to cycle on the road, sensitivity and careful use of police discretion is required."

We will be having a closer look at why people choose to cycle on pavements in the future.