This is the sort of story that attracts me, having spent the last seven years with an injures foot due to having been a cyclist in collision with a car. But instead of a diatribe against motorists, which is what people would expect, I’m taking the other tack.
Like most cyclist I don’t want to own the roads, but I would like to share the road with motorists safely. But there is a big problem preventing this: the behaviour of cyclists on the road.
Dressing in dark colours and riding without lights a night is not on, nor is tearing down the pavements and terrorising pedestrians. Where I used to work a guy used to remove his hi-viz vest before cycling home unlit, riding fast down the pavement before switching to the other side of the road without looking. Even near misses didn’t make him change, he just complained about motorists.
Yes there are poorly behaved motorists out there, and some good ones. In the same way there are some well behaved cyclists around. But it seems to me that the proportion of bad cyclists is much higher than the proportion of bad motorists.
Fellow cyclists we have to police ourselves. When you see cyclists behaving badly, or night-time stealth cyclists, say something. Educate them.
Because until cyclists start acting with respect to other road users we have no right to expect respect.
Making an ass of myself 