nxkwkfhik

Individuals fund them as well. And governments.

I would actually consider myself fortunate.

I’ve been cycling in London for 20 years and sometimes view it as a form of extreme sport, like running with the bulls in Spain

> When a cyclist is doing over 20mph on a pavement coming towards me, it’s terrifying, again.

Maybe a reckless kid but surely someone cycling at 20mph on a pavement is a rare occurrence.

Either way, having someone running at you at 20mph might not be as terrifying, but it poses a similar risk to you life vs a bicycle if they hit you.

A car at 20mph on the other hand…

Ahh the old “let’s apply rules designed for cars to bicycles” fallacy

Some of what you have said is correct but let’s make this clear: cycling across a pedestrian crossing at walking pace posses vastly less threat to human life than a car doing that would.

Fundamental physics, momentum=mv

Bicycle plus rider: 100kg

Car: 1500kg

That’s a 15x

For a comparison,

Human: 80kg

Bicycle + rider: 100kg

That’s 1.25x

If we assume that risk is proportional to momentum, then that’s an 125% increase of threat from a bicycle vs a human (running at the same speed) and 1500% increase of threat from a car vs a bicycle.

So to compare cars to bicycles doesn’t work, they pose a vastly reduced threat to human life va cars and in fact, cars pose more of a threat to cyclists than they do to pedestrians (I.e more cyclist die in car accidents that pedestrians).

The problem with waiting at lights is, unless you are quick, cars will try and overtake from lights. This will usually be at a crossing, where there are more likely to be tight spots that cars want to get into before you. This means more dangerous situations for the cyclist.

This is known to city planners, and when you have bicycle and car lights at a crossing, the bicycle light will go Green before the car lights. This is taken to the extreme when joining Parliament Square from Millbank.

That’s why cyclist jump red lights: The required infrastructure is not there to keep them safe.

This has lead to a general disregarding of the rules (a British trait c.f. speed limits on motorways), which has in turn lead to people doing things that obviously are not in the interest of their safety: riding through a red light when there are pedestrians crossing, especially bad when it’s just a two way crossing.

Just walk across lights.

That’s the beauty of cycling, you can magically turn into a pedestrian and do what the hell you like.

Edit: I saw a guy do this at the bottom of Kingsland Road through a police trap.

He clocked the police, hopped off and went right through the crossing. I was just behind and did the same. It was only once we got round the corner that I saw his face with a massive grin; police didn’t touch us.