Simon Bradshaw

The issue of cyclist conduct has come to the fore again, with proposals for specific offences related to dangerous cycling. But, given that the number of people injured or killed by cyclists is minuscule in comparison to the numbers involved in accidents involving cars, why do people get so worked up about this?

It occurred to me that part of the reason might be the unconscious assumption inherent in that last sentence of mine. Thinking about it, it seems to me that I - and a lot of other people - tend to think of 'cyclists' and 'cars' rather than 'cyclists' and 'drivers', or even 'bikes' and 'cars'. I realise that I'm certainly likely to say "I was nearly hit by a car" but "I was nearly hit by a cyclist"; why is this?

One reason might be one of personal space. OK, if you get hit by either a car or a bike it's pretty clear that your personal space has been impinged on! But what people tend far more to complain about are near misses, and in my experience close encounters with bikes are more likely than ones with cars to take place in what pedestrians think of as 'their' space. I know that two sorts of cycling that annoy and upset me most are cycling on pavements (particularly weaving through pedestrians) and not stopping at zebra crossings. Pavements and crossings are my bit of the highway, and it's (thank heavens) very rare for cars to trespass on them. (Well, some don't stop when you're waiting for a non light-controlled crossing, but it's rare in my experience for a car driver to try to go round you once you're on the crossing itself.)

I think what we're seeing here is a failure by some cyclists to appreciate that what from their point of view feels like a perfectly safe manoeuvre is, for a pedestrian, a sudden and shocking intrusion on personal safe space. Mind you, it works the other way too - as an occasional cyclist I know that one of the most annoying and dangerous things a pedestrian can do is to step out into the gutter, seemingly on the assumption that an oncoming cyclist can just weave around you.

Another factor could be proximity. If I have a near-miss with a car the driver is insulated from me by glass, metal and usually a good metre or two of distance. Moreover, most of the time the reason there's been a near-miss is that the driver hasn't noticed me. With a bike the cyclist is much closer and a lot of the time is very aware of me, having just calculated how much to swerve to miss me by six inches.

And this leads on to another point: cyclists can often seem to pedestrians to be much more personally aggressive than car drivers because of these factors, be it passively (by cutting them up) or actively (I've certainly been told to get the f**k out the way whilst on a zebra crossing). Significantly, cyclists have exactly this issue with drivers, and as far as I can tell it's the same set of reasons - sharing of space.

In short, whilst it's doubtless true that if there is a collision a car is much more deadly to a pedestrian than a cyclist, in the far more common circumstance of a near-miss the cyclist can, perversely, feel like the bigger threat and affront.

Pedestrians should remember that they are vanishingly unlikely to be hurt by a cyclist. Cyclists should remember to treat pedestrians the way they would like to be treated by drivers. And drivers should pay attention to people on or near the highway who aren't in a ton of steel.

I cycled in to Holborn this morning. And then cycled back. All without getting run over or even rained on - although the last was a close-run thing.

( Major Clanger v London Roads )

So, more route familiarising and optimising needed, but an encouraging start.