I initiated my Summer fitness plan today- to battle the three months of relative inactivity till the indoor volleyball season restarts- by cycling to work as much as possible. I had tested the route at the weekend and knew I could handle the distance and could do it within an hour. So I set off this morning confident that I knew what I was doing. Once again, by Victoria Embankment, I felt myself squeezed towards the pavement by a coach. This time it was so ridiculously close that I felt like hitting the coach with my hands to illustrate my disapproval. Considering these guys are supposed to be professional drivers there does seem to be an awful lot of spatial misjudgements over this stretch of road. Do not overtake if you do not have enough space; if in doubt, don't do it. Simple.
However, I soon had cause to be annoyed at a fellow cyclist. My route through the south-west side of St. James' Park was closed this morning. A policewoman was putting up barriers to stop people from entering just as I arrived at the entry point . I stopped by her to ask how far down the park the closure extended to figure out whether it was worth getting off to walk the closed bit, or go through Trafalgar Square instead. She was obligingly telling me the best route round the closure when a cyclist, probably puzzled by the closure and intent on asking her for information as well, failed to brake and ran into the back of my bike. I had been stopped quite a while and was dressed in bright pink clothing; she was in a fluorescent jacket. We were both hard to miss and we were far off the road with moving traffic; he can't have been paying that much attention to stuff around him.
On the way home I kept seeing cyclists jump red lights, even those on the dedicated cycle highways which are for bikes. The lights are designed to help cyclists navigate busy crossings safely and are there for good reason. A lady went ahead while I and another cyclist were stopped at one of these lights and then found she had to stop at the junction anyway because the cars had right of way. She was then in no position to see the traffic lights; we were and moved off fairly quickly when they turned green, overtaking her and leaving her behind still wondering if it was safe to move on. I couldn't help smirking as I passed her.
Pedestrians were not blameless either. The number of people who played chicken at light controlled crossings was astounding. First prize goes to the couple who tangoed back and forth on one of the exits of the Trafalgar Square roundabout while the red man was on, unable to decide whether they should retreat back to the pavement even when two bikes and a row of cars were braking hard to avoid them.
I made mistakes too. I sometimes found it hard to signal and was more dependent on my riding position to signal intent because I did sometimes find it hard to keep control of my bike: there are quite a lot of obstacles on the road and its not always easy to manage to time the signal and yet move the bike away from things on the road. In particular there seems to be tonnes of potholes and broken glass on the streets of London. One can forward plan a route but not really plan around these niggles. The roads need to be fixed if cycling is to be a viable mode of transport around London.
Read this on the Beeb's website. Ring any bells?
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