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| Nine separate categories of thing in the photo could be about to kill these cyclists |
Here follows a list of the things that are constantly trying to kill anyone on a bike in London, in alphabetical order, because dying one way is generally as serious as dying any other. Cyclists of London, know your enemy.
Buses (moving) - large, red, slow to accelerate, easy to spot, and experienced at driving in London - buses should be fine. Two problems - first, buses and bikes share rights to bus lanes (frequently the safest place to ride - apart from the buses). Second, massive blind spots. Buses don't want to kill you, and they'll feel sad if they do, but they will kill you none the less.
Buses (moving) - large, red, slow to accelerate, easy to spot, and experienced at driving in London - buses should be fine. Two problems - first, buses and bikes share rights to bus lanes (frequently the safest place to ride - apart from the buses). Second, massive blind spots. Buses don't want to kill you, and they'll feel sad if they do, but they will kill you none the less.
Buses (stopped) - bus stops
are in the middle of cycle lanes. So they pull into them, stop in them, then
pull out of them. Blocking them. You're back in the traffic. Playing with the
other things that want to kill you. Be especially careful passing stopped
buses, whether they're signalling left or not (See above for blind spots).
Cars (moving) - cars don't always look, do turn without signalling
(especially left), change lanes without looking, pass too close, pull away without
signalling, shock you silly by beeping their horns because you dare to use the
same road space as them, speed, stop far more rapidly than you can and a
hundred other things that can see you dead. Frequently this is not their fault
(when swerving or braking after a dog runs into the road, for example). Never
trust them.
Cars (parked) - arguably
more dangerous than Cars (moving). Cars park illegally, frequently. The one
time I hit a moving car it was because a parked one had blocked my view round a
corner and we both (coming in opposite directions) had moved to the middle of
the road to see better (we also both slowed down because we couldn't see so no
damage was done to either me, the bike or the car as a result). Parking in bike
lanes or where you can't see them well in advance means pulling into the stream
of traffic. And then, of course, there is "dooring". There is
nothing, at all, you can do to stop yourself smashing into a door opened in
front of you - apart from cycle in the middle of the road all the time - which
greatly annoys other road users. Slowing down when within dooring range helps,
but will not save you.
Casual cyclists – Boris
Johnson has a lot to answer for. The crippling cost of public transport
combined with congestion on the roads mean more and more people are taking to
bikes without knowing what they’re doing, and his handy cycle-hire scheme is
responsible for an awful lot of them. Boris bikers are frequently tourists, not
only unused to cycling, but unfamiliar with the roads and highway code. Others
are used by business men getting to and from meetings, with a sense of
entitlement and belief that they are more important than every other road user
and that the rules don’t apply to them. Not forgetting the drunks deciding to
cycle rather than wait for a night bus or use the Tube. All of them are slow,
unpredictable, in the way and to be feared. Treat them like horses, give a wide
berth and expect them to do all manner of things that could result in your
untimely demise.
Cycle lanes – these would be
lovely if they had been build into the road design from the off. They weren’t,
and as a result they mostly look like someone’s slapped some paint on a
condemned house and claimed it’s fixed now. And about as effective. They start
without warning, wander onto the pavement on the inside of pedestrian crossings
(where, you know, pedestrians cross and wait to cross) pass roads on the left
(where cars have to block them to see) throw you back into the traffic just
after lights and before a bus stop then disappear – and that’s just riding the
first 500m from Vauxhall to Stockwell. Don’t even get me started on CS2. In
fact, I don’t need to – see for yourself.
Then you get blamed for not using them by drivers. And worse, people relax in
them then see them interrupted or cut off and dumped in traffic just as the
most dangerous part of the riding (generally junctions) begins. Far too many people are killed on or just
after cycle lanes, if that doesn’t tell you there’s a problem, nothing will.
Drain covers - see paint,
with the added risk your front wheel slips between the grating and they become
de-facto pot holes too.
Green lights - people don't
stop for the red ones, so don't trust the green ones. They are the smiling
assassins of London cycling.
HGVs – nothing, and I mean
nothing, scares me more on the roads than HGVs. They are responsible for as many
cyclists’ deaths as everything else combined despite making up a tiny fraction
of the traffic on the capital’s roads. In the last two weeks alone at least
five people have been killed by large vehicles. Why? Massive blind spots and
wheels that once you go under you’re gone. People have been hit by them turning
left, at junctions as well as run down from behind (they have a blind spot in
front of them as well as at the sides). Basically, if you see one take your
usual level of fear, and quintuple it.
Invulnerable/oblivious
commuters – no lights, or lights so powerful they blind you (and cars) utterly. Cycling in a bubble of either perceived invulnerability or utterly
oblivious to what’s going on around them. They don’t stop for lights or
junctions or zebra crossings or respect one way streets. One shoulder barged by
me shouting “excuse me!” because I’d stopped at a red light at a
cross-junction. They do often wear fluorescent clothing and have reflective
trouser clips. This might be the secret to their special power to defy the law.
And physics. Remember the footage of the girl who almost died trying to keep
going at a level crossing – well that, all the time. They don’t plan to
kill you, but the traffic accident they cause could.
Lycra louts/messengers –
anyone wearing lycra on London’s streets is basically either lost, tying to prove something to themselves or has more
money than sense. On a sportive, in a race, even on a long weekend ride it’s
wonderful stuff – comfortable, low wind resistance, warm or cool depending on
the gear and with practically placed pockets. During rush hour none of these
things are relevant. You’re not in the saddle long enough to need the padding,
going fast enough to care about the wind resistance and you almost certainly
have a bag to stow things in with you (it's possibly, maybe acceptable at the end of a very long commute). One thing they do often have is an insane
sense of entitlement, a need to prove they’re the real cyclists. They have to
be at the front, they will pass you on the inside at 25mph, or on the outside
as you’re trying to negotiate a bus that’s stopped in the cycle lane, or as
you’re turning a corner (inside or outside). All of it can put you (both) down
and under the wheels of an HGV. Take this lack of patience, replace the road
bike with a fixie and the lycra with skinny jeans and you have messengers. They
do all of the above but add in zipping through gaps too small for you to
consider at full speed and a contempt for almost every rule of the road –
especially red lights. They’ve already accepted their own deaths, don’t let
them take you with them.
Motorcyclists/scooters –
imagine something that exists in the same space as a cyclist but can travel at
three times the speed. Well, yes, that does describe Boris bikes and everyone
else, but it also applies to motorcyclists. They’re hard to see (similar size
to a cyclist) and far, far faster. They also use bus lanes and ride between
traffic lanes. They kill you when you think you’re safe.
Paint - I like cycling on
the paint - it's smoother than most tarmac. Unless it's wet, when it may as
well be ice. Going over road paint when braking or turning in the wet – even
just a stripe - can see you off. Paint also wants you dead.
Pedestrians - fact*
(*probably not a fact) many more cyclists have been killed by pedestrians than
vice versa. Why, because they don't look, have music on, step into the road
with no warning wearing dark clothing at night, trail luggage behind them and
offspring and pets in front of them, are utterly unpredictable (especially the
little ones), and sometimes look you in the eye then intentionally walk in
front of you in some sort of crazed power trip ("Glad to see you've got
good brakes" one actually said to me after doing this). They step out from
behind stationary buses, vans and lorries with no warning when you are riding
in a clear patch of road. As the only road users potentially more vulnerable
than cyclists, you'd think they'd be more careful but, no, they're not. They
are, instead, the kamikaze pilots of London's streets.
Pot-holes - you can break a
wheel, somersault forward over the bars or even just lurch into traffic thanks
to pot holes. Pot holes are also frequently found in places where cars brake
heavily, meaning poor visibility and turnings, and on the left of the road -
where cyclists tend to ride. Road users in front of you can mean you don't see
them until really, really late, meaning you take the pain and the risk of
damage, or swerve hard around them (which brings other potential murderers into
play).
Rain - rain not only makes the road more slippery and reduces your grip, turns otherwise benign things like paint against you and soaks you - rain makes you blind. If you have glasses, they will be covered in spray and you don't have windscreen wipers. If you don't you will have to squint or risk blindness. Road spray from other road users (cyclists, be kind to your brothers and sisters and Get A Fucking Proper Mud Guard on your rear wheel - and I mean a proper one that covers half way down not just one that keeps the spray off you) gets into your face even after it stops raining and is probably worse than the rain as it includes mud and grit. Perhaps worse, it reduces visibility for everyone else, especially out of wing mirrors. Make no mistake, rain wants you dead.
Roundabouts - how do you use
a roundabout safely as a cyclist? When no one else is on it or near it. If you
stay on the outside lane, people will turn left into you. If you try to get on
the inside lane people on the outside might not turn off. People (including
cyclists) are awful at signalling at roundabouts, they also panic as they
realise they're in the wrong lane and need to correct fast to make the exit
they need. There's no real accepted - or
at least widely practised - way for a cyclist to deal with this. Be scared,
check to your right every time you go past an exit and repeatedly to your left if
you're planning to turn off. Don't trust anyone on the roundabout or roads
approaching it. Far too many have died on roundabouts in the last week alone.
Taxis – everything that applies to cars applies to taxis, with the added risks that come from being allowed in bus lanes, swerving to stop to pick up pedestrians, swerving to stop to let off pedestrians and passengers opening road-side doors into your face. They have the advantage of being driven by far better and more cycling-aware drivers though** (**does not apply to Addison Lee or mini-cabs)
The cold - the cold's most
obvious method of killing you is through ice on the road surface. This leads to
cars skidding into you even if you avoid it yourself. But it is subtle, too.
Rain and cold, or even just cold alone, can see your hands freeze up. Those
hands you need for things like, well, braking. Cold has the cold heart of a
serial pensioner killer, it won't hesitate to kill you too.
The kerb - like parked cars,
the kerb also wants you to die. Too close to a high kerb sees your pedal
"ground out" lifting the bike briefly into the air and you almost
certainly onto the pavement or asphalt shortly afterwards. Clipping a kerb side
on with your front wheel can also result in spilling onto the road. The problem
is compounded if there are railings or signs (vertical, metal, collar-bone
smashing poles) on the pavement to crash into or prevent you getting off the
road.
Thieves - I heard a
remarkable story of someone whose skewers were stolen while their bike was
locked up. They realised coming over a sleeping policeman when their front
wheel detached. I now obsessively check mine are in place before cycling off.
Thieves care for neither your property nor life.
Things on the road - pot holes are far from alone in trying to
kill you - glass, nails, bits of broken car, flint - any manner of road
detritus could see an explosive puncture unseat you. Plastic bags, string and
newspaper can foul your gears. Leaves, when wet, will have no grip. Neither
does mud. I once wiped out, on a dry day, directly in front of a bus because I
hit my brakes at the exact moment a flattened beer can was under my rear wheel
and it acted like a skate. Don't trust the road, or anything on it, it wants
you dead.
Wind - cycling along,
minding your own business, passing between two building and then - wham! Wind's
got you, a two foot sideways lurch into traffic and you're gone my friend. On
the plus side, it hates people with "aero" bikes and wheels far more
than you. Not that you will stop it pushing you into oncoming traffic for
larks.
Your bike - of course, you
don't need a thief to result in a catastrophic wheel loss mid ride. Sometimes
your bike has had enough with you and decides to end you all by itself. Bikes
that are routinely abused or neglected (you know who you are) are more likely
to suddenly fall apart than those that come from loving homes, but even the
best-cared-for chain occasionally snaps, spoke pings, crank falls off, pedal
breaks and cable snaps. The bike is not on your side either, watch it closely.
Yourself - let's be honest,
you can avoid all of the above and still be killed on a bike. Whether it's
pushing on a descent for that Strava KOM, taking in the stunning sunrise over
the Thames, missing the clip on your pedals and seeing your foot scoot across
them pulling away from lights, or just, well, switching off momentarily. You
want you dead too - don't forget it.
