It's first thing on a Monday morning and you're walking from the station to the office. You're bleary-eyed. The hair's a bit skew-whiff. Maybe you have a flat white in hand. You come to a crossing. Ah lovely - green man. You start walking. WHOOSH! A cyclist whizzes past you. Misses you by a few inches. Splat.
There goes the coffee. The liquid scalds your leg on its way down. Now you’re awake and positively fuming. It’s a scene anyone living in a UK city will know all too well. Walk anywhere in central London these days, and you’ll see swarms of cyclists buzzing by. Pedestrians are suffering. Things need to change.
First, though, a disclaimer: I mostly cycle to work, and yes, sometimes I even wear Lycra shorts. But as a fairly responsible and normal person, I feel genuine shame most mornings, when I see cyclists nearly mowing down pedestrians as they jump red lights at high speed. In the Venn diagram of types of bike people, there tends to be a large crossover between those nearly killing walking commuters and the head-to-toe Lyrca-clad redlight jumpers going 40mph in a 20mph zone. These speed freaks make the rest of us good guys look bad – they tarnish the cyclist brand and take away from all the wonderful things about biking.
Esta historia es de la edición July 24, 2024 de The Independent.
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Esta historia es de la edición July 24, 2024 de The Independent.
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