I'm sick of reckless cyclists.ruining it for everyone

Every day on the way to the office, bikers are hurtling through red lights and nearly mowing down unsuspecting pedestrians. This needs to stop, writes Ellie Harrison

- Ellie Harrison

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.