Antisocial Cycling – A Way Ahead

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Amoeba
Antisocial Cycling – A Way Ahead
Dr C.
Dr C.'s picture
sallyhinch

AKA TownMouse

markbikeslondon
Amoeba
markbikeslondon
Sam Saunders

 

Ahead of a meeting tomorrow, I googled "antisocial cycling" and this post was the first promising thing I found.

My immediate suggestion would be to redefine the subject as "considerate cycling".  I'm not sure if accepting a negative label is likely to help.  We are almost put in the position of defending something that is indefensible. The argument that cycling transgressions are not as bad as other traffic misdemeanours leaves the conflict unsoothed.  We're starting the struggle by getting hold of the wrong end of a stick.

My own slow movement to the idea of "considerate cyclist" started when I helped out at a local school on what is now organised as Bikeabily Training. What I learned (after 20+ years of feral cycling) from the instructors and children was that there was so  much more I could do to make my own life on the road safer, less threatened, and pleasanter.  However reluctant we are to accept a need, good training and awareness sessions can be encouraged and enjoyed while the deep politics work undercover on the essential infrastrutural changes. Such training could even bring the perceptions of other road users into the sessions (most of us are multimodal anyway).

So:

  1.  Expand and extend existing good things in Bikeability - encourage all to get invovled
  2.  Drop the Dead Donkey (stop using the phrase "antisocial cycling")

PS having taught social science to A Level students for many years, I don't hold out much hope of changing minds through comparative statistics (enlightening though they are for the converted and the willing).

http://thislast.blogspot.com/2011/08/considerate-cycling-2.html has some primitive ideas on the thinking. I think it needs developing.

 

AdrenalinJunky

Is not so easy, once the press have a buzz word they won't let go. They still call prison officers warders, a name that hasn't been used officially in decades.

"Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world" - Grant Petersen

SimonB

At a residents meeting in Hove this eve, the discussion reached the point where residents advise police on what needs doing in their neighbourhood and the police try to do something about it. Pavement cycling came up which opened the floodgates for an outpouring of unformed, ignorant and contradictory predjudice. Cyclists went too fast - or, too slowly, they don't use lights or their lights are too bright, helmets, bells, red lights - a whole panopoly of bad words which expressed a kind of hurt and rage toward people on bikes. I'm not sure that anything any of us can do to offer an exemplary model of considerate cycling would satisfy this audience (and many like them).  Having a road/pavement/cycleway network which minimises conflict in busy urban spaces would help a lot, but this is a long haul.

In the meantime Theresa May has announced an antisocial behaviour 'call for action' which would mandate the police to take action against anyone accused of ASB by five non related members of the community. If this proposal is taken forward, I don't expect it will be long before community members not disimilar to those I spent this evening with will use this to promote local crackdowns on cyclists.

I'm not saying we shouldnt practice considerate cycling but I fear that focussing on educating cyclists to be good is unlikely to bear fruit.

sallyhinch

in that the actions of an irresponsible minority will always continue to loom large. No reason why people shouldn't also use it to crack down on other anti social behaviour though, like pavement parking ...

AKA TownMouse

InvisibleVisibleMan

I've blogged fairly extensively on this subject. There's a particularly popular post about why people get so angry about cyclists here. I do think cyclists should follow the road rules - we have more to gain than most if driving standards improve. But, as I explain here, we shouldn't get suckered into thinking we're the problem when the vast bulk of damage is done by cars.

mcd

In Bristol we're setting up an Action Group to see how the situation can be redressed. Also gives us the opportunity to influence what others such as the council and police and local community groups might do.

Martin McD

mr c

As i was cycling along the other day,i was struck by the fact that most roads have two pavements,and that pedestrians can,and do use both to walk in any direction they wish.So what if we, that is cyclists shared i.e. 50/50 one side for walkers other for cyclists with cross over points for accsess to shops ect,. MR C. 

Amoeba

Pedestrian casualties in road accidents: 2007
Road Accident Statistics Factsheet No. 3 – November 2008

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/st...

or archived independently of the DfT:

http://www.webcitation.org/66YUSpvb9


Pedestrian casualties in reported1 road accidents: 2008
Road Accident Statistics Factsheet No. 3 – January 2010

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110503151558/http://dft.gov....

or archived independently of the DfT:

http://www.webcitation.org/66YUZiXiH

Amoeba

I think  that the CTC figures are probably better calculated than mine. They also show the relative risk posed  to pedestrians by motor-vehicle and people on bicycles is higher during the period 2005-2009.

In summary:

The number of pedestrians killed by cyclists on the footway in the ten years 2000-2009 was three. Average one per 3 1/3 years. 

In the five years 2005-2009, 226 people were killed on the footway by motor vehicles, 161 by cars, 65 by other vehicles. Average 45 per year.

 

Based upon these figures, the danger to pedestrians on the footway is 99.34% from motor-vehicles and 0.66% from cyclists.  On average >150 times as many pedestrians were killed on the footway by motor-vehicles as by people riding bicycles. 

http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopModules/Articles/ArticlesView.aspx? TabID=0&ItemID=638&mid=13641

 

sallyhinch

cheers, thanks for the links - useful

AKA TownMouse

Zandranna
Zandranna's picture

If suddenly the law was changed to allow cycling on all pavements except where there were specific "No Cycling" signs, would it still be antisocial?

More and more councils are turning pavements into shared use which is making the law of not cycling on pavements look ridiculous.  There are far more cars, and speeding cars at that, on the roads now than there used to be and many aren't prepared to cycle amongst those cars.   Cycling through many junctions is lethal and some are going to hop on the pavement and cross with pedestrians.  Therefore, like it or lump it, more people are going to ride on the pavements.

I think it is wrong to try and train people to be more "sociable" by cycling on the road when that could lead them to have a nasty accident. 

I believe the best way forward is to convince people to be more sociable by teaching them how to cycle on pavements.

One first of all explains it's against the law and one can get an on the spot fine.  Then point them in the direction of the 1999 (I believe it was) Home Office instructions to police about when and who to give a ticket to.

Then teach them the manners of pavement cycling.  Giving way to pedestrians at all time.  Hanging back until that pedestrian has heard and seen you, and then passing them slowly with a thank you.  Don't weave in and out of pedestrians.  And of course, getting off and walking the bike in crowded pedestrianised areas. 

There are other unofficial rules that one could follow as a pavement cyclist.  Sticking to a speed of about 5 -7mph on a clear pavement.  Slowing to walking speed when coming up to a pedestrian. Make sure as a cyclist one is always closest to the road so pedestrians don't feel compelled to step into the road when passing you.

At some point most of our pavements (probably not cities but elsewhere in the country) are going to be turned into real wider cycling/pedestrianised pathways.  More and more we are going to have to share and therefore the younger cyclists must start being taught the correct and safe way to share.  It may be illegal now but dare I say it, pedestrians are going to have to get used to sharing.

sallyhinch

AKA TownMouse

Zandranna
Zandranna's picture

Yes, I picked up that link yesterday on twitter.  It's getting more like that out here in the sticks too.

This last few months I have been seeing more families and groups of friends out cycling and all carefully plodding along on pavements.  I pass far more people cycling on pavements now that I see a cyclist on the busy main roads.

I think pedestrians exagerate a lot when they say "I am always being nearly knocked over by cyclists".   A couple of days ago I was walking to my local shop, nearly there and a cyclists rode passed me on my right as I was about to bear right.  I hadn't heard him coming, and he made me jump as he passed, but I wasn't "nearly knocked over" and he wasn't speeding along, he was in total control.    Now the unofficial etiquette of pavement riding should have told him to sound a bell or say "on your right" or similar, and not pass until he saw I had seen him.

Unfortunately because pavement riding is illegal, no one is being taught pavement etiquette.    When I bought my then 18 years old Granddaughter a bike a couple of years ago (a Dutch style sit up and beg), my instructions to her was to ride on pavements at all times unless she was in a really quiet road.  I instructed her on my own pavement etiquette and told her I would pay any fine that she might incur.   She has since learned to drive because her work is too far to cycle, but she literally only uses the car to go too and fro work, all other journeys are done on the bike.

Now if I hadn't assured her that pavement cycling was the best way to go, I am certain that the bike would have been used a couple of times and then stored away, and the car used all the time instead.  She is now looking to change her job simply because she wants a job within cycling distance.

Until we get a real cycling infrastructure in this country (UK) I honestly believe pavement cycling should be encouraged as a way to keep people on their bikes after they have bought one, rather than scare the daylights out of them on busy fast roads and them give up.

darditti
darditti's picture

I agree with the last few comments, and disagree with the thrust of most of the earlier ones.

If we are constantly being defensive about pavement cycling we will make no progress. The rhetorical answer is to move the debate along by taking a more radical line, as Dave Horton suggests, in a post where he suggests that pavement cyclists are being "heroic" for defying norms of society for the wider good of the environment. Nobody is going to sue the Embassy, or him, or me, for encouraging pavement cycling. All that's going to happen is individuals will be fined, as they are now.

Pavement cycling is not antisocial unless it's antisocial by being inconsiderate. With Horton, I'd rather people rode on pavements than added to the number driving on the roads in cars. And in many places that really is the choice. Hardly anyone is going to cycle on the road on which I live, which is a narrow road with high volumes of aggressive traffic, random constriction of the road by unregulated parking, and no space for cycling, but with generous, alomost deserted pavements. I would encourage people to cycle on the pavements, and that's where at least 50% of the people I see cycling on my road are.

The aim has to be to make conditions on minor roads like this suitable for cycling by removing most of the motor traffic and calming the remainder, and controlling the parking. But my interim solution would certainly be what Zandranna suggests, which is training and even encouraging people to cycle considerately on pavements. There is, as has been pointed out, absolutely no logic in which pavements are designated "shared use" and which not, many of those designated being far less suitable than many of those not so designated, as those on my road. This is not, long-term, a tenable situation, and I think we are in a period of transition.

Then again, I would not waste too much time in the Embassy or wider campaigning thinking about or reacting to this issue. It's a symptom of other problems that we do best concentrating on providing positive solutions for.

 

 

 

 

pecan

I should start by saying that I try very hard to be a polite and considerate cyclist. Pedestrians get right of way in my book, I cycle as considerately and patiently as I know how. I avoid cycling on pavements, but use a lot of shared use paths. As a pedestrian I don't feel the slightest bit threatened or annoyed by pavement cyclists, although I can understand why others might not feel the same.

The whole pavement cycling thing seems to have become such an emotion laden issue, that I no longer try and counter it. Pointing out facts, has no effect on people who have already made up their minds. There is a vast media out there happy to push the line that cyclists, particularly the pavement variety, are a huge threat to life and limb. Nonsense of course.

How did we get to a stage where the vast dangers from motoring have become normalised, even trivialised, and yet cyclists are held up as the bad guys? It's just familiarity. Motoring is normal, so is relatively harmless. Cycling is weird and abnormal, so is obviously dangerous. No further thought required.

This will only cease, I believe, when cycling becomes normal. That will only happen when there are more cyclists. There will only be more cyclists when a wider variety of people are happy to cycle. A wider variety of people will only be happy to cycle when they don't feel threatened by motor vehicles. At the moment, the threat of motor vehicles can be largely avoided by cycling on the pavement. It's a wonder there aren't more pavement cyclists.

Ergo, I don't believe we should be worried about pavement cycling. Just be pleased to see any cyclists swelling the ranks. Politicians and the popular press are just that, populists. Don't worry about them. Once there are enough cyclists, and only then, they will change their tune.

Pavement cycling is illegal. The common reaction is that illegal cycling will dampen political support. Yet when the government were floating the idea of raising the motorway speed limit to 80 mph, one of their supporting arguments was that most motorists already break the existing 70 mph limit! Politicians and the popular press aren't really interested in the law abiding. They just want votes and paper sales respectively. Pavement cycling wouldn't bother them, so long as enough people were doing it. 

Decades of polite law abiding cyclists have have failed to dent the car dominated status quo, or change the image of cycling for the better. Pavement cyclists in large numbers might be the break through cycling needs. What's to lose!

 

 

pecan

I should start by saying that I try very hard to be a polite and considerate cyclist. Pedestrians get right of way in my book, I cycle as considerately and patiently as I know how. I avoid cycling on pavements, but use a lot of shared use paths. As a pedestrian I don't feel the slightest bit threatened or annoyed by pavement cyclists, although I can understand why others might not feel the same.

The whole pavement cycling thing seems to have become such an emotion laden issue, that I no longer try and counter it. Pointing out facts, has no effect on people who have already made up their minds. There is a vast media out there happy to push the line that cyclists, particularly the pavement variety, are a huge threat to life and limb. Nonsense of course.

How did we get to a stage where the vast dangers from motoring have become normalised, even trivialised, and yet cyclists are held up as the bad guys? It's just familiarity. Motoring is normal, so is relatively harmless. Cycling is weird and abnormal, so is obviously dangerous. No further thought required.

This will only cease, I believe, when cycling becomes normal. That will only happen when there are more cyclists. There will only be more cyclists when a wider variety of people are happy to cycle. A wider variety of people will only be happy to cycle when they don't feel threatened by motor vehicles. At the moment, the threat of motor vehicles can be largely avoided by cycling on the pavement. It's a wonder there aren't more pavement cyclists.

Ergo, I don't believe we should be worried about pavement cycling. Just be pleased to see any cyclists swelling the ranks. Politicians and the popular press are just that, populists. Don't worry about them. Once there are enough cyclists, and only then, they will change their tune.

Pavement cycling is illegal. The common reaction is that illegal cycling will dampen political support. Yet when the government were floating the idea of raising the motorway speed limit to 80 mph, one of their supporting arguments was that most motorists already break the existing 70 mph limit! Politicians and the popular press aren't really interested in the law abiding. They just want votes and paper sales respectively. Pavement cycling wouldn't bother them, so long as enough people were doing it. 

Decades of polite law abiding cyclists have have failed to dent the car dominated status quo, or change the image of cycling for the better. Pavement cyclists in large numbers might be the break through cycling needs. What's to lose!

 

 

Hesterkw

We've got to the point where our campaign is coming up with a policy on respecting pedestrian space. It's not for people who cycle on pavements, who I'm pretty sure don't read our site. It's for the politcians and the community groups who complain about it.

 

See also the case against shared-use: http://www.camcycle.org.uk/newsletters/111/article11.html

I don't want to cycle on pavements. I don't want to develop coping mechanisms for doing so, or encourage others to do so. I want separate space.

 

This is actually a perfect opportunity to agree with pedestrians who have a problem with sharing space with cyclists. Ask them to help you to compaign for separate space. We have the same issue, which is not wanting to share with faster-moving modes of transport. The potential for empathy is there. Few are going to insist on a 6 year-old and parent cycling on a busy road, or grandma taking the lane on a roundabout.

 

If nothing else, it will help split the people who enjoy moaning from the people who actually want a solution.

 

It's hard enough reaching out to the people who have made a decision to join a cycle campaign. Trying to reach pavement cyclists is a fruitless task, unlikely to have any impact on people's perceptions of cyclists, and I for one don't have the time for it.

 

 

sallyhinch

I think this is probably the only approach. Anything else (especially trying to police the behaviour of others) will just lead to frustration in the end.

AKA TownMouse

Adler55

Shared Cycling in the UK

A lot of the Cycle Paths in Germany are actually on the road just with an extra Kerb between Cyclist and Motorist, all of which are controlled by Cycle Traffic Lights wich run out of Sync with Traffic... this country doesn't give a Monkey's about cyclists. On the roads you have a drain every few yards, cars parked in cycle lanes and sadly cyclists getting killed by the dozen.  We have wide enough pavements in most places to be able to cut and drop a cycle lane into them, thus defining who travels where. It's not Rocket Science.... Sadly most fellow cyclists I've met here insist on riding the roads (Sometimes 50 mph ones)  If you want to compete in the Tour de France, then by all means do so but don't encourage new cyclists into following suit. Races the roads are controlled. If you've the wish to compete against 50cc motorised vehicles and upwards good luck to you.  Cycling has been my much loved hobby for nearly 50yrs - 10 of those were cycling in London. (Without issue or Accident) only because I broke the "So Called Rules" Get on the Sustrans Website and look at the cycling routes around the uk, some of them are really quite nice and Off Road. 

 

nuttyxander

This looks very good. I think there's a lot to be resolved not just with other groups on shared use, but also inside cycle campaigns and in borough departments where shared use has become an easy solution to avoid more complex design choices.

It sounds like something approaching this happened recently in Edinburgh on the Meadows - Innocent path decision, though I'd love to hear from someone more local on how well that worked.

Paul Cooke

Hmm, anti-social cycling...

Last time I tried to tell a cyclist off for jumping off the road at a set of lights on red to go riding on the pavement after dark without lights I got a torrent of abuse... and threatened with violence unless I minded my own business.

 

I've given up, and merely try to set a good example myself by always stopping for red lights and always having lights after sunset. So when I stop for a red light and the cyclist following me rides right on through, the motorists behind me can't claim that we all run red lights.

Mind you, I get really upset with the rubbish allocated to us as shared paths... never quite wide enough, and not enough signs warning people about it either... and don't get me started off on pedestrians wandering about with their ears closed off to the world listening to music and then being surprised by a cyclist... some of them can't even hear my 140dB horn when I use it... and then those that do hear it usually move in the wrong direction...

And those stupid extending dog leads should be banned as the users are not in control at all of their dogs.

 

mjray
Did you know that telling another cyclist off for breaking the highway code is itself breaking the highway code? Here's part of rule 147: "You should ... not allow yourself to become agitated or involved if someone is behaving badly on the road. This will only make the situation worse. Pull over, calm down and, when you feel relaxed, continue your journey"
Adler55

Very good we mustn't get agitated :-) we're spat at,  sworn at, given dodgy cycle lanes where you meet a drain every few seconds or even a parked vehicle!  We suffer constant verbal abuse, some are  killed but hey let's not get upset. Happy Days. Of Course you're right, it doesn't help... but we are talking about Humans here  not Androids.... have a good day and keep the humour up, it's great... I blame the the culture here of cycling amid traffic... Joke... Drivers quite understandably get upset if they're worried about killing a cyclist. If a cyclist doesn't cheat the lights, then he/she's in danger of getting hurt too. The whole structure is laughable. 

jenna4

Bicycling is safe for literally everyone i am unable to get what people would be against it. Who would rather have their child or themselves run ov er by a bicycle or any other vehi8cle that will most definitely kill them. cheap car parking Manchester

Clive Durdle

https://archive.org/stream/AmazingStoriesVolume02Number11#page/n29/mode/2up

This is a fiction story from the 1930's, revolt of the pedestrian.  It requires some pdf navigation skils to read, but please read the first paragraph!

I think there are two issues here.

 Bicycles are percieved psychologically as threatening - they are silent, fast and move in a chaotic way - all symptoms after a few billion years of evolution of threat.  Then add in young fit males moving fast in bright colours and you are at Agincourt being attacked by the mounted knights in full armour.

We do not have the daily experience of the slow sit up and beg bikes where everyone, grandma and granddad, business executive, young children, are cycling.

The other vector is we ignore how dangerous cars actually are - we don't even collect statistics properly.

 

http://www.kidsandcars.org/userfiles/dangers/vehicles-in-motion/studies/2000-10-child-deaths-inj-driveway-study.pdf https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/pedestrian-fatalities-in-london.pdf  http://www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/booth/Risk/trasnsportpop.html And has anyone looked at the state of pavements recently? There is normally a very serious trip hazard every few feet! Proper resources for both are needed yesterday! http://www.aviewfromthecyclepath.com/2011/08/but-we-have-driveways.html 

 

mjray

"We do not have the daily experience of the slow sit up and beg bikes where everyone, grandma and granddad, business executive, young children, are cycling" - speak for your own area. I've even reached cycle parking in King's Lynn and seen it full with mostly what I think you'd call "sit up and beg" bikes (and one MTB and one tourer).

As for the state of pavements, look for your local highway authority's "Transport Asset Management Plan". Norfolk's says they'll fix some carriageways when only 5% of the surface has failed, whereas some footways will be left beyond 40% failed. Cycleways are often treated like footways, despite the different requirements. I don't understand why the prioritisation of motorists over walkers isn't a national scandal.

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