Cycling is overwhelmingly safe — but needs to be made safer
Yesterday, on the Jeremy Vine Show, we discussed the case of a cyclist who faces being prosecuted or fined after he reported a driver using a phone, because he blocked a van while doing so.
Now, I argued against him either being prosecuted or fined, and pointed out that cars are far more dangerous than bikes, by virtue of being massive husks of metal travelling at high speeds. The statistics bear this out: while 1 to 2 people are killed by cyclists each year, there are around 5 road deaths every day in the UK.
But the cyclist in question has submitted over 500 police complaints, and so while defending him, as a lighthearted aside, I said “even if he is a bit of a snitch” acting like a would-be Inspector Poirot. My own view is that it’s unlikely for the average individual to encounter over 500 incidents which require a police investigation, and therefore submitting that number of complaints is disproportionate to the problem at hand. This has set off what could be called ‘Cycling Twitter’, a corner of social media populated by very highly committed cyclists.
Now I should say that I am, myself, a very committed cyclist. I’ve cycled almost every day in central London for the last 13 years. It’s even a matter of Parliamentary record that I’m a “cycling socialist”: make that my epitaph! (A caveat…
