I cycle to work from Wapping to Waterloo along the London's busiest cycle-route, the CS3. Most Londoners will be familiar with the blue, segregated lane that tracks the the Thames from east to west (or west to east..) past famous landmarks such as Tower Bridge and the Houses of Parliament. As a pedestrian you may have unwittingly stepped into it after a night out by the river, only to have your fellow reveller snatch you from the path of a speeding Boris* bike. As a cyclist you will have delighted at the views of the South Bank on a sunny day, and cursed it while elbowing for space in your half of meter of rain soaked blue tarmac outside of Shadwell station on a rainy Monday morning.
The CS3 has become remarkably busy recently. Long gone are the early Covid days, where I could take my permitted daily exercise with a small handful of other cyclists. Nowadays it's a truly diverse melee of Canary Wharf commuters, folding bikes, the Deliveroo 30 mph electric mountain bike crew, and other assorted cycling tribes. Aside from two wheels, there is one blatant trait that unites this otherwise diverse group; the complete disregard for red lights.
Just today I waited for a mere 30 seconds at at the 4 way intersection at Aldgate and Tower Hill for the cycling light to change from red to green. There are 3 phases of lights. One is the correct one, the second while technically red 'works' but risks colliding with other cyclists coming from tower bridge, and the third risks being taken out at right angles by buses and cars coming south from Aldgate. Within this brief period I saw all 5 out of 6 people run the red light in both of the latter phases, consisting of:
A. A middle aged lady in full reflective clothing, electric Brompton, flouro helmet, both lights on (it was 10a.m.), and air pod pros. This bemuses me greatly. Why go to the effort of the reflective get-up? Then again it was only on phase 2.
B. An Uber eats guy, in full decathlon waterproof, hood up, turquoise deliveroo helmet on top, battered mountain bike with the collosal batteries strapped to the frame, who blasted straight through on phase 3 with a cursory look across the left shoulder, despite traffic coming from the right... Luckily it was quiet. I have more respect for him than subject A. It is a brutal job with unrealistic delivery targets, and time is money.
C. A younger lady, perhaps late twenties, on what looks to be a recently acquired swapfiets (lease company) Dutch sit up and beg bike, with a helmet and laptop backpack. Also wearing a COVID mask. Blasted through following subject B, but by this point a car was approaching perpendicularly. Thankfully it slowed, but she didn't seem to notice, perhaps because of the airpods.
D. A middle aged man, going fast, dressed in full black tracksuit, with an impossibly high saddle on a battered commuter bike, with big over ear headphones on clearly playing something good, as he was banging his head in time with whatever was playing. Radiating from him was an attitude that screamed, deny my right to get to my destination at your peril. He skidded to slow down to let the car pass mentioned in subject C, then sprinted in the gap after it before the bus came.
E. A city worker, male, late 20s, full suit, Bose headphones, loakes, on a Boris bike, clearly late to the office. Weaved around the pedestrian who naively crossed the zebra crossing on her green light, checked his right shoulder, and made it through phase 3, no mishaps.
At this point I want to make clear, I am no Grant Shapps that wants cyclists to get number plates, or a Jeremy Clarkson who would probably like to exterminate us. On balance I think it's fantastic that so many people are cycling: reducing car traffic, tube crowding, making a living, and getting a workout. I am also no saint. I have at times crossed through a red. But there are four conclusions I normally come to.
1. The simplest one- as a community (if there even is a cycling community) we don't help ourselves when asking for more bike lanes, more funding, safer roads, if we routinely ignore the infrastructure that's been given to us.
2. The utter unpredictablity of who might jump a light at any point in time. Lawyers, construction workers, women, men, road bikers, deliveroo riders, they all risk it! Of the subjects above I might, with my biases expect perhaps B, D, and maybe E to try it as they are male, maybe more risk taking, and need to do a job? But no, it can be anyone. Sometimes I sit at the red beside the patient deliveroo guy, while everyone else passes, and other times it's the the city banker. Perhaps there might be a lesson in this after all - don't judge a book by its cover?
3. How can a country that prided itself on citizens waiting 24 hours to see the queen's casket queue be so impatient? While her queue snaked on the south side of the river from Westminster to Canada water, us cyclists were skipping the lights on the cs3 on the north side.
4. How do we, humans, judge risk? Subject C, the young lady, was wearing a COVID mask but was willing to risk being t-boned by a car. The first lady, subject A, was alert to the risk of someone not seeing her, hence the reflective gear, but not the risk of jumping the light. Most people would never dream of jumping a red in a car, deeming it totally irresponsible, which is ironic as at least in a car you are wrapped in two tonnes of metal to protect you. I guess the answer is simply we are not very good at judging risk (I think freakonomics had a good article on this), and that other more powerful instincts kick in, such as herd mentality. If he/she did it, it must be ok! In addition I would suggest that light jumping has been normalised to such a degree that the cyclist no longer thinks about the risk, just as you don't when you are driving a car at 80mph.
I don't believe there is any obvious solution. Cycling should still be strongly encouraged and the barrier to entry should be kept as low as possible, even if there are downsides. Grant Shapps proposed a scheme under which cyclists would have to register and have insurance, but that would be not only draconian but unenforceable, akin to ridiculous scooter ban, mandating London Police to waste time confiscating privately owned scooters. Perhaps an education campaign might be more light touch but could be inffective.
In the abscence of any concrete ideas, I will encourage everyone to err on the side of caution and take it easy. Crashing hurts a lot, and even more so with a vehicle involved.
If you have any better ideas or thoughts on the article, please comment below!
*This alliterative name is annoyingly hard to shake even with Boris in disgrace. The scheme wasn't even his idea and was originally proposed by Ken Livingstone.
**Incidentally it also tracks one of the most polluted roads in London, Thames Street, but thankfully in the last electric vehicle push has made it more bearable.
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