During the past fortnight 6 cyclists have been killed on the streets of London. The growing popularity of cycling in the UK, particularly among the young and educated, has meant that this has prompted widespread public debate; notwithstanding the fact that during the same period 3 pedestrians have also died on the street.
30 years ago things were slightly different. I lived in London at the time and would commute by bike from Hackney to Maida Vale. Even though this was only a journey of about 10km I once counted that I went through 46 junctions. Those of us who cycled in those days were a far more marginalised bunch than they are now. We learnt that to be safe you needed to be assertive (not to be confused with being aggressive), not to get sucked into the gutter and to expect not to be given due consideration or attention. I'd wear a bright orange tabbard not because I necessarily thought it would get me noticed but so that in any post accident legal wranglings it would be harder for the motorist to claim not to have seen me. I soon realised that shouting at people who'd put my life in danger didn't actually do anything other than stress me out, so I began simply to mouth obscenities, without vocalising and usually in French, and let the miscreant's sense of guilt make of it what they would; though I did end up being chased by a tipper truck all the way across Camden for something that I'd literally never said.
When the current Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, came to power he inherited a cycle hire scheme from the previous incumbent, Ken Livingstone. Since Boris rode a bike himself and cultivated an image of amiable eccentricity these bikes soon became known as Boris Bikes rather than Ken's Cycles. Now one of the few areas of public life where the Mayor of London actually has any power is over transport. He's the head of Transport for London. As well as the tube and the buses this also means that he has responsibility for facilities for pedestrians and cyclists and one of the things he established were a number of bicycle Super Highways. Being neither super nor highways, but mainly just strips of blue paint waiting to be ignored, these routes at least reflected a desire to make things better for people on bikes even if they are woefully inadequate.
If you look at the sorts of accidents that get people on bikes the pattern is glaringly obvious. It isn't the young reckless males taking their lives in their own hands, it's older people and women who find themselves stuck up the inside of lorries and buses that are turning left.
Of course, the mainstream motoring population has gripes about the behaviour of cyclists and readily fall into an in-group out-group mentality. These bloody cyclists, always going through red lights, never using lights at night, riding on the footpaths, not paying road tax... This is all to be expected.. What's surprising has been Boris's response to the recent deaths. Instead of talking about the actual causes of the accidents that have actually happened he's gone on the offensive against the victims. Paraphrasing "Cyclists need to obey the rules of the road and they should be banned from wearing head phones ...." This has been followed up by a Police response not of targetting truck drivers but of pulling over people on bikes and strongly suggesting that they wear high visibility clothing and helmets.
Now we've become used to our Government blaming the poor for their poverty. They're lazy, feckless and lack aspiration. The other side of the coin to blaming the poor for their poverty is to see your own wealth and success as a result of your own virtue and certainly not as a matter of simple good luck. So what's clear here is that whilst Boris is prepared to have his bike riding seen as a loveable eccentricity, he's not at all inclined to be identified with cyclists or, as we prefer to call them, "people who happen to be riding bikes"
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