Lukas said:
I find it crazy that people cycle along Barnwell Road at night with dark clothing and no lights. On one side you have a pavement that is a cycle path and other other side you have a very wide cycle path. There is no need to be on the road at night, lights or no lights.
Completely, utterly untrue. The cycle routes on either side of the road aren't bad, but if I'm in a hurry (doing 20mph isn't unrealistic there) then the surfaces of those routes are simply not good enough for safe travel. Therefore the correct (safest) way to travel is on the road, with lights on if its dark.
Many years ago I knocked a cyclist off in my car with no lights. It was 20:10 in February and raining, she came from my right, I only saw her once she was she was in my head lights which was too late. Luckily I was not going fast and was quick on the brakes. Her helmet was in her basket and her light were broken or had flat batteries. She wasn't hurt. Her wheels were buckled a bit. If she had working lights I would have seen her and the collision wouldn't have happened. I think, if you go out without lights in the winter you deserve all that comes to you. Unfortunately the the police didn't see riding a bike in such conditions without lights and leaving the scene of an accident as offenses for a cyclist but for me they they thought careless driving was in order.
Or in other words the police thought that you ought to have seen her despite not having lights, so they charged you for careless driving.
That she didn't have lights is not in itself justification for not having seen her. Yes, she was in the wrong, but that doesn't vindicate your claim not to be careless; Plod wouldn't have claimed you were in error otherwise.
As for a cyclist leaving the scene of an accident... You need to consider just how mangling it is for a person to get up from that and wander off. Its likely that she sat down later and shook; if you're the victim in a hit like that you don't necessarily act rationally afterwards.
Every year we hear about the local police cracking down on cyclists with no lights and red light jumping but it never seems to have an affect.
Yes, every year they target students who have just taken up cycling, who are going to give up soon anyway because they've just bought clunking bad bikes for a pittance from a bunch of cowboys, and their experience of cycling will be that the bike fights you and the motons on the roads hate you. By January a lot of them have already given up, and the pathetic tokenism from Cambridgeshire constabulary who are desperate to be seen to do something to appease the motoring majority merely serves to alienate cyclists. It has no practical impact on how people ride in Cambridge. At all. Ever.
I've told work colleagues that I know jump red lights, if they do it when I'm standing at a pedestrian crossing, I'll kick their front wheel as they go pass.
Rant over.
So, because they're doing something wrong you're going to aswell? Gee, mature.
