This Wiggins incident has brought the numpties out...

[martint235]

And that's before the practical problem like where do you put a registration plate? - presumably it needs to be clearly visible by both eye and camera. How about bikes owned by kids, what's the minimum age to ride/own?

This is my issue with registration. How are you going to make it visible and if it's not visible it's useless. Someone somewhere has spent a lot of time and money making my road bikes as streamlined as they can be without them becoming TT bikes. I'm not going to strap a sail across the back.

And I'm not opposed to the idea of making individual cyclists accountable which is what registration is for, I just don't see a practical way of doing it.

 

[Alun]

I would make traffic policing self funding - supply and demand- People parking wiily niilly was clogging up the town I live in - years ago the council took over the parking control duties - the number of traffic wardens went up from around 2 to over 140 - very profitable and self funding - over a relatively short time peoples parking habits changed for the better and there is now not a parking problem in the town- became unprofitable for the council to run the service and has now been outsourced

My response was to Davidsw8 who said,

Maybe another option is to have more police on the streets who are actually willing to pull people over for bad cycling? ​

. If traffic policing were self funding, I don't think that they could catch and prosecute enough "bad cyclists" to make it economically viable

 

[Davidsw8]

At the crossroads of Waterloo Bridge Road and The Cut in London, they stationed bike officers at each corner. I saw a roadie go through a red, the shout went up and the copper I was near saw he obviously wasn't going to catch said roadie on a low geared MTB so he just threw the bike in front of the roadie who stopped. Bloke nicked, fined, job done.

That's a mad place to cycle through, the light sequence there is SO confusing for peds.

 

[Davidsw8]

My response was to Davidsw8 who said,

Maybe another option is to have more police on the streets who are actually willing to pull people over for bad cycling? ​

. If traffic policing were self funding, I don't think that they could catch and prosecute enough "bad cyclists" to make it economically viable

The conversation I had with a police officer recently would seem to contradict that...

(though clearly, this policeman isn't spokesperson for the entire force... or an accountant )

 

[psmiffy]

My response was to Davidsw8 who said,

Maybe another option is to have more police on the streets who are actually willing to pull people over for bad cycling? ​

. If traffic policing were self funding, I don't think that they could catch and prosecute enough "bad cyclists" to make it economically viable

True - but I suspect that the driving offense trade would be brisk enough to subsidize the cyclist business

 

[rb58]

This thread worries me slightly. Once again the victim (i.e. cyclists) seem to be getting the blame. I think we need to be clear that (in my experience) it's, overwhelmingly, bad driving that causes the most incidents, not bad cycling. So why do we look for solutions that place the responsibility at the feet of cyclists? Only yesterday I was subject to loud horn blowing and aggressive driving on London Bridge from a driver (and 'the finger' from his 'lady' passenger) who clearly thought the 5 or 6 cyclists in the ASL was an infringement of his God given right to be in front of everyone else. Totally unecessary and clearly distressing for the lady cyclists riding alongside me. And in case you're wondering, not one of the cylists around me did anything wrong.

 

[martint235]

That's a mad place to cycle through, the light sequence there is SO confusing for peds.

I never had a problem. It's green man controlled and even (if you're in the know) works like a Tokyo junction so you can get across diagonally on the green man.

 

[Alun]

At the crossroads of Waterloo Bridge Road and The Cut in London, they stationed bike officers at each corner. I saw a roadie go through a red, the shout went up and the copper I was near saw he obviously wasn't going to catch said roadie on a low geared MTB so he just threw the bike in front of the roadie who stopped. Bloke nicked, fined, job done.

So that's 4 coppers on bikes to get one collar!
The police can address the issue, and I would imagine do have purges from time to time.
Their day to day policing however involves prioritization of work, as do many other jobs, and the manpower to deal with cyclists has to come from somewhere else.

 

[martint235]

This thread worries me slightly. Once again the victim (i.e. cyclists) seem to be getting the blame. I think we need to be clear that (in my experience) it's, overwhelmingly, bad driving that causes the most incidents, not bad cycling. So why do we look for solutions that place the responsibility at the feet of cyclists? Only yesterday I was subject to loud horn blowing and aggressive driving on London Bridge from a driver (and 'the finger' from his 'lady' passenger) who clearly thought the 5 or 6 cyclists in the ASL was an infringement of his God given right to be in front of everyone else. Totally unecessary and clearly distressing for the lady cyclists riding alongside me. And in case you're wondering, not one of the cylists around me did anything wrong.

In the last couple of weeks, I've instigated a zero tolerance policy. If you beep your horn at me, I will get off my bike, put it down in front of your car and ask you why you are beeping at me. I've not gained any meaningful answers yet, it's usually "You're going too slowly", "You're too far out" etc. I try to explain my point of view and then I let them go on their merry way.

 

[martint235]

So that's 4 coppers on bikes to get one collar!
The police can address the issue, and I would imagine do have purges from time to time.
Their day to day policing however involves prioritization of work, as do many other jobs, and the manpower to deal with cyclists has to come from somewhere else.

You've not seen this junction. I saw the one collar and I didn't actually stop. During the course of a rush hour, I'd expect them to get around 100 if they managed to stop every RLJ. That's £8000 for a couple of hours work.

 

[psmiffy]

My response was to Davidsw8 who said,

Maybe another option is to have more police on the streets who are actually willing to pull people over for bad cycling? ​

. If traffic policing were self funding, I don't think that they could catch and prosecute enough "bad cyclists" to make it economically viable

and I think this is missing the point - cyclists do not kill and maim the drivers of motor vehicles - It is motor vehicles that kill and injure too many cyclists and pedestrians - plus the number of incidents where cyclists are responsible for their own misfortune is very low

 

[Davidsw8]

So that's 4 coppers on bikes to get one collar!
The police can address the issue, and I would imagine do have purges from time to time.
Their day to day policing however involves prioritization of work, as do many other jobs, and the manpower to deal with cyclists has to come from somewhere else.

I wonder myself sometimes what the police are spending their money on, I think most of them do a great job but it's a bureaucratic mess and I think they often react to closely to the latest scare invented by the tabloids. I don't feel their work is prioritised especially well at the moment as it is.

I think even just having more police that are visible would deter some miscreants be they on cycle, foot or in motorised vehicles.

 

[Alun]

and I think this is missing the point - cyclists do not kill and maim the drivers of motor vehicles - It is motor vehicles that kill and injure too many cyclists and pedestrians - plus the number of incidents where cyclists are responsible for their own misfortune is very low

I am in agreement with you, it is Davidsw8 who sees the need for more coppers to deal with "bad cycling", by which I presume he means RLJ'ers and pavement cycling.

 

[dodd82]

This thread worries me slightly. Once again the victim (i.e. cyclists) seem to be getting the blame. I think we need to be clear that (in my experience) it's, overwhelmingly, bad driving that causes the most incidents, not bad cycling. So why do we look for solutions that place the responsibility at the feet of cyclists? Only yesterday I was subject to loud horn blowing and aggressive driving on London Bridge from a driver (and 'the finger' from his 'lady' passenger) who clearly thought the 5 or 6 cyclists in the ASL was an infringement of his God given right to be in front of everyone else. Totally unecessary and clearly distressing for the lady cyclists riding alongside me. And in case you're wondering, not one of the cylists around me did anything wrong.

I think cyclists riding on the pavement or generally not understanding the highway code are a problem, and thus any solution to that problem is worth discussing.

It doesn't mean that it's more of a problem than bad driving - surely we can discuss more than one problem at a time?

 

[Davidsw8]

I am in agreement with you, it is Davidsw8 who sees the need for more coppers to deal with "bad cycling", by which I presume he means RLJ'ers and pavement cycling.

... and not having lights