Just a few points.
1. Cambridge News is rabidly anti-cyclist.
2. Cambs Police are hopeless. They have better things to do.
3. The majority of cyclists in Cambridge are students and touriststs most of whom are either complete novices or homicidal maniacs.
4. The one way system should be enforced by the local council.
Yesterday I was in Cambridge riding my Brompton in the correct direction along St Johns and Trinity toward Kings Parade. There were,
1. Peds all over the road ambling this and that o way without looking and spread across the road in several instances.
2. Cyclists riding in the correct direction but on the pavement causing peds to jump for their lives into the road and into my path.
3. Cyclists riding against the correct flow of traffic thus causing me to have to serve around them and avoiding startled peds ambling in the road.
4. Cyclists riding across and diagonally across the road without so much as a look or an indication.
5. I had words with a Japanese looking woman about 40 years old on a
Probike BSO as she tried to force her way past a transit van in front which was being driven slowly through the throngs of people. She decided the pavement was better for her, mowing down peds bumbling along it and people emerging from shops with kids. "Oi!! Pavements are for peds, roads are for cyclists!" I shouted at her. A woman clapped and a male voice cheered.
Then I was cycling along Sidney Street only to be confronted with numerous student types riding furiously toward me against the one way flow of traffic exactly what the plods in the news article had been nicking cyclists for doing . A couple of other cyclists riding around me in the correct direction narrowly managed to avoid them. I think the colleges themselves should take the issue of inconsiderate and dangerous cycling by their students seriously. And don't get me started by the many of them who ride without lights, wearing dark colours after dusk.
Going down Castle Hill at the junction with Chesterton Road heading into town two druggie type males, (presumably with a delivery for some students), 25-30 years old, each riding new BSOs, approaching the traffic lights on red suddenly crossed over the road against traffic turning onto Castle Hill from the right and onto the pavement at break neck speed causing peds to jump for their lives from the pavement into the road amongst the moving cars which all thankfully performed a synchronised emergency stop.
Cycling in Cambridge is very dangerous. Out of term time it is not too bad. The number of poorly maintained frankly dangerous BSOs I see that until a few weeks prior had been languishing in garden sheds is astonishing. The majority of problems seem to me to be caused by student types. Even in busy pedestrian areas where it is indicated that cyclists must dismount many don't. Students should have more brains.
