Cyclists do need to be protected (From York Press)

Cyclists do need to be protected

10:51am Thursday 9th February 2012 in Columnists By Julian Cole

THE car horn blew and the driver shook his fist out of the passenger window. He did not appear to be looking where he was going. Anger vented, he turned his eyes back to the road and drove off in a furious haze.

I cycled on up the hill, heart beating faster. Those horns are loud on the outside, you know.

Impatient idiot drivers often come too close or blast their horns because of a perceived inconvenience. Or just because they don’t like cyclists and think they shouldn’t be on the road at all.

I drive a car and cycle. So sometimes I am that idiot behind the wheel. More often than not I am that idiot on a bicycle who just got in the way (allegedly).

This is a roundabout way of saying that we can all be idiots. It is by controlling our lunatic tendencies that we proceed safely and arrive in one piece, hopefully without a bicycle decorating our bonnet; or, if we are cycling, without causing a driver to lose their temper.

The place where my minor confrontation occurred is tricky for cyclists. It is on a bend by a curving wall and the road edge is pitted with holes. Only the brave cyclist would risk their wheels on that pockmarked Tarmac.

Hence the reason I annoyed that driver.

Normally I wouldn’t dream of writing about cycling. The topic has been flogged to death in York. It has been flattened to the point of boredom.

The anti-cycling moaners have never been ones to keep their opinions to themselves. My God, they do like to complain. As for the pro-cycling brigade, sometimes they seem to pass by on tyres inflated with their own pious breath.

But we all have to get on, don’t we? Or at least accept each other’s presence on the road.

One reason for these thoughts is that something unusual has happened in one of our national newspapers. The Times is running a campaign to improve the safety of cyclists in Britain’s towns and cities. How surprising and refreshing is that!

Day after day, the newspaper runs features and news stories about how cycling could be made safer, beginning with a front-page splash headlined Save Our Cyclists.

This campaign has a human face and cause: a reporter on The Times called Mary Bowers has been in a coma for three months, following a cycling accident in which she was pulled underneath a lorry outside the newspaper’s offices.

The campaign wants a new covenant for cycling. Its aims include trucks being fitted with sensors to detect bicycles; the identification of dangerous junctions; a national audit of how many people cycle in Britain; two per cent of the Highways Agency budget to be spent on ‘next generation’ cycle routes; and 20mph limits in residential areas without cycle lanes.

What has always puzzled me in York is how intense the dislike of cyclists appears to be. It is out of proportion to the offence, which is mostly a few freewheeling fools on the pavement or without lights.

As a fully lit-up, lurid jacket wearing, helmeted cyclist who stops at traffic lights and almost never goes on the pavement, this annoys me (cyclists should only use the pavement to avoid sudden danger, shouldn’t they?).

What the anti-cyclist mood does is create a situation where cyclists are disliked and put at risk. If everyone hates cyclists, where’s the harm in driving too close and blowing your horn next to a cyclist’s unguarded eardrum?

Yet cyclists remain the most vulnerable users of the road, far more likely to be hurt than any driver. So they deserve special attention and somewhere safe to cycle, not half-arsed cycle lanes shared with lorries the size of cottages.

In the end, though, responsibility lies with the cyclist. When you are on that road you are in charge of your own safety. Don’t put yourself at risk. Regard buses and other road mammoths with extreme caution. Oh, and beware of pedestrians crossing at will and ignoring the green man.

That way you might get home.