If you ride a bike, you probably find this. The non-cyclists of my acquaintance – and there are a few; I’m not prejudiced – often take me to task for some cyclist’s misdemeanour they have witnessed. (Obviously I become responsible for the behaviour of cyclists everywhere, at all times.)
The biggest bugbear of non-cyclists is cyclists who run red lights. Riding on pavements comes a close second, probably followed by not using lights at night.
On the red-light running charge, I’m afraid it’s bang to rights. Do cyclists think that the rules of the road do not apply to them? Do they believe that some Harry Potteresque invisibility cloak masks them as they sail blithely through a pedestrian crossing on red?
Call me conformist, call me square, but there is not a lot of room for ambiguity here. Post-Saussurean linguistics may be perfectly correct in asserting that the link between signifier and signified is entirely arbitrary but, some wit once pointed out, even the most ardent deconstructionist still stops at red as if it meant something.
The problem with disobeying traffic signals is that it is antisocial – and ultimately self-defeating. Crashing reds is a menace to some road users (eg pedestrians), and a wind-up for others (eg motorists). But above all, it costs all cyclists public goodwill – for the sake of a handful of seconds. We’re talking about a kind of moral short-termism, where the choice is between the negligible inconvenience of stopping, and making people feel completely justified in hating you.
So challenge the behaviour, you say. Yeah, right. Have you ever noticed how defensive British people are? Offer even the mildest correction and we go on the effing counter-attack. Perhaps especially with cyclists, because we like to think we are intrinsically better than the people in petrol-burning metal boxes, any reproach tends to get an instant nuclear response.
But worst of all is the person who red-light runners turn you, the law-abiding cyclist, into: an ugly combination of censorious, yet cowardly and cynical. It’s enough to make you see red.
Source: Read Full Article