You are reading a single comment by @Greenbank and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported almost exclusively by donations. Please consider donating a small amount regularly.
@Greenbank
I'm sure any cyclist that does a fair number of miles in London like this has encountered thousands of pedestrians walking out in front of them without looking.
However, it's their attitude to this that affects what happens next.
For some, where they are not forced to slow down by the situation they may just rely on shouting, hoping the ped freezes or moves back, and swerving round them.
Out of 1000 instances they might get away with this 999 times, reinforcing this behaviour as acceptable and appropriate.
But it's the 1 in a 1000 that results in them hitting the pedestrian where it all goes wrong.
Now, in the majority of those cases the ped/cyclist might have minor injuries but both will get up, argue about who was at fault but continue on with their day.
In a few cases one may sustain a more serious injury (broken collarbone, arm, leg, etc).
In a very rare case one of them may sustain an injury as the pedestrian did in this case, and dies as a result. In an equally rare case it could have been CA who died whilst Mrs Briggs survived.
My point is the individual's attitude to risk is key here. Yes, slowing down just in case can seem annoying when you have to do it plenty of times a day, but it's a minor inconvenience compared to the consequences of the worst outcome.
I know I've modified my behaviour (long before the CA incident) around pedestrians given the interaction at several points on my commute (Upper Ground at the back of the RFH, Belvedere Road at the back of the London Eye, Parliament Square and various spots near Putney Bridge). At one point I used to enjoy spooking the phone zombies with an AirZound but I now realise that all it would have taken is for one of them to be looking at the phone (having already walked out into the road without looking), getting to the bit in their text or email that reminds them they are late for something and lurching forward into a run and my supposedly safe enough pass could have ended very differently, including possibly an outcome like the CA case.
Indeed, and in the interests of balance, all of the above applies just the same to those in motor vehicles. It's the same for drivers who use their phone whilst driving; if they text whilst driving hundreds of times without causing any kind of accident it reinforces their belief that it is safe to do so. It's fine to pass cyclists close because they've done it hundreds of times before, only this time the cyclist wobbles because of a gust of wind/pothole avoidance/etc and *bang*.
The problem is the attitude of the person (whether driving/cycling/walking at the time), not their chosen mode of transport at that time, although you can't argue with the figures (or physics) that show that incidents involving motor vehicles are responsible for hundreds (if not thousands) of times as many deaths as those involving bicycles, so there needs to be an appropriate sense of proportionality when it comes to these types of discussions.