London's Rogue Riders

Only bit that made sense in that article:

I am a cyclist and I jump lights.

The reason why I jump lights is simple ... I want to keep myself seen by motorists behind me and stay ahead of the traffic, this means that I am safe and so are the motorists. I do not jump lights if there are any vehicles crossing the junction and I do not jump lights if there are any pedestrians.

But, if the way is clear I will cycle on ahead. The example I can give is heading onto Shepherds Bush roundabout from Holland Park Avenue; if I am waiting at traffic lights and I have lots of cars behind me who are all about to go into various lanes i.e. turn left into Holland Road, go straight ahead to Shepherds Bush, turn right onto the A40 - then I want to get ahead of all of that traffic, so if the way is clear I jump the lights.

The advantage to motorists is they can then see where I am heading and make a decision based on that knowledge, rather than me being stuck alongside them and they have know idea where I am going, which slows down the traffic as they have to wait for the lights to go green to see where I am going before they can move (which many don't bother doing hence the death rate to cyclists).

I am also a motorist and from that point of view I still prefer it when cyclists are a head of me and I can see them, so I know which way they are going.

I think that done safely then jumping lights is the right thing to do. However, I don't like it when I see adult cyclists on pavements (that is a definite no, no) or jumping lights when there are pedestrians crossing or vehicles crossing.

I heard Joanna Good last week saying that cyclists take up as much space as a car, which I thought was hilariously ridiculous!

If all cyclists started to drive there would definitely be even more congestion and more pollution on our roads. Cycling is a clean, healthy and quick way of getting around London, you only have to go to countries like Sweden, Holland and Germany to understand the amazing benefits of cycling and start to embrace a cycling culture.

I have many people saying to me that they would like to cycle but the only reason why they don't is simply because people are afraid of the traffic and this means they are afraid of cars, lorries, white van drivers, buses but they are not afraid of other cyclists.

So get on yer bikes Londoners!

Camilla