Looks Like Even The Police Are Fed Up With Cyclopaths…

It’s not just bloggers, clearly:

Mr Moore told Waltham Forest magistrates: "I do remember quite clearly cycling along past the junction. Suddenly, without any warning I could see, the lorry turned on me.

"I remember screaming 'Stop, stop', I think, and I think I'm going to die. Then I can remember being under the lorry and in considerable pain.

You can remember all that, but you couldn’t remember not to try to take on something many, many times your size?

Crash investigator Pc Clive Austin told the court that tanker driver Nigel Gummer, 54, of Hadleigh, Essex, would have been able to see Mr Moore approaching for at least 12 seconds in a rear-view mirror as he waited at the junction.

And, of course, Mr Moore would have been able to see the tanker. No-one ever considers that, though, do they?

Well, actually, they do, when pressed:

Mr Moore had been riding in a cycle lane and drew level with the tanker's front axle virtually as it began pulling away. He tried to cycle straight on but was hit by the lorry, which had stopped in the advance cyclist's "box", and had been indicating a left turn.

Pc Austin said Mr Moore had the right of way under the Highway Code but admitted it would have been "a pertinent move" for the cyclist to show "some level of caution".

Yes. Yes, Indeed it would. But Mr Moore had the right of way, damn it, and we know how cyclists get when they think they are in the right...

Mr Moore, associate business editor of The Independent, is pursuing a civil claim for compensation against the tanker company's insurers.

He said he was disappointed the prosecution failed to call two witnesses, including the man who helped him as he lay trapped under the tanker. "I think the whole legal process is weighted against the victim," he said.

Mr Moore called for lorries to be fitted with sensors to detect cyclists, saying: "If it saves lives, and saves people being put in the same position as me, it's a damn good thing."

You know what else would save people being ‘put in the same position as you’? Taking a bit more care yourself. Rather than expecting everyone else to look out for you…

And speaking of which:

Cyclists were caught in a double police operation on the same day, flouting pedestrian restrictions in the city and then riding without lights later that night.

*waits for cyclopaths to start screaming and shouting and wailing ‘Unfair!!!!’*

Fifty-one cyclists were given fines for riding in the pedestrianised zones in Cornmarket and Queen Street over three hours – although police officers were too busy to stop them all.

Yup, in other words, they saw their fellows being stopped and just went sailing on by…

Now imagine motorists seeing a cop car or a speed trap. How many wouldn't reflexively check their speed and, if over the limit, bring it down? Not cyclists, oh no. Confident in the knowledge they have no identifying registrations, and no licenses to lose, they go sailing blithely by, breaking the law with impunity.

And later on Wednesday night officers were also catching cyclists without lights at The Plain, leaving police frustrated that safety laws were still being ignored.

And yet if a lorry had not seen them, lo! The wailing and gnashing of teeth would be a cry like unto the heavens…

Naturally, it isn't the cyclists in the wrong. Oh, no. They need to change the law for them.

But James Styring, of cycling campaign group Cyclox, said: “People shouldn’t cycle down Cornmarket and Queen Street but they need to change the regulations.

“I don’t think it’s a big deal when you think about people who drive while on their mobile phones.

“On Cornmarket there are probably too many pedestrians for any sensible person to want to cycle."

Aha! Yes, ‘any sensible person’. And there’s the rub, eh?

Because it seems, for too many people, getting a bike involves the removal of a good few brain cells and any element of personal responsibility they may have left...