Parking Review Nov/Dec 2002, p.13  Landor Publishing

Against the grain

Time to end cyclists' free ride

Bob Pilbeam

Have your say:
If you have any reactions to ideas expressed in this article, or ideas of your own, please email them to:
ed.pr@landor.co.uk

Now I'm all for improving the environment and keeping myself fit, but there are other important issues that come to mind such as:

1. Safety of pedestrians.
2. Safety of cyclists, as they are all too prone to creep up on the insides of lorries and coaches, obviously not knowing what danger they are putting themselves in.
3. Obeying the rules of the road, which means cyclists need to accept that a red traffic light means 'stop' and that they do not start cycling again until the green light shows.
4. Obeying rules of the pavement, especially where pedestrians have priority over a 40-year-old thug weaving through old ladies, children and pets as if he owned the area.
5. Obeying the street lighting rules, which dictate that cycles should have lights fitted during the hours of darkness.
   

As a former police officer, I am all too aware that the enforcement of cycle regulations is not high on the priority list of either police forces or the court system. Indeed, on the one occasion I reported two cyclists for having no cycle lights and going against a red signal at the traffic lights, and the magistrate treated it as a bit of a joke when they pleaded guilty. The current situation is now even less regulated with police not interested in any traffic enforcement outside of specific violations such as speeding and, in London, ensuring the smooth running of the priority Red Route network.

So where do readers of Parking Review come into this argument, I hear you ask? Well, one area where local authorities do have a possible influence on the behaviour of cyclists is in the provision of cycle parking. For example, outside the London School of Economics in The Aldwych nearly every lamp post, tree and railing has several students' cycles strapped to it, causing serious obstruction to the hoards of

pedestrians who use this road every day, and creating a particular hazard to the blind.

Could not more British local authorities provide cycle racks at strategic places like this as is so commonly the case in Holland and a few progressive places in the UK?

Where such cycle parking is provided, however, local authorities should be able to charge cyclists for its use in the same way motorists have had to cough up parking fees for generations. By setting a cycle parking levy, local authorities and communities get something back from the cycling fraternity who at present contribute nothing to the provision of cycle paths, racks and roadspace. And with cycle parking infrastructure in place, cyclists who continued to park their machines elsewhere should not be surprised to find them taken away to a pound from where they can be collected only after making a payment which would cover the cost of removal.

The overall benefits of such a scheme would be threefold. Firstly, cyclists would have somewhere to park their cycles legally and safely. Secondly, organisations such as businesses and colleges would, under pressure from their staff and students, be inclined to provide cycle parking off the highway with a resultant clearing of the street of the eyesore and danger of parked cycles. Finally, cyclists may start to understand that the rest of society does not owe them a living, and also appreciate that have to give as well as receive.

One thing is certain, it is time that cyclists stopped expecting a free ride in our city centres.

Bob Pilbeam is a former Metropolitan Police officer, and worked in the Met's traffic section. He is now an independent consultant and Blue Badge tourist guide