Suicide cyclists.

Let me say at the very beginning of this post that I am an
enthusiastic cyclist. I want more and safer provision for bikes (at the expense
of cars if need be). I would like it to be easier to take bikes on trains
(instead of being banned at peak times, and hardly welcomed at others – there’s
no place to put them after all). And when taxi drivers give me the “anti-bike
speech” in Cambridge, I tend to get very frosty.

So please don’t attack me as if I was an enemy of two
wheels. But this week, with thousands of new students in town, the streets have
been full of clever young people apparently intent on killing themselves. The
problem I imagine is that everyone knows that a bike is the way that students
get around town, so almost every fresher gets one – though I’d say, from casual
observation, that about 50% haven’t actually done any serious cycling since
they were still using stabilisers aged c. 6.

On Friday I happened to be in the town centre
just after 1.00, when there had been a mass exodus from lectures. There was
partly peril in the sheer numbers. 

One junction (between Pembroke Street and Trumpington St)
was entirely clogged by a mass of learner cyclists apparently not having a clue
who had right of way and where (to be fair it isn’t all that clear), and in
dangerous proximity to the passing cars. 

And just a bit earlier I had followed another novice who
actually couldn’t start her bike in Regent St and was wobbling violently across
the road (I strongly suspected that she hadn’t quite understood the gears). At
my age, I feel torn between shouting words to the effect of “you’ll bloody kill
yourself” and coming over all granny like and offering a bit of gear advice).

Our local MP is currently right behind a Lib Dem proposal to
make it automatic for a motorist to be held liable for any collisions with a
bike unless it can be proved that the cyclist was at fault. You can see the
point. I mean it’s very hard for a cyclist to kill another road user, and
conversely very easy for a driver.  And
it really is up to the motorist to take account of the conditions in which they
are driving – even if that includes wobbly cyclists. 

But venturing out on Friday I really did feel a bit like a
mountain rescue team must feel when they have rescued someone from Ben Nevis in
December clad in trainers and plastic mac. Walking/cycling is great, but BE PREPARED.

And just before you excellent student journalists decide to
run a headline that says “Prof slams student bikers”… remember I am not
“slamming” them at all. I  am just
letting off a little steam, safe in the knowledge that students are very quick
learners, and in a couple of weeks most of them will be a lot nimbler on two
wheels than I am.