People in cars don’t dislike cyclists because they are law breakers. That’s the excuse they use for bullying people on bikes. They dislike cyclists because they’re not in cars and they act aggressively towards them because they can.

this + thousands. You’ll notice the aggression from drivers is present however you’re riding – you get grief for stopping at red lights too IME!
Have you ever tried debating cycling with someone who’s anti? They won’t budge however many figures you put to them about the overall legal behaviour of people on bikes and the very widespread illegal behaviour of people in cars. They don’t want to adapt to the increase in numbers of people riding, they want them to go away… being aggressive is a lame attempt at making this happen.

Riding in central London isn’t so bad so long as you’re reasonably aware of what you’re doing, the dangerous bits are the suburbs where it seems there’s just enough space on the road to allow people to drive like a dicks.

This too – the Policemen are talking absolute rot about central London – the traffic is mainly at a standstill or under 20mph from sheer congestion. Get out into Beckenham and Bromley and the driving is faster and much much more aggressive IME.

On a positive note, I was out on a club run yesterday for the first time since June after breaking my wrist. 50 miles over 4 hours. We got a couple of close passes, one mindless leaning on a horn and countless holding backs/wide passes. IME the vast majority of drivers are growing up and learning to cope with the increase in numbers of people riding…

Davenport’s clearly relate to the risks rather than to a lack of desire. I don’t think anyone’s asked the police chiefs whether they’d convert their current commuting miles to cycling in the long term, they’ve asked questions that basically amount to whether they’d be prepared to face the risks involved.

What a baby. I think its shocking that a senior policeman is that risk adverse. I hardly think cycling round London is that shockingly dangerous; 27 years cycling round town, and never had a scrape.

Probably shows why the police are so ludicrously risk adverse.

Next door neighbour has been a traffic cop for many years. After seeing many times that bigger cars give you a better chance of surviving crashes he is somewhat tied into getting large Volvos/BMWs for his family. Sure it happens with all professions – sure some of the paramedics on here will be risk averse to certain situations. My ex-fireman pal is paranoid about finding emergency exit routes in hotels when he stays away, for example. All the IT bods on here are probably paranoid about security breaches that nobody cares about (until obviously something happens to them…).

Your exposure to certain situations will inevitably infuence your decision making.

Indeed: Davenport made that point explicitly.

Don’t blame him, it’s bad enough driving anywhere these days let alone cycling!

There are too many ****wits in general on the roads these days and that includes all forms of transport. Standards of road users in this country have been going downhill for ages so its only going to get worse.

I ride 200km+ a week in London and the standards of driving is piss poor and downright dangerous at times.

Whether drivers are becoming more incompetent, more distracted by hand held cellular devices, or have realised that the chances of getting caught by an ever thinner blue line as police cutbacks, especially traffic police, become evident on the streets; I could not say?

Yes I see plenty of cyclists running red lights, on the pavement, riding at night without lights but bicycles do not require licenses or a competency test so that is another topic for a different argument.