I’m currently working in London and I’ve just started commuting by bike, Ealing to Canary Wharf. I now understand why so many people display a hatred of cyclists, in London at least. The behavioural norm seems to be red light jumping and aggressive behaviour to other road users, including other cyclists, and pedestrians.

A typical example: This morning a cyclist sails through a red light at a pedestrian crossing, narrowly missing several people, forces a car turning right out of a side street to slam on their brakes, he then hits the perfectly innocent driver’s car and calls her a f***ing c**t.

I live in rural S. Wales so this is new to me, are all cities like this or is London particularly awful.

I ride in London 2-3 times a week and absolutely don’t recognise the stereotype. Experience and observation tell me the vast majority of cyclists are legal and benign.

Confirmation bias means people are more likely to tell others about the times they saw cyclists break the law because there’s nothing remarkable about a cyclist stopping at a red light or riding quietly along the road.

When the TFL ran a study in 2007, only 16% of cyclists ran red lights. Didn’t say what proportion of drivers did but it’s certainly not zero!

Please don’t fall into the anti-cycling propaganda trap – it is, literally killing people…

I ride in London 2-3 times a week and absolutely don’t recognise the stereotype. Experience and observation tell me the vast majority of cyclists are legal and benign.

This, I don’t really see it either, maybe it’s different parts of London.

I’m certainly not falling into an anti-cycling trap I am very pro cycling, and I’m not suffering from confirmation bias, if anything my bias was that stories of cyclists’ bad behaviour is wildly exaggerated. It’s just that I was astonished and horrified at how some London cyclists behave. I’ve only done 3 journeys so far so a small sample size, hopefully my experiences will improve.

I was astonished and horrified at how some London cyclists behave

You should see how some cab/van/lorry/bus/car/motorcycle drivers/riders behave.

I ride daily from Leyton to Kensington and and the proportion of RLJ and general cycle based knobbery generally low.

Some people are knobs and they happen to ride bikes. That’s all there is to it.

if anything my bias was that stories of cyclists’ bad behaviour is wildly exaggerated.

Sorry, not having a go, just increasingly alarmed at the amount of anti-cycling propaganda I hear from otherwise sensible people… you’re correct – the stories of cyclists bad behaviour is widely exaggerated and ignores the behaviour of some/many drivers.

You’ll need to toughen up to commute by bike in the smoke. Pleasantries out the window as it’s dog eat dog out there. Even driving is a self preservation excersise compared with other cities, not enough time and space and too many cars.

Ride selfish, cars are not your friend in London.

is London particularly awful

I have to say, in my experience of a fair few different routes in London, only about 20% of people RLJ, and there aren’t that many arseholes as you describe. I can only recall one incident involving shouting and that was much more marginal than the one you describe.

I think London is a great place to cycle overall. Much better than some other places I’ve been because a) drivers aren’t generally in a hurry, because it’s pointless at least in Central London b) people are generally watching what they are doing – you have to and c) there are so many cyclists that drivers simply have to take them into account.

One thing I will suggest though if you are new is try and fine-tune your route. Certain arterial roads in London are a bit difficult and stressful, where there are some decent quiet alternatives that aren’t any longer. It can be pretty difficult sometimes – I’ve had to go from Southwark to near Edgeware Rd tube and the obvious route is a bit of a nightmare strewn with horrible tight and nasty junctions – but the side streets are very pleasant and a generally good bike ride.

I’ve commuted in London for nearly 20 years, from the days when seeing another cyclist on the commute was something to talk about to nowadays when there’s more than you can shake a stick at. My average commute is 5 miles each way, but I have done up to 20 miles each way, and on the whole the way it works is:

If you ride like a dick, you find that everyone else treats you like a dick and it all becomes very aggressive and unpleasant pretty much all the time.

If you don’t ride like a dick, then sometimes it can be a bit annoying but on the whole it’s absolutely fine and you get to where you want to go to broadly within an expected timeframe.
I always use the 80/ 20 rule – 80% of anybody doing anything are pretty much ok, 20% are not.

Some good points made. Most of the bad behaviour I’ve seen has been outside central London in the Ealing to Kensington section, in the centre where it’s busier there are very few RLJs.

Of course some drivers behave badly too and their actions affect the safety of others not themselves, and can be very serious.

If you ride like a dick, you find that everyone else treats you like a dick and it all becomes very aggressive and unpleasant pretty much all the time.

^^ This +1000

I ride in Town a lot when up here in the week, Y’know you gotta get out and ride haven’t you.
I don’t commute by bike, nor intend to either. But I do ride during rush hour(s) and clearly all hours of the day/night.

I’m going to add to this list the worst place to ride, it’s the highway that runs from Canary Wharf along to London Bridge through Shadwell.
It’s one of the worst places to ride IMO. You’ve got commuters hacking at 40kph on thier Brommies or Defys whilst overtaking/meandering/tutting/gettting flustered at slower riders/pushing/being bolshy/shouting/running red lights/not stopping at level crossings/not stopping at junctions/running pedestrians over when they are trying to cross the highway/road and generally being agressive to anyone who gets in thier way.
Bunch of single minded tossers IMO.
If you are one, get a grip then catch the Bus or DLR.

The rest of Towns a great place to be 😀

it’s the highway that runs from Canary Wharf along to London Bridge through Shadwell.

Do you mean the blue tarmac or the main road?

It’ll be the CSH on Cable Street. It’s a very aggressive and really quite narrow piece of cycling infrastructure with lots of road crossings, stupid little traffic lights and very, very bad tempered people.

molgrips – Member

it’s the highway that runs from Canary Wharf along to London Bridge through Shadwell.

Do you mean the blue tarmac or the main road?

I the Blue one, the CSH.

aP – Member
It’ll be the CSH on Cable Street. It’s a very aggressive and really quite narrow piece of cycling infrastructure with lots of road crossings, stupid little traffic lights and very, very bad tempered people.

T’is exhakerly this. 😆

Try riding in NYC…

Like most cycleways, the csh should only be used when not in a hurry! Or just slow down. Imagine if drivers complained about not being able to make progress flat out in the city..

I potter along daily on the Boris Bike. I would say 90% of cyclists stop at red lights, ditto crossings although I have personally nearly been taken out by a bike flying through a crossing. I have to say when I just miss the red light at a left turn I generally get off and push the bike round the corner on the pavement and get back on.

I spend most of my days driving a truck around London, and IMO the vast majority of cyclists are safe and relatively law abiding.
You get the occasional dick, but a dick on a bike is much better than a dick in a 1.5 ton killing machine.