By Hattie Turner
Why sticking to your lane won't solve the conflict between cyclists and drivers.
The phrase ‘before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes’ has never been more true when considering the conflict between cyclists and motorists. Switch ‘walk’ for ‘cycle’ and I guarantee you’ll find a lot of drivers are more sympathetic to the danger cyclists face on a daily basis; unobservant pedestrians, chaotic commuters and a general lack of use of the indicator. Likewise, a cyclist who spends a day working in a vehicle may find their sympathy increases somewhat, after they are stuck driving round one-way streets and avoiding roadworks, while earning what is often a modest income. Cyclists are not the bad guys, but nor are drivers. Why is it so hard for a lot of people to see this? With just hours to go until the London mayoral election, I want to explore one of the longstanding issues the city has been plagued by.
Cyclists are labelled as a ‘nuisance’, ‘entitled’ and ‘self righteous’ and motorists are ‘aggressive’ and ‘inconsiderate’. This language is unhelpful at best, and downright tribal at worst. Last week I saw a post by a cyclist boasting about going through a red light while being tailed by the police. It’s this very attitude that isn’t helping. In the same week I witnessed a motorist, red with rage shouting expletives at a cyclist who was barely coping with the demands of Hyde Park roundabout. On the face of it, these two groups are sworn enemies, but is there any room for conciliation?
Data from earlier this year shows cycling has increased by more than 35% in London. Once traffic goes back to normal levels will the ‘35%’ find they are met with hostility from other returning road users? According to TFL nearly two-thirds of the traffic on the city’s roads are buses, taxis, tradespeople and delivery drivers. These are driven by people who have largely been working throughout the pandemic, delivering our parcels and getting us where we needed to be this last year. Similarly, the boom in takeaways and online shopping has meant there are more and more key worker cyclists on London’s roads. Speaking with XeroE, an eco-courier start-up, they calculated their fleet of cyclists has quadrupled in the last year.
The crux of the mutual resentment is that there’s an element of danger when bicycles and motorists co-exist on the same piece of tarmac. London’s population is projected to rise to 10 million by 2030, potentially exacerbating this conflict Yet, there is real optimism that technological developments for road users will help mitigate deaths, which in turn, will alleviate road user tension. The LINKS Foundation has developed a global navigation device fitted with a 5G transceiver used to convey location information to nearby cars. Companies like the LINKS Foundation are building into the new ‘smart city concept’ where all traffic and infrastructure are interconnected and constantly communicating information designed to keep all road users safe. Cyclists and other road users will no longer be in each other's way, but harmoniously weaving in and out of each other like a synchronised swimming team.
As with most tensions in society, there is not one group who is all bad, nor one group who is all good. Until we understand that most of us are just trying to go about our daily business, to meet the demands of working in a city and just trying to enjoy the ride, this divide will remain.
Hattie Turner