I’m an avid cyclist.
On most journeys, I’ll cycle, whether it’s sunny or raining. I do this partly because I care about the environment, but also because it’s cheaper than public transport; because it’s usually quicker; and also because it keeps me fit.
But when I talk to people about cycling, invariably at some point during the conversation, someone will mention that “all cyclists go through red lights” or that they have “no respect for the law”.
“They need to be taxed and insured,” they might say.
“I pay road tax. Only when they do too, will I have any respect for them.”
“Drivers pass a test. They have mirrors, and indicators, and registration numbers. They have road sense.”
“If bikes had registration plates, maybe they’d have more chance of being caught, so wouldn’t break the law so much.”
I’ve heard all these arguments many times. So I decided to go to the Metropolitan Police and check on the statistics: do cyclists really break the law so much more than motorists?
This chart covers the last three years. Because of public demand, on many occasions, police run campaigns: they wait at junctions where cyclists are often reported as going through on red, and stop them when they do. That explains the large increase in numbers of cyclists stopped from 2008 to 2010. It may also explain the relatively small increase in the number of vehicles stopped.
The number of cycle offenders pales into insignificance, as you can see. The number of people being caught be be decreasing naturally as people learn where the traffic camera as, or could be due to camera being removed – or simply not in use because of budget cutbacks. Either way, the number of cars which are caught going through red lights is far higher than the number of cycles.
I then thought it was a bit unfair to show just that chart, since cycles can’t be caught on camera. So I took out the camera offences, and showed just those witnessed by an officer.
Just looking at this, police fined or prosecuted cyclists 3,581 times. Meanwhile, they spotted 3,945 vehicles going through red lights. So despite campaigns to catch cyclists, and despite reducing numbers of working traffic light cameras, more drivers than cyclists go through on red. Essentially, many drivers are fearless of driving through a red traffic light, despite the risk of being caught via their number plate, and the points they might get on their licence.
Road tax was actually abolished by Winston Churchill in 1937, because he didn’t want drivers to think they owned the road. In fact, drivers pay Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), or car tax. They pay to drive a vehicle on the road. And VED is based on emissions – so even if bicycles were subject to VED, the amount they pay would be zero. Just like a milk float, or an electric car. Many other vehicles also don’t pay “road tax” – including police, ambulances, disabled people’s vehicles and members of the royal family.
The ironically named I Pay Road Tax site points out that the money generated by motorists isn’t a fund to repair roads and build new ones; it’s money that goes straight into the national pot, the Treasury’s Consolidated Fund, the public purse.
Airline passengers pay taxes when they fly from British airports but nobody suggests all this money should go to building more runways. Drinkers and smokers pay big-time for their tipples and their filter tips but the billions raised by duties on booze and ciggies are not spent on bigger and better pubs, or swankier tobacco emporiums.
When he was Chancellor, in 1925, Winston Churchill railed against ‘Road Fund’ ring-fencing:
“Entertainments may be taxed; public houses may be taxed; racehorses may be taxed…and the yield devoted to the general revenue. But motorists are to be privileged for all time to have the whole yield of the tax on motors devoted to roads. Obviously this is all nonsense…Such contentions are absurd, and constitute…an outrage upon the sovereignty of Parliament and upon common sense.”
This page gives an excellent run down of the pros and cons of bicycle licensing. Basically, it points out that it’s never been a success; in fact, many places used to have cycle licensing, but cancelled it because it cost far more to administer than it brought in.
Even if lots of other countries did have a great success with cycle licensing, the argument that “they do it in other countries” doesn’t hold water: in other countries, they have ‘strict liability’, an insurance concept which helps to protect cyclists and pedestrians. The UK doesn’t want to follow this line, because drivers don’t want to be assumed to be the guilty party if they run someone over or crash into a cyclist.
And, as we’ve seen, licences don’t stop people breaking the law.
Intrestingly, whenever I have a conversation with any of my colleagues or friends about cycling in London the first thing they bring up is safety. Everyone’s under the impression that you must be very brave to cycle in London as it is so ‘dangerous’ out there. I think this stigma should be tackled more than ‘devillainising’ cyclists.
The 2nd chart really needs to be redraw to take into account the proportion of cars or bikes running the red light. The absolute numbers are pretty meaningless. For all we know, there were 10 times as many cars as bikes, so the fact that in 2010/11 the number of offences were similar actually means bikes have a 10 times higher chance of jumping red lights.
My personal experience as a daily city cycle commuter is that bikes are far more likely to jump a red light than a car. In fact a fellow cyclist shouted abuse at me for blocking the road this week, whilst I was waiting at a red light!!
Motorists do around 350 times the mileage that cyclists do (only around 20% of that is on the motorways).
Interestingly, motorists are currently involved in around 500 pedestrian fatalties a year.
While cyclists kill around two or three pedestrians a year.
Which means that despite motorists driving vehicles that are so fast and heavy and cyclists riding ones that are so slow and light:
Cyclists are actually more lethal!
By observation, I’m not sure these statistics accurately reflect reality. Yesterday, cycling to and from work, I must have spotted at least 10 cyclists going through red lights, and that’s not including the masses that go through them on the approach to and exit from London Bridge. By comparison, I saw one car skip a light the whole day.
The problem is that it’s unlikely that the means of catching those who skip red lights, be they those in vehicles or on bicycles, presents an equal probability of catching both. I’d be far more concerned that as the police have stepped up their activities on the cycling side, they are catching more cyclists jumping the lights. This suggests that the larger the sample is getting, the higher the proportion of the overall population is being caught out. Again, observation indicates to me that cyclists are far less concerned about going through a red light, particularly if it’s at a T junction and they’re just following the road which ignores the fact that cyclists trying to turn at the junction are heading for the same bit of road as them.
The scientist in me says what you need to do is take a random sample of traffic lights and post researchers (not police who are visible) at them to count how many of each kind of road user goes through a red light, and that should include pedestrians who cross the road when the lights are on green for the traffic. It would probably have to be done over 24 hours given that the pace of vehicles moving slows with rush hour when cyclists are moving more quickly.
My personal position is that many road users, be they cars, buses, taxis, lorries, bicycles, motor bikes, or pedestrians, are BAD road users, i.e. they don’t pay enough attention to what’s going on around them. EVERYONE needs to be more aware and more cautious and stop trying to blame others.
Good idea for an article this one – and how nice to have some stats on the red camera. Interesting to see the steep climb in red light offences for cyclists in the last year but I can and will refer to this when necessary…good work.