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Let us cycle in Regent's Park but dangerous riders, watch it!
• Dear Camden’s dangerous cyclists: Red lights
are for you also. You may not think of yourself as a threat,
but you are.
If a light is red pedestrians make an assumption that all of
the cars will stop therefore it is safe to cross the road. Increasingly,
more and more cyclists will not stop just as the light goes
red or will go just before to get ahead of the traffic.
Pedestrians are jumping out of the way or being placed in terrifying
situations where cyclists are whizzing by as they cross the
road.
Last night my three-year-old son and I waited for the green
man at Mornington Crescent, we did not cross when there were
gaps in the traffic as I am trying to teach him road safety.
As the light turned red and the green man popped up, one cyclist
just cycled across the crossing I continued walking across to
get out of the way before the lights changed and glanced at
her thinking how dangerous it was. I turned back just in time
to see my three-year-old dive out of the way of a cyclist who
was pre-empting the lights. My son hit a lamp post, is badly
bruised and has a lump on his forehead but it could have been
much worse as she would have hit him.
She glanced back when he screamed but carried on. Other people
came to us to see if he was okay and I am very grateful to them,
they all had similar stories of jumping out of the way and little
old ladies being hit. So I am writing to you now to ask you
to please stop and wait until there are no pedestrians on the
road before going and wait until the light is green
I know that there are careful and considerate cyclists out there
and they deserve our thanks for not polluting and keeping themselves
fit, but all of their efforts are being sullied by the dangerous
behaviour of some.
KM
NW1
• I was agog to hear in the news of Prince Charles telling
us all “we’re becoming a nation of fatties”.
If that’s the case, why won’t he agree to give us
a cycle path through Primrose Hill and Regent’s Park?
The London Cycling Campaign have been asking for years.
I try to do my bit for the environment by recycling rubbish,
buying organic/fair trade food and cycling into central London
from Primrose Hill where I live. Even the writer Alan Bennett
said recently in a South Bank TV Show that he would “like
to be the first” to cycle down such a path.
In Europe, cycling is prioritised. In Hamburg I saw hundreds
of cyclists riding daily, adjacent to joggers and walkers around
the stunning lake in the city centre with a feeling of kinship
between everyone – of course they were provided a cycle
lane.
In Germany, the law allows cyclists to drive down one-way streets
in the opposite direction of the car and a cycle lane is also
provided for that purpose – after all, why should a cyclist
who is braving all weathers and not polluting the atmosphere
have to go round a one way system with all the traffic pumping
out fumes in his face?
The Europeans have got it right and it’s time for an end
to cycle bigotry in London. We need cycle lanes everywhere –
in parks, one way streets and over pedestrianised zones.
In Amsterdam, pedestrians have to negotiate buses, cars, cyclists
and trams, but actually they’re amazingly good at it. They’re
brought up with it and it’s simply second nature for them
to look out and listen for cycles – they don’t mind
because everybody owns and uses a bicycle. I am not anti the
motor car. I own a car and do use it for occasional, necessary
journeys, but I am also pro cycling and if more people adopted
the practice, this wonderful city of ours would be fitter, cleaner
and more fun to live in.
One final thing that really gets my goat is these so called
Community Support Officers who actually chased me as I cycled
along slowly, minding my own business through Regent’s
Park on a beautiful day last summer – ironically, they
were too fat to run.
However at Xmas when I did a rare shopping visit to Camden near
the canal, I was offered drugs four times.
S Evans
Fellows Road, NW3
• Like Alan Bennett I too find areas of Regent’s
Park dangerous, but as a pedestrian, it is bicycles that pose
the threat not motor vehicles.
I disagree with Paul Braithwaite (Letters, Jan 19) that cycle
paths should be established in Regent’s Park, let’s
not do it. Pedestrians, mothers with young children, joggers,
dog walkers and the elderly don’t mix safely with cyclists.
Let’s keep our green spaces a peaceful haven where we can
walk without continually having to look over our shoulders to
check for speeding bicycles.
I would remember Alan Bennett if such paths were created but
not in the way he may have wished. I think a more appropriate
memorial to Alan, a favourite author of mine, would be a large
bronze teapot in the Regent’s Park Rose Garden.
Frank Martin
Dartmouth Park Hill, NW5 |
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