Interesting stats on cycle red light jumpers

[Earl Aelfheah]

56 minutes ago, first mate said:

You have not addressed the central issue that if cycling is on the rise (including use of e-bikes) then incidences of bad or risky cycling behaviour are also likely to rise. What is being dobe to mitigate this?

I have addressed both those points. Go back and read what I've posted if you're genuinely interested.

56 minutes ago, first mate said:

I am not aware of more cars driving across newly created pedestrian spaces, like Dulwich Sq, or of cars driving down pavements on Lordship Lane

As a pedestrian you are more likely to be seriously injured by a person travelling by car than by bicycle. Including on the pavement. By a significant margin.

Edited October 7, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[Penguin68]

I do feel this thread has run its course. No new information is emerging, it's just the same old dogs (I've been one of them) tusseling over the same manky bones. If Admin locked it now I wouldn't be crying buckets. 

[first mate]

Fair enough. I do rather agree.

[Rockets]

Yeah the usual suspects are trying their usual tricks....the numbers are there to see and are taken from STATS19 so good that there is finally some data sources showing the scale of the problem and now the bar has been set for further comparisons on whether the problem is getting better or worse.

[Earl Aelfheah]

You mean the types of tricks used in an article with the headline "How cyclists are waging war on pedestrians", described here:

On 06/10/2025 at 22:22, Earl Aelfheah said:

Whilst collisions involving cyclists can lead to pedestrian injuries, collisions involving motorists injure pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and all other road users (those additional injury numbers are excluded). The relevant comparison is 28,000 serious injuries involving motor vehicles annually, and 189 involving bicycles.

For deaths you can see the graphs above. Motor vehicles led to around 1,600 deaths, bicycles 3 (two more than were caused by a pedestrian running into someone else who was on foot).

Which takes us to the other issue; Using percentages to compare changes from wildly different baselines. If next year pedestrians cause 2 deaths instead of 1 there will have been a 100% increase, but it won’t tell you much about how dangerous pedestrians are getting. Likewise if there is one less death caused by a cyclist, it would represent a 30% drop, but wouldn’t really tell you that cycling is getting safer.

The article also ignores the relative growth in people travelling by bike over the reference period. Cycling is the fastest growing mode of transport in London, but this obviously relevant context isn’t mentioned.

Fundamentally, the more people who cycle rather than drive, the safer pedestrians are.

...or the ones where you have used misleading data, and conjecture, to paint an entirely false picture of both crime and collision rates locally?

Edited October 8, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[tedfudge]

Cyclists in the City of London have been caught 10 times more often than motorists for running red lights this year.

Since the start of 2025, 284 cyclists in the City of London have been fined for failing to stop at lights, but only 25 motorists were ticketed for the same offence

This report is from the standard.  And I see it on a nighty basis while driving to work , report also says cyclists are fined £50 while a motorists is fined £100 and 3 points on licence... 

58% of cyclists surveyed say the regularly jump red lights 

[Earl Aelfheah]

@tedfudge No one is doubting that cyclists are far more likely to jump red lights than cars (for one thing they have far more opportunity to than a full width vehicle).

Not sure about 58% figure though. TFL, as well as the article that started this thread, both suggest it's around 16%.

Constantly posting evidence that people on bicycles are sometimes involved in collisions, or that they can break the rules of the road, isn't adding much. Neither fact is disputed. Placing it in context however, describing the relative impact, is obviously important if you're interested in proportionate and appropriate interventions.

Edited October 8, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[tedfudge]

I'm also going by experience not just what's in the papers or Internet etc , im going on what I see on a nightly basis and I can guarantee 100% that i will see a minimum of 15 cyclists per night going through the lights and im driving from barry road to peckham up peckham hill street towards old kent road then along old kent road to the flyover and go down great Dover street towards southwark street and then over blackfriars and then ludgate circus. 

Edited October 9, 2025 by tedfudge

[malumbu]

I agree on one point, that this thread has long since run it's course 

@Rockets as said before this us Vs them is so unhelpful and 'usual suspects' is both insulting and petulant.

I've tried not to label people, even by association, as petrolheads or the motorist lobby, and if I have done in the past I apologise.  

As regards the City of London police campaign this has been discussed mainly times.  If the police have a targeted campaign they will catch people.  This can be equally applied to WMP and catching illegal ebikes, or in the past country pub boozing, day after the office party or when there were far more random speed traps.  

Added: obviously we all want to have the last say 😊

[Rockets]

3 minutes ago, malumbu said:

@Rockets as said before this us Vs them is so unhelpful and 'usual suspects' is both insulting and petulant.

I've tried not to label people, even by association, as petrolheads or the motorist lobby, and if I have done in the past I apologise.  

Ha ha @malumbu these sentences are just brilliantly Alan Patridge! 😉 Bravo!

[Earl Aelfheah]

5 hours ago, tedfudge said:

I'm also going by experience not just what's in the papers or Internet etc , im going on what I see on a nightly basis and I can guarantee %100 that i will see a minimum of 15 cyclists per night going through the lights and im driving from barry road to peckham up pecham hill street towards old kent road then along old kent road to the flyover and go down great Dover street towards southelwark street and then over blackfriars and then ludgate circus. 

That may be true. It obviously varies according to time of day, location etc. But objective counts regularly put the number at around 16-17%, or 1 in 6. We could fall down a rabbit hole discussing the exact percentage however, it's not really the point. The point is that it's too high and we need to do something about it that is proportionate and actually improves safety.

I'm not really interested in rules for rules sake, but I am interested in improving safety, especially for those impacted by others bad behaviour. I think this is why interventions like the Idaho stop rules would help. As well as putting pressure on companies like Lime to review the incentives they create with their charging models.

Ultimately though, I do think it needs a degree of perspective. People travelling by bicycle are far, far less likely to seriously injure others. The more people who cycle, rather than drive, the safer our roads get. Reading the multiple discussions across this section and in the right wing media, one might be forgiven for thinking that the opposite is true (or as the article shared, hysterically declares: "cyclists are waging war on pedestrians"), which is misleading and unhelpful.

Edited October 8, 2025 by Earl Aelfheah

[Rockets]

Interesting approach being taken by City of London police. If you get caught jumping a red light on a bike you will get the option of a £50 fine or watching a safety video of someone jumping a red light on a bike and getting hit by a bus (with the permission of the cyclist concerned as she wants to use her awful experience to raise awareness).

https://road.cc/content/news/safety-film-option-cyclists-who-run-red-lights-317487

BTW does anyone know how to retrieve cached versions of articles externally or from within a browser as the article above has been heavily edited this morning (seemingly to add Simon Monks commentary) and the original copy had interesting stats on hospital admissions and comments from the police which have now been removed?

[Earl Aelfheah]

.

Edited Monday at 16:08 by Earl Aelfheah

[Rockets]

The data that was edited out of the RoadCC article is actually in the article in the FT and can be found here: https://www.ft.com/content/1a4d19a2-a4a5-407d-afe3-a891e64fdd58#:~:text=In the City%2C workers complain,red lights and zebra crossings.

Text pasted below.

‘I was reckless’: City cyclist shares CCTV of her accident to save others

Credit rating agency worker almost lost her life after cycling into a London bus Gabby Stonkute agreed to tell her story to raise awareness: ‘They warned me I might be subject to trolling but I’ll take it as long as it does some good’ 

The last thing Gabby Stonkute remembers was “the light going from green to red and thinking I could make it”. When the 35-year-old City of London worker awoke from an induced coma a week later, she learned she had cycled headlong into a bus after jumping a red light at a busy junction around the corner from St Paul’s Cathedral.  Undergoing emergency surgery for bleeding on her brain, she had suffered a collapsed lung and 10 fractures to her face, breaking her jaw, nose, chin, almost all her teeth as well as both eye sockets.

While in the coma, she had to be woken at regular intervals to check she had not also lost her sight. What shocked her most was that staff at the NHS Royal London Hospital were not surprised. They “see a lot of people being admitted [with similar levels of injury],” she said. “They told me that 70 per cent survive and only 25 per cent walk away with no long-term complications. I’m incredibly lucky not to have any of that.”

The fact the bus driver, with a 30-year career and no points on his licence, had been going at 15mph, rather than the legal limit of 20mph, probably saved her life, she added. 

That is why the credit rating agency manager accepted the City of London police force’s invitation to share her story and the CCTV footage of her accident in July: cyclists who jump red lights will this year be given a choice of paying a £50 fine or watching a film about Stonkute. “They warned me I might be subject to trolling but I’ll take it as long as it does some good,” she told the Financial Times. Although most road accidents nationally are caused by motor vehicles, the City business district has the capital’s highest proportion of road casualties involving cyclists. And, ironically, the prevalence of cyclists can make breaking the rules feel safer because “you’re not alone” in jumping the lights, said Stonkute. Police, doctors and politicians say a national campaign is needed to raise awareness and minimise accidents caused not just by cars but by unsafe cycling. The City police have also called for legislation to outlaw kits, easily available online, to power up e-bikes beyond legal limits. Such bikes are often the vehicle of choice of both phone snatchers and food delivery drivers.

Jaison Patel, an orthopaedic knee surgeon at the Royal London, the national trauma centre that treated Stonkute, said he and his colleagues had seen a big rise in accidents involving riders or pedestrians as more commuters cycle to work since the pandemic, in part thanks to a proliferation of e-bikes. Because they are heavier than traditional cycles, e-bikes tend to cause more severe injuries, said Patel. Data for the Royal London Hospital counted 202 limb injuries on traditional bikes and 125 on e-bikes in the first six months of 2025.

‘’Levels of cycling in London have been increasing in recent years, which is hugely positive. It means less congestion on our roads, improved public health, and that more people are being enabled to make different choices about how they travel,” said Fabian Hamilton MP, chair of the all-party parliamentary group for cycling and walking. However, he added: “It is essential that everyone follows the Highway Code, and doesn’t behave in a way that endangers either other people or themselves.”

The Cycling UK charity sees progress in the fact that the Highway Code was recently updated to specify a hierarchy requiring each type of road user — HGVs, cars, motorcycles, bikes and pedestrians — to look out for the more vulnerable category than theirs. “The trouble is that most people are still not aware of the changes and the government must do more to communicate them,” said the charity’s external affairs director Sarah McMonagle.

In the City, workers complain about near misses or collisions with cyclists and delivery riders jumping red lights and zebra crossings.  Hamilton, the Labour MP for Leeds North East, expressed concern “that road traffic police numbers have been severely reduced, in the last decade and a half”. But even the City police force, which has an 11-strong cycling team, appears to be playing a game of whack-a-mole.  “Our hands are tied [on fines],” said one officer. “Anything greater than £50 requires going to court.”

While they stop cyclists who run red lights with spot patrols at junctions such as the one where Stonkute was almost killed, City police hope further measures will help to change people’s behaviour. “We’re extremely grateful and praise Gabby’s bravery for working with us on a cycling red-light campaign, which will undoubtedly save lives and prevent serious injuries,” said City police constable Brett Daniels. Citing the drop in the number of motor vehicle accidents after seat belts became mandatory, Patel said: “Prevention measures are possible, though how it’s done is beyond our control. What we can do as surgeons is highlight the issue, and hopefully somebody will take notice and do something about it.”  While keen to put the accident behind her, Stonkute hopes that her story will not be wasted. “I was in a rush for a hair appointment,” she said. “I’m not brave. I was just reckless.” Additional reporting by Martin Stabe

 

 

 

[malumbu]

What do you actually want?  We all want cyclists to be responsible.  But you must be spending days per year on this pet subject.  There maybe half a dozen who either agree with you that cyclists are public enemy Number 1 or are prepared to spend time arguing otherwise.  When is a time to move on?

[Rockets]

@malumbu probably for cyclists to stop injuring themselves on bikes by jumping red lights - do you not want that?

[first mate]

2 hours ago, malumbu said:

There maybe half a dozen who either agree with you that cyclists are public enemy Number 1 or are prepared to spend time arguing otherwise.  When is a time to move on?

I cannot recall anyone making that statement. It's a ridiculous thing to suggest, especially since a number who disagree with you on some things are cyclists themselves.

 

[Rockets]

@first mate I do wonder whether the warning of trolling the lady in the video was told sbout when she decided to go public may actually be from cycle lobbyists accusing her of betraying the oath of cyclists - that they're own recklessness can never be acknowledged.

If people like @malumbu, who I believe has claimed to have taught cycling, cannot acknowledge the need for greater education within the cycle community and wants people to "move on" what hope is there?

[malumbu]

5 hours ago, Rockets said:

@malumbu probably for cyclists to stop injuring themselves on bikes by jumping red lights - do you not want that?

I said that cyclists should behave responsibly.  What on earth are you hoping to achieve with your 100s of posts across many threads, mainly started by you, with huge amounts of repetition?  I've long lost the will to engage unless there is something that needs particular challenging.  But others do that better than me.