Cycling

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Wednesday 10th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather (CB)]

My Lords, I thought that I would be the only one to say that it is also the responsibility of cyclists to look after themselves. They should also take care of other road users, who should take care of them, too.

I am very lucky to have a driver. Often when driving in London, having come from Maidenhead, where I live, we have one or two shocks from cyclists doing things that are totally unacceptable. I know that everybody says it is the few, but while this may be so, it is the few motorists, the few cyclists and the few pedestrians who cause problems for everybody else. It is very common to see cyclists who do not give hand signals. That is not unusual at all. I have had cyclists overtake my car when we are trying to turn right, we have signalled and there is nothing coming from the other side, so it is to be expected that we would want to turn right. Okay, we are careful. We do not knock them down. But it is important that they follow the same rules. They often do not stop for red lights. They need to follow the same rules as we do.

I wrote to the mayor about it and he talked about some kind of training programme. I do not know whether it would be voluntary or compulsory. I think that it should be compulsory for all cyclists in a big city such as London, because everybody needs to know what they should and should not be doing, and what makes things dangerous for them and for other road users.