Another fine mess …
The debate about cyclists and red traffic lights will continue for as long as there are roads, cyclists and traffic lights. I pass on to you, without personal comment, the experience of a colleague who visited Hove in East Sussex this sunny weekend, taking with him his new folding bike.
Cycling along the beachfront, he reached a pelicon crossing where a woman with a pushchair was crossing against the light. Colleague duly stopped to allow the woman to cross, and as she reached the other side, the little green man appeared, so that he was faced with a red light. There were no other pedestrians in sight, so he set off, to hear a voice in his right ear: “Please pull over, sir.”
Right behind him was a motorcycle policeman, who proceeded to lecture him, saying that, had he been driving a car, he would have been fined £80 and got three points on his licence. “The way we deal with this here,” he went on, “is a £30 fine for cyclists who go through a red light.”
Colleague duly owned up, coughed up, and pedalled off, thirty quid poorer. So much for common sense.
And actually, I think I will add a personal comment: seems to be the perfect case to have rearview mirrors on bicycles, don’t you think?