Bollocks. Utter horseshit.
Don't want to get hit by a lorry turning left? Get in front of it at the lights. You don't have to jump them as well.
Worried about being seen? By all means ride aggressively, not defensively. You can do that without breaking the law. I managed for about 7 years in London.
You run lights because it's quicker. Don't dress it up as some glorious defensive maneouvre. It's idiots like you that gave the rest of us a bad name, and contribute to driver's anti-cyclist attitudes, and therefore ultimately to increasing the risk to you and all other cyclists.

The problem with your argument is that you are using someone else's bad behaviour to justify your own. Which, at best, is shockingly flawed, because your bad behaviour in no way actually protects you or makes your cycling safer.

You only have any fucking right to be on the road if you obey ALL the rules. You can't pick and choose. Or you lose what right you had to be there in the first place, plus you lose any right to criticise car drivers bad behaviour because of the shear hypocrisy of the whole thing.
( the mighty badger Aphrodite, on a bar stool, by your side, Mon 26 Jul 2010, 18:26, 3 replies)

I concur.
I hate driving the wagon in London, exactly because of the undertaking bikes on left turns.

I try and block them for their own safety, but there's always one who thinks that he should be in front, and he does it by dragging the bike over the railing and gesturing angrily. Well, fuck you too, asshole.

There's a few transport managers who are sick of it too, and they fit fisheye cams to the nearside facing both ways, and a central mounted forward one for the swoop and squat merchants. You get yourself killed by one of those boys, and their lawyers WILL sue your estate for causing the driver PTSD.
(all my scars face forward possesses 2.5% of a hyperalloy combat chassis, Mon 26 Jul 2010, 19:25, closed)

Nice one
Suing the newly-orphaned kids. It's enough to give you a nice warm glow inside.
( evil_andy Stick stick stick stick sticky sticky stick stick, Mon 26 Jul 2010, 23:10, closed)

I concur
I am a law-abiding cyclist and I probably get more wound up by self-righteous cyclists jumping lights than the average car driver, just because of the name it gives people like me.

I understand why car drivers hate cyclists every time I go to London. The average cyclist there is angry and overly aggressive. It annoys and endangers pedestrians, and it winds up car drivers. Yes red lights are annoying, but they are there as much for your safety as a cyclist as that of pedestrians and car drivers.

I have to confess that out here in deepest darkest Dorset, I have been known to occasionally run a red light. This is only on those with motion sensors that have clearly failed to sense my presence. There is no choice there other than waiting for a few hours until something bigger shows up!! If there is not another living soul around and the light won't change, I will eventually ride through, but I will always stop first.
( more balanced than jeremy beadle It wasn't me..., Mon 26 Jul 2010, 22:44, closed)

Here here
Totally agree.

If people are regularly getting themselves into dangerous positions then they need to take a good hard look at what's wrong with their riding. Getting to the front of the queue isn't a human right; decent road sense and integrating yourself sensibly with the general flow of traffic avoids the vast majority of dangerous situations before they happen.

Too often, the 'safety' argument is just a figleaf covering either poor riding skills, or a desire to exempt oneself from the rules of the road.

Like you, I managed for years (16 miles a day, Tottenham to Victoria and back) without skipping the lights, and also without getting myself into dangerous positions.
(Fahrenheit, Tue 27 Jul 2010, 0:13, closed)

pushing in front
Yep when i see a bike riding tosser jumping onto the pavement to get to the front of a queue of traffic only for them then to hold up said queue while they wobble erratically away really boils my piss
(andythepieman Is surfing the waves of indifference on, Tue 27 Jul 2010, 17:19, closed)