There were many reasons behind cycling’s miraculous resurrection – the introduction of the Congestion Charge in London, a succession of scares about rising fuel costs, terrorism. On the day of the July bombings in 2005, the Evans Cycle franchise announced that they’d sold over four times as many bikes as usual. Some were sold because, with half the city’s transport links in ribbons, there was no other way of getting home, and some because what had happened that day had frightened many people so badly they were never going to go back underground. But beyond the bombings or the Congestion Charge there was something else – a more profound swell of enthusiasm for bicycles and their benefits. Government policy had nothing to do with it; for the past ten years, local and national initiatives on cycling have trailed well behind the deeper trends.
Unfortunately, as politicians are now beginning to realise, by marginalising cycling for decades they have managed to turn a bunch of mild and herbivorous middle-class individuals into a bunch of fit, trained and highly assertive lawbreakers. Since cyclists were faced with a landscape which either took no interest in them or appeared keen on actively eliminating them, they had to work out how to stay safe. The solution for many was to develop a style of cycling based on a combination of mountain biking, road racing and BMX skills with a dash of gymnastics thrown in for good measure. Proper observation of the rules of the road had absolutely nothing to do with it; the law ignored them, so they would ignore the law. Or, rather, every time they got on a bike, they made the law anew on a case-by-case basis. It wasn’t like being a driver where you had to pass a test and where the way you behaved was strictly regulated by the nature of roads and other road users. If you were a cyclist, you could make a decision every time you got into the saddle about whether to cycle furiously or easily, about whether this trip was going to be about taking on the fixie at the roundabout or restricting your sense of competition to giving three taxis the finger. Some might stop at one red light because it’s a crossroads, but they almost certainly won’t stop at the next and definitely not when they’re racing someone else. They would never ride on the pavement except when it would be ridiculous not to. Some days, they’ll ride straight over pedestrian crossings, other days they won’t. Plainly, explaining to the courts that today you broke the law because you felt like it but yesterday you didn’t break it because you couldn’t be bothered is not a realistic defence. But it does make you feel a lot more alive.
There is, of course, a more sinister flip side to all this. Alison Parker is a partner at Hodge Jones Allen, a London law firm specialising in personal injury. She exudes reassurance and competence, and has the kind of unforced gravitas that comes from doing and knowing your chosen subject very well for a long time. A sizeable proportion of her clients are cyclists. ‘You cycle yourself, presumably?’ Yes, I say. ‘Well, I absolutely don’t, and I wouldn’t cycle in London – I consider it to be completely suicidal. I wouldn’t do it, I just wouldn’t do it. Probably because I see too many incidents. The problem is that when a cyclist comes into contact with a very large vehicle, they are absolutely bound to come off worse.’
We meet at a restaurant near her firm, and on one of the paper table mats Parker sketches out the four classic accidents to befall urban cyclists. First is the cyclist coming down on the inside of heavy traffic. The lane of waiting traffic parts to allow a car to turn right, the car goes straight into the cyclist. Second is on a roundabout: the cyclist sticks to the outside while the car takes the inner route but then pulls across the path of the cyclist when they reach their exit. (‘Go round on the inside and indicate outwards. Or get off and walk round the roundabout – that’s my advice.’) Third is people opening car doors directly into the path of a cyclist – either the passenger door in stationary traffic, or the driver’s door in a line of parked cars. Fourth, and most notorious, is the HGV making a left-hand turn. There’s a cyclist on the inside by the curb, the HGV swings out to the right, the cyclist rides into the gap and is then crushed by the HGV as it turns to the left. Of the thirteen cyclist fatalities in London during 2009, nine were killed in this way by HGVs. Sight lines on HGVs are notoriously poor – a cyclist or a pedestrian has to be several yards in front of the cab before they become visible – and the drivers are simply unaware that there’s a cyclist anywhere close. ‘The advice is NEVER to go into that gap. It’s safer just to hang back.’ Eight of the nine HGV fatalities during 2008 were women. As cyclists, women are more cautious and law-abiding than men, and more prone to tuck themselves into corners at junctions where drivers can’t see them.
The combination of physical risk and environmental smugness is a potent one, and when they first take up cycling many commuters go through a phase of almost radioactive self-righteousness. After all, if you feel you own the moral high ground and you’re doing something a little bit scary at the same time, then you might well reach the mystical god-like state called Always Being in the Right. Big mistake. After a couple of years, the best urban cyclists mellow, realise they didn’t personally invent cycling and get on with reaching their destination. The bad ones just keep arguing until someone breaks their jaw. ‘As a pedestrian in London,’ says Parker, laughing, ‘I really hate cyclists! They never bloody well stop at zebra crossings, and I’m more likely to be road-raged as a pedestrian than I ever am when I’m behind the wheel of a car. There are some very arrogant and cavalier cyclists in London who would happily mow you down. I think cyclists, particularly in cities, do have a mindset that everyone’s against them.’ After all that, it almost comes as a relief to hear Parker has an even riskier group of clients than cyclists. ‘I’ve always thought that motorcycling is a bit like smoking – if someone had realised when they were invented how incredibly dangerous they are, they would never have been allowed, a bit like cigarettes. It’s too late now. You’re on two wheels, you’ve got no stability, no protection at all round your body, and you’re sitting on 1,000cc of engine, and doing 80mph – I mean, how dangerous is that? I just find it mind-boggling every time I think about it. Stay on four wheels, or on two wheels where you’re travelling at a speed where you’re much more in control of what happens if you come off.’
Muratori’s Café is at the junction of Farringdon Road and Margery Street opposite the Royal Mail’s Mount Pleasant sorting office. It’s an old-style kind of café – a London greasy spoon with warmth and Formica but without the reek of grease. There’s wood panelling on the walls and tabloids on the benches, and once in a while someone emerges from the kitchen with a comment or a joke to refill each cup with tea. Outside the huge corner windows, the view is of rain and wet cyclists. Muratori’s has been a cabbie’s refuge for years, and this particular afternoon – slimy, cold, early Feb – the place is half full.
The following lively exchange of views is interesting not because it’s unexpected, but because, for an hour or so, it’s salutary to imagine what it must feel like to be a cabbie driving in circles round London’s endless frustrations. Cabbies have always felt an enormous sense of ownership about any city they work in. They’re part of the place; London would not be the city it is without them. And since they feel they belong to these streets, then one of two things happens. Either they’re completely secure in that knowledge and very laid-back about everything, or they’re monumentally pissed off at all the things on the road that they feel don’t have as much right to be there as they do.
BB: So have you ever cut up a cyclist?
Les (taxi no. 30839): No!
Unanimous shouting from everyone round the table: No! No, no, no!
Les: Seriously! Because the last thing I want is a cyclist bashing my cab.
Keith (taxi no. 30729): Because we know we’re on a loser. Even if you do nothing wrong, you’re on a loser.
BB: That isn’t most people’s experience. Most people have been cut up by a cab at some point.
Mickey (taxi no. 54316): Yeah,