The only wonder, really, about the awful death of a pedestrian, knocked down in February ago by an e-cyclist, and who died last month, is that there aren’t more tragedies of a similar kind.
In this case, the poor man who was killed actually seems to have walked in front of the cyclist after crossing the road in front of a bus – and it’s difficult to see round a bus. That’s part of the daily hazard of being a road user on foot in London. But the real problem is on the crossings where pedestrians are meant to cross the road, and which cyclists all too often don’t respect.
Have you stood at a pedestrian crossing lately…pretty well anywhere in London, but especially at a busy junction? In that case you don’t need me to tell you that there are cyclists out there – a small number from thousands but sufficient to be scary – who will breeze through the lights.
There may be a little green man lit up on the crossing, telling pedestrians it’s safe to cross, but they’d be mad not to check, because it’s very possible someone in lycra is about to cross right across their path at speed, and if they’re really unlucky, right into them. It happened to me at Ludgate Circus a few months ago, and ever since then, I’ve been alert to the phenomenon. I promise: I see it every single day.
The penalties for reckless cycling have recently been increased – to the enormous annoyance of the cycling lobby – thanks to an amendment brought by Iain Duncan Smith to another bill in parliament, but it’s one thing to raise the penalty for an offence, quite another to catch the cyclists who regard traffic lights as something for motorists.
In London's Royal Parks between January 2024 and April 2025, 9 pedestrians were struck by cyclists, and there were 18 near misses involving cyclists in the same period. In 2023, there were 3 pedestrian fatalities and 626 serious injuries from cycling incidents in London. That, I submit, is probably an underestimate. Consider more “minor” injuries, too. I for one didn’t report being knocked down, so that’s one off the statistics, on the basis that absolutely nothing would be done about it; I bet there are any number of other people who limp to A&E and leave the matter there.
It’s about deterrence rather than punishment
The question is, what can be done? Obviously, the problem is greater with e-bikes or bikes that have been adapted to take a battery; they’re heavier and faster and the chances of a fatality are greater. Yet you can ride these things without having to take a test of any kind, not even a cycling proficiency course. But even an ordinary cyclist could kill a pedestrian, especially someone frail. What I’d like to see are police monitoring pedestrian crossings and apprehending the maniacs.
How, you might well ask, are the police expected to stop speeding cyclists? And are they now expected to have someone at every crossing? No, no, no. What might work is an extension of the City of London police initiative, which has more police actually on bicycles. Get a cyclist – preferably two – to catch a cyclist. Otherwise, a well positioned police car can overtake and flag down the miscreant. This couldn’t be done everywhere, all at once. What would work is a targeted blitz, which could happen on random dates at random locations in central London, to send out the signal: it could happen to you, mate. A bit like speeding offences for motorists.
So first catch your miscreant. Then either take his bike off him or fine him (women are less likely to break the rules), say, £200. And if it’s a hire bike, then dock the card used on the booking for that sum. No need to clog the courts, unless it’s a really serious offence, like the accident mentioned above, and the great thing is that the word gets round that there may be consequences for running through red lights. It’s about deterrence rather than punishment.
And ideally this would be accompanied by one of the Mayor’s catchy advertising campaigns. Indeed, the sums spent on completely redundant initiatives like sexist staring – which had an entire poster campaign on the Tube – could be better spent addressing the life-endangering phenomenon of homicidal cyclists.
Before someone points it out, let me say now that cyclists are themselves horribly vulnerable to motorists, but that doesn’t excuse running over those at the bottom of the road food chain, the unfortunate pedestrian.
Melanie McDonagh is a London Standard columnist
