Dodgy endz in London

Pretty much any non-main street space with predictable cycle flows after dark carries a slightly increased risk of muggings. We've had it in lots of green spaces (Hackney Marshes, London Fields, the aforementioned Victoria Park and Greenway, on towpaths, Coppermill Lane when that was lit a few years back, etc.), but also quiet on-street routes like Northchurch Road in De Beauvoir or Kingsbury Road, which are on long-established London Cycle Network-type alignments.

As I always mention when one of these threads gets started, there was a spate of muggings about ten or so years ago, if memory serves, in which scooter riders would ride up to a cyclist and rip off any unsecured and easily removable Ortlieb panniers, which often had laptops in them. That was eventually stopped and has only occasionally happened again.

One person apparently had their bike taken from them on the Dunwich Dynamo while riding through Waltham Forest years ago.

Also, what jaw said.

Haggerstone today from twitter. Kids on bikes and the rare "double machete" manoeuvre.
Snake Park knife attack 03/09/14: http://youtu.be/tgW88g37zFs

From this thread I gather that basically all the dodgiest ends are in East London...

Which isn't true.

All of the dodgiest ends are in central London, and second to that Camden:
http://maps.met.police.uk/

You'd be much better off looking at the crime map for some real facts than reading anecdotes on here, frankly.

You'd be much better off looking at the crime map for some real facts than reading anecdotes on here, frankly.

Well those police maps are useless too, they're just the number of crimes per person that lives there. Camden and Westminster will have the highest number of people working/going out etc that don't actually live there, which makes the figures look high. That doesn't mean your chance of a crime happening to you is higher. Imagine that both the number of people on the streets and the number of crimes on the streets of Camden stays exactly the same, but more people become resident there because offices are turned into flats. The crime rate as measured by those maps would go down.

If you want to know where are the worst places for being attacked as a cyclist in London, asking a forum full of London cyclists is actually a pretty good idea. The whole ancedote vs. data thing only works if the data shows what you want it to show.

Of course the most likely reason for everybody on this thread bringing up places in East London is that you're all fixie skidders that live there.

Lies, damned lies and statistics or somfink innit.

Well those police maps are useless too, they're just the number of crimes per person that lives there.

Surely that shows the relative likelihood of a crime occuring and is therefore helpful?

Imagine that both the number of people on the streets and the number of crimes on the streets of Camden stays exactly the same, but more people become resident there because offices are turned into flats. The crime rate as measured by those maps would go down.

Because crime would have gone down if more people live in an area but the number of crimes remains the same, surely?

Or in your hypothetical model do these people never leave their flats?!

Fundamentally I agree on the limitations of crime figures but they are all we have. There is some use to a thread like this to identify local hotspots within super output areas (the smallest areas covered by the crime map) but I know that at least some of the examples here are largely out-of-date.

Most of the bike muggings in De Beauvoir were carried out by two offenders who have since been apprehended, for example:
http://www.hackneygazette.co.uk/news/crime-court/two_robbers_jailed_for_mugging_cyclist_in_de_beauvoir_1_777294?usurv=skip

Of course the most likely reason for everybody on this thread bringing up places in East London is that you're all fixie skidders that live there.

True dat.

I used to live in Putney and recently moved out to the sticks in Sutton. I used the police.uk website to compare crime rates, as I wasn't very familiar with areas we were looking at. One thing that really struck me is that Putney had a significantly higher crime rate than any of the areas we looked at. However, once you filter out shoplifting and bar fights on the high street there is not much else left.

tl;dr - Not all crime leads to a "dodgy area" vibe.

All this hate for the "Da Beava". I lived in it for 8 years, never had an issue (but I did know most of the kids by name).

Because crime would have gone down if more people live in an area but the number of crimes remains the same, surely?

Or in your hypothetical model do these people never leave their flats?!

I meant that there are the same number of crimes and the same number of people 'about' - but they are now residents of Camden instead of office workers who commuted from elsewhere. So the crime rate would have gone down, but the amount of crime per person-who-is-actually-'about'-as-opposed-to-who-is-offically-a-resident wouldn't have, and the latter is what actually matters.

Next up - is it actual crime that really matters for creating a dodgy area vibe, or just fear of crime?

The Southbank can be quite dodgy at night. I know quite a few people who have been mugged along it including my workmate who got his phone taken and a beating but luckily the muggers didn't find the copious amounts of cash he won at a casino stuffed in his inside pocket.

When I lived in south Camberwell i'd occasionally get people shout 'thats my bike' at me. I'd just carry on riding but always found it odd, especially when someone said it while they were already on a bike. Other than that it was an alright area

#yewtree