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Blackfriars Road / Union Street this week too.

Just 'talking to's for drivers in the ASL box here as well. Do they take the plates of those they 'talk to' so that they could fine them for a 2nd offence? At least they've stopped telling me to wear a helmet though.

That's really good work on the 'stay back' stickers front with TfL. Congratulations to all involved.

I was halted by a large luminescent man with lots of leather and badges on his person this morning....he also had a hat, very official.

I was cycling up Cannon Street to the junction with Commercial road (which is closed northbound due to road works). None the less, I got to the point where the road goes in to a single southbound lane and pedalled along the empty pavement. The large chap stopped me and we started to have a discussion about cycling and road safety in general. He started by quoting a law which dates back to 1837! So I explained my point of view, which is I don't think laws from 2 centuries ago are necessarily still current in their entirety and they possibly need adjusting to suit a new millennium.

Anyway he was telling me how potentially dangerous what I did was, and I pointed out some particularly illegal manoeuvres behind him made by a car. I said why don't you go and ticket them......he said he can not as is not a police man but a PCSO, or some such. Then he tells me his powers allow him to ticket cyclist and not motor vehicles. So they are out, specificity targeting cyclist and they can do nothing to motor vehicle drivers!!!! This I was not aware of.

He was not able to answer my statement as to do you think it's right that you are out here targeting the cyclists and not the more dangerous metal boxes on wheels, no answer. We continued our very friendly debate and it veered in to electoral politics and the faults of the democratic system, in the end we bid each other good day and I pedalled off.

Nice guy all in all, but I think he reinforced my lack of respect for the road law and the way cyclists are targeted by the 'pro cycling' London authorities.

Don't cycle on the pavement then. If the road is blocked, get off and push, or wait until it's unblocked. So what if a law from 1837 is still relevant - are you implying that just because there are roadworks blocking your impatient way, that pedestrians should no longer have sole use of footways?

It's a shame if PCSOs can't enforce road traffic law with motorists and I agree that much more enforcement focusing on shit driving needs to take place, but sadly it doesn't change the fact that you broke the law and you've been caught. At least you weren't fined.

Does that sound overly harsh of me? Hope not.

If he can spell "buses" correctly when the t-shirts are printed then put me down for one.

or assaulting pedestrians

Don't pedestrians have right of way, whatever happens, anyway?

In cities we all should ride with caution because a pedestrian could step into our path at any moment. They have every right to wander into the carriageway - however foolhardy it may be on their part... but in the same way that we argue HGVs have a higher duty of care to look out for cyclists sneaking up their inside (however foolhardy that may be on the part of the cyclist), we as cyclists have a duty of care towards the more vulnerable (foolhardy) pedestrian.

Did I say foolhardy enough?

...without people like yourself...

I talked about a lack of 100% shared space in Hackney, as opposed to using elements of the design philosophy in street redesign, which I freely admit are in many locations in the borough.

"shared space" examples off the top of my head:

New Road in Brighton
Ashford (Kent) town centre
Exhibition Road in Kensington
Seven Dials in Covent Garden
High Street, Shrewsbury (this dates from the mid 90s and predates the recent shared space fad. It was an early attempt at removing 'street clutter' and traffic calming through reinstating cobbles and adding 'courtesy crossings' for pedestrians. As it happened, most of the cobbles had to be removed because they didn't set them properly...)

Living in Hackney, I can't think of any 100% shared space areas...? Maybe Broadway Market is meant to be a form of shared space these days?

Anyway shared space is very much a design philosophy rather than strict set of rules. It will be interpreted differently in different places, according to the local traffic levels and 'solution' sought.

I think that grandfather rights means that pedestrians crossing any street should have priority (apart from motorways where they are banned), in as much as wheeled traffic should do its utmost to avoid hitting them. Over time though, as speeds and the amount of traffic has increased, the convention is for peds to be expected to use official crossing points and cross anywhere else at their own risk. Rule 170 of the Highway Code does give peds explicit priority at side streets though, but as you say it doesn't apply here because of the give way signs on the cycle 'path'.

However those very give way signs I think do imply that peds already crossing would have priority over bikes, as they are just as entitled to use the full width of the carriageway as any other road user. So if they are on the 'main' road here and already crossing, bikes should give way. I may be wrong.

This is poorly worded because I am tired and wandery, but an interesting conundrum to to get one's head around on a Monday morning!

I suspect the teenagers downstairs from me are fences for stolen bikes, or even nicking them themselves. Every few days their 'bikes' change. I find it hard to believe as they seem really nice polite lads.

I'm starting to take pictures of every new bike I see, should I be involving the police at this stage or should I do further stake out? I'm nervous about bringing in the law in case they find out it was me that dobbed them in. As much as I fucking hate bike thieves, I also value my own property and am wary of possible retaliation.

Advice welcomed ...

You know what? So shoot, me down, but I don't think removing through traffic from London and shoving it underground is such a bad idea. The trouble with London (and the UK in general) is that we never get anything done properly. The aborted ringways project from the 70s (abandoned for the right reasons because it would have been done on the cheap and involved elevated motorways and massive destruction) has unfortunately left us with stubs of dual carriageways that attract cars like flies to dog turds, creating massive gridlock around the entrances to them. It would be better if they had never been built at all, but we're stuck with them now. Just think about what the roads round Hackney are like near the Hackney Wick interchange, or the Hell that is Earl's Court, Shepherds Bush & surrounds as scores of cars try to cram from all directions onto the stubs of the A12, A4 and A40 respectively. It's a nightmare both for air pollution, cyclists, pedestrians, and general sanity.

If those dual carriageways had never been built, then traffic would be leaving London in a much more spread out manner rather than clustering around honeypots, but dammit they were built, so we've got to deal with them as best we can.

So I say let's just finish the job, connect them all up, and free up the surface streets for cyclists, pedestrians, and local traffic.

Yes I KNOW the M25 filled up in 10 seconds, "building more roads generates more traffic", we need to invest in walking and cycling and public transport, and all that blah blah. But at the risk of sounding like a middle manager, this silo mentality from cycle campaigners that 'new roads always = bad for cyclists' is not always (though granted often) correct. If these tunnels were accompanied by a redistribution of roadspace in the rest of London towards cyclists - which at the moment is often dismissed because of lack of 'space' - then that would be a Good Thing, no?

I work in campaigning and MPs / peers absolutely HATE getting standard letters / postcard from campaigns like this. And not hate in a good way... they all end up in one pile called 'standard letters' which is counted as pretty much one letter - even if they get hundreds. It takes f-all time to send contact such as this to the MP, so why should the MP spend any more of their time addressing it?

It is much more effective to write personal letter, or arrange a one-one in their surgery with your own experiences and case study. If you get in touch in a human way, you'll receive a human reply and will be a much more effective campaigner for change.

^^ looks like a football stadium stewards' convention. That's hardly 'normalising' cycling is it.

(notwithstanding the good intentions of the campaign)

happacool, I would suggest emailing the PC from the task force with more details. Did you report your saddles stolen?

allan.robinson@met.pnn.police.uk

My replacement saddle is secured with superglued ball-bearings in the allen key holes of the seat post, while the allen key hole for the saddle itself is filled with solder. it also has a chain attaching the rails to the seat stays. Bet it'll still get nicked!

I've just been contacted by the Met's cycle taskforce, who have apprehended someone selling stolen Brooks saddles. They have 20 Brooks saddles they are trying to reunite with their former owners. They didn't have mine... I was the only one to have reported an Imperial stolen in the past two years. They had one Imperial, but it was standard width rather than the narrow that mine was, unfortunately.

Whenever I see that weird-looking A12 Hackney Wick interchange from above, I'm reminded of what could have been, had they finished all the motorways they'd wanted to in the 1970s. It's pretty bad for cyclists now, but imagine if that had happened...

No, that was Bruce Wayne!

(wasn't sure where to post this...)

An Aussie lass pulled up alongside me at the lights on Mare St earlier, and as someone RLJ'd she said to me "it's always those who don't wear helmets who jump red lights, isn't it?"

I was right next to her, waiting patiently at a red light, sans-helmet.

I'm not sure if she then expected me to then ride off into RLJ-horror-oblivion because I wasn't wearing a helmet. Was it a dare or was she just equating helmet-wearing with red light observation?

Either way, a bit strange.

I love that forklift video.

A nice collection of, accidentally discarded I'm sure, drawing pins / tacks in the cycle lane at the junction of Old Street and Great Eastern Street this morning. Thankfully I was pulling up at the lights, so I was going slowly and could spot them - and it looked like they had been there a while because most were bent and no longer pointing upwards.

Thanks for clearing that up - I may start mentioning it to them.

I'll aim for this approach... Nuts in May | Smoking Damages Your Health - YouTube

i.e. red on the front and clear/white on the rear. Or red on both front and rear. I see a few folk riding around like this.

Anyone know why? Are they simply thick, is there supposed to be some kind of safety advantage, or is it all part of a secret club I just don't know about?

I don't like to ask them, because I tend to keep myself to myself as I pootle about (unless someone's blatantly about to kill themselves or someone else), but am rather curious.

Hello, signed up because my saddle was nicked (I know, hardly unusual) and I was trying to spread the net. Seems like a nice place though, happy to be here.

I am restoring a 1937 Merlin at the moment (the first 'proper' bike my grandma bought), which will be far too small for me to ride, so it may be up for sale at some stage

One of a trio of early-teenage ne'er-do-wells hurled an egg in my direction (missing by inches) on Churchwell Path in Hackney last night on my ride home.

I actually thought it was quite an old-school scallywag thing to do - almost endearing. If their aim had been better I may have thought otherwise though.

I took my bike on the DLR this Saturday, not knowing it was something that until recently I couldn't do.

The 'turntable' bit between carriages is the perfect size for bike + rider to stand and not get in anyone's way.

So, thank you for this campaign win!