twobikes

An English Baronness in London saw a cyclist running a red light near where she was standing and delivered a blow to him with her handbag as he passed. She said she wished she had hit him harder. She is not anti-cyclist, just against those who ignore the law. Read the story here.

San Rensho 

As a Baroness, she got her title through an accident of sperm. Does the same accident of sperm also give her police power?

She should be prosecuted for assualt.

atbman

Let me see, the lady (age 83) was on a signal controlled crossing with the green light in her favour. Numpty cyclist ignores his red light and sails straight across in front of her. He assaulted her, actually, since his behaviour caused her fear for her own safety, which is, in the UK at least, the definition of assault.

Unless, of course, you consider lawbreaking by cyclists to be acceptable, simply by reason of being on a bike.

He was an idiot and a selfish one at that.

Yesterday, I was interviewed on the same local radio programme as Lady Sharples and was forced to defend cyclists from the kinds of ignoramuses who commented on the Daily Mail story,including someone from the Association of British Drivers, a group who are incensed by speed cameras and believe that drivers are unfairly targeted by the law.

Since cyclists who ignore red lights and ride on the pavement (sidewalk to you) are far more visible than the idiot drivers who routinely ignore the speed limit and amber gamble, we suffer disproportionately from public disapproval. Even when I quoted the 530 pedestrians killed on crossing 1998-2005 thro' collisions with motor vehicles, as against the 3 killed in collisions with cyclists, I was fighting against the general run of phone calls and texts.

No matter how unfair this weight of criticism against us is, we need to break this too frequent habit of ignoring the law (when it suits us) or we lose the political battle. Public perception is all when you are campaigning for better treatment of riders and every pillock who does what this rider did makes it difficult for campaigners to win their case, no matter how justified it is.

I hope that you will maintain the same irate views against a lady in her position if your grandmother's safety is threatened by similar lawbreaking arrogance

oscaregg

Another reason that we Americans are lucky--we don't have a class of inbred overprivileged human breeding stock to defer to!

rwp

If members of the aristocracy continue to deliver handbag blows to red light runners I might have to reconsider my anti-royalist stand.

Three cheers for the Baroness!

TRaffic Jammer

Good on her. If your gonna jump a light. (Something I commonly do) At least make sure you're clear of peds on the far side or in the crosswalk. I will totally give room to crossing peds. It's their ROW afterall.

ghettocruiser

Are they really more *visible*? Or were your callers (motorists?) looking to raise an issue that would only require someone else to change their behavior?


Buzzing the pedestrian (if the description here was accurate) was way out of line, he deserved the purse to the head.

CommuterRun

Good for her. Her title is immaterial in this case. Anyone could/should have done this if they felt their safety was jeopardized.

andrelam

Totally agreed. On some of small side streets I ride on to get to work I will roll through a stop sign is there is no one around, but if there is any sort of traffic in the area I will definitely stop completely. As far as traffic lights go, I will NEVER run them unless the light turning sesor is clearly broken and the light refuses to switch. I wanted the BBC program dealing with various aspects of traffic in the UK that was posted on this forum yesterday @ https://video.google.com/videoplay?do...91070755237169 . When you see how the cyclists just run the red and force their way through pedestrians it makes me sick. That is a great way to lose all respect from pedestrians and motorists alike. I grew up in Holland and j-walking is almost a way of life, but at least people move on-mass against the traffic on foot or on bikes then the roads are empty... not to try to bowl over a pedestrian.

Happy riding,
André

TRaffic Jammer

...and at 83 too... man, a fall, busted hip or worse & cyclist is a screwed pooch. Save the ped runs for the Alleycats, at least you're racing then. Although I am not particularity interested in motorist respect, they make it quite clear I am beneath their dignity to even bother looking out for us so the roadways in the city are an open game still.

Crosswalks intersections and Kids!!! Jwalkers for the fun of it.
thanks for the link, i'll watch that later this evening.

San Rensho 

It was not an act of defense, she says herself that she was swinging for him and wanted to hit him even harder. Clearly she was in no real danger if she had the time to contemplate smacking him. If he had knocked her over and she smacked him, fine. But thats not what happened here.

So how about running after someone and pushing them off their bikes when they run a red? According to your argument, this would be perfectly acceptable. Her actions were vigilante justice, done by a woman that because of her accident of birth, thinks she is better than everyone else and can do anything to the common people..

iltb-2

Well of course he buzzed her; the free swinging Baroness said so! No possibility that someone of royal blood (or anyone else) who took vigilante action against a cyclist might have been wrong, eh?

CommuterRun

From the way things sound over there (various sources), this likely isn't the first time a cyclist playing "Buzz the Ped" has happened to her, giving plenty of time to contemplate retaliation. I don't blame her, I blame the cyclists. I'd get fed up with it, too.

Can't put him on a pedestal just because he rides a bike.

musicsucks

Be careful with that one... You've been run by two families since 1989 and that might not end any time soon.

rwp

If she managed to hit him with her handbag, then of course he buzzed her. What do you think happened? She chased him down to hit him?

rwp

An old lady swatted him with a handbag for christ's sake! You make it sound like she pulled out her .44 magnum and blasted him.

And she did it because he deserved it, not because she thought she was "better than everyone else".

syn0n

+1

I'd give the old lady some slack here - lots of cyclists on this forum talk about injuring drivers who do the same thing that this cyclist did to the baroness. At 83, being hit by a cyclist could easily be fatal, just like being hit by a car could be. What she did, in this particular case, is fine in my book. If you don't break the law, you won't have this sort of problem. it's that simple.

PaulH

God bless her. Wish we had people like her here.

Paul

TRaffic Jammer

He should consider himself lucky not to be in serious trouble for messing with the ....capital 'A' Aristocracy.
I believe being well versed in sport shot guns for skeet shooting is a rule for that class of humans....

CommuterRun

Exactly. The fact that she's a Baroness is not relevant to the story. The headline was, "Tory baroness, 84, uses handbag to whack cyclist who jumped a red light." It could have read "White woman, 84, uses handbag to whack cyclist who jumped a red light," or "Old woman, 84, uses handbag to whack cyclist who jumped a red light." None of those characterizations are relevant to the story. "Pedestrian Strikes Cyclist," would have been just as accurate, but would the story draw the readers without the sensationalism?

atbman

Yes, they are more visible, otherwise there would be an even greater number of complaints about drivers, since they're in the vast majority.

Do you think that there wouldn't be the same blizzard of criticisms if cars pushed themselves through/past groups of pedestrians on crossings or drove along pavements (sidewalks) on a frequent basis?

Do cars jump red lights in large numbers? Yes, but they're more likely to do it while amber gambling and misjudging the timing (been there, done that, got the t-shirt - on rare occasions), so it's not as noticeable as a rider crossing when the lights have been on red for a while and squeezing thro' a gap in the crossing traffic. Do such riders do it recklessly? No, but they're still breaking the law and doing it in full view of drivers and pedestrians alike.

On every occasion I've been called into the local radio station (not because I'm a famous cyclist, but once you're on their "rentaquote" list, you're there for life and I'm retired, so easy to get hold of), the complaints against cyclists are much the same - jump red lights, ignore crossings, ride on pavements, ride wrong way on one-way streets, etc., etc.

And they don't really complain about the danger (except for pavement riding), but about cyclists' perceived, and often real, contempt for the law when it suits them, while, at the same time, cyclists go endlessly on about drivers flouting the law. Hypocrisy is not a pretty sight, nor does it help the case of campaigners trying to make road design safer and driver behaviour better and more understanding of cyclists rights and needs.

Glad to agree with you on this.

Other comments on this post about her being an aristocrat, inbred, etc., are ridiculous. Her peerage was a modern, created one and was not, therefore, inherited or inheritable. Neither did she express the opinion that she was superior to the "common people". Her complaint was against an idiot who believed that he could ride straight across the path of a pedestrian who had right of way, by reason of the lights being green in her favour and her reaction was understandable. It is, furthermore, a common experience of pedestrians in London, so common, in fact, that programmes on the subject pull in scores and sometimes 100s of similar complaints

Or do I have it wrong about people on this forum - I seem to recall the occasional post about reacting to poor and illegal driver behaviour by spontaneous thumping of doors, windows, mirrors, sometimes with a U-lock. Oh, I'm sorry, that's ok because we're cyclists and are therefore morally superior to "cagers", aren't we.

Fools like him are so visibly breaking the law that they give ammunition to those who would prefer us not to be on the road, namely a considerable proportion of motorists. If, with only a few exceptions, riders were seen to be law abiding, we could concentrate our public arguments in the media on the people who are the real danger on our roads, instead of having to waste our airtime trying to counter the general opinion of cyclists as scofflaws.

I repeat what I said in my first post. The fact that, during 1998-2005 530 pedestrians were killed in collision with motor vehicles and only 3 with cyclists, went by the board in the blizzard of texts, emails and phone calls against cyclists.

And if such behaviour is justified, as it so often is on this forum, how come that US cyclists seem more likely to be at fault in MV/bike collisions in higher percentages than in most other places that I've been able to find figures on over the years? In the UK, which has some similarities in public perception on cyclists to the US, the Dept of Transport shows that drivers are responsible for something like 65% of all collisions, a rather higher figure than the US. One survey, carried out by the Automobile Association even put the number at 70%

I doubt very much if many of the RLJers on this and other forums (inc UK) have ever tried to campaign in any useful way in tedious meetings with councillors, council officers and other organisations. They simply go on their merry law-breaking way, making life difficult for those of us who do.

TRaffic Jammer

"Or do I have it wrong about people on this forum - I seem to recall the occasional post about reacting to poor and illegal driver behaviour by spontaneous thumping of doors, windows, mirrors, sometimes with a U-lock. Oh, I'm sorry, that's ok because we're cyclists and are therefore morally superior to "cagers", aren't we."

I will say that while both groups shatters traffic laws on a regular basis, any thumping I do is a communications tool designed to stop someone from drifting over and phasing me out of existence possibly, not damage the car. I have a lovely pair of CF knuckled DH gloves to tap body panels with, resonates nicely inside and no banging, just a tap. In riding the city streets I have become accustomed to being invisible to motorists, and ride accordingly. I will still go through the red if I can to gain the upper hand on the inevitable race behind me for lane position. BUT peds are always in consideration.

In recognizing cause and effect, and/or POTENTIAL damage and havok, car beats bike every single time. So yea we may be scofflaws but it really is a case of survival at it's core. When I'm ahead I have no fear of becoming dead. Riding beside traffic is when your gonna get killed.

We bikes are grouper fish in with the sharks.

ghettocruiser

Do you really think that motorists are going to lobby for stepped-up enforcement of motor vehicle laws?

You're right motorists have the same attitude that exists in the cycling community... "we all break the law a little bit, what's the harm really?".. except we have physics working in our favor, they just have majority rule.

I cannot speak for the U.K. but here, as TJ notes, pretty much all road user groups, be it cars, trucks, bikes, or pedestrians, have those that show general contempt for the law, in roughly equal measure. And they all should probably get tickets, but for people to push for enforcement based on so-called flagrancy, rather than safety, is utterly bizarre.

The only motorists that seem particularly upset with my riding are the ones who have to change lanes to pass me. Although some drivers get real upset if I do a complete stop at a stopsign when they are behind me.

And it's odd that everyone is so upset about riding on the sidewalk, given how often drivers scream at me to "get on the sidewalk".

Lt.Gustl

There was a cyclist who nearly ran over a friends foot, and laughed at me and my friend because he almost hit us while we were on the sidewalk waiting to cross (the city we were in allows bikes to use the sidewalk)_. he deserved a whooping but unfortunately (fortunately for him) my friend is a liberal against confronting jerks. My blood was boiling, not only for this jerk being a jerk, but because I'm a responsible cyclist and idiots like him make a bad name for everyone. I still want to wipe the smile off his face.

Dchiefransom

Hmmmm, maybe I should not tell people on another forum that what they want to do to trespassers is wrong, because, after all, the trespassers deserve it.