My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate. I thank the people who supported me in the ballot, the people who are speaking today, and of course the people who are here to attend. I suspect not everybody will agree with me, but that is the nature of the debate. The reason for it is to encourage people to explore the facts and see what may improve in the future.
My reasons for becoming involved in these issues are three- or fourfold. The first was a near-death experience on Victoria Street, which I suspect many people may be replicating and telling us about today. The second, just intuitively, is the number of cyclists who appear to ignore the law, particularly but not only in our urban areas. That is not sufficient, it has to be factually based, but I hope to explore that. The third is the cases I have heard of where the whole system does not seem to respond well to the fact that someone has been seriously injured—sometimes lost their life—and then there is not a proper investigation and the criminal justice system does not cover itself in glory.
I was told about one case about 18 months ago that led to my involvement here today. A young barrister aged around 35, a fit kickboxer, crossing Fulham Road with the lights in his favour on a pelican crossing, through stationary traffic on a wet night, was hit by a cycle. It must have been at high speed because his injury was a spiral fracture of his leg. I am not a medical specialist, but a spiral fracture means there has been a very severe blow, and it gives you a higher risk that your bones will not knit and you may lose your leg. Fortunately he recovered, probably due to his youth and fitness, but his experience of the criminal justice system thereafter has been pretty appalling. That is partly because the law is not very supportive, and I hope to touch on that; partly because the police were not very good; partly because the Crown Prosecution Service was slow; and lastly because the court system did not deliver a fair outcome. That case is just one reason. Many others will have their own reasons to get involved in this debate.
My second general point is that my belief is, and research shows, that there is generally only one form of deterrence that works on criminal behaviour: the risk of getting caught. All other things do not really work. You can get very severe sentences—public disorder is the exception; as we have just seen in the recent riots, if you give significant sentences shortly after rioting starts, that can deter others from getting involved—but generally it is about the risk of getting caught. One of the main issues that I want to push on is that, generally, when cyclists disobey the law they have a high chance of not being caught or of no one intervening at all. I will try to explain why they are not unique in that; it is a human behaviour thing. We could say similar things about other groups but in fact their behaviour has been modified in ways that I hope to cover.
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to follow the noble Lord in his description of all the things that are wrong with cycling and cyclists. He made some good points. But one has to look at it from a view that the number of people killed in accidents, for example, by cyclists is very small compared with the some 2,000 people killed in road accidents. The noble Lord did not mention road accidents between vehicles—be they cars, lorries or whatever—and people. There are not many pedestrians that seem to suffer that.
Most of the issues that need to be looked at come under the category of either safety or enforcement. Many noble Lords have been speaking in this House for a long time about the lack of regulation and enforcement of electric scooters. I hope my noble friend will give us some answers about what has happened to that because, actually, you can have fun on a scooter. You should be on a road, in my view, and not on a pavement. You should also not be cycling on a pavement. There has to be much better education of cyclists and pedestrians, as well as car drivers, before we can get to a situation where everybody can live with other road users without getting completely fed up with people who disobey whatever the law is.
The noble Lord mentioned a load of statistics and I can quote a load more from a report by Sustrans, which is very useful. It gives the view that a lot of younger people are very keen to cycle and would be very keen probably to use scooters, if they were allowed to. It helps with your quality of life. One statistic really hit me:
“Every day, walking, wheeling”—
whatever that is—
“and cycling in … cities take up to 2,300,000 cars off the road”.
There is a health and accident issue there and I think it is something we need to look at in the round.
The proportion of residents who think cycling safely in their local area is good is actually not very high—somewhere between 31% and 44 %. It should be better, and the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, is quite right that proper police enforcement is one thing that really should come in. One final statistic is that cycling actually keeps the cities moving, as 290,000 return cycling trips are made per day:
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, for sponsoring this debate, and I hope noble Lords will forgive me for a moment of nostalgia. On 11 July 1975, the newly elected Member of Parliament for Acton initiated a debate in the other place on cycling. Nearly 50 years later, here he is again, though happily not, as then, at 4.30 pm on a Friday. That was a time when there were no cycle racks at all in Parliament, or at Paddington station. The few MPs who cycled to work were regarded as mildly eccentric, as was the most well-known pedalling Peer, Lord Hailsham. London then had 80,000 cyclists; it now has 600,000.
My speech included some novel arguments for promoting cycling, working out that cyclists converted energy into miles at the equivalent of 1,600 miles to the gallon, and set out a charter for cyclists, as well as a unit for cycling within government, cycle lanes, including a cycle lane in Hyde Park, a head start for cyclists at traffic lights, and cycle networks sponsored by local authorities. My speech was described as “interesting” by the Minister. This was before the programme “Yes Minister” revealed that “interesting” was mandarin for “crazy”. He proceeded to reject my suggestions, saying that it would be
“difficult to provide separate traffic lanes in the middle of … London”
and that adjusting traffic lights would be “costly”. On cycle networks promoted by local authorities, he said that
“with our present economic difficulties and with a cut-back in many local authority services imminent—this is hardly the time for Parliament to be urging local authorities to fresh expenditure”.
Well, plus ça change. The idea of a cycle lane in Hyde Park was “interesting”, and on a unit in his department there was again a thumbs down:
“We are being asked to cut down on the numbers of civil servants”.—[Official Report, Commons, 11/7/1975; cols. 1025-26.]
My Lords, it is a genuine pleasure to follow three committed cyclists. I do not bike now but I once did, so I well understand the passion with which cyclists embrace it, and the independence, the flexibility and the sense of well-being that it brings. But as cycling as an activity grows, and as our roads become ever more congested with vehicles of every size and type, it is time to step back and to consider how biking can be made safer for pedestrians and for bikers themselves.
The biggest problem arises in the centre of our cities, where large numbers of cyclists and pedestrians increasingly come together in crowded spaces and where substantial numbers of bikers routinely ignore both the law and the Highway Code. It is commonplace—we all know this to be true—on any urban arterial road, major junction or pedestrianised precinct to see bikers in their legions cycle in the wrong direction up one-way streets; bike on busy pavements; ride through red lights; and zoom across pedestrian green-light crossways and zebra crossings while pedestrians are still using them.
I have myriad examples, but just in the last few days I saw a bike rider weaving around pedestrians on a walkway, neither hand on his handlebars, sitting bolt upright, holding up and studying his mobile phone. Last week, anticipating this debate, I stood by a main arterial route around dusk and observed the enormous numbers of bikers in transit, all travelling at speed, some at a very high speed, almost all in dark clothes, almost none wearing fluorescent jackets, only a very few wearing helmets and a significant minority with no lights, front or rear. Thus they were a hazard to themselves as well as to wary pedestrians, for whom walking on city streets or crossing the road is becoming an increasingly unrelaxing and nerve-wracking experience.
E-bikes are an even greater hazard, many souped up and evidently—ask any London taxi driver about this—substantially exceeding their 15.5 miles per hour limit, and undoubtedly unregistered, untaxed and uninsured.
The City of London police take cycling breaches seriously, but MoJ data for the country more widely demonstrates that enforcement actions are vanishingly low—just three prosecutions for the whole of last year for ignoring traffic directions, for instance. Bikers themselves pay a very high price for using the road. It is very difficult to get figures; I have asked the Library for figures, and I think we will hear figures in this debate that are inconsistent. I do not know what the true figures are but, in the figures I have seen, each week two die and around 80 are seriously injured. I had a colleague seriously handicapped for life when a lorry knocked her off her bike at a roundabout and rode over her legs with his rear wheels.
Pedestrians suffer too in collisions with bikers. Fatalities are rare, though one is too many, but around 500 pedestrian injuries, some serious, are recorded each year—again, I do not know whether that is the right figure—as a result of pedestrian/biker collisions.
What should be done? First, the Highway Code, which I read recently for the first time in many years, is a confusing blend of advice and legal requirements, and it plainly needs revision. We should consider, for instance, legally requiring cyclists to wear helmets and high-vis jackets. Wearing a helmet, it is estimated, reduces the risk of head or brain injury in an accident by 60%. Secondly, we need better education for novice bikers, and more intense public information campaigns for all bikers. Thirdly, the Home Office needs to press the police to take proportionate action to encourage a culture of compliance, especially in city centres.
Biking is a wonderful activity, but let us make it safer for bikers and for the rest of us.
My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, on securing this debate. It is indeed telling that a former Met Police commissioner has chosen to raise this important issue. I speak as someone who is a pedestrian and a car driver who has dogs and rides horses, but others in my family are very keen cyclists. I know that there are many noble Lords who cycle and, I am sure, who do so safely. While we can all acknowledge the health and climate benefits of cycling, the present situation with bicycles has become a serious hazard for pedestrians and other road users.
I should perhaps start by declaring an interest: I was knocked over by a cyclist while on the pedestrian crossing outside Parliament in 2019, when I had the right of way. It was by an eminent lawyer who did not apologise and did not even ask whether I was okay. The police would do nothing about it. Also, an elderly friend of mine was knocked over by a delivery cyclist at a crossing and ended up injured in hospital for several weeks. The bicyclist gave a false telephone number and could not be traced. I am afraid that I do not subscribe to the argument put forward by Cycling UK that, because more people are injured by cars, we should not be concerned about holding cyclists to account. We need to address causes of injury however they occur.
Despite the words of Queen’s bicycle song,
“I want to ride it where I like”,
it is important that whoever uses the roads does so with care and consideration towards other road users. If anyone is in doubt about whether many cyclists flout the law, just go and stand by the crossing outside the Lords: cyclists not wanting to slow down or unclip their feet, jumping the lights with impunity. Last December, at a junction of High Street Kensington and Earls Court Road, over 50 cyclists were caught in just a three-hour window. The problem is not just ignoring red lights; it is not giving way to pedestrian crossings, going up on the pavement, squeezing through gaps, and undertaking, to name a few. It shows the darker side of Mario Cipollini’s oft-misused cycling quotation:
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Road Danger Reduction Forum, as per my registered interests. Of course we have lawless roads, which has been a concern of mine for two and a half decades or so. Some of that is cyclists, and I would not for a moment defend cyclists who break the law; in fact, I shout at cyclists whom I see breaking the law, and I hope that every noble Lord here does the same. Some of the crime is from cyclists, but the majority of the problem is car drivers.
When I was on the Metropolitan Police Authority from 2000 to 2012—before Boris Johnson scrapped it—I kept asking how our roads had got so lawless and why it had not been a priority for the senior officers running the organisation. As the Mayor of London’s road safety ambassador, I spent a lot of my time resisting proposed cuts to the traffic police and pressing for them to get more resources.
It is painfully obvious that many drivers ignore the rules, and the people who pay the price for that are often children, older people, pedestrians and cyclists. As has been said already, in 2017 there were 28,010 recorded hit and runs. That is around 77 hit and runs a day and, of those, more than two people a day were killed or left with a life-changing injury. This is not acceptable. It is a national scandal, and the way that the last Government dealt with it was to stop publishing the figures. I really hope that the new Government will end the cover-up and recognise the scale of the problem.
We have a national registration scheme for cars, but large numbers of car drivers just ignore their responsibility and the rules. Many go further and actively destroy cameras that enforce speed or air pollution rules. The noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said that the risk of being caught is the best way to stop this sort of lawlessness. When I was an assembly member, I used to cycle a lot and I was very careful not to get caught, because I could not have borne the publicity; I was very law-abiding. I see time and again that the best way of dealing with lawless drivers and lawless cyclists is to stop our overreliance on electronic enforcement and registration plates. We need more police out on the roads stopping people breaking the rules of the road. Let us remember that traffic police have always had a much higher arrest rate—seven times higher—than those on the beat.
My Lords, I am one of those very keen cyclists and have cycled thousands of miles in the last 15 years or so, both in London and in mid-Wales, so I bring a cyclist’s view of many of the issues today, as well as my own interest in working on transport issues for the Welsh Government. I have no difficulty with some of the suggestions that the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, proposes regarding cyclists. I do not see why cyclists should not be subject to speed limits and, if they cause serious accidents by behaving recklessly or carelessly, they should face appropriate charges. However, I am strongly opposed to suggestions that are likely to discourage everyday cycling by law-abiding people. This is a time when we should be encouraging cycling rather than making it more complicated.
Much of the focus of today’s debate has been on the harm done by cyclists, particularly to pedestrians. My starting point is that this focus is disproportionate and does not identify the real source of safety issues. My interpretation of the statistics I have been looking at from the Department for Transport tells me that, on average, there are about 400 pedestrian fatalities a year resulting from road traffic accidents. Of these fatalities, on average, two involve cyclists. That is 0.5%. The rest involve motorised vehicles of one kind or another. For pedestrian injuries, the percentage is a bit higher, at 2%, but it is still a small part of the danger to pedestrians. The same figures tell me that there are 100 cycling fatalities a year on the roads. More than 80% of them involve motor vehicles. We should also note that a substantial proportion of them take place within 20 yards of a junction—that is where many of the critical incidents happen.
Despite a lot of improvements to road safety, there is still a serious issue of how motorists, cyclists and pedestrians can live together safely in what my noble friend Lord Birt described as the crowded cities and towns of this country. The roads can be heavily congested, particularly at peak times. Fortunately, many people have responded to this congestion by taking up more walking and cycling, so cycling has been on a sharp increase and I also notice that there is much more walking than I can remember in years gone by. Walking and cycling are suitable both for shorter journeys and, in particular, for connecting a lot of people to the public transport system, which has become such an important part of our lives. As noble Lords have mentioned, they bring important health benefits and I cannot believe that anyone would seriously wish to take measures now that would turn back the clock on this.
1:35 pm
20 of 50 shown
I want to make it clear at the beginning that I am not anti-cyclist, because some may allege otherwise. I cycle myself. I have an electric cycle; it is not traditional. These things are big, heavy and fast. I enjoy it and, done properly, it is great to cycle. It is a green, safe, enjoyable and healthy thing to do that we should all encourage and make sure there is even more of. In policy terms, the last 20 years have seen Governments quite properly trying to protect cyclists against motorists. That has been necessary; we have seen many awful cases, particularly here in London, where cyclists have been badly injured or, worse, lost their life, particularly when colliding with large vehicles. We have now seen changes to the road structure to make sure that there is separation of cyclists from motorists, and that is to be supported. However, my argument today is about affording the same consideration and safety to pedestrians from cyclists.
I am not going to say that cyclists are the only threat because that would be quite wrong, but there is a case for making sure that pedestrians are protected from the behaviour of bad cyclists and cyclists who behave badly. It is only fair to notice that many good cyclists—cyclists who behave well—are harassed and intimidated by those behaving badly. There have been many cases where cyclists have been doing the proper thing only to be abused and threatened by cyclists who intend to get past them. They are not alone in this, but it is worth remembering that this is not only about pedestrians. If a motor vehicle becomes involved in a collision with a cyclist, whoever’s fault it is, that is a terrible event. Everyone involved will be shocked and there will be an outcome that no one intended. We ought to consider the motorist who ends up colliding with a cyclist too.
I should highlight that I do not believe that cyclists are more likely than any other group to become involved in criminal behaviour. Whether a lorry driver, a car driver or a bus driver, we are all humans and we all have failings. This is not just about cyclists; it is about human behaviour and the fact that we see far more people seriously injured and killed by cars each year. It is not just about the fact that cyclists can hurt people.
My principal point is that road traffic law has not maintained the accountability of cyclists in the way that motor vehicles are regulated. I hope to go through areas where that could be changed. Cyclists can be prosecuted for dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling, or cycling when under the influence of drink or drugs, so there is legislation that can regulate some of the behaviour. However, Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP has been trying to fill a lacuna in the law by proposing that cyclists be covered by a new offence of causing death or serious injury by dangerous, reckless or inconsiderate cycling. That was accepted by the last Government, but the general election intervened and it was not possible to deliver that legislation. The Minister may want to comment on the new Government’s position on Sir Iain’s proposal, which I believe he is going to bring back. In the debate prior to the general election, the Opposition at the time indicated that they would be supportive of this law change. It would be helpful to hear from the Government how they intend to respond to that, if the Minister is able to say so.
There is a further offence, a very old one from the Offences against the Person Act 1861, called furious driving of a carriage. Obviously that law was for other times, but cycling can be pulled within it if there is a serious injury. It is quite hard to prosecute or even land a charge, as the prosecutors in the case that I mentioned earlier which caught my interest discovered when they got to court. You have to prove that the driving was fast, which leads to the question of what is fast in relation to a cycle, and furious, which implies some intent or recklessness. To prove that gets harder and harder, although not impossible—there have been cases that have generated those sorts of convictions—but it is not designed for that purpose. The problem with laws not designed for a purpose is that you have to try to squeeze these things in, which is difficult for the police, the prosecutor and the courts, as well as for juries, who play a part when this is an indictable offence.
Cyclists are not even bound by speed limits. When I first raised this issue in the House, I mistakenly believed that they were; I had just forgotten that they are not. Cycles can go any speed in an urban environment, or any environment. Cycles can of course get to high speeds. For fit people, through muscle power, 30 miles an hour is easily attainable on the flat, and certainly downhill. With electric assistance, that is even easier. The last Government—I am not sure what the response of the new Government is—intended to increase the power of electric cycles to allow couriers to deliver more weight, but of course if couriers are not carrying that weight then all they can do is go faster. That needs to be considered when talking about this issue.
What is the argument for change? What is the data that shows a problem, apart from someone like me saying that we see lots of cyclists ignoring the law? I found it particularly difficult to get the data because it is stored in different places: partly by the Home Office, partly by the Department for Transport, and partly by the Department of Health and Social Care. The main piece of data that I found which I think is reliable was issued by the Department for Transport in a consultation process, referred to by the Evening Standard in July. It revealed that 2,491 pedestrians were injured by cyclists over a six-year period across the country. Of those, 20 were killed and 546 were seriously injured. Each one of those deaths is a tragedy and we would hope that they could have been avoided. We have a general need to reduce the number of fatalities. It is not a very large number but it is a significant one, and of course people with serious injuries are always at risk of death depending on the health conditions caused.
It is clear that the data that I have just cited is a bare minimum. The Department for Transport gets that data from police officers who attend the scenes of collisions. They do not attend every collision. They generally will attend if it is a fatal or serious injury, but that does not account for the more minor injuries where that is not the case. It is even harder to get data out of the department of health, because that relies on the GP or accident and emergency department first of all recording the incident and then recording the cause, since someone who is injured may not fully explain exactly what happened. If nothing else, one of the things I will ask for at the end of my submission today is that we have more comprehensive and accurate data supplied, to determine whether the trend is getting worse or better and whether there is anything in particular that we should be able to improve in relation to cyclists.
My major piece of evidence, which we may hear more about, is that cyclists seem to ignore a lot, including red traffic lights and pedestrian crossings when people are on them, even outside this building. I have tried to take particular note of it this week. People are crossing the crossing and cyclists are still going through. That is not acceptable on any level. It does not happen once or occasionally; it seems to be fairly routine. It is that which we need to affect. How can we change the routine behaviour?
In addition there is the fact that, at night, a large number of people do not have lights and wear dark clothing. The chance of seeing these cyclists—which was my experience on Victoria Street recently—is fairly low. On the occasion I was nearly hit, I would admit that I was partly responsible. Part of what happened was my fault and I would take that criticism—but I never saw this person. They disappeared, cycling at least at 30 miles per hour, and we could not even have a conversation to discuss who might have been right and who might have been wrong.
Some people say the police should enforce the law more vigorously, and I agree. However, enforcing the law against 7 million cyclists across the country is difficult. Enforcement is not the thing that, on the whole, has led to an improvement in motor vehicle behaviour. I will quickly list what those things are. First, when it comes to getting officers involved, in London at the moment about 4,000 cyclists are prosecuted for failing to abide by red traffic lights—which is not an awful lot in a city of 9 million.
Secondly, the other major improvements have come from technology, but technology relies on a registration plate, which cyclists do not have. Interestingly, in Finland e-scooters now have them: on the back they have a very small plate.
Thirdly, one of the bigger contributors has been insurance. This has played a part in making sure that risk has been properly calculated for each motor vehicle. It also allows for victims to be compensated. At the moment, cyclists generally have no insurance by which victims may seek compensation; they have only a civil remedy. That is often not available, and the person who has caused injury often does not have enough resources to deliver any compensation should any award be made against them. So I would say that insurance would be a vital development if the Government were minded to provide it.
Fourthly, there is the provision of licences. You could argue that this would be quite a complex, bureaucratic thing, but you could just add another category on to a driving licence. You could give what were termed “grandfather rights” at the end of the Second World War for those who are cyclists already. You could test later. I would ask therefore for the licence to be withdrawn in the event of bad behaviour by a cyclist and for that person to be disqualified from cycling.
I have concentrated particularly on cycling on the road, but there have also been many cases where cycling on the pavement has caused similar problems. I am not talking about children cycling on the pavement; this is about adults cycling on the pavement at the speeds I have already referred to. They need to be deterred and we need to make sure it does not happen. I would accept that an argument against insurance is: what about children? Does that mean that children have to have insurance? That would need to be discussed, but I do not think it should stop the thrust of the argument I have already made.
In conclusion, I remind the House of the things that I have argued for. First, as a bare minimum, the Government should be collecting accurate data from across government about the nature of the problem, so that any future discussion can be informed by more data than I have been able to discover. Secondly, if the Government are minded to increase regulation to make people more accountable, they should consider registration marks for cycles, e-scooters and e-bikes. They should consider insurance for them, for compensation of victims, as well the mediation of risk, and riding licences that may allow courts to award points as opposed to fines, which on the whole do not work with the same effectiveness. We should also make sure that we generally train our young people to make sure they take their responsibilities seriously.
Finally, I close by saying that I am not against cyclists. I am not a zealot for producing more regulation. More regulation on the whole is not always a healthy thing, but in this case, I am not sure what happens if we do not do something—because then it will get worse and that I do not think is healthy for anyone.
“If these cars were all in a traffic jam it would tail back 867 miles”.
I am sure noble Lords will like that.
We need to have a debate about this and we need common sense applied to all the issues that the noble Lord has mentioned. But let us not forget quality of life, safety needs and health. We should encourage other people to obey the lights and the rules. There are pedestrians who jaywalk, as well as cyclists. I am not in favour of licensing either walking or cycling. Do we want to have a licence to walk? That would be fun. But we should do more and there is good work done already on cycle training around the country. We need to do more of that and much more education, with some enforcement.
Every debate we have in your Lordships’ House tends to say that there are not enough police to enforce things, but we need this so that people can do what I love doing in Germany when I go there. There are cycle lanes for cycles and scooters. There are footpaths and road lanes and everybody obeys the lights and waits their turn. That should be our objective here.
But 50 years on we have made enormous progress, thanks in part to the APPG that was started in that Parliament. It anticipated “Boris bikes” by having a bicycle pool in New Palace Yard, enabling Peers and MPs to access a bicycle for £5 a year. Many used them to go out to lunch but, having been well entertained, they returned by taxi, leaving the organisers to collect our fleet from the choicest eating houses in the West End.
But enough of nostalgia. I join others, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, in condemning the dangerous and anti-social behaviour of those cyclists who break the law. Why are illegal e-bikes not confiscated on the spot? A few well-publicised instances would have a real impact. But justified criticism of a minority should not morph into an attitude that is hostile to cyclists as a whole. The focus of today’s debate should be on encouraging more people to cycle safely and responsibly, in line with the policy of Governments of all colours.
I have a specific request to the Minister. At the all-party reception on Tuesday, the deputy leader of Lambeth Council spoke about the hazard of rental bikes being abandoned on pavements. These are an obstruction to pedestrians and a hazard to the visually impaired. Lambeth does not want to ban them, as the chap from Brent wanted to do on the radio this morning, but Lambeth does not have the powers to manage the problem. Will the Minister’s officials discuss this with Lambeth to see how this might be put right?
I agree with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, said, but I take issue with his proposal to register and license bicycles—I oppose that. He set out the case more fully in today’s House magazine. The Government have also looked at that and opposed it—and a Written Answer of a few months ago said:
“The Department considered the potential advantages and disadvantages of a mandatory registration and licensing system for cycle ownership as part of a comprehensive cycling and walking safety review in 2018. This found that the cost and complexity of such a system would outweigh the benefits, and that restricting people’s ability to cycle in this way would mean that many would be likely to choose other modes of transport instead, with negative impacts for congestion, pollution, and health”.
Is that still the Government’s view? Licensing has been tried and abandoned in Toronto and in Switzerland. The Prime Minister has said he wants to tread more lightly on our lives, and my noble friend Lord Moylan, a champion of deregulation, would of course want to leave an even smaller footprint on us.
In 50 years there may be another debate on cycling and I may not be on the speakers’ list, but I hope that we continue to make the sort of progress we have made over the last 50 years.
“If you brake, you don’t win”.
Such is the aggressive approach that has crept in with some that I know cycle users who will not go in the cycle lanes because they suffer such abuse if they do not go fast enough.
Respect needs to be observed for other road users. No car driver wants to hit a bicyclist; the mental health repercussions for them would be absolutely terrible. So often, however, bicyclists just stick their arms out and ride across cars without ever looking or observing the Highway Code. Those who regularly flout the law are more likely to cause accidents. Surely cyclists should have to obey the rules of the road like everyone else and, where they do not, they should be held to account. Yet in 2023 only 39 people were convicted for careless or inconsiderate cycling.
There is, of course, no mandatory training and testing for bicyclists, but ignorance of the law of the road is not a defence. I welcome initiatives such as the Bikeability Trust, the DfT’s national schoolchildren cycling programme, which has helped about 4 million children get on bikes since its inception. Safe cycling has enormous benefits for everyone.
It is not just in towns and cities where there is a problem from cyclists. On A roads and country lanes there can be cyclists, sometimes in clumps holding up all the traffic—are they not meant to pull over? While I know that we are primarily addressing cycles on the roads today, there is also a huge issue with off-road cyclists who are dangerous to walkers, dogs and horses. Last weekend, I went to walk in Surrey on common land where I have been walking all my life; I used to ride down there too. I must have seen over 40 off-road bikes, but I saw hardly any other dog walkers and no horses. I have since been told that no horse rider can now go out there at the weekend, except terribly early in the morning, and hardly anyone walks their dogs, because it is simply too dangerous. The cyclists go at a rate of knots, do not give way to anybody and many are very inconsiderate. It just is not right that these off-road bicyclists should be able to drive away other people who want to enjoy the countryside. Perhaps the Minister could address this aspect too.
I very much support the idea of registration for bikes. It would enable the regulations to be more easily implemented and cyclists who offend to be identified. It would probably be a deterrent to bike theft as well. I do not accept the argument that there are too many to do so—we manage to get everyone to pay tax and we get cars licensed, so why not bikes?
There is no doubt that there is a real problem. I hope that the Government will commit to taking action after today’s debate.
For those suggesting a registration scheme for cyclists, I say that experience has shown that it would soon become impossible to enforce and the main impact would be to put another big barrier in the way of people who want a cheap, convenient, environmentally friendly and healthy way of getting around.
I very much enjoyed the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Young. It is always a pleasure to agree with a Conservative Member of your Lordships’ House—and so rare. If we want a culture of safe and law-abiding cyclists, making cycling easy, safe and segregated from cars is the way to do it. We need to get more women and children on bikes in cities. That might start to embarrass any Lycra-clad men into slowing down and perhaps obeying the rules of the road.
Rather than focusing on regulations that would reduce cycling, the emphasis should be on providing better-designed paths for both pedestrians and cyclists. These paths should be safe, clearly signed, continuous—which very rarely happens—well-maintained and separate from motor vehicles. Cycle lanes need to be clearly identified and separate from pedestrian parts of the road. The safety record at junctions might be improved too if the timing of traffic lights were more focused on helping both pedestrians and cyclists to make continuous journeys rather than face long hold-ups. Making the roads and pavements safer for both walking and cycling is surely a better long-term solution than simply pushing for additional constraints on cyclists.
At times, drivers, pedestrians and cyclists can all make mistakes and fail to see what is happening around them. Accidents happen. Five years ago, on the Embankment cycle path, I had a serious accident when a runner, out for some lunchtime exercise, crossed the road and ran into me, knocking me unconscious and breaking my jaw—but I recognise that accidents do happen. We should also recognise that the conduct of many pedestrians can be very poor. If you walk along the Embankment cycle path, you will see pedestrians walking in and out of the cycle path, crossing at red lights, too many of them listening to headphones—but I assume that nobody is going to seriously suggest that pedestrians should carry insurance and be registered.
Before we consider putting additional requirements on cyclists or pedestrians, it seems to me that we should pay much more attention to the failure of the police to enforce the laws we have. The issue of scooters has already been mentioned, and whether they are legal within the existing law. There are now many electric bikes on the road, which are illegal, as I understand it, relative to the law that is there, because they can move without pedalling; you simply have a throttle to make them go. People also hack them to make them go above 15.5 mph.
In summary, it seems to me that, rather than spending time introducing more rules that will do very little other than discourage people from pedal cycling, without changing the behaviour of those who are really badly behaved, we need to focus much more on safety and the enforcement of those things that are going wrong.