Without a shadow of a doubt, the worst place I have ever cycled is Philadelphia, USA. Absolutely hands down, no contest, the worst. The only times I have ever actually been hit were there, and there were three instances over the 5 ½ years I was a resident.

Without a shadow of doubt, the best place I have ever cycled is France. Granted I have only ever cycled the French countryside, but cars would literally drive in the ditch in order to give me enough space. They treated me as I was taught to treat horses by my driving instructor 16 years ago: decrease your speed and give them a wide birth. In the year and a half I lived there, the two cars which did not behave in that way had British licence plates.

Spain is next: the cars never slow down out in the countryside, so the speed can give you a shock, but they overtake on practically the other side of the road, so you are perfectly safe. In the three cities we cycled in, the cars treated you with such respect and gave you a lane to yourself, always exhibiting patience and care. We were never an obvious source of irritation even when we didn’t exactly know where we were going.

And so I’m here again in London. The London I left 10 years ago was a much nicer place to cycle. There were fewer people, which means fewer cars and much, much fewer cyclists. London is still nowhere near as bad as Philadelphia, but it’s closer to that than to the continent; not in terms of the amount of cars (London is much more densely packed), but in terms of the maliciousness and carelessness of drivers.

I can’t help but think about courtesy and about care. I understand road rage – I am possibly the least patient person in the world – but I think it so dangerous that the frustration and rage at these packed and often grid-locked roads means that the care, courtesy and consideration which is vital for safe road usage has all but disappeared.

I don’t care if you yell at me, I don’t care if you swear at me, and I certainly don’t care if you beep at me or give me the finger – I do all of the same to you. But what I do care about is when you pass me at high speeds with only an inch or two to spare, or when you deliberately swerve into me ‘to give me a scare’, or when you nudge my back wheel because you want me off the road, or cut me up to make that left turn, or when you fail to check your mirror or to indicate before turning, and when you forget to look before throwing open your door…

I care about all of those things because you endanger my life at that point. I’m not precious and anyone who doesn’t like being yelled at or stuck in traffic should not be on the road (and that goes for cyclists and motorists alike), but I am vulnerable because I don’t have a metal shell protecting me, and part of the responsibility of being alive is to respect those more fragile than oneself. The beleaguered point here is that cyclists are the most fragile of road users. We are the smallest and the most exposed, and for that reason vehicles need to be mindful of their actions when around us. The other point here of course, is that many of them aren’t mindful at all.

Simply put, the larger you are the more care you need to exhibit since the sheer fact of your mass means you are capable of doing so much more damage, accidentally or on purpose. When a VW Golf passes me too close and too fast (as they always do), I get a fright perhaps, or merely just feel pissed off that I wasn’t given the space I know they would have given a car. When an HGV/LGV passes me too close and too fast, I get a fright and I am also in danger of being swept under the wheels by the wind that is generated when a vehicle of that size goes that fast. Do you see the difference? By incremental stages our size makes us more and more dangerous, even when our actions do not differ.

Ultimately, it is simple common sense to take care of those smaller than oneself. It’s why we are gentle with babies and small children or why we take care when planting out seedlings – the simple fact of our larger size and comparative strength necessitates it. In this way, larger must yield to smaller because with size and power comes responsibility: the cyclist can damage the pedestrian, the Smart car can damage the cyclist, the SUV can damage the Smart car, and the HGV can damage us all without it paying any physical price.

And so that is why I specifically care about HGVs, lorries, trucks, buses and other large road users. It’s not that I think HGV drivers (for example) any more dangerous or negligent than other drivers. In fact, it is thanks to HGV drivers like Nozzer and his blind spot diagrams, that I have learnt even more about how to stay safe around HGVs. But the simple truth is that an HGV / bus / lorry (etc) driver needs to exhibit much greater levels of care because of their much greater capacity for damage. I hope that, eventually, that point will be understood.

Posted under ethics, general