Now is not the cycle for bikes

I’ve been riding a bicycle for more than 55 years and was rather surprised to agree with the new mayor of Joburg, Herman Mashaba, when he decided to discontinue bicycle lanes there.

A bicycle is a wonderful form of transport: efficient, cheap and versatile. I have used bicycles slightly for sport (my best time for Cape Town’s Argus Cycle Tour was a feeble 3:08) but mainly for transport. The greatest number of journeys in my life have been by bicycle. I nearly always shop on a bicycle.

Few others do. At the local shopping mall I’m often the only cyclist there. The few bicycle racks are usually empty.

Julius Malema, decrying the bicycle lanes, says only rich people use bicycles – and for leisure, not transport. He is right.

It is about 2km from the neighbouring black township in Cape Town, Masiphumelele, to the shopping mall. Large numbers of black people walk there; a fair number drive; very few cycle.

When I was in Japan, I saw large numbers of people – rich and poor, men and women – cycling safely to work and to shop. Businessmen in suits and mothers with infants on the back used bicycles for transport.

But cycling in SA is very dangerous. Motorists have no respect for cyclists and kill them regularly. I have nearly been driven off the road on my bicycle many times.

Many of the cyclists are themselves lawless and arrogant. They cycle through red lights, ride two abreast and weave in front of cars.

Joburg’s initial bicycle lanes have not been a success. Cars park in them; taxis overtake on the left in them; they have not attracted additional cyclists. There is no reason to believe more cycle lanes will do any better.

The way to encourage cycling and make it safer is to change attitudes first and provide cycle lanes later.

In Japan I didn’t see any cycle lanes. The cyclists rode on the roads and on the pavements but they were always courteous towards motorists and pedestrians, and obeyed all the traffic laws. The motorists and pedestrians were, in turn, courteous and respectful to them.

South Africans on bicycles and in cars must first stop hating each other.

When we start respecting each other, cycling will become safer, cycle lanes will work – and perhaps poor people will start cycling in numbers.