Both reckless cyclists and drivers need to be prosecuted

WHILE I agree with P C Roulston that reckless cyclists need to be prosecuted (“Reckless cyclists through town centre” - Echo Letters October 18) he would appear to be conflating banning all cyclists from pedestrian areas with controlling reckless cycling.

The current ban simply means that law abiding careful cyclists are removed from such areas while “reckless cyclists” simply ignore the law.

Both reckless cyclists and reckless car drivers need to be prosecuted but, due to the withdrawal of funding from the police, the enforcement of traffic law has diminished over recent years.

In Leicester city centre the council has removed the ban on cycling and found that this made no significant difference to the reported level of collisions between pedestrians and cyclists.

As to your correspondent’s assertion that “It is a well known problem of cyclists causing injuries and even death and the numbers are rising every year”, this is incorrect.

The Department of Transport’s statistics (RAS30018) show that the figures for 2014 to 2016 are 498, 444 and 460 for pedestrians hit by a cycle, with 5, 2 and 3 of those pedestrians being killed.

The total number of pedestrian deaths from collisions with all vehicle types were 446, 408 and 448.

To quote from the Department for Transport’s Cycle Infrastructure Design “It can be contentious to reintroduce cycling into vehicle restricted areas (VRAs) but, as these areas are often prime destinations where shops and services are located, good cycle access is desirable.

“Where new vehicular restrictions are to be introduced, serious consideration should always be given to retaining cycle access.

“Traffic conditions on unrestricted routes may be unattractive to cyclists, and the routes can be indirect. Maintaining formal cycle access needs to be considered against the likelihood of cyclists using the VRA regardless of any restrictions.”

Cycling UK suggests that “where the decision is made to allow cyclists to share space with pedestrians, it is important not to assume automatically that conflict will be a problem or, indeed, happen at all. Surveys show that ‘perceived’ conflict is often much worse than ‘real’ conflict. They also show that the majority of pedestrians are not much concerned about sharing with cyclists - those who do raise strong objections to shared use are very much a minority voice”.

John Catt