Cyclists: the bane of my life

I’ve been working on a highly scientific observation process since coming to Cardiff which is based on what I see on my journey from home to uni, and I reckon around 80% of cyclists don’t wear helmets. A fall from a bike is pretty likely to entail some form of head/ground contact – in fact, according to brake.org.uk, nearly 50% of cyclists’ A&E admissions are for head and face injuries. So why don’t people bother helmetting up?

Let’s face it; cycle helmets aren’t ‘cool’ – you wouldn’t catch Vinnie Jones dead in one, and we all know that he is the embodiment of what a young person wants to be. Admittedly, dying young often gives people a ‘cool’ status (Kurt Cobain, James Dean)… But is premature death the length you want to go to to be assigned such a meaningless label through shunning a potentially life-saving piece of plastic?

An equivalent in driving terms is the seatbelt: I fail to understand why taxi drivers, who spend their lives driving dangerously, don’t see the need to wear them. Luckily, role models are starting to reinforce the fact that they’re actually pretty important – in fact wearing one saved rapper Kanye West’s life, as he reminds us in his lyric on Through the Wire, “Thank God I ain’t too cool for the safe belt.” I can’t imagine the multi-Grammy award-winning artist being too happy about scooting round the Principality on a push bike, but I hope you can appreciate the comparison.

Anyway, I digress. The other thing that absolutely infuriates me to ear-steaming levels is the fact that cyclists expect to be given the same rights as drivers without accepting the associated responsibilities. If they want to cycle on the roads and be respected by car drivers, they need to adhere to the rules. It seems to be the norm for cyclists to completely ignore red lights, sailing through them as if it’s their divine right, while becoming fist-shakingly indignant if a driver doesn’t happen to notice their half-hearted arm flap. This miniscule movement supposedly lets other road users know that the cyclist intends to turn right, resulting in drivers being cut up and half the time causing multi-vehicle pile-ups.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that people are being environmentally friendly and getting some exercise at the same time – but endangering others through reckless behaviour and sheer stupidity is seriously uncool.