I just saw this on the BBC news website. It reports that a 17-year old female cyclist (later reports, and the BBC’s updated one, say that she was 20) riding one of those hired “Boris bikes” has been knocked off by a lorry and killed.
London is one of the busiest cities in the world, and has some of the most congested roads in the world. Something like this is always highly likely when you add bikes to the mix. To make matters worse, if you consider what it says on that Wikipedia page, 49% of those hiring Boris Bikes only took up riding in London because of the facility. Since the company has 8,000 bicycles, that means an extra 4,000 bike riders are out on London’s streets who wouldn’t have been otherwise.
Furthermore, the Boris Bikes are ridden on “Boris Routes” – dedicated lanes, often painted blue. Just take a look at the picture on the left to imagine the potential risks (you’ll have to imagine the tens of thousands of cars and lorries that would otherwise be on the road at peak times on weekdays – the picture is strangely devoid of them, though the length of the cyclists’ shadows and the greenery suggests this was taken very late or very early in the day, and I would guess at a weekend).
The circumstances of the accident are not known. Later reports say it happened on Friday evening at around 6.30pm, which is right in the middle of London’s Friday night rush hour, and one with a forecast super-hot summer weekend ahead of it. Obviously, it is a huge tragedy.
But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: roads are primarily intended for motor vehicles, not bicycles. Creating a false belief that it is otherwise – either through reckless bike hire or the continual green/political pro-bike lobbying – just increases the chances of something like this happening.
Everyone is eager to point out that this is the first fatality involving a hire bike since the scheme began in 2010. However, the BBC article clearly states that Transport for London is anxious to “further reduce” collisions involving cyclists all over London. Or in other words, cyclists having accidents (or very near misses) is not at all uncommon. Other reports mention two cyclists being killed on the same route in 2011 – though they weren’t on Boris Bikes, hence the TfL comments.