Cycle rage: tyranny on two wheels

This is the scene in cities and towns throughout the country. Tyranny on two wheels. Lycra louts. Call it what you will, but today, in cycle-mad Britain, you can't cross a street or even wander down a pavement without doing the quickstep with a badly ridden bicycle.

On September 29, the cyclist Darren Hall's appeal against his seven-month jail sentence for "wanton and furious driving" was rejected by the appeal court. A year earlier, witnesses had seen the 20-year-old supermarket worker rounding a blind bend on a pavement in Weymouth "like a bat out of hell". Seconds later, he collided with Ronald Turner, an 84-year-old who died two weeks later from injuries he sustained in the resulting fall.

Hall had admitted guilt under a 19th-century law originally intended for carriage-drivers.

The antiquated statute was dusted off because there is no charge for death by dangerous cycling. His family has since claimed that if they'd understood the severity of the charge, he would never have admitted his guilt. "We did not totally understand the implications of it - the legal terms and jargon went over our heads," said Hall's father, Kevin. "We weren't looking for a slap on the wrist. It warranted more than that, but why have they brought out this old law now?"

A year earlier, Peter Messen, 28, escaped jail despite being found guilty of the same charge after he knocked down a man on a pavement in the Cornish village of Stenalees. Messen was also described by witnesses as cycling "like a bat out of hell" and was warned, seconds before hitting 41-year-old Gary Green, that he was going to kill someone. Mr Green, who had been loading his car in preparation for a holiday in Venice, died of multiple skull fractures four days later. Messen, who suffers from learning difficulties and had been "desperately emotional" at the time of the accident after an argument with a family member, was given a suspended sentence.

Just before Jason Howard, a 36-year-old with a £4,750 custom-built bike, knocked down and killed Rhiannon Bennett, a 17-year-old pedestrian chatting to friends on a pavement in Buckingham in April 2007, he shouted: "Move, because I'm not stopping." He was found guilty of dangerous cycling, the most serious cycle-specific charge available to the courts, and received a £2,200 fine, £300 less than the maximum the judge could impose. Rhiannon's father called the sentence laughable and insisted Howard should have been charged with manslaughter.

In each of these cases, the tabloids have been outraged. "Parents' anguish as killer cyclist walks away with just a fine", was the Mail's headline in the Howard case. But pro-cycling groups have been outraged back. They turn to statistics - and the statistics are compelling. On average, one person is killed every two years by a cyclist on a pavement. Car drivers kill 40 pedestrians a year on the pavement (not to mention the many more killed on the roads). Statistically, cyclists do not pose a serious threat to pedestrians.

Ask any pedestrian, even an eco-loving, Clarkson-hating, lentil-baking one, and they won't necessarily agree with the premise that cyclists do not pose a danger. A senior police officer told me that when he'd been based in inner-city London, fighting losing battles against knife crime, drug-dealing, vandalism and prostitution, the subject of Lycra louts came up regularly in residents' meetings.

The same officer - who wished to remain anonymous - confessed he had, on occasion, been tempted to stick out a firm elbow as one or another particularly speedy two-wheeler had zipped by too close. When I asked him why the police didn't take action when they saw cyclists breaking the Highway Code, he said he wished they would but they don't consider it a priority. "It's not very macho, fining someone £30 for cycling on a pavement," he said.

On a balmy October night in Cambridge, I am on patrol with eight police officers and the road-safety squad from Cambridgeshire county council. In a week-long initiative, they're fining any cyclist who doesn't have lights on, goes the wrong way down a one-way street, or hops onto the pavement.

The previous night, 48 fixed-penalty fines were issued in less than two hours. Tonight at least, lots and lots of people are walking their bicycles past our checkpoint with no lights and plenty of sheepish grins. The few who are caught seem to take the fine with good grace. In fact, the whole evening seems to be entirely civilised… a picture of bike-pedestrian-car harmony.

I ask one of the police officers if she thinks this is effective crime-fighting. "It makes a change," she replies ambiguously before breaking off our conversation to stop a smartly dressed student weaving speedily through the pedestrians. He isn't happy. "Can you please not stop me?" he more or less orders. "I am on my way to a meeting." It doesn't wash with the policewoman and he continues to complain bitterly as his fine is issued. He's on a bike. He doesn't feel he has to obey the rules of the road. The injustice of it all. To underline this, he walks off for the first 10 yards, then hops on his unlit bike pedalling away twice as fast as he arrived. Only a flipped finger could have been cheekier.

Halfway through my evening of crime-fighting, I meet Phil Rennie. He used to be the British junior squash champion. Now he runs safety campaigns for Cambridgeshire county council.

I ask him if everyone is as accepting as they appear to be tonight. "Most are," he replies. Then he recalls the student last autumn who told him the £30 fine was extortion, that the police were impeding his right of way, that "minarchy" was the way forward, and that he must be right because he was far more intelligent than our council hero, Phil. This, evidently, is a hazard of working in Cambridge and, yes, I had to look up minarchy as well (in a big dictionary). But is it only the more arrogant and affected of cyclists who think they are above the law?

On the national landscape, anyone who suggests cyclists might need to behave a little better risks condemnation for their anti-cycling stance. For one thing is clear: the increasingly powerful cycling lobby does not take criticism well. The columnist Matthew Parris and TV chef James Martin have learnt this the hard way after poorly judged attacks on cyclists.

In his Times column, Parris suggested all cyclists should be decapitated with piano-wire strung up across the road, and Martin boasted halfway through a car review in the Daily Mail of forcing a group of country-lane riders into a hedge. It took just three days and vocal opposition from thousands of cyclists, right up to Olympian Bradley Wiggins and Tour de France sprint king Robbie McEwen, for Martin to issue a grovelling apology.

In his next column, Parris apologised. "It was meant humorously but so many cyclists have taken it seriously that I misjudged. I'm sorry."

But even sensible debate can cause a backlash. In September, the Public Accounts Committee published a report in which several MPs questioned the behaviour of cyclists. David Curry, MP for Skipton and Ripon, was the most outspoken. "Why are cyclists such irresponsible and arrogant road users?" he asked. "The only time I have been knocked down in my life was by a cyclist going like a bat out of hell outside the House of Commons, dressed like Darth Vader, as they all do!… We seem to regard cyclists as living in some sort of superior moral category."

The cycling blogs and comment boards swelled with attacks on this "ranting Tory". His Wikipedia page was hacked to read: "David Curry MP drives a very expensive fuel-guzzling car and spends his spare time berating cyclists something that he feels puts him in a superior moral category." When I called and asked him what gas-guzzler he drove, he said it was a Volkswagen Jetta diesel, which, if he nurtures it, will give him 650 miles out of a tank. Not very guzzly. And he was surprised at the kerfuffle his comments had caused, pointing out that he wasn't the only MP who voiced concerns. "Nobody's arguing they're decking their bikes up like Boadicea, but bikes are silent. They should all have bells and behave more courteously."

If you're a law-abiding cyclist, you'll find all this hard to stomach. You are, of course, the victim - cyclists are killed on the roads on a daily basis. And you're only trying to do your bit for the planet and your own health. It's not you hounding pedestrians. It's Volvo XC70s hounding you into the gutters. Not to mention the potholes. And now some MP is telling you to fit a bell. You of all people, with your basket on your bike.

But it's not you, it's the cycle thugs he's on about. Who are they? Where do they come from? Where do they congregate? My search began at London's Critical Mass, a monthly cycling demonstration that isn't, technically, a demonstration at all. And, from my perspective at 7.15pm on a cold October night, it really isn't organised at all. The website said we would begin at 6pm, but the strong whiff of marijuana swirling around London's South Bank suggests that quite a few of the 1,000 or so cyclists who have gathered aren't too bothered about punctuality. There are, however, no police. If you ask anyone why they're here, they say: "Just for the cycling." If you ask who is in charge, they'll reply:"No one." Like most of its participants' diets, the ride is organic… the route will change from month to month depending on whichever way whoever happens to be at the front feels like turning. It is anarchy, albeit anarchy on bicycles. There must be some cycle thugs here.

Eventually, we set off and immediately clog Parliament Square. I can't help feeling an adrenaline rush as we bring the traffic flowing past the seat of government to a standstill and cycle past at our leisure. Wherever a bus or a taxi tries to sneak through our lines, groups of outriding cyclists surround them and place their back wheels on bumpers. I see the first altercation in the first five minutes of the ride: a taxi driver is several notches beyond apoplectic, squaring up to a particularly large hippie blocking his path.

"Get out the f***ing way, you f***ing hippie f***ing c***," he spits, inches from the smirking cyclist. Other f***ing hippie f***ing c***s gather around and applaud patronisingly. The taxi driver can do nothing but get back into his cab. Tomorrow, he'll nudge a cyclist into a hedge.

This is on the periphery, but at the heart of the procession are smiley, happy cyclists muttering about how, if they lived in Holland, it would always be like this. If you can block out the fury of gridlocked commuters, it is pleasant cycling through traffic-free Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park Corner, Oxford Street, the whole A40.

No, these eco-cycling nuisances are not the yobs that so frustrate the residents' associations. They are not the thugs bringing fury to our streets. So I leave them to their chants of "all for free, free for all" and "pedals, not planes" and turn to the couriers. They're bound to be bad.

Buffalo Bill has been a part of the London courier world since the start, first as a messenger, now as a legendary controller. He also runs Moving Target, an edgy online courierzine dedicated to messengers who have been killed while working. If there ever was a godfather of couriers, Buffalo Bill is it.

When I ask him if I can talk to him, he invites me to a bike polo night that is popular with couriers, on the edge of a housing estate in Southwark, south London.

I arrive early and ask a group of couriers if they're responsible for the sort of cycling that gets the David Curry MPs of this world inflamed. They mount a convincing it's-not-us argument. Couriers know how to cycle. They feel confident on the roads. They don't skip onto pavements. They don't get involved in altercations. "But there are the alley cats," admits one. "They're crazy." Yes, alley cats. Couriers who stage illegal, high-speed races across cities for small cash prizes and large amounts of kudos. YouTube is full of the breathtakingly dangerous results. One shows a group setting off through the spiral of a multistorey car park before bursting out on the streets of west London. Red lights are ignored at speed. Head-on collisions are avoided by inches. Pedestrians are barrelled out of the way. But none of tonight's couriers would ever do anything like that. Of course not.

"No, it's other cyclists you have to watch out for."

Other cyclists? "Yeah, the nodders."

"Yeah, the bloody nodders."

Buffalo Bill arrives. "When I started cycling, there were no other cyclists. Now we're everywhere. We're a third group on the roads and we're reaching a critical mass. Everyone is sorting each other out. It's growing pains, but we will work things out. The main problem is other cyclists. We're good at cycling around cars because we're used to them… but we're not good at cycling around other cyclists."

The nodders again. New and overly enthusiastic cyclists, so called because their heads bob up and down with the uncustomary effort their bodies are having to endure. And this is where all roads, or cycle paths or pavements lead: the non-professional cyclists, the critical mass of new pedalling commuters in Britain's gridlocked cities. You only have to look at the growth of Evans Cycles ("the Starbucks of the cycling world", as one courier describes them to me) to see how cycling has exploded. In the past two years, they have opened 11 of their 36 stores. In the past 12 months, sales are up 20%. Halfords is flogging almost 3,000 new bikes a day. That's a lot of nodders. And apart from the odd high-profile campaign in the likes of Cambridge or, last week, Skegness, unpoliced nodders.

Back outside Liverpool Street station, I decide to test my theory. I will play citizen policeman and try to stop 10 cyclists cutting red lights. I will tell them they're very naughty and try to find out if they're couriers, hippies or nodders. In the first minute, the first two tell me to go f*** myself and cycle off. The next one doesn't stop, deals me a glancing blow and flips a finger as he vanishes. Then two more eff-offs. As I grow in confidence, the next three stop long enough to have an argument, calm down and have a conversation.

All three had started cycling in the last three years.

All three felt they had to break the rules of the road to survive.

And all three worked in the financial sector.

I know I was doing my test in the City of London. I know this is where you find a high concentration of financial workers, with or without bikes. But statistics never lie. If you want to know who to blame for the rise of two-wheeled tyranny, it's the bankers. The red-faced nodding ones who are late for work and appalled that anyone might not award them total freedom of the roads because they're cycling.

Buffalo Bill suggested this is all a temporary issue as the legions of new cyclists twist and turn their way around the cars, the pedestrians and each other. Even though Bill was the wisest cyclist I met on my travels, this view seemed optimistic. As more and more cyclists take to the streets, unpoliced and often unbothered by the rules of the road, there will be more injuries and more deaths, of cyclists and pedestrians.

"We are clear that all road-users have a responsibility to obey traffic laws," says Lord Andrew Adonis, secretary of state for transport, when I ask him if more should be done to curb the Lycra louts. "Where cyclists break the law it is down to the enforcement authorities to decide what action is appropriate." He also claims that the government encourages adults to take courses to improve their cycling.

Try telling that to the red-faced nodders.

More images by photographer Jez Coulson at www.jezblog.com