Suicide Peds

Southgate

What is it with these two-legged kamikazes? There's at least one street in every London borough where these lunatics regularly walk out into the road without looking. Round my way it's Wood Green High Road, between Wood Green tube and Turnpike Lane tube. Oddly enough, despite the large numbers of teenagers around, it's always grown-ups (and more often than not middle-aged ones) who have a predilection for throwing themselves in front of my bike.

What street in your area should be re-named Suicide Ped Alley?

clarkey cat

usually reading their I-phone as they wander into the road. I-peds.

dondare

If there are peds about, then they will step into your path. Be ready for it and give way to them. It's not a jungle out there, Darwinian rules do not apply.

asprilla

Wood Lane,at the crossing outside the tube.

Despite the man being green, one person will make a dash. Everyone else will blindly step out behind them.

Twice I've come off there.

Southgate

dondare wrote:

If there are peds about, then they will step into your path. Be ready for it and give way to them. It's not a jungle out there, Darwinian rules do not apply.

Thanks dad, but I don't think anyone was suggesting that you run 'em down for the fun of it, not least because you'd likely come off just as badly. "Give way to them" assumes you're doing 5 mph in the local park and have time to stop, not 20 mph on a public road. Most of the time the best option is to swerve. I tend not to shout at them until I've safely passed, as it makes their next movements unpredictable.

dondare

Southgate wrote:

dondare wrote:

If there are peds about, then they will step into your path. Be ready for it and give way to them. It's not a jungle out there, Darwinian rules do not apply.

Thanks dad, but I don't think anyone was suggesting that you run 'em down for the fun of it, not least because you'd likely come off just as badly. "Give way to them" assumes you're doing 5 mph in the local park and have time to stop, not 20 mph on a public road. Most of the time the best option is to swerve. I tend not to shout at them until I've safely passed, as it makes their next movements unpredictable.

The problem with swerving is that there might be someone trying to overtake you at the same time. The worst place for random pedestrian incursions that I know about is by Camden Underground station and as I pass that I'm quite happy to keep my speed low.
Another place that's bad is the bottom of Archway where I'm likely to be travelling at a fair lick. There are lights and a crossing but the lights for the bus/cycle lane turn several seconds before those for the other traffic and sometimes peds don't realize this.

Southgate

Yeah, Camden Town is pretty bad, especially coming down Parkway and turning into Kentish Town Road or Camden Road. I keep to the middle of the road and start hollering and making noise BEFORE they have a chance to walk in front of me!

Initialised

Nearly wiped out a granny in Wolsingham this morning. At least I didn't have to deal with a herd of sheep deciding to stampede in front of me today, they just huddled by a wall and looked worried #notlondonproblems

raymondo60

Tooting High Street on the CS7, especially on the evening commute home. We CS7 crew call it the 'Tunnel of Death'!

Kerguelen

dondare wrote:

If there are peds about, then they will step into your path. Be ready for it and give way to them. It's not a jungle out there, Darwinian rules do not apply.

Thanks for the advice, I honestly had no idea I wasn't supposed to hit pedestrians.

dondare

Kerguelen wrote:

dondare wrote:

If there are peds about, then they will step into your path. Be ready for it and give way to them. It's not a jungle out there, Darwinian rules do not apply.

Thanks for the advice, I honestly had no idea I wasn't supposed to hit pedestrians.

I know that many cyclists don't need to be told this but also that many do. I am not intending to patronize those who agree with me on this. I normally wait for someone to use the term "Darwin award" before posting but this time I jumped in early.

Applespider

Brixton Station Road...

Obviously bad when a train has just arrived and the lemmings head for the Tube but equally full of market traders who decide to pull their cages of stock across the road just as you approach. And at the end of the week, lots of iPeds trying to figure out which part of Brixton Village market they should be in.

A colleague at work has just been hospitalised after an encounter with a teenage iPed who stepped into the road where he was doing 25mph. He swerved but came off. Teenager is fine... colleague has fractured pelvis and femur.

mpdouglas

The top of Haymarket in Central London (just at the Horses of Helios statue) - hey, it's only about 5 lanes wide with no central island but what the hell, a great place to go walkabout whilst texting your mates and updating your facebook page! Every single night of the week! Grrrrrrrr! I don't even know what language to shout at them in because they seem to do it whatever part of the world they have come from!

Ben6899

Southgate wrote:

Yeah, Camden Town is pretty bad, especially coming down Parkway and turning into Kentish Town Road or Camden Road. I keep to the middle of the road and start hollering and making noise BEFORE they have a chance to walk in front of me!

Aye, it's full of Spaniards wearing knock-off "Dre" headphones and "I London" hooded sweatshirts.

And that's not me having a go at Spaniards; it just seems they bloody love Camden and flock there to wander about aimlessly.

menthel

Raymondo60 wrote:

Tooting High Street on the CS7, especially on the evening commute home. We CS7 crew call it the 'Tunnel of Death'!

Good old Tooting! Peds are always appearing from funny places asa you go further down. Its worst by the Broadway. Mind you I actually hit a stupid child (teen really) that ran across the road outside Balham station. The daft bint looked at me and then ran. I was going quickly and she was too fat and stupid to do much at all. Luckily I just clipped her bag after some ninja cycling skills.

monkimark

The CS7 where it takes to the backstreets to avoid the elephant & castle roundabout has a dedicated cycle lane with traffic lights that crosses London Road http://goo.gl/maps/mq3fu
Despite the bright blue cycle lane painted on the road, pedestrians completely ignore it, especially when they're running for a bus

fat_tail

Near Chelsea Wharf ... people coming out of the Overground station at the bottom and generally treating the whole road as one large pedestrianised zone, which it isn't. Couple that with two roundabouts and you have a good combination of pedestrians and taxis going round and not indicating.

rubertoe

Never had a problem with camden high street TBH. Kentish town road on the otherhand...

M-A-S

menthel wrote:

Raymondo60 wrote:

Tooting High Street on the CS7, especially on the evening commute home. We CS7 crew call it the 'Tunnel of Death'!

Good old Tooting!

+1. Although I find the cars pulling out of/into side streets more of a hazard.

I once saw a cyclist get completely taken out here by a car pulling into a side road across him , I was 10ft behind him :shock:

menthel

M-A-S wrote:

menthel wrote:

Raymondo60 wrote:

Tooting High Street on the CS7, especially on the evening commute home. We CS7 crew call it the 'Tunnel of Death'!

Good old Tooting!

+1. Although I find the cars pulling out of/into side streets more of a hazard.

I once saw a cyclist get completely taken out here by a car pulling into a side road across him , I was 10ft behind him :shock:

The cars are a pain too, agreed. It's Tooting driving- double parking, wrong side of the road, not looking crazy driving. I lived in Tooting for 5 years though and love the place in its own special way The only place I know that is worse for driving is Harlsden.

The Rookie

Not London (shock horror) but round the Uni and the College I frequantly cycle past would be a 'target rich environment' for those who believed in the essential rightness of Darwinian evolution!

Gallywomack

Tooley St would be the worst on my route. Queuing traffic + station exits = much bovine stepping out.

Headhuunter

Gallywomack wrote:

Tooley St would be the worst on my route. Queuing traffic + station exits = much bovine stepping out.

Also turning left from London Bridge into Tooley St is always a problem, even though the traffic is coming round the corner from the ped's right, they are invariably looking left and start to cross as you're turning the corner... Don't know what it is about that partic corner.

Another fave of mine is the long, slow diagonal road cross. My current commute involves turning right into Stratton St from Picadilly and there are always peds doing the long leisurely road crossing - they check over their shoulder briefly and start to cross slowly and diagonally and focus their attention on their ipod or phone or whatever, failing to realise that since they checked and started crossing the road about 20 seconds ago, the traffic situation has changed

Gallywomack

Also turning left from London Bridge into Tooley St is always a problem, even though the traffic is coming round the corner from the ped's right, they are invariably looking left and start to cross as you're turning the corner... Don't know what it is about that partic corner.

Yeah, I guess they just see the cars stopped at the lights in front of them and think it's safe to cross. Irritating but not usually too dangerous as you're only pulling away from the lights. I suppose it'd be worse if you caught the green and swung round the corner at speed as somebody stepped out, but by that time I think they've realised where traffic is coming from and tend to wait.

That whole junction is a bit of a shambles tbh - recently I've been going along the OKR/Dover St and approaching from Borough High St in the morning, but if anything that's even worse.

Crouching Peeky

Lombard Street, Queen Victoria Street. Fenchurch Street, infact any street in the City. Fortunately due to the 4 millions sets of traffic lights in and around the area, it's almost impossible to get up to any kind of speed but I have wondered where I'd stand if I got knocked off my bike by an idiotic lemming? 1 or 2 windmills?

warreng

Raymondo60 wrote:

Tooting High Street on the CS7, especially on the evening commute home. We CS7 crew call it the 'Tunnel of Death'!

Oh yes! On the way in it can be worse when St George's workers are coming out of the tube and crossing over between buses

raymondo60

Happened again tonight - Tooting High St. Three of us riding in line; fast guy on a fixed wheel Pearson in front of me, young dude behind; we were barreling along but not unsafe speed, and wham! Out steps a 'portly' Indian gentlemen, oblivious to the world, literally right in front of us. How the guy on the Pearson missed him I'll never know - an excellent piece of evasive cycling by the young man. Could have been a bloodbath!

Ben6899

Raymondo60 wrote:

Happened again tonight - Tooting High St. Three of us riding in line; fast guy on a fixed wheel Pearson in front of me, young dude behind; we were barreling along but not unsafe speed, and wham! Out steps a 'portly' Indian gentlemen, oblivious to the world, literally right in front of us. How the guy on the Pearson missed him I'll never know - an excellent piece of evasive cycling by the young man. Could have been a bloodbath!

You can say "fat tw@t", we won't be offended.

Paul E

It was a courier on a moped this morning on the sh1te junction onto tooley street, he decided that he would pull out then stop heading east, how I pulled up I don't know, the guy behind me gave him some lip, and all he could say in broken english was "I had green light", yes but you also had a give way line and I had right of way

Headhuunter

Paul E wrote:

It was a courier on a moped this morning on the sh1te junction onto tooley street, he decided that he would pull out then stop heading east, how I pulled up I don't know, the guy behind me gave him some lip, and all he could say in broken english was "I had green light", yes but you also had a give way line and I had right of way

I had that kind of idiotic logic from a van driver once, again very broken English. He was by the side of the road, indicated and pulled out almost instantly, I just missed clipping the side of the van but a moped behind me slammed into him and came off. I went back to offer assistance and all the driver could say was "I was indicating", we tried to explain the logic of mirror-signal-manoevre but clearly wherever in the world he was from, indicator is king and once that light is a flashing, nothing stops him

monkimark

We have a new winner - 3 very close calls with lemming pedestrians on a 200m stretch of road in one day.
http://goo.gl/maps/28SJK
1 mobile phone and 2 general dopeyness.

The 2nd one must have heard me screaming at the first and she still walked out without looking.

I'm taking off my front light bracket and replacing it with a bayonet plug