Back in the late 70s I used to commute into London by bike (initially
Chiswick-Fleet Street and later Croydon-Fleet Street). Apart from cycle
couriers I was in a significant minority.
I just went on a 26 bus from Liverpool Street to Waterloo and it was a
revalation (yes, I know but I was in London from Somerset and had all sorts
of things to do which weren't practical by bike). We're like bugs on a
bumper! There are cyclists everywhere.
After all the threads about RLJ and the like I was watching behaviour and as
far as I could see there was everything from downright stupidly dangerous
(blasting through a red like with no lights and dark clothes with crossing
traffic) to ultra sensible and legal (hi vis clothing, good lights, stopping
at traffic lights etc.). I don't believe you can (and never could) put all
of us in one category.
I don't think I saw any motorised vehicles doing an RLJ. Several
motorbikes assuming the whole road is theirs. And my bus driver ignored
every single ASL he had to stop at and pulled up in the bike box. One bus
driver tried to overtake a bike on approach to a bus stop; failed and in
trying to pull in behind (to give him his due) balked a following cyclist.
The one that really got me was the cyclist who caught up a bus at a bus stop
and breezed through the embarking and disembarking passengers even though
there wasn't really space for him without the passengers (so I wasn't
impressed by that one).
But now I've experienced the numbers in London I'll have to work on my
neighbours in Somerset. There's one elderly lady who seems to have given
up recently (pity) and another lady on a Roberts trike which looks a little
long in the tooth but otherwise a nice piece of kit and a couple of mountain
BSOs and, in a town of 4k people, that's it. I had thought of the school
as a starting point but the kids from surrounding villages are bussed in and
the locals walk.