Red Light

Something tells me this is a rant which will break out from time to time, just like squeezing a big pustulant spot, seeing all the white goo come out and knowing that in 24 hours more goo will, as if by magic, lurk all squelchy below the surface.

So, red lights, my fellow cyclists mean stop.  We are traffic, and the rules of the land do indeed apply.  You may think it does no harm to anyone, and indeed gets you on your journey in your own way, but what it does, is anger other traffic, often the four wheeled variety, and the people in their tin boxes, they then snarl at the wrongness you have committed, and indeed believe this is a trait of all two wheeled folks who then, in the eyes of the motorised box drivers deserve to die.  So indeed your actions of going through the red lights do endanger poor little old me, all vulnerable in my quaint helmet and with my Old Skool pannier bag on my Sit Up and Beg Bike.

Actually, I too resent red lights and the requirement of the law for me to sit at them behind the white line. Yes, folks, behind the white line - take note, that too is the law.  They are irritating and frustrating when the road is clear, and what's weird is I don't have this attitude in my car.  I cogitate.  After all, I have time, I'm sat at a pointless red light.

It seems to me that when I'm on my cycle commute I never stop.  Never, not unless I'm at a red light.  There aren't a lot of Give Ways on my journey and I'm early enough that if there is, a quick glance right, left and right while I'm moving is all that's needed and I carry on, no stopping.  I don't get caught in traffic queues.  I really do never stop, and red lights interrupt my flow.  Nothing else out there slows me down.  Well, maybe the odd hill.  When I was a little less fit I used to appreciate red lights.  Time for a little rest, and indeed a desperate gulp at the water bottle.  Now, they just irk.  But they are the law.