“Can I just finish this call please?” one 46-year-old woman said to the police officer who pulled her over during rush hour.
The cyclist, an operations manager, had been using her 35-minute commute to listen to a work meeting through her headphones when she ran a red light.
On any other day this week, she would have been given a £50 fine from City of London police, who had been manning the junction outside the Bank of England.
On Thursday, however, the officer directed her to a pop-up cycling safety event — held with the hire bike providers Lime and Voi, as well as Transport for London (TfL) and the ambulance service — explaining that running red lights was not just dangerous, but also illegal.
The woman logged off her call as she was ushered towards the tents. She could be heard saying: “I’m so sorry, I’ll have to cut the call short, let’s follow up, Magnus.”
She was one of about 60 cyclists stopped by police that morning and spared a fine thanks to the event. Only one cyclist was given a ticket, after speeding away then giving a fake name and address after being chased down.
The team also confiscated four illegal e-bikes, which exceeded 15mph, including one belonging to a delivery driver who was then arrested for not having the right to work in the UK.
City of London police were stopping cyclists on Thursday morning
BEN MONTGOMERY FOR THE TIMES
BEN MONTGOMERY FOR THE TIMES
Sergeant Stu Ford, head of the City of London’s cycling team, said the numbers reflected a “freezing day” after a week of the police being stationed at the same spot.
“Imagine what it would be like on a hot summer day, without police officers standing in close proximity wearing high-vis jackets,” he said.
Ford, an avid cyclist with eight bikes at home, heads a core team of ten who monitor the Square Mile on red chequered bikes. He said the numbers cycling had rocketed after Covid, and an average of 139,000 people cycled daily last year.
“I’ve seen too many accidents, too many people get badly injured or worse, I just want to stop that,” he said. “When I see some of the cycling skills, the roadcraft, it’s not good.”
The City of London police’s cycle response unit patrols the capital’s financial district
BEN MONTGOMERY FOR THE TIMES
The number his team was able to stop was a fraction of the total running red lights.
Between 8am and 9am on Thursday, The Times counted 71 cyclists running red lights at the end of Lombard Street, one of five sets of traffic lights at the junction. If a similar number cycled through reds at each of the lights, the total for the junction could have been as high as 350.
• The secret life of a Lime bike: drunk tests and an army of handlers
Of the 71 cyclists, 48 were riding hire bikes, the majority of which were from Lime, as well as a few from its rival Forest and TfL’s Santander-branded bikes.
Ford said that hire bikes accounted for about half of all the bikes he had seen at the junction this week.
“The problem with a lot of these hire bikes is they charge by the minute,” he said. “If you charge by the minute, people are going to be looking to get somewhere as quick as possible, which is going to encourage people to go through a red light.”
Nearly all the cyclists who were stopped knew that running a red light was illegal, but did it anyway. Most were apologetic and embarrassed at having been caught, but a few were annoyed at being delayed further.
Nearly all the cyclists stopped by police knew that red-light riding was illegal
BEN MONTGOMERY FOR THE TIMES
BEN MONTGOMERY FOR THE TIMES
A 35-year-old data scientist who said she had “one minute” until her meeting, said: “I was going at walking speed. It was green for pedestrians, there were no cars coming.”
One culprit on a Lime bike, a 33-year-old man who works in sales, said: “I go through these every morning so I know how it works. I knew it was going to turn green, but at that moment it was still red.”
Asked if he knew red-light running was illegal, a 25-year-old who works in media said: “I knew it was frowned upon.”
Some people, including a few on scooters and one on a skateboard, drifted slowly out of an overcrowded stop box, past a red light to see if they could go further or turn left over a pedestrian crossing.
Several cyclists stopped themselves riding across a red after seeing the police. Others dismounted and walked their bikes across the red light instead, which is not illegal for pedestrians.
Cycling in the City has grown since the pandemic, police say
BEN MONTGOMERY FOR THE TIMES
One woman walking across a pedestrian crossing bumped into a cyclist who had paused there, and fell onto the road.
“It’s chaos every single day,” she said, insisting the fall had been her fault. She said she would be too terrified to cycle herself, adding: “By Blackfriars is the worst, by the cycle superhighway they go really fast.”
Lime, which has an estimated 30,000-plus bikes in London, pledged to improve safety in an action plan published in January.
Research published by Lime in July found that 52 per cent of cyclists admitted running reds at least occasionally, and younger, more confident cyclists were the most likely to do so. They cited lack of enforcement and inadequate infrastructure as reasons for running reds. Time pressure from hire bike payment models was the least popular reason.
Hal Stevenson, director of policy at Lime, said: “Actually the data showed that pricing model had a very low impact on whether people did or didn’t stop at red lights. We don’t subscribe to the idea that people are making these decisions about their safety, for the basis of 10 or 20p.”
Instead, Stevenson said the recent focus on poor behaviour was a result of the increased volume of cyclists in London, meaning a “small percentage” of riders had become more visible. He said Lime banned “hundreds of users a month” for bad behaviour, as reports can trace a ride by their location and time.
I stopped at a red light. Then a Lime bike shunted into me
Neil Riley, 52, cycles to his banking job in the City every day. Twice in the last eight months, he has been hit by another cyclist while stationary at a red light.
Riley was “completely decked” the first time, leaving him in shock but uninjured.
The second time “was just comical”, he said. “I came to a red light and stopped, and then a Lime bike just shunted into the back of me, but had a real go at me. He was effing and blinding, saying ‘what the eff were you doing?’ I turned around and said, ‘I’m stopping at a red light.’”
Riley and the handful of other waiting cyclists laughed, while the angry rider carried on through the red light.
Both incidents involved Lime users. Riley said the bikes ought to be registered because their speeds were comparable to motorcycles in the middle of London.
“I think they get charged by the minute, so they’re just always trying to get to where they’re going as fast as possible,” he said. “You see them not just jumping red lights, but going down one-way streets the wrong way. I think there’s quite a difference from pedal bikers.”