Ban cyclists and e-scooter riders using phones, Tory peer urges | BBC News
A Tory politician is calling for a ban on using mobiles while on a bicycle or e-scooter, after a concerning incident with a cyclist near Parliament.
Me too! No matter how fit you are, it's practically impossible to jump out of the way of a 150-pound cyclist on a road bike coming from behind you, or even from the side. And if you can't see them, you can't warn them. A near miss is terrifying for older people and children, and being hit by a cyclist can be fatal, even for the fittest people. Penalties should be much higher than they are, including being banned from using bikes and e-scooters, and from smartphone use. And repeat offenders should face very high fines and, ultimately, a prison sentence, as drivers do.
Phones used for navigation should be mounted on fixed brackets on the handlebars and interaction with them should be banned while the bike is being ridden, just as with cars. Drivers in the UK have to pull over and stop the engine to program a route, and it's even easier for the bike or scooter rider to do so.
I've also seen cyclists riding the wrong way down a street, and even on a pavement, while interacting with their phones, narrowly missing me and other pedestrians.
I know that there are a great many responsible cyclists and probably the majority, and maybe they could help out by calling out bad cyclist's behaviour. As for e-scooters, the vast majority of the ones being used in the UK are being used illegally. There are a handful of makes of scooter that are being trialled on the roads of large cities. Every other e-scooter being used on public roads is being used illegally. Also, cycling or using an e-scooter on the pavement (meaning sidewalk) is illegal in the UK, for very obvious reasons.
I used to cycle a lot in the past and tried to be as responsible as possible, including getting the Highway Code, and reading it more than once. If we'd had to take cycling lessons and a test, and carry a licence, I would have been happy to do so. If I'd cycled into a person and killed them, or even done serious damage to them, I couldn't have lived with myself. Especially if it were a child. Cyclists and e-scooter users need to take this very seriously.
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