Laura’s cycling ordeal in London mirrors that of many women in the capital
OPINION: THE GOLDEN AGE OF CYCLING?
It was at once a rare horrible cycling experience, and yet, in some ways, unsurprising. I was riding down Brick Lane one unremarkable winter’s afternoon, when I heard the taxi driver come up behind me. I knew he was going quickly, and I braced myself.
Brick Lane is a single-lane, one-way street running three quarters of a mile between Whitechapel and Shoreditch in East London. While often chock full of pedestrians visiting the many restaurants, bars, shops and event spaces along the way it also, incongruously, acts as a shortcut for drivers. As it’s only just wide enough for a single vehicle, safe overtaking is impossible without someone mounting a pavement.
Within moments he was just behind my back wheel. I turned and told him to back off. In response he poked his tongue out, glaring at me manically and shaking his head.
On our way along the road he continued gesturing, flipping me the V, and yelling at me to “get out of the way”. Practically the whole way down Brick Lane, those three quarters of a mile, he would try to squeeze past, driving within 50cm of my rear wheel, before swerving behind me again. Looking behind, worried what he would do next, I nearly hit a man who stepped out in front of us.
Why not just get out of the way, you might ask? In hindsight, and for my own safety, it was probably the wisest option but, perhaps foolishly, I wasn’t going to submit to a bully.
Brick Lane was briefly blocked to through traffic during the pandemic using planters, but the experiment did not last. Sadly, regardless of how narrow or busy a street is with pedestrians and cyclists, or with businesses that could use that space for other things, such as outdoor seating, the belief every road should be a through-route for traffic won out.
Many of the delivery bike riders choose to cycle along the pavement and in the gutter, I noticed, presumably having experienced this treatment before. At the end of the road, there is often a stationary queue of cars at the lights. My heart thumping after the ordeal, I sat down on a park bench and cried, wondering if he would have threatened a man in the street like that.
Mine was, sadly, not an unusual experience. A recent survey by the London Cycling Campaign’s Women’s Network uncovered “a shocking toll of abuse and aggression towards women who cycle in London”. Of more than 1,000
