sent from: London, UK. destination: Los Angeles, California, USA

Shaftesbury Avenue 8.30am. A bus is letting a van turn right into a side street. A cyclist, zooming past the bus on the inside, doesn’t see the van until it appears, perpendicular to his path. He brakes, tips forward, and face plants into the side of the van. He’s shaken, but not visibly injured. In shock, he walks off. A cyclist last week was caught by a bus turning left, again as he was trying to overtake on the inside. Things did not work out so well for him. These were accidents, as best as we can tell. At least the one I witnessed was. The onus is on the cyclist, as the far more vulnerable one, to be alert to the dangers. I’m glad that the success of cycling in the Olympics has led to renewed interest in cycling and the issues around it. But cyclists shoudn’t demonise every one not on a bike and assume supremacy of the road. I hope the Met starts policing traffic lights, too.