Cyclist ran a red light and hit me...

I'm a cyclist too, and that person was clearly a knob

Golden rule: if you are going to jump a light then don't cross another vehicle's path or hit a pedestrian

Posted from TSR Mobile

It is for reasons like this that I would be in favour of a form of registration plate system for cyclists. My mum was hit by a cyclist riding on the pavement and had to go A&E - likewise the cyclist didn't stop.

Still, on topic - hope you are ok!

Lol @ the notion of a registration plate system for cyclists. If that was to ever happen, I hope the Government would also add registration plates to pedestrians and people in general as they do things like what happened to this woman I e accidentally knock people over. The incidence of cyclists causing accidents like this is extremely rare : /

To OP though I'm sorry about what happened, this particular cyclist sounds like a right ****.

I think a better rule would be to obey the same rules of the road as everyone else, and not jump the lights in the first place.

The reasoning behind it is that cyclists can cause much more damage to a pedestrian than a pedestrian to a cyclist. Cyclists are road users at the end of the day, why is a registration system any more silly than a registration system on cars?

The reasoning behind it is that cyclists can cause much more damage to a pedestrian than a pedestrian to a cyclist. Cyclists are road users at the end of the day, why is a registration system any more silly than a registration system on cars?

This is why - there are myriad reasons why the vast majority of countries that have adopted bike licencing have dropped them later on http://ipayroadtax.com/licensed-to-cycle/licensed-to-cycle/

You'd be surprised how much damage a pedestrian can do to a cyclist - pedestrians will typically only be knocked to the ground if they are hit by a bike, but the cyclist can go flying.

They can but like I said the incidence of cyclists causing harm to pedestrians is so rare that it negates the need for a registration plate system. The country's finances are already in much need of improvement and adding to the cost base of the UK with a scheme that will probably detect about 100 incidents like this a year, if that, will seriously be a waste of money. Also consider that when these rare occurrences do happen, most cyclists won't do what happened to the OP and cycle off without stopping to help.

I can't believe that you have to compare cyclists and cars. Cars cause a load more deaths, people would speed to crazy levels if there were no reg plates on cars and thefts of cars would soar exponentially. Fuel theft would rise by a substantial amount and basically there would be chaos. With the current paradigm relating to cyclists everywhere, things aren't that bad. Sure you get a few fools on a bike but there's only so much damage a cyclist can cause; comparing them to cars just because they use the road is akin to me comparing vitamin packed vegetables to toxic acid just because both can physically travel down the bodies of human beings.

When a pedestrian and cyclist collide, how often is the pedestrian at fault? I am honestly interested if there are any statistics on the issue. As I would believe that it is more often the cyclists fault (given that pedestrians generally are on the pavement, which if a cyclist is using they should take extra care). However, I wouldn't mind being proved wrong

(The rest of the post is towards you as well, just this is in reply to you)
I've never seen any statistics, but the one and only collision (and a couple more near conditions) I have had with pedestrians was entirely the pedestrian's fault, and in each instance it involved them stepping out in front of me without looking. One (the one I hit, though neither of us fell over) was on a segregated foot / cycle path. Unfortunately many pedestrians simply don't stick to their side of the bargain when it comes to the use of segregated paths, and wander all over the cyclist section. They then get narked when cyclists are forced to use the pedestrian side because of peds on the cyclist side. As a result, it is my opinion that shared / segregated paths are simply not safe in areas with high levels of foot traffic, and so I often opt to cycle on the road instead.

I would like to note I am not one of those who think that cyclists should be taxed or similar. I read through the whole article, and I saw very little reason against bicycle registration (not cyclist licensing - just a system similar to cars where a bike is registered when bought new (and a fee paid*), and then transferring ownership is free - similar to cars. The only quote I saw was from the Department of Transport, saying laws would need to be passed (which is done fairly often), and big IT changes (see below for my view on that).

*This fee could be paid by say a 10% cut in VAT on bike sales, with say 5% going towards the registration scheme, 5% encouraging people to cycle. I don't know enough about government finances to say if these is feasible, but based on car licensing I say it could be at least. This excludes big changes to IT systems - but this is with general CS grad snobbery - if the DVLA system couldn't be changed to allow a new class of 'vehicle' (in terms of the existing system), then the government made an error when purchasing or contracting the system!
Whilst I agree with you that the systems should be able to cope, in reality I think we both know that large central government computer databases tend to be crap (ContactPoint, NHS medical records etc.)

Whilst it might be theoretically possible, I would object on two grounds - that it does no good (this is the shorter, rather better article that I was originally looking for) based on the experience on other governments and London's Boris Bikes, and that (b) this country has much better things to be spending its money on at the moment.

theonefrombrum: Would it be that much extra cost though? Bicycle registration (as opposed to cyclist registration) could be paid for by schemes such as above (where a net price cut could encourage more bicycles to be bought, raising more money to cover the cut). I don't have any statistics myself, but do you have any proof that most cyclists, after hitting someone, would stop? I wasn't able to find a UK article with year-on-year stats of injuries (including non-serious accidents), but 550 (55% of 1000) pedestrians are injured in New York City each year. (Source).
In context, that's 1000 pedestrians injured each year in NY state, 55% of which are in NYC. I don't really feel qualified to comment, especially as you can't see most of the article, but I would question what counts an injury. A bruise is hardly likely to be life changing, but in the strictest sense it is an injury.

Cars do cause more deaths, and cause more injuries - but vehicle registration started in or before 1963. Did vehicles, back then, cause that many more injuries that cyclists do now?
Even if you could find those figures, I very much doubt that they would be directly comparable, given that the relative numbers of cars and bikes (and miles travelled per year by each) won't be directly comparable. A better set of statistics to look at would be road deaths involving cars just before and just after registration was introduced.