Melanie Etherton, pictured: ‘We must put data above feelings and we must put the Earth above all’ 

• COMING back from yet another cycle journey where I was honked and sworn at, on the hottest recorded day of the year, I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly at the news reports.

On the one hand we read about devastating rainfall – a month of rain in one day. My heart goes out to all those whose homes and businesses were flooded.

On the other, we read letters about scooters, which are apparently dangerous, and cycle lanes and low traffic schemes, which are apparently not worth it.

When will we join the dots and connect our own local travel choices to the global climate? We must switch to low-carbon modes of transport now.

We all agree that people walking are vulnerable. We need to see people on bikes, scooters, and other small wheels in the same light. We are scared, not a threat.

The latest yearly Transport for London data show cars were involved in 62 per cent of crashes (11,000+ crashes) causing 64 deaths, while bikes were involved in just 2 per cent of crashes (327 crashes) causing two deaths.

That compares with 5 people killed while cycling, and 773 people seriously injured while cycling over the same period.

In the big picture people on bikes are putting themselves, not others, at risk in London.

Some 68 per cent of trips in London are under five miles, the distance from Camden Lock to the Tower of London, a distance that is manageable on a bike (mostly using the C6 cycle superhighway) in around an hour even for a slowpoke like me.

And yet it is slowpokes like me who regularly get sworn at (check), sexually harassed (check), driven at head-on and forced off the road while on a cycle route (check), shouted at (check) – almost every week.

I wear high-vis. I wear a hat. I hold accident insurance, British Cycling membership, and a full clean driving licence. I know the rules of the road. None of this protects me.

At the same time, carbon dioxide emissions from UK road transport rose 6 per cent between 1990 and 2017 despite the UK’s total national emissions falling by a third over the same period. More than a fifth of the UK’s total carbon dioxide emissions come from road traffic.

While electric cars have a role to play they still run on electricity which has to be generated from somewhere. While some argue about road delays, 62 per cent of households in Camden don’t even have a car.

It is cars that are killing people on our streets, poisoning the air we breathe, and contributing to heating the Earth and causing weather chaos. And then people getting around on bikes and scooters open newspapers and read about how we are the problem.

What protects people using small bikes and scooters is good road infrastructure. Filters to keep out cars and installing protected lanes work.

Interim data already show a 15 per cent increase in cycling along Prince of Wales Road since the new lanes were put in – over 650 journeys a day (hardly “a few” – see Letters, July 15).

Key streets affected by filters have seen a 70 to 80 per cent decrease in traffic alongside improved air quality. Traffic on neighbouring large roads has also gone down. Local cycle hire has gone up.

We must put data above feelings and we must put the Earth above all. We must urgently back schemes that promote walking and cycling.

MELANIE ETHERTON
Kelly Street, NW1