If 1% of people who you walked past in the street barged into you, I think you’d feel it was a problem. In any case, it’s much more than that. Michael found two easily enough, and I randomly chose to go from there up past the Horniman and down Lordship Lane. Two more (some twerp outside Lloyds Bank and what looks like a fat teenager further down on the right). That’s in the 10-12 minutes it took the Google car to travel that distance. Where are the other 396? I counted nine or ten real cyclists in that distance.

The numbers of pavement cyclists have certainly increased a lot from ten years ago and, most importantly, their sense of entitlement to be there is evidently increasing. This is the thing I find amazing, and disturbing. A societal shift seems to be happening whereby a group of people who felt victimised now, in turn, don’t care about anyone but themselves. Undoubtedly there are other factors as well. My fear is that the authorities may cave in and legalise cycling on all pavements. After all, what is “shared space” if not a pavement that was once just for us? So it’s happening already.

This is why I feel that thinking the previously unthinkable (licensing etc) is appropriate. I don’t believe it’s just a bit of a nuisance that has always gone on. I think there’s an entirely new situation developing.

Anyway, I’ve started repeating myself, and also I’m expecting cyclists to be vaguely interested. Of course they’re not. The pedestrians have been very clear on this thread that there is a problem, but the cyclists, as usual, say it’s not serious, they make excuses for it, and, above all, they are not convinced that anything new needs to be done. Well, we’ll see.