As of this week, cyclists caught going through red lights in the City of London could find themselves facing a snap decision: pay a £50 on-the-spot fine, or stand in a ‘sin bin’ and watch a short two-minute video, designed to make them reflect on their actions.
It’s a no-brainer. No one in their right mind would pony up fifty notes when they could spend two-minutes watching a little cautionary movie, surely? (It takes longer than that for the officer to fill out the paperwork for the fine). And, predictably, every single one of the 70 velo-villains nabbed by the City of London Police force for hopping the lights on Wednesday, when the new initiative was first rolled out, went for the video option.
But what does this video show, and will it be effective in reducing behaviour that the police say has become endemic on the capital’s streets?
Well, I’ve seen it. And I’ll never jump a light again.
To be honest, I’m a pretty well-behaved cyclist these days anyway (of course I am, I work for Cycling Weekly), and I also now live in a place where both traffic lights and police officers are few and far between. But there was a time when I lived in London and worked as a bike courier, and I’d routinely go through dozens of red lights every day.
It is, in essence, a selfish act to run a red light, and we all know it's a bad thing to do. You’re basically saying that your time is more important than everyone else’s. And this alternative punishment is very much of the ‘we’re not angry with you, we’re just disappointed’ school of disciplinary psychology, which tends to be much more effective.
"We issue cyclists fixed penalty notices for going through red lights in the city on a daily basis," explains Sergeant Stuart Ford, Cycle Team lead at City of London Police. "Riders running reds is one of our biggest complaints, from residents, people visiting and working in the city. We have to act on what they're saying. And it is a bit of a nightmare out there for pedestrians and vulnerable road users.
"Between 8 and 9 in the morning, in the city, we get 20,000 cyclists come through. We're only a small team, there's only ten of us, if we're all out in the morning, we might issue 20 tickets. That's nothing. That's not going to get the message out there.
"So I came up with this 3E approach, which is engage with people, educate them, and enforce the law. The whole point is I want to get some sort of behavioural change. A lot of cyclists are very good and they abide by the laws of the road, but some don’t. Rather than issuing tickets all the time, I wanted to come up with something else, where we give them an opportunity to watch a safety video and give them a bit of a warning if you like."
Sergeant Ford says he doesn’t especially love the term 'sin bin', and prefers to call it a "cycle time out zone". Riders who agree to watch the video stand on a five-by-two-metre mat with a picture of a bike on it, surrounded by a police logo, and watch the short film.
"I've been a cyclist my whole life," says Ford. "I've got four or five road bikes at home myself. It's what I do. I like bikes. So I'm coming from a good place. I don't want to be penalising people that want to do the right thing getting on their bikes. I just want people to abide by the law."
The video shows the potential consequences of your selfish actions on others, in this case people with sight impairment, some of whom describe frightening encounters with pedal-powered light jumpers. It’s filmed in a way that encourages empathy with these people, and for good measure, one of them invokes the physical and mental damage that could be done to their guide dog – which is a complete clincher – and what that would mean for their freedom.
You’d have to be monster if having this perspective thrust in your face didn’t make you stop and think, or in this case, think and stop. Watching the video, I found myself regretting all those red-light indiscretions of years gone by. I never ran over any assistance labradors (seriously, I didn’t – don’t write in), but it could have happened loads of times.
There are counterpoints to be made, about drivers’ behaviour, but it’s hard to argue with the basic premiss of Ford's thinking, and most cycling-oriented orientated organisations are in agreement.
"Cyclists are not really the issue of safety on the roads, that's more cars and driving and speeding, so it's kind of fiddling whilst Rome burns on safety grounds," says Tom Fyans from the London Cycling Campaign. “But we are broadly supportive. We think it's an innovative way of getting through to cyclists that they've got responsibilities on the road to keep people safe other than themselves.
"There are more bikes than cars now in the City of London, so the situation is a little different there to elsewhere. And if it gets cyclist respecting red lights a bit more and thinking about how to stay safe on the road, and keep others safe, that's a good thing."
There is another part of the video, for those perhaps lacking in empathy, which isn’t for media or general public consumption, that shows real footage of a bike rider going through a red light, getting knocked off her bike, and then talking about the life-long consequences of that rash decision. I’ve not seen that yet bit, and I don’t intend to – I’ll just stop at the red lights from now on.