'Plague of mosquitoes': The best and most concerning quotes from Parliament's cycling debate

I am not anti-cyclist. However...

We should consider, for instance, legally requiring cyclists to wear helmets and high-vis jackets.

The problem is not just ignoring red lights; it is not giving way to pedestrian crossings, going up on the pavement, squeezing through gaps, and undertaking, to name a few. It shows the darker side of Mario Cipollini's oft-misused cycling quotation: "If you brake, you don't win"

I thought that electronic chips on bikes might be a solution—it works for my cat.

I believe we need regulation for current cyclists because their behaviour is, at times, becoming a bit like plague of mosquitoes. You simply cannot get them away from you when you get to traffic lights.

There is a further offence, a very old one from the Offences against the Person Act 1861, called furious driving of a carriage. Obviously that law was for other times, but cycling can be pulled within it if there is a serious injury.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe, because if he thinks it is easy to ride a bike at 30mph on the flat, he should have been in the British Olympic team and not a Member of the House of Lords.

Do we want to have a licence to walk? That would be fun.

If one is so bold as to indicate to one of the many delivery drivers on e-scooters or mopeds beside you, or those with L-plates, that they are infringing on a bicyclist's space, as the noble Lord said, you will receive a lot of finger pointing—usually, in my experience, in an upwards direction.

When I first became a local government councillor, I had some advice from a very wise council officer that I should never allow myself to get in the middle of an argument between the pro-dog and anti-dog people. Similar sort of advice might apply, I discovered later in life, regarding the pro-cycling and anti-cycling people.

If you want to deter healthy cycling, you will overregulate it.