The imperatives of the new on-demand economy, the climate emergency and the cost of living crisis are colliding. It’s playing out as bedlam on the streets. In any decent-sized city, powered stand-up scooterists and electrified meal delivery cyclists swarm among the traffic, making their way by the law of Brownian motion rather than the Highway Code. Are they likely to keep to their own side of the road? Do they feel any obligation to look over their shoulders before swerving across a junction or onto the pavement? At night, do they see the point of wearing anything other than black, or showing any lights? To all the above, the answers are an emphatic no.
I used to get arsey with them, even as a fellow user of an integrated urban transit module – my pushbike. More than once lately I’ve been riding along and another rider overtakes me, then unannounced swerves left, crashing into me. I have a go at them and they clearly don’t think they’ve done anything wrong. Which, the last time it happened, gave me an epiphany.