Cyclists !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

winkyincanada posted:

wenger2015 posted:

winkyincanada posted:

wenger2015 posted:

But considering bike riding can be a matter of life and death any measures to make cycling safer has to be a useful exercise... and worth consideration 

It's a question of risk and reward. Bike licensing is not cost-effective. Better things to spend money on. Those that despise cyclists on the roads propose licensing, along with taxes and idiotic fines (as in New South Wales) as a means to achieve their goal of far fewer cyclists. It has little, if anything to do with safety.

Are cyclists despised?

Can I ask how you come to that conclusion?

A combination of personal experience of frequent abuse from motorists on the roads (Australia is the worst country I've ever experienced for this), and the combination of victim blaming and white-hot hatred that spews onto the comments sections of cycling-related stories in the media. And Don.

Not being a cyclist, it's eye opening to see things from a cyclists perspective....  what you describe is totally not exceptable.... 

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't hate cyclists, and I have no wish to see them removed from the roads, or injured.

I started this thread because of the grotesque disregard for pedestrians by a very large proportion of cyclists at CentreParcs and on the Kennet & Avon Canal tow-path. I subsequently highlighted a few other recent incidents including the Thames tow-path between Richmond and Teddington for example. None of these examples involved cyclists using the highway.

When the subject of highway use by cyclists was raised (not by me) I suggested that cyclists should pay in order to use the highway system, much as motorists do. My suggestion was (and still is) on some form of occupancy basis. This is not to drive cyclists off the highway, merely to recognise that utilisation is usually associated with a payment - much like our water supply, for example. Motorists pay about £1,000 pa, or about 10p per mile. This is collected in the form of VED, Fuel Duty and VAT. A conceptually similar contribution by cyclists to access our road system could easily be collected per-mile using some form of GPS tracking device and an annual fee much like VED or our TV license fee. I simply doubled the overall cost to £2k pa (or 20p per mile) because cyclists generally move more slowly than cars (unless they are weaving through the traffic during the relatively short "rush-hour")

In the utopian future when cars are gone and have been replaced by 40m bikes in the UK, the Gov will still want its £40bn pa tax-take. This works out at £1k pa per bike. So even under my scheme, the financial  future for cyclists would look a lot better than the present !

There was also a constant theme in this thread promoted by forum cyclists, of making a step-change in the direction of more provision in our highway system for cyclists. This, together with a rather pleasant break in Venice, got me thinking that an even more radical step-change to (Pedestrians + Public Transport) would be entirely feasible for urban transport in virtually all of our cities and large towns. We park our cars and bikes on the edge of town, and either walk, or take a bus/tube to our destination. (And the Gov simply increases Income Tax by £2k pa on our 20m work-force).

I happened to go up to London a couple of weeks ago, and reminded myself that even there I can tube/bus/walk very easily to any where between Hammersmith- Liverpool Street (E-W) and Euston Road - Thames (N-S). And I usually park my car either at Hammersmith or Wimbledon, or travel in by train. No need for bikes. And a brisk walk is every bit as healthy as a bike ride.

Don Atkinson posted:

 

. This, together with a rather pleasant break in Venice, got me thinking that an even more radical step-change to (Pedestrians + Public Transport) would be entirely feasible for urban transport in virtually all of our cities and large towns. We park our cars and bikes on the edge of town, and either walk, or take a bus/tube to our destination. (And the Gov simply increases Income Tax by £2k pa on our 20m work-force).

I happened to go up to London a couple of weeks ago, and reminded myself that even there I can tube/bus/walk very easily to any where between Hammersmith- Liverpool Street (E-W) and Euston Road - Thames (N-S). And I usually park my car either at Hammersmith or Wimbledon, or travel in by train. No need for bikes. And a brisk walk is every bit as healthy as a bike ride.

This is not a new idea, having often been suggested - and I think is actually realistic. But cycling fits very well into it as an additional means of transport, on the freed up roads being able to travel in relative safety and with no negative effect on the non-existent car traffic.

i have sometimes contemplated an alternative means of city/town transport that similarly requires car parking on the edge of town and transfer to other transport, transport that would make the daily commute great fun! (Admitedly also longer, with risk of injury, and at times downright annoying, but those are trivial objections): The transport miracle is.......dodgems! Just think about it......... 

Don Atkinson posted:

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't hate cyclists, and I have no wish to see them removed from the roads, or injured.

Motorists pay about £1,000 pa, or about 10p per mile. This is collected in the form of VED, Fuel Duty and VAT. A conceptually similar contribution by cyclists to access our road system could easily be collected per-mile using some form of GPS tracking device and an annual fee much like VED or our TV license fee. I simply doubled the overall cost to £2k pa (or 20p per mile) because cyclists generally move more slowly than cars (unless they are weaving through the traffic during the relatively short "rush-hour")

In the utopian future when cars are gone and have been replaced by 40m bikes in the UK, the Gov will still want its £40bn pa tax-take. This works out at £1k pa per bike. So even under my scheme, the financial  future for cyclists would look a lot better than the present !

We park our cars and bikes on the edge of town, and either walk, or take a bus/tube to our destination. (And the Gov simply increases Income Tax by £2k pa on our 20m work-force).

I happened to go up to London a couple of weeks ago, and reminded myself that even there I can tube/bus/walk very easily to any where between Hammersmith- Liverpool Street (E-W) and Euston Road - Thames (N-S). And I usually park my car either at Hammersmith or Wimbledon, or travel in by train. No need for bikes. And a brisk walk is every bit as healthy as a bike ride.

1) You do a sound exactly like someone with a mission to rid the roads of cyclists though. 

2) A completely baseless premise from which to start. It's been stated so many times yet it still doesn't seem to enter your head Don. Roads like many other shared national resources are funded from general taxation. That's all there is to it. We don't charge people higher NI contributions if they're in hospital for longer. We all pay, we all use. And this amazing bit of man-maths that allows you to casually double the cost because we're a bit slower? Barking, just barking. And btw it's a tv licence. Noun / verb & all that.

You're also a bit scary with this idea that everyone in the country will be issued with a GPS device that must always be about our person if we're using the roads but not driving. Have you even begun to ponder the cost of that, and the policing required to make it happen, let alone the IT infrastructure behind it and the implications of the state requiring us to provide access to all our whereabouts? Welcome to the future, as defined by Don. Strewth. 

I see you casually slipped in a vague 'cycle VED'. Still not grasped how & why that's such an impractical concept then Don? Cycle registration has been tried by a handful of desperate governments around the world, and v quickly abandoned too. It doesn't work, it's impractical and not close to cost effective is terms of what it needs to do.

3) Ha. Let's assume that private motorised transport really does completely disappear. So that leaves a £40bn black hole does it? No. The annual cost of building & repairing roads drops like a stone without 30 million cars continually damaging them. The NHS suddenly isn't clogged up with accident victims. The NHS longer term isn't clogged with obese patients with failing cardio-vascular systems, and the general health of the nation improves with this sudden increase in physical activity and corresponding massive reduction in pollution from 30m cars suddenly not being around. Longer term the NHS & Social Care systems benefit from the huge drop in Alzheimers, Parkinsons  and other sufferers of degenerative diseases, this drop all caused by people cycling around in this mythical Don World where private transport is banned. £40bn black hole Don? It'd probably be self-funding, getting rid of cars. The social and economic cost caused by the disappearance of the motor industry and limited transport options probably needs its own discussion.

It's also quite amazing to see the claim that by inviting cyclists to pay £1000 a year the future would look better for us. It's been asked a few times and he always side-steps it, but in what world would casual cyclists actually choose to ride bikes if it's going to cost them a £1000 a year? It's hard enough convincing people that a £70 pile of iron from Tesco isn't good value and that £500 in a decent bike shop is a much better use of money. Yet somehow Don imagines that paying £1000, every year, will be better. Sorry Don. You're so far off the mark it's unreal.

4) There's plenty of space is there then outside every town to create car parks big enough to allow us all to park & ride? Something like the car park at Gatwick is it Don? That's not even close to feasible. But is on a par with the rest of your poorly thought-out 'ideas'.

5) The UK isn't London, and 'a brisk walk' at normal walking speeds will take a lot longer than the same quick trip by bike. Not everyone who cycles is a casual leisure cyclist with all day to fill with 'a brisk walk', a lot of us have jobs to get to. Mine was 20 miles away - that's not what I'd call a brisk walk away, but it was a nice hour's ride away. Shame we closed that office tbh. Same in my previous jobs; 6 miles - walk no, cycle in in about 20 minutes. Or the one before that - 3½ miles a good hour's walk or a 10 minute ride. You might have all the time in the world Don to stroll about coming up with barmy plans to clear the roads of pesky cyclists, but outside of World Of Don the real world has to function, like getting to the office after we've seen the kids off to school. Y'know Don, boring realities like that.

I was out yesterday, in the car. It was about 30 miles so too far to walk and we didn't have time to cycle either. Summer Sundays are busy days in the lanes round here so I actively looked for these pesky cyclists holding us up as I know which roads they're likely to use and we saw absolutely loads of em, so I started to time how long I was delayed for. Answer? Two short delays of about 10-15 seconds each, both of which delayed my arrival at the traffic lights just up the road. So this mythical concept of delays that must be accounted for by charging double compared to what pollution-emitting cars are, seems to like all your other ideas Don. It's just a fantasy plucked out of thin air. Cycles cause minor delays that are soon made up. Traffic causes congestion. That's the difference that you can't quite grasp.

Each time Don comes back his ideas get a little bit dafter. I wonder what we'll see next. Hopefully it's not as barmy as the nation being issued with GPS devices and all that goes with it. 

What a well thought out, reasoned and articulated response, Chris. A pleasure to read. Thank you.

Thanks Tim. Just trying to fight back against the numptiness out there.

By coincidence TV's Ned Boulting Tweeted this at lunchtime. It's worth a share, in case anyone actually believes that discouraging cycling is in any way a good idea. It's not, in case you need to be told.

https://theconversation.com/cy...are-staggering-76292

ChrisR_EPL posted:

Thanks Tim. Just trying to fight back against the numptiness out there.

By coincidence TV's Ned Boulting Tweeted this at lunchtime. It's worth a share, in case anyone actually believes that discouraging cycling is in any way a good idea. It's not, in case you need to be told.

https://theconversation.com/cy...are-staggering-76292

Nice article. Meanwhile in New South Wales, Australia, extreme levels of cyclists' fines have had exactly the desired result of a ~300% increase in government revenue from the fines, and a ~35% reduction in cyclists using the roads. Fatalities have dropped almost exactly in proportion to the cyclists' numbers. While thousands of fines for things like helmet use and not having a bell, have been handed out to cyclists, the total number of drivers fined under the new safe-passing laws was 17.

I have sympathy with Don's views around cyclists abusing the privileges of this mode of transport, especially when it comes to footpaths, river and canal banks et al. Perhaps it's to do with common courtesy and adverse changes in attitudes in society but unless I see a sign which expressly assigns superior rights to cyclists, then the 'sail before steam' rules of the road must surely apply. AFAIK, many bye-laws are targeted at restricting wheeled transport - the much broader issue being that of (impossible) enforceability. And I agree that trying to impose any levy on cyclists and cycling in a wider scheme would be highly impracticable at best.

Having been a cyclist for many years and a car driver alongside, one thing which really eats me is the selfish and hazardous liberties taken by some cyclists, especially in peak hour traffic. As often in life, it's not the tool that's the issue, it's the person riding it, often with scant respect for the rights and with minimal sympathy towards other road users. We all know all parties on the road can be at fault but as the most exposed, I always took the view I had to ride defensively when in material traffic, avoiding blind spots, not creeping up kerbs etc, to get to the front of the queue at lights (this can be one of the most dangerous areas to be IMV) and recognising that buses have to stop at the kerbs. I prefer to hold station in queues and stop out from the kerb, asserting my right to the space on the road and making sure I can be seen.

I'm sure we all have tales to tell. I recollect 2 police motorcycles sat at red lights at Cavendish Square in central London as a small flotilla of cyclists rode passed them. The cops were not impressed and pursued them with 'Blues and twos' on, and some just kept on riding until being forced to stop some way down the road. Idiots doesn't begin to describe my thoughts towards such people. 

Personally, I'm all for measures which put responsibility on cyclists too.  

Happy Listener posted:

I have sympathy with Don's views around cyclists abusing the privileges of this mode of transport, especially when it comes to footpaths, river and canal banks et al.  

My village has one or more cycle groups passing through most weekends & invariably Sunday mornings.  Some are just organised rides,  others are obviously some form of competition.   One of the roads into the village is a steep'ish 1/12 with some 1/8 sections.  Apart from traffic pinch points with priority for uphill traffic,  the hill is 30mph for the most part but changes to 20mp as it enters the village at a road narrowing on a bend.    No probs for the bikers riding up the hill,  coming down is another matter entirely.  The more competitive groups have a total disregard for speed limits, pinch points & traffic priority.  A few Sunday's ago I watched as a high speed group of around 30 barreled down the hill only to meet head on with a large tractor pulling an even larger trailer piled with straw bales at the road narrowing bend.  Absolute mayhem,  about 10 got off unhurt, the rest had various gravel rash injuries & a lot of bent bikes.   After helping pick up some of the pieces & then happy to see plod arrive to sort it all out,  I walked off with a sense sadistic satisfaction.     

ChrisR_EPL posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't hate cyclists, and I have no wish to see them removed from the roads, or injured.

Motorists pay about £1,000 pa, or about 10p per mile. This is collected in the form of VED, Fuel Duty and VAT. A conceptually similar contribution by cyclists to access our road system could easily be collected per-mile using some form of GPS tracking device and an annual fee much like VED or our TV license fee. I simply doubled the overall cost to £2k pa (or 20p per mile) because cyclists generally move more slowly than cars (unless they are weaving through the traffic during the relatively short "rush-hour")

In the utopian future when cars are gone and have been replaced by 40m bikes in the UK, the Gov will still want its £40bn pa tax-take. This works out at £1k pa per bike. So even under my scheme, the financial  future for cyclists would look a lot better than the present !

We park our cars and bikes on the edge of town, and either walk, or take a bus/tube to our destination. (And the Gov simply increases Income Tax by £2k pa on our 20m work-force).

I happened to go up to London a couple of weeks ago, and reminded myself that even there I can tube/bus/walk very easily to any where between Hammersmith- Liverpool Street (E-W) and Euston Road - Thames (N-S). And I usually park my car either at Hammersmith or Wimbledon, or travel in by train. No need for bikes. And a brisk walk is every bit as healthy as a bike ride.

1) You do a sound exactly like someone with a mission to rid the roads of cyclists though. 

2) A completely baseless premise from which to start. It's been stated so many times yet it still doesn't seem to enter your head Don. Roads like many other shared national resources are funded from general taxation. That's all there is to it. We don't charge people higher NI contributions if they're in hospital for longer. We all pay, we all use. And this amazing bit of man-maths that allows you to casually double the cost because we're a bit slower? Barking, just barking. And btw it's a tv licence. Noun / verb & all that.

You're also a bit scary with this idea that everyone in the country will be issued with a GPS device that must always be about our person if we're using the roads but not driving. Have you even begun to ponder the cost of that, and the policing required to make it happen, let alone the IT infrastructure behind it and the implications of the state requiring us to provide access to all our whereabouts? Welcome to the future, as defined by Don. Strewth. 

I see you casually slipped in a vague 'cycle VED'. Still not grasped how & why that's such an impractical concept then Don? Cycle registration has been tried by a handful of desperate governments around the world, and v quickly abandoned too. It doesn't work, it's impractical and not close to cost effective is terms of what it needs to do.

3) Ha. Let's assume that private motorised transport really does completely disappear. So that leaves a £40bn black hole does it? No. The annual cost of building & repairing roads drops like a stone without 30 million cars continually damaging them. The NHS suddenly isn't clogged up with accident victims. The NHS longer term isn't clogged with obese patients with failing cardio-vascular systems, and the general health of the nation improves with this sudden increase in physical activity and corresponding massive reduction in pollution from 30m cars suddenly not being around. Longer term the NHS & Social Care systems benefit from the huge drop in Alzheimers, Parkinsons  and other sufferers of degenerative diseases, this drop all caused by people cycling around in this mythical Don World where private transport is banned. £40bn black hole Don? It'd probably be self-funding, getting rid of cars. The social and economic cost caused by the disappearance of the motor industry and limited transport options probably needs its own discussion.

It's also quite amazing to see the claim that by inviting cyclists to pay £1000 a year the future would look better for us. It's been asked a few times and he always side-steps it, but in what world would casual cyclists actually choose to ride bikes if it's going to cost them a £1000 a year? It's hard enough convincing people that a £70 pile of iron from Tesco isn't good value and that £500 in a decent bike shop is a much better use of money. Yet somehow Don imagines that paying £1000, every year, will be better. Sorry Don. You're so far off the mark it's unreal.

4) There's plenty of space is there then outside every town to create car parks big enough to allow us all to park & ride? Something like the car park at Gatwick is it Don? That's not even close to feasible. But is on a par with the rest of your poorly thought-out 'ideas'.

5) The UK isn't London, and 'a brisk walk' at normal walking speeds will take a lot longer than the same quick trip by bike. Not everyone who cycles is a casual leisure cyclist with all day to fill with 'a brisk walk', a lot of us have jobs to get to. Mine was 20 miles away - that's not what I'd call a brisk walk away, but it was a nice hour's ride away. Shame we closed that office tbh. Same in my previous jobs; 6 miles - walk no, cycle in in about 20 minutes. Or the one before that - 3½ miles a good hour's walk or a 10 minute ride. You might have all the time in the world Don to stroll about coming up with barmy plans to clear the roads of pesky cyclists, but outside of World Of Don the real world has to function, like getting to the office after we've seen the kids off to school. Y'know Don, boring realities like that.

I was out yesterday, in the car. It was about 30 miles so too far to walk and we didn't have time to cycle either. Summer Sundays are busy days in the lanes round here so I actively looked for these pesky cyclists holding us up as I know which roads they're likely to use and we saw absolutely loads of em, so I started to time how long I was delayed for. Answer? Two short delays of about 10-15 seconds each, both of which delayed my arrival at the traffic lights just up the road. So this mythical concept of delays that must be accounted for by charging double compared to what pollution-emitting cars are, seems to like all your other ideas Don. It's just a fantasy plucked out of thin air. Cycles cause minor delays that are soon made up. Traffic causes congestion. That's the difference that you can't quite grasp.

 

Each time Don comes back his ideas get a little bit dafter. I wonder what we'll see next. Hopefully it's not as barmy as the nation being issued with GPS devices and all that goes with it. 

Chris, I decided to ignore the vitriolic and personal insults, implied and explicit in your response above and concentrate my response on the remainder of your text.

Here goes.

Cheers, Don

No problem Don. We know you don't have anything to say when challenged, other than hiding behind a 'witty retort'. Well dodged sir. Again.

Yours.

Chris.

Happy Listener posted:

I have sympathy with Don's views around cyclists abusing the privileges of this mode of transport, especially when it comes to footpaths, river and canal banks et al.

 

100% agree. I'd extend it say that no-one should abuse privileges of being allowed onto thoroughfares that also have vulnerable users sharing them. The onus should be on the faster, more powerful vehicle to give right-of-way to those moving more slowly and who would suffer most in a collision.

ChrisR_EPL posted:

No problem Don. We know you don't have anything to say when challenged, other than hiding behind a 'witty retort'. Well dodged sir. Again.

 

Yours.

Chris.

Hi Chris,

I've deleted the bits which are either wrong or unnecessary.

As for your previous post, you will appreciate there is simply far too much unnecessary insult to trawl through and too many incorrect presumptions on your part about my perception of cyclists. So, no "witty retort", just too tedious to sort any wheat from the obvious chaff. Perhaps when I have a bit more time..........

Joggers!!!Runners!!!

Look at this:

https://www.theguardian.com/uk...man-into-path-of-bus

They should all be made to carry GPS devices and pay a tax covering the time they occupy the pavement!

Clive

Time to close the thread? If Don can't raise his energy levels to meet new challenges he probably needs to get out on his bike!

Seriously, I don't think there's been anything new or fresh added to the discussion for quite a while - it's almost as moribund as the old Trump thread.

Timmo1341 posted:

Time to close the thread? If Don can't raise his energy levels to meet new challenges he probably needs to get out on his bike!

Seriously, I don't think there's been anything new or fresh added to the discussion for quite a while - it's almost as moribund as the old Trump thread.

I think Timmo's contribution was new, quite reasonably (when considered in the context of Don's cyclist proposals) identifying the appropriateness of taxing pedestrians.

Extending that by Don's argument, because they travel even more slowly than cyclists, pedestrians should be taxed at en even higher rate, say £3k PA. Now I don't have any hard figures to back this up, but it could be that combined pedestrian and cyclist tax would be more than the total car tax income, so it would be unnecessary tomtax cars. Provided that cycle paths are made using the money, car use could be positively encouraged, and with luck all roads would become completely log-jammed and then safe for other road users. Meanwhile if legislation is brought in to make it compulsory for all cars to be fitted with automatic engine-stop when stationary, that would stop the pollution they cause. Job done.

Don Atkinson posted:

ChrisR_EPL posted:

No problem Don. We know you don't have anything to say when challenged, other than hiding behind a 'witty retort'. Well dodged sir. Again.

 

Yours.

Chris.

Hi Chris,

I've deleted the bits which are either wrong or unnecessary.

As for your previous post, you will appreciate there is simply far too much unnecessary insult to trawl through and too many incorrect presumptions on your part about my perception of cyclists. So, no "witty retort", just too tedious to sort any wheat from the obvious chaff. Perhaps when I have a bit more time..........

It's not difficult Don.

All that's required is for you to correct my points that show how ridiculous and unworkable your ideas are, if you can. Trouble, is you won't, because you can't. Your repeated failure to do so under the guise of my posts being 'vitriolic' (hah, really? ) or too insulting sounds to me an awful lot like a cop-out, so it'll be fun to see what you can come up with.

In my experience ‘cyclists’ are not some separate breed. Most cyclists are also car owners and car drivers.

I myself wonder whether those whose cycling only consists of transporting the bike in the car to a countryside cycle path or canal towpath, might be more likely to then tear around said paths on their bikes? Just as they are used to driving fast in a car, but with the legal restrictions of road use removed giving a misplaced sense that they are more free to do that on a cycle path?

When I see people (not the pejorative ‘cyclists’) cycling inconsiderately or hazardously on footpaths, shared or otherwise, I rationalise and calm myself with the thought that at least those people aren’t acting out those tendencies behind the wheel of a car. We have more than enough such people driving cars already. The concern of course is that the younger ones will likely be progressing to cars in few years time, when old enough to drive. Then we'll really need to watch out for danger!

Timmo1341 posted:

Time to close the thread? If Don can't raise his energy levels to meet new challenges he probably needs to get out on his bike!

Seriously, I don't think there's been anything new or fresh added to the discussion for quite a while - it's almost as moribund as the old Trump thread.

There's nothing particularly new or challenging in Chris's posts, just the usual mis-interpretation of what's been said and what he want's to believe about those of us who express concern about irresponsible cyclists. In addition, most "commuter cyclists" I have met, also do it when they perceive any sort of suggestion that they should pay in order to use the road system. Chris's main contribution has been the added insults, and for sure I can't be bothered to put much energy into sorting that from anything meaningful buried amongst it.

No Don. I've shown your ideas up as unworkable and unrealistic. You're just hiding behind your silly excuses with your repeated failure to provide any response. 

Never mind. Your ideas will never happen anyway. Not in a million years.

Wants, not want's btw. Is that your level Don, poor spelling & grammar, along with your completely illogical thought processes? 

There's a cyclist who regularly rides around Aylesbury (on the busy main roads) whilst texting (or performing some function on his mobile).  Presumably, the same rules apply?

The Strat (Fender) posted:

There's a cyclist who regularly rides around Aylesbury (on the busy main roads) whilst texting (or performing some function on his mobile).  Presumably, the same rules apply?

The same rule as in it is downright irresponsible and dangerous, though overall more of a danger to the stupid cretin doing it than if he were driving a car or other motorised vehicle. Idon't know how the law is worded - easy to check- and report him to the police as even though the danger is more to himself than others, he still could be the cause of an accident that could harm or even result in the death of others. I have no hesitation in reporting licence plate numbers of people I see at the wheel using a phone to the police because it is infinitely more risky and irresponsible than, say, driving a car faster than allowed.

Innocent Bystander posted:

The Strat (Fender) posted:

There's a cyclist who regularly rides around Aylesbury (on the busy main roads) whilst texting (or performing some function on his mobile).  Presumably, the same rules apply?

The same rule as in it is downright irresponsible and dangerous, though overall more of a danger to the stupid cretin doing it than if he were driving a car or other motorised vehicle. Idon't know how the law is worded - easy to check- and report him to the police as even though the danger is more to himself than others, he still could be the cause of an accident that could harm or even result in the death of others. I have no hesitation in reporting licence plate numbers of people I see at the wheel using a phone to the police because it is infinitely more risky and irresponsible than, say, driving a car faster than allowed.

(IANAL but...) There is an offence of "careless cycling" however its not illegal per se to use a phone while cycling ... https://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q604.htm

https://theconversation.com/cy...are-staggering-76292

 Article about the benefits of cycling to work.