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BICYCLES AND MOTORS 818
raised by this one man, who told me these facts and many
more in the nineties.
BICYCLING IN LONDON
It may be a boon to Londoners that biking in the
Metropolis appears to be thought to be more perilous
than in York, Birmingham, or Oxford. The crowd of
bikes in some provincial towns is certainly a nuisance
to elderly pedestrians crossing the road, and the best
quality of the push-bike, its noiselessness, lays it open
to dark suspicions. But it is a mistake to suppose that
crowded streets are the dangerous ones. They are unrewarding,
I admit, but where everybody, motorists and
all, are obliged to go slowly there is no danger to life or
limb. The perilous moments in !-ondon are when you
cross a road frequented but not crowded, such as Sloane
Street, or worse, the bottom of Grosvenor Place, where
heavy 'Vehicles gain impetus from the hill. Three or four
experiences have taught me the advisability of sticking
to streets I know well ; and the moment I scent a complication
I get off. Nervous people are frightened by the
hooting of a motor behind them, but the noise means
that the driver is doing his best not to run you down.
The danger is from the scorcher who does not hoot.
It is commonly said that anyone can get a licence to
drive a taxi on payment of &., and that general peril
results, I doubt the peril from this cause. The danger
is from passengers who bribe the driver to catch a train.
Thil ought never to be done. A smash I got on the south
end of London Bridge-the most dangerous slope I know
-was probably due to it. It was a touch and go. A
flagrant, wholly inexcusable outrage, very nearly fatal ;
no bones broken but face cut about, also wrists and
knees ; ambulance to Guy's Hospital, and a week' a work
spoilt. But owing to a first-rate and very alert policeman
the knave was clawed, and the owner's Insurance Com-