Should cyclists be allowed to run red lights?

Cyclists in Paris are now allowed to ride through red lights, and San Francisco is mulling a similar move. With the four main candidates for mayor considering just such a radical rewriting of the rulebook, could London be next?

The lights turn red but the cyclist behind me shoots straight through. Two police officers radio to a colleague up the road who pulls him over and writes out a 50 on-the-spot fine. The Metropolitan Police hand out around 3,000 of these fixed penalty notices a year to cyclists for running red lights: many motorists would like to see them issue more - but could the offence instead be scrapped altogether?

When Paris changed the rules this summer to allow cyclists to ride through 1,800 red lights, the French capital joined Brussels and cities in Germany and the Netherlands which have been doing just that for years. There's a row over proposals to introduce similar changes in San Francisco - cyclists protested against a police crackdown by rigidly obeying traffic laws and brought traffic to a halt. Now, the four main candidates to replace Boris Johnson as mayor have said they will consider such a move in London.