I witnessed a cyclist shoot a red recently and miss, by a rubber-burning centimetre, a car speeding to catch the light before it went against him. Everyone in the area was freaking out, and the parallel universe where we all got to see mashed cyclist on tarmac toast was horribly real. The same week, a very experienced and fit cyclist mate permanently damaged his arm after shooting a red light into the path of an oncoming car.

Why, when the dangers are vividly apparent, are cyclists still junkies for this activity? Well, for a start there are sound statistical reasons for it. A Transport for London (TfL) study has suggested that cyclists who obey the rules of the road are more likely to be killed or injured than those who do not, adding that women are more likely to be involved in an accident because they are more likely to stick to the rules. This is because it can be safer to jump red lights to get ahead of the traffic and avoid being mashed on the inside of vehicles - especially lorries - turning left at junctions.

TfL immediately distanced itself from some of the findings, saying the document was meant for internal use only, but its findings chime with everyday experience. And it isn’t just cyclists who think so. There are some rules that society accepts will be broken.

I asked my friend Will, a keen cyclist, if he ever shot red lights. This is how he answered: “I had to go to court the other week - I’d witnessed some bloke get knocked off his scooter. I was following the car that hit him and the solicitor of the car driver asked me, ‘When the car went through the lights, were they red or amber or green?’" “I replied that I wasn’t sure, it was in October and I have ridden through a lot of traffic lights since then. But I thought they were amber, changing to red.

“The solicitor then asked, ‘When you went through, they would have been red by then?’ So I said, ‘I may have gone through a red light, yes.’ “‘So, sir! You are prepared to flout the laws of the road?’ But the magistrate interjected, and said, ‘Oh, come on! There isn’t a cyclist in London who hasn’t gone through a red light’.”

Men are more biologically prone to risky behaviour. But this isn’t about daredevil Daves ignoring lights. With her flowery skirts and yoga mat on her back, my friend Zoe rides a ladylike push-bike. “I shoot reds and bump up on pavements at busy junctions; I want to get in front and get away from the traffic. I feel as if I dice with death every day, riding my bike in London,” she says.

More than once she has been stopped and given an on-the-spot fine. Her riposte is always: “Look, it’s statistically proven that women, the more timid riders, are more likely to be injured or killed, riding their bikes.” To date, the fine has only been enforced once. “You can reason with the police, they let you off.”

I was invited to sign the Stop at Red petition recently (www.stopatred.org ), a campaign by cyclists to “encourage greater compliance with the laws of the road” and “tackle the attitudes of those cyclists whose behaviour perpetuates the image of cyclists as a low-status social ‘out-group’ on wheels”.

After much thought, I declined.