Any article about cycling deaths is invariably met with a masterclass in victim-blaming. “Bloody” cyclists get killed because they don’t wear helmets! They ride too dangerously: jumping red lights and slipping into too-small spaces! They need licensing! Make them pay road tax!*

I bet none of those making such claims has the depressing Excel spreadsheet I do. It lists the names of everyone who’s been killed on a bike in London since 2008: 103 deaths in total. When you analyse that data, you don’t get a picture of reckless Lycra louts endangering their own lives. There are patterns, though. More than half were hit by lorries. Half of those collisions involved vehicles from the construction industry: tipper trucks, cement mixers and skip lorries. And given that women only make a quarter of cycling journeys, a disproportionate number of the victims are female — ordinarily safer cyclists than men.

This isn’t just data, though. Reading the details of these crashes — especially where someone has been dragged under an HGV — makes me shudder. But it’s the personal elements that put a lump in my throat: the husbands and wives robbed of a partner, the parents missing daughters and sons.

Perhaps some people find it easier to stomach such stories if they kid themselves that the cyclists are always at fault. But consider this: in 2014, 64 people were killed while walking along the capital’s streets (that compares with 13 cyclists). Yet no one says helmets should be mandatory for pedestrians, or that anyone should need a licence to go for a stroll. Safer roads are for everyone.

The last time I wrote about the perils of travelling by bike, someone wrote below the online version: “She must be an atrocious cyclist who’d be better off on the bus.” That’s nonsense: riding each day, you swiftly collect a catalogue of near-misses. Twice in the past week I’ve had cars overtake me before a junction and then turn left across me. A month ago, a motorist swerved into me as “revenge” after I complained he’d blocked the bike box. Dangerous driving is common; to focus only the cyclist is to be blinkered about the problem.

It’s not quite as simple as saying being helmetless or untrained is the short skirt of cycling, though. We could all take extra care on the road. But we cyclists aren’t the ones in charge of 1,300kg of steel. A friend has a theory about road safety that we’d be wise to adopt: the onus should be on the person in charge of the more dangerous vehicle. That means cyclists should be looking out for pedestrians who step out into the road, car drivers shouldn’t become aggressive behind slow-moving two-wheelers, and lorries should be fitted with every safety gizmo going and their drivers ultra-trained.

We should be trying to create a city that’s safe for inexperienced — hell, bad — cyclists. That would give us a London with less congestion and cleaner air. By 2025, TfL wants 1.5 million journeys a day to be by bike — treble what it is now. We’re never going to get there if we’re still blaming cyclists for every collision.

* As cyclists will tell you — at great length — road tax was abolished in 1937.

Cecil’s legacy must be greater control of trophy hunters

The slaughter of Cecil the lion was savage, immoral and seemingly illegal — and I’m glad it’s front-page news. But he’s only the most famous of so many animals killed by “trophy-hunters”. Just look at the website of the company African Sky Hunting: photo after photo of human predators and their prey. One features Mum, Dad, gun and son with a dead rhino. Aww, slaying rare creatures — good, clean family fun!

Nonetheless, the attacks aimed at Cecil’s killer, American dentist Walter Palmer, don’t make our species look much more civilised. There were calls for Old Testament justice — Peta wants Palmer hanged; Piers Morgan, writing for Mail Online, fantasised about “skin[ning] him alive”.

But this isn’t about one man, it’s about an industry sustained by an anthropocentric attitude. Cecil’s death could be a means to increase pressure on governments to halt the import of animals killed in trophy-hunting, rather than just a way to find this week’s Public Enemy No 1.

What’s the big fuss over turning 30?

On Sunday, I turn 31. It’s one of those forgettable birthdays, the William IVs of ageing.

In contrast, 30 loomed large. That was partly because when I was a child it seemed like the age by which you should have your life in order, partly because society sells you stories about impending ovary-immolation, and partly because your Stalkerbook feed is suddenly a long line of wedding photos. I spent the whole of 29 steeling myself, but when 30 came it was strangely liberating.

What did it matter if I hadn’t ticked off every possible life goal? Whose list was it anyway?

With the wisdom (read: frown lines) of another year, here’s a piece of advice for the young: there’s nothing to fear about “the big 3-0”.

Don’t let teen spirit haunt us

In one of his shows, the comedian Stewart Lee noted that if he ever had amnesia, he’d only have to look at Twitter to find out where he’d been. “Stood behind Stewart Lee in Costa today,” someone will have written. “He’s fatter than he looks on TV,” another charmer will have asserted.

But it isn’t just the famous who are under extra scrutiny. We’re all one tantrum away from a career-ruining video being uploaded to YouTube. Sometimes, past sins re-emerge. This seems particularly cruel to the under-18s, whose teenage transgressions leave a trail. Now, campaigners want the young to be able to expunge their social media history, freeing them with a mouse click from their online albatrosses. This would offer what I’m thankful I had: an unrecorded adolescence. Then it’s only the bra-wearing, coke-snorting, adult-cavorting one needs to worry about.