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Cycling campaigners rethink DfT's "victim blaming" Think! video

Meanwhile, government department releases another road safety video - this one aimed at drivers

Cycling campaigners have put their own spin today’s Think” road safety campaign from the Department for Transport (DfT) which warns cyclists to ‘Hang Back’ and not get on the inside of a left-turning lorry. The charity Cycling UK says the government department is guilty of “victim blaming” and has urged it to pull the campaign.

As we reported earlier today, the campaign has been met with widespread criticism on social media, with British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman calling it “desperately misguided.”

Green Party London Assembly Member Caroline Russell saying it”quite clearly shows” that the government “have not got the first idea about how to reduce danger for people cycling."

> Fury over Government cycling HGV warning video

Some campaigners, however, have taken the DfT’s footage and put their own spin on it to show where the DfT had gone wrong and suggest how the message could have been pitched differently.

Alex Ingram, secretary of hfcyclists, the local branch of the London Cycling Campaign in Hammersmith & Fulham, put his own voiceover on the footage.

Campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists also tweeted their own edit of the video – changing the text at the end – and also said they have submitted a Freedom of Information Request “to find out how much money and time was spent on the THINK! ad, and who signed it off.”

The reception afforded to the DfT video today is in stark contrast to the welcome that campaigners gave earlier this month to the West Midlands Police announcement that the force would seek to prosecute drivers who did not give cyclists sufficient room.

One Twitter user this morning asked the force’s road policing team their opinion of the DfT campaign and received an unequivocal response.

Cycling UK – which described West Midlands Police’s move as “the best road safety initiative ever” – revealed that earlier this year, it suggested to the DfT that it build a Think! campaign around that very  issue of cyclists put in danger by drivers who make close passes on them.

> Cycling UK lauds West Midlands Police’s new close-pass initiative

Duncan Dollimore, the charity’s senior road safety and legal campaigns officer, said: “That was rejected because we were told that their campaigns were informed by casualty statistics, which had not revealed that near misses lead to significant casualties (that is the point, it was a near miss so there was no collision, but there could have been).”

On learning that instead the campaign’s message would be for cyclists to ‘Hang Back,’ the organisation, which rebranded from CTC in April, expressed its reservations to the DfT.

“Our concerns that the issue was a little more nuanced, and that there were questions regarding cab design, infrastructure, and driver behaviour, as well as education for cyclists, were not taken on board,” said Dollimore. 

“The result is a campaign which, in looking at one part of a bigger picture, and even then through tinted windows, risks being remembered as an ill thought through victim blaming campaign.”

He added: “The tragedy with this campaign is that even its most ardent critic should accept that warning cyclists to be careful when they are on the near-side of a lorry, and that the lorry driver's vision might be restricted, are sensible messages to include within a road safety campaign. 

“These, however, are lost when the focus is solely upon victim responsibility, with a video which begs more questions than it answers. 

“The DfT might be best served to acknowledge that this one has not worked, pull the campaign and start again. Cycling UK would be more than willing to work with them should they chose to do so, but before they ask cyclists to THINK, they need to listen,” he concluded.

Meanwhile, this afternoon the DfT has published a new video on its YouTube channel which urges motorists to take care around cyclists on the road, including given them sufficient space.

Filmed in the streets around the department’s Horseferry Road headquarters, some might be forgiven for wondering if the footage was put together in haste this morning to try and defuse the reaction to the earlier video?

 

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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15 comments

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horizontal dropout | 7 years ago
0 likes

The last point in the new video is to check before opening your door. DfT sadly missed an opportunity to promote opposite hand opening - when opening a drivers side door use your left hand and vice versa for a passenger side door. Then you are already turning your body in the right direction to look behind.

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oldmixte | 7 years ago
0 likes

You may have seen this about a truck blind spot before but it is frightening!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lV-rhiGRFTE

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1750nick | 7 years ago
0 likes

...wonder whether a couple of thousand letters from everyone to the DfT advising how appalling these videos are, might highlight the point?

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don simon fbpe | 7 years ago
0 likes

That was quite a dramatic and hopefully shocking video that will really make the driver think. I was shaken by the horror and impact of that. Hat off to the Think! campaign.  I can't see it being shown before the watershed though.

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hawkinspeter | 7 years ago
3 likes

They should do a similar campaign to inform women about the danger of being attractive when they are in an area with lots of rapists.

Women - Dress Dowdy!

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oldmixte | 7 years ago
0 likes

Bristol yesterday
Lorry stops with left indicator running, cyclist goes up the inside. My first thought was daft, but when they had moved off I realised the cyclist was in an advance cycle box, however it still looked dodgy to me as because of the sight angles created by the set up, she was just in front and left of his nearside. I suspect the cyclist might have been in the lorry’s nearside blind spot, despite the plethora of mirrors the driver had.
If this was the case and an accident had resulted who would have been in the wrong?
If it had been me I suspect I would have hung back despite the advanced box, just to be on the safe side.

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brooksby replied to oldmixte | 7 years ago
4 likes
OldMixte wrote:

I suspect the cyclist might have been in the lorry’s nearside blind spot, despite the plethora of mirrors the driver had. If this was the case and an accident had resulted who would have been in the wrong?.

This situation has been discussed before. The road planners put an ASL which almost exactly matches the blind spots of an HGV, put a cycle lane up the inside of waiting traffic, and are then horrified, I tell you, *horrified*, when someone is silly enough to actually use that infrastructure and gets run over.

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muffies | 7 years ago
4 likes

They could havent shortened the dialog a lot:

 

"when you're about to die, just don't instead. Stupid cyclist!"

 

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mr_dombat | 7 years ago
0 likes

My alternative DFT video - https://youtu.be/PyiFLI35Fak (I needed to be more in primary but the bus needed to hang back...twice!)

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Leviathan | 7 years ago
3 likes

GCN in an attack of reasonableness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ofpj6L6nxg

Don't blame the victim, but just don't put yourself there. Keep Back should be for motorists turning as well.

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imajez | 7 years ago
5 likes

Morons in motor vehicles overtaking cyclists in order to do an immediate  left turn are the aggressive retards who really need educating. Numpties who kill and injure people whilst impatiently turning left. Along with the brain doneors who overtake dangerously only to slam brakes on just after passing you, because as there's nowhere for them to go or the light you are slowing down for in front is red.

The ad is equivilant to to one aimed at women telling them not to wear attractive clothing or makeup, otherwise they'll get raped.

 

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tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
5 likes

Strapline at the end should read:

 

Cyclists, beware of dangerous drivers. If you see one, report them to us immediately. 

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severs1966 replied to tritecommentbot | 7 years ago
0 likes
unconstituted wrote:

Strapline at the end should read:

 

Cyclists, beware of dangerous drivers. If you see one, report them to us immediately. 

 

And we will ignore your report! Like we always do.

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HarrogateSpa | 7 years ago
5 likes

I haven't watched the new video. I've no confidence in the THINK! campaign.

The 'hang back' video won't succeed in getting a message across to people who ride bikes, because it is so crass, and seems to glory in the violence meted out to the guy who ends up squashed. It just alienates people.

The only thing that video might do is reinforce the view of some truck drivers - not all - that other people should just gerrouttta the way, and that's not a good thing.

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Username replied to HarrogateSpa | 7 years ago
7 likes
HarrogateSpa wrote:

The only thing that video might do is reinforce the view of some truck drivers - not all - that other people should just gerrouttta the way, and that's not a good thing.

 

That's precisely the problem. The video shows a HGV making a text book left-hook on a completely innocent road-user, then goes on to lecture us that cyclists should hang back. This endorses left-hooks.

 

I already have enough drivers shouting at me to "wear a f**king helmet", now they'll be shouting "hang back".

 

This campaign is worse than useless; it is dangerous. I've already reported it to the ASA and you should do too, please.

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