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news
Cyclists in high-vis (CC licensed image by garryknight)E-bikes could be subsidised and helmets compulsory under new government plans
E-bikes could be available with subsidies under policies being examined in an effort to get more people cycling.
Roads minister Jesse Norman told the Guardian that electric cargo bikes could be used to deliver packages, easing the gridlock caused by a boom in online shopping.
He said: “I think e-bikes and ebikes-plus are a really interesting potential way of handling that last mile or two of deliveries.”
He said his ambition was to “make the transition to a world where a 12-year-old can cycle safely”.
But he said there was no guarantee of more money for segregated cycle paths, and that the government was also looking into making helmets and high-vis clothing compulsory.
He assured cyclists that any decisions would be based on evidence.
Speaking about financial support for those buying e-bikes, Norman said: “We’ve done some work on that already, and I haven’t looked at the outcomes yet, and they might not be ready yet. There’s a case in principle.”
Norman said critics of the road safety review following the death of Kim Briggs, who was hit by an illegal cyclist, had “missed a wider point” that the safety review would also cover the danger posed to cyclists by drivers, including those “using cars in ways that are intentional and punitive”.
He added that the review would “ask very general questions and if the feedback is that we should consider that stuff, then we’ll look at it”.
He added: “Obviously there will be some people who feel very strongly that there should be hi-vis, and there will be plenty of people who think very strongly the other way. It’ll be the same with helmets. The literature on risk is quite a well developed one, I don’t need to tell you.”
He said: “It’s not just, if I may say so, the actions of a government which is supportive of cycling, it’s also the actions of a government that understands that the whole nature of the way in which we use the roads, and the way we think about cities, is going to change dramatically over the next decade or two, and possibly earlier. We need to be fully abreast of that.”
Earlier this month we reported how Norman was forced to defend himself from accusations of being anti-cyclist.
He said: “To be clear: I am a keen cyclist myself, and I am absolutely aware of the number of cyclists killed and injured every year.
“The purpose of the review is to make our roads safer for all users, and the safety of cyclists will be a key element of that.”
He added: “As I made clear, the review will address two key issues. The first is legal: whether the law is defective in the case of bodily harm or death from a cyclist, and specifically whether, as the rule of law demands, there is an adequate remedy here. Our aim is to complete this work early in the new year.”
“The second issue is broader: how to make the roads safer for all users. After the legal review there will be a public consultation, and road user groups and the general public will be invited to submit their views and evidence then.”
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39 comments
Two very contradictory statements.
How does he expect the 12 year old to cycle safely without infrastructure? Make them wear a polystyrene hat and tell them to play Russian Roulette with the chelsea tractors and white van drivers? Yeah, right. F..k off.
Does anyone have any idea what an ebike-plus is? Does this mean they might offer bikes with 500w motors rather than 250w?
I'd definitely be interested if they offer something like the cycle to work scheme at a higher level for ebikes. Hopefully up to a good amount (like 4000gbp) so you can get a decent ebike.
Commuting 15-20 miles a day each way means by the end of the week I can be pretty shattered which isn't so good for decent weekend rides, so a bit of help on the commute to have more left in the tank for the weekend would be great.
With regards to Hi-VIz, most of my incidents have been side swiped from the right. No amount of hi viz would help as there is no reflecting light source to illuminate me.
My last big crash was a someone not looking and changing lane (side swipe from the right obvs) - it was daylight and I was wearing a bright yellow running top (plus I'm quite fat so much more surface area for them to see!).
Can't wait to see what the clarkson led transport secretary will come up with. That said the chances of these muppets getting legislation passed in the current parliament is fairly miniscule - unless the DUP really hate cycling.
If Hi-Viz becomes compulsory, then I'd expect for any driving excuses of "Sorry mate I didn't see you" to become null and void. The charges of careless and dangerous driving should then be stricken off and any traffic incidents involving the death of a cyclist should instead be treated as murder. After all, if Hi-Viz is compulsory, then seeing people in Hi-Viz must therefore be compulsory and hitting them in a car must therefore be intentional.
I’m amazed at how many ignorant motorists suggest cyclists need to wear high vis and use bike lights, but then complain that they saw a cyclist wearing black clothing with no lights.
If they can spot the cyclists not wearing high vis or using lights, surely cyclists don’t need them!
Compulsory Hi Viz would make every cycle jersey and jacket I have ever bought illegal. Apart from having to buy multiple new jerseys including summer short sleeved jerseys (or wear a yellow bin bag in 30C,) it would also hammer UK kit manufacturers. The economic impact should kill this, but I don't trust this minister as far as a BMW could punt him.
And by the way, lets not diss yellow. I have a 1999 ONCE team jersey in yellow, it is my oldest piece of kit and it is yellow, just yellow.
No, the government is not making it compulsory, Jesse Norman is on a mission to make this happen, when in actual fact, it won't make the slightest bit of difference. Well not until he gets a higher standard if driving from motorist nationwide. Only then will the roads be safer.
Yeah Jesse Norman, High Viz is the answer as shown first hand by this cyclist.
https://youtu.be/evI4YVlF5dw
He said his ambition was to “make the transition to a world where a 12-year-old can cycle safely".
I'd settle for the transition to a world where a 12-year-old isn't a transport minister.
Jesse Norman is clearly trying for damage limitation after the extraordinary gaffe of sending letters to cycling organisations to get the to tell their members to obey the law and pretending to be concerned about cyclists. He's even going to a cycling conference as a key speaker:
"Cycling Innovations conference - 21 November, Kia Oval SE11
10.30 John Major Room
Morning keynote: How local, regional and national government is driving innovation in active travel
Jesse Norman, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Transport, Department for Transport "
The chances of this gang of incurable petrolheads actually looking at the evidence, let alone making decisions based on it appears to be relatively unlikely. Still, I suppose they've not supported any of the private members bills for mandatory helmets, so there is some hope.
If helmets and hi-viz are compulsory, for our own safety of course, and we are forced to use cycle paths if there are any, but we are banned from anywhere there are pedestrians, then do we just exercise what legal rights we have left and ride on every single road we can in primary, stopping every time a pedestrian looks like they even might cross the road (you know, just in case)? Civil disobedience: stick it to the Man, y'all!
Yes to subsidised e bikes. But you'll never force me to wear yellow.
Me neither. It would clash terribly with my purple helmet.
You have to wear shorts as well.
If those expenses-slurping, self-aggrandising stuffed shirts ever pass a compulsory helmet law then god help them.
Aside from the bollocks on hi-vis/helmets (over my dead body), the failure to understand that keeping people in private motor vehicles even if automated does not solve the bigger problems.
If he wants better safety install cameras as std in all motors, add a black box that records every speeding infraction or better yet curtail speed automatically via a gps/speed restrictor which recognises speed limits, reduce speed limits and remove those that simply should never be even partly in control of a killing machine.
Attacking a rape victim for choice of clothing would be abhorrent, why is it that people on bikes are fair game to attack/restrict as opposed to those causing the harm.
Don't always agree with you but this is 100% spot on. My brother in law designs chips for smartphones, his theory is that people want self driving cars so that they can avoid paying to park at work. Drive to work, send the car home then summon it to collect you at the end of the day. Hey presto, journies quadrupled, rush hour twice as long.
That assumes people continue to privately own cars.
I think self driving cars will lead to everyone using Uber type apps to get around and nobody except the very rich will ever own their own car.
Great. I'll enjoy explaining to my 3 cycling kids that the government will start to care about them in a few years.
There's no reason why the roads can't be safe for them now. All it would take is for every driver on 20mph residential streets to think "there might be a kid cycling here" and drive accordingly (as they are supposed to).
But no - the government attitude to cycling is "you give a little, you get a little". Wear yellow/wear a lid/show a number plate/be 12 or above and we'll look out for you. It's nonsense.
Journeys doubled but otherwise agree
Sure, don't wear a helmet and there's a higher chance of "over your dead body".
Sure, apply all those restrictions to cars, but also to bikes, fair's fair.
Next time, get a grown-up to help with your trolling.
hello Norman, still pedalling (sic) your BS??
I really think that using the rape victim analogy is entirely misleading, and unhelpful; after all, you wouldn't ask "Why is a surgeon not convicted of stabbing someone each time he operates?". The enormous difference here, and why they shouldn't be equated, is intent. You don't accidentally rape some one. In nearly all cases, it is done with intent. You could argue otherwise, but very very few road deaths are the result of a deliberate intent rto run over a cyclist, and those that are, are prosecuted appropriately. That's why using a straw man argument of victim clothing is disingenuous, disrespectful, and (in the interests of decent alliteration) daft.
If that surgeon was operating while pissed, while looking at his phone, while distracted by the nurse's legs or performing an operation he wasn't competent in then, yes, I'd expect him to be treated as a criminal, even if it wasn't his intention to do harm.
In the same way, many (most?) road deaths are the consequence of a driver deliberately breaking the law. That they did so without intending to kill seems to me wholly uninteresting - the objective of the legal system surely should be to persuade them not to break the law.
Exactly this.
I don't like the rape analogy either, but the surgeon's a better one. There is a degree of standards, competence expected.
OK, the surgeon trains for years full-time and is paid well for a highly skilled job, and this latter aspect will never apply to the same extent to drivers. But some of the transgressions cyclists see are from professional drivers who should know much better, and skillfully operating on other people has been trained and regulated into a safe discipline.
If 5 people were dying daily in UK operating theatres through surgeon fault, the risk would be trained and regulated out even further. If train crashes were causing 150 deaths per month there would be uproar. If 6 jumbo jets crashed in UK airspace in one year we probably wouldn't have an air travel industry left (look at the fear and pains we go to to prevent just one attack from The Bad Guys).
I really don't understand why driving is seen as such a universal right that huge collateral damage is just tolerated via insufficient training and certification, lax education, and an apathetic legal system.
Bring it.
Bez's op-ed piece is well thought out, and a long way from tinfoil hat territory. Not saying I agree with all of it, mind. He's looking astutely 2-3 steps ahead into a potential nightmare scenario 10 -15 years away. My thinking would be that the spectre of the demise of economic oil will throw an entire set of spanners into the works by the time this comes to pass. And I have very little idea how that will turn out.
'He assured cyclists that any decisions would be based on evidence.'
You just know that's a prelude to massively biased politically motivated knee-jerk legistlation.
@IanEdward "self driving vehicles " : that's where the big big big money is, and quite "naturally" the law will just follow ; beware because we are just an inconvenience for those vehicles (we are already) , and will be relegated to the mandatory ... cycle path.
I'm sure carrying a small electronic chip if some description would be more helpful to self driving cars.
the hi viz part is nonsense , whilst yes 'ninja' cyclists aren't obvious to see I've been hit twice by turning traffic whilst highly visible clothing and lit up brighter than a Christmas tree !
whilst I see the merits of helmets (wear one every time) I'm most certainly not going to be wearing a hi viz jacket on a chain gang (or any other ride with effort involved come to that !)
Jesse whilst coming up with ideas gives no realistic thought to them....typical politician !
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