Live blog – S Wales Police boss to meet Cardiff cyclists, Track World Cup for London, and more
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Mon, Feb 12, 2018 15:00
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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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Latest Comments
jackcycles 2 hours ago
"attributed by experts", yeah sure, ok! Citing 8 year out of date per capita figures shows the weakness of your argument. Here's a couple of reasons I believe that the Netherlands fatality rate might be higher than the UK (independent of the crappy Dutch infrastructure), none of which you and Chrisonatrike suggested or mentioned: 1) not enough people wearing helmets in Netherlands. All sane people know that wearing a cycling helmet can potentially save lives, yet the Dutch seem to think themselves too special to wear one. Despite the fact the Netherlands has a superior privatised health system compared to our rotten, inefficient NHS, post-crash options are limited for people with severe head trauma which will inevitable lead to increased fatalities in the Netherlands. 2) Risk compensation by drivers and cyclists. Cyclists are lulled into a false sense of security thinking that segregated cycle lanes are their special infrastructure which insulate them from accidents. They don't. Then, car drivers take more risks due to increased congestion caused by the same cycling infrastructure, leading to a double-whammy of risky behaviour. 3) Cultural issues. People in the UK are renowned for their stiff upper lip, stoic, courteous behaviour. They naturally protect more vulnerable road users. I, myself, had a magnificent cycling experience earlier today on the local country lanes, waving and saying hello to the locals and cyclists alike. There really isn't a place like the UK (well, outside London anyway) that matches our hospitality and camaraderie. P.s. I'm not sure who Nigel is, I assumed you meant Nigel Farage but I can assure you I'm not him and that he has more pressing things to do than write responses on a cycling website. I hope that's helped your understanding a little, and enabled you to think a little independently rather than just suck in information that self-described "experts" want you to believe. Oh and Norway et Al are terrible comparators as hardly anyone lives there (and who'd want to to be honest? Lol!)
chrisonabike 2 hours ago
Yup. The UK has latterly tried add the safety back in after it was lost for vulnerable road users. (And after giving all the direct routes / valuable space over to motoring). But it's offering a modicum more safety in return for them losing a lot more convenience - so that has been reducing the "problem" also! Plus we lean heavily on "but people can be trusted to be reasonable" and "for any misbehaviour police it better". Unfortunately those are not good assumptions or choices for safety in a motornormative environment. (And road policing isn't a priority anyway). NL isn't the only place in Europe they've realised that mass motoring the old way is unsustainable (for lots of reasons). They're just the furthest on. In NL they still have some challenges because the (larger - thanks US!) car strikes back, and there are some questions about the impact of e-things. But they're *still* investing in improvements, and proportionally significantly more than the UK, even though they're already far ahead...
This Wreckage 2 hours ago
The Stockton Hub which I used occasionally (I don't live in Stockton) was open only during standard office hours, Mondays to Fridays, rendering it useless for families and leisure cyclists. It's a standard problem for a lot of government-funded or charity-run public services which close when many people most need them, presumably because staffing costs would rise substantially. The article also mentions cycle hubs in Redcar and Darlington which, so far as I can tell, have never existed.
chrisonabike 3 hours ago
Ho ho ho! No, we need to stop these idiotic cyclists completely (or limit them to velodromes, parks and maybe "rail trails") - that way there won't be any cyclist road fatalities! Simples! Meanwhile in many parts ofEurope they're finding the benefits of making it such that lots of people don't use cars for every journey - by fixing it so it's convenient and increasingly safe - despite much larger numbers of people getting around outside of cars than in the UK...
Rendel Harris 3 hours ago
The fatality rate in the UK has fallen five years in a row during a period, starting with the Covid years, in which building of "idiotic Dutch roundabouts and segregated cycling infrastructure" has massively increased, so in fact using your own benchmark the statistics clearly show the benefits of increased cycling infrastructure. Not quite the gotcha you seem to think when viewed through non-troll lenses, Nige. The stupidity of your "argument" is further clearly illustrated by the fact that the list-topping Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have massive segregated cycling networks. The Dutch model used to demonstrate clearly the safer nature of the Dutch system, e.g. in 2018 the Netherlands had 8 fatalities per billion kms ridden compared to 21 in the UK; the primary reason for the increased fatality rates in the Netherlands has been attributed by experts to the massive uptake in ebikes (47% of new bikes sold in NL are now ebikes compared to 10% in the UK), particularly amongst the older population, nothing to do with the infrastructure.
leedorney 3 hours ago
It used to be great price this, but they played the ace marketing card and got the popularity and now...
jackcycles 5 hours ago
Many thanks for posting these statistics and showing the downward trend in fatalities. One thing that stood out for me when clicking through to the government statistics page is the UK's exemplary record on this Vs other European countries, especially the much-vaunted record of The Netherlands, which actually shows twice as many fatalities as the UK per million of the population. The question that arises is therefore: why are the greens and other left-wing parties so keen to adopt an inferior and more dangerous road system when ours is obviously working well? It smacks of a need to regulate people's lives and curtail freedom. We need to stop these idiotic Dutch roundabouts and segregated cycling infrastructure, and get people sharing the road in a fair and equal manner, when the statistics show it's safer to do so. (Chart shows road fatalities per million population)
ChasP 5 hours ago
That's where the convertible aspect comes in. I've got a gravel bike but the canal I sometimes commute on has roots under the tarmac and barriers. The mtb with 'drops' is more comfortable for this and fits through the barriers. If I want to do something more technical I can put the flat bars on.
wtjs 20 hours ago
@FionaJJ These officers deployed next-level stupidity, and it must be difficult for the police to find people this dim. It doesn't even need rolling-roads or whatever, just a reputable bike computer on a quickly changed mount for the difficult cases where a proper EAPC has been modded, although you would need to look hard in Lancashire to find a police officer who knows how to make a pedal cycle go. Most illegal electric motorbikes are immediately obvious, not least because the crim is wearing a face mask. I saw an obvious one tonight coming out of Garstang Sainsbury's, not pedalling but without a face mask because everybody knows that the police only come into the town to hide away in the police station 200 yards away.
19 thoughts on “Live blog – S Wales Police boss to meet Cardiff cyclists, Track World Cup for London, and more”
The BBC is organisationally
The BBC is organisationally biased against cycling, with negative stories outweighing positive ones probably 50:1.
It isn’t as if there aren’t any positive stories, with the recent NICE report, and many dozens of others over the years, all extolling the virtues of cycling and how it is the answer to modern diseases, pollution and congestion. Mentions on the BBC? 0. If this had been walking or some unproven medical procedure, they are all over it.
I mostly listen to R4 and cycling is only mentioned to criticise it, tell us how dangerous it is, and how lawless cyclists are. There is no programme about cycling, but walking seems to feature every day.
Then there’s helmets. The BBC has been unashamedly running a propaganda campaign for the past thirty years promoting them, in the process breaking every rule in their own Editorial Guidelines, but despite overwhelming evidence, complaints are dismissed with a condescending wave of the hand.
burtthebike wrote:
Actually there is…
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02pcb42/episodes/downloads
kevvjj wrote:
That’s R5, not R4.
burtthebike wrote:
Surely we are not judging the BBC on radio 4 alone? If we are accusing them of institutional bias then surely we need to look at the ‘institution’.
kevvjj wrote:
I can only judge them on what I see and hear, nobody could watch and listen to their entire output, and my experience is that there is incredible bias.
burtthebike wrote:
I think it’s pretty clear where the bias lies.
burtthebike wrote:
I recently complained about a ‘cycle helmet saved my life’ video report on the BBC and (eventually after 3 week delays) received just such condescending dismissals from management. I am afraid I gave up in the face of stonewalling, and their unwillingness to engage in a rational discussion.
This is it – I can understand the sentiment from the close family, but the lack of research of such an implausible claim by the so-called ‘journalist’, and the complete lack of balance appalled me.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/video_and_audio/headlines/42345928/girl-says-cycle-helmets-should-be-compulsory
No Sweat wrote:
Don’t give up! I and others complained about this very story and are taking it further. It doesn’t take much, just drop an email to ecu@bbc.co.uk, the editorial complaints unit, explaining that they have yet again broken every rule in their own Editorial Guidelines. When enough people complain, they might just change; they won’t if we don’t.
burtthebike wrote:
..probably not.
Quite a few – go have a search on their site, it’s quite easy to do.
I mostly listen to R4 and cycling is only mentioned to criticise it, tell us how dangerous it is, and how lawless cyclists are. There is no programme about cycling, but walking seems to feature every day.— burtthebike
Program dealt with further up, there’s also a dedicated cycling section – which is primarily sporting to be fair, but is prominant and active. Stories of walking and health every day ? No, not really – again, seem a few on the health benefits of walking, cycling and exercise in general but really can’t see some massive discrepency. Also think about the amount of people who walk and the amount that cycle as well, even in the heydays of cycling as transport.
For me, must be a fairly shite “propoganda campaign” if i’ve not noticed it – the occassional usual rubbish remark about helmets and general cycling safety, but hardly pushing it let alone a campaign… You having a bad Monday by any chance ?
fukawitribe wrote:
Not my fault if you aren’t very observant.
When I complained about the institutional bias in the BBC, I provided a list of over 40 programmes and articles which a brief search found, only one of which was even vaguely balanced, all the rest overtly promoted helmets.
This complaint was, of course, dismissed, with the observation that I hadn’t provided enough evidence. So I did a slightly deeper search and found over 80 articles, and again, I could only find a single one which was balanced. This complaint was dismissed on the grounds that they had dismissed my previous complaint.
Biased? Not much.
burtthebike wrote:
Maybe I don’t watch much television or spend that much time on their website digging through articles – I did, however, have a quick search before I posted and of the 20-30 articles I scanned I didn’t see the ‘institutional bias’ you claimed, or any really apart the odd ‘helmet saved my life’ click-bait. No systemic promotion of helmets, or guideline breaking propoganda; perhaps you could send me a copy (or post here) of the list of articles you sent – that might be useful. Also, perhaps you could reply to the point about there being zero mentions that link cycling to health on the BBC. Cheers
fukawitribe wrote:
I’ll just give you a couple of examples.
R4 has a programme “More or Less” which claims to debunk the modern myths by using actual data, and to be fair, they usually do. After I suggested that they look at cycle helmets, they did an article on them, and for the first and only time in the prog’s history, they didn’t look at any data, they just presented opinions. They did interview three people, two were helmet zealots and one was neutral, no opposing opinion. The programme’s presenter made his views absolutely clear, something prohibited by their Editorial Guidelines. Complaints of bias dismissed.
Then there was the coverage of the James Cracknell affair. The BBC’s Editorial Guidelines have strict rules about featuring someone who is being sponsored by a manufacturer. Cracknell was sponsored by the helmet manufacturer, but this was never mentioned in any interview that I saw. Complaints dismissed.
Just google for “BBC cycle helmet” and you’ll find dozens of helmet saved my life stories, none of which point out that it is all assumption and has no basis in fact, and with no contrary opinions. The Editorial Guidelines specify that there must be balance, contrary opinions and facts.
There are constant calls for helmet laws, and in such cases of proposed legislation, the Editorial Guidelines become even stricter, except not in the case of cycle helmets, and they just keep refusing to feature data or contrary opinions.
It’s been going on for thirty years, with the R4 prog You and Yours featuring BHIT, with no contrary opinions or facts, that long ago.
As I’ve explained, I can’t watch/listen to all BBC output, but what I do see/hear doesn’t feature the overwhelming benefits of cycling to the individual and society or the facts about helmets.
BeSpoke is a Radio 5 podcast.
BeSpoke is a Radio 5 podcast. It’s great, but it’s not on Radio 4, and it’s about racing not everyday cycling.
I’m not usually into ‘Beeb
I’m not usually into ‘Beeb bashing’, but it seems to be the case that if they have the rights to show something, it’s the best thing going, if they don’t then it hardly gets a mention. Unless of course it’s a doping/abuse story then Dan Roan is all over it.
Recent example of this – NFL. Endless tweets and space on the BBC Sport website for Superbowl. I was glad when it was over, so we could go back to not giving a flying shite about it.
Rubbish, the Beeb has had
Rubbish, the Beeb has had some great coverage of events I’d have never got to watch otherwise.
Also – Jeremy Vine.
DrJDog wrote:
The BBC may well cover individual events, but everyday cycling is ignored, despite the overwhelming evidence of its incredible benefits for society in health, congestion, pollution and sustainability terms. As I’ve previously said, R4 seems to have a prog about walking every day, but never mentions cycling except to criticise it.
burtthebike wrote:
I’ve listened to “Ramblings with Claire Balding”. What other programmes are there about walking on R4? not trying to be awkward – i’m genuinely interested!
Deeferdonk wrote:
I’ve listened to “Ramblings with Claire Balding”. What other programmes are there about walking on R4? not trying to be awkward – i’m genuinely interested!
[/quote]
To be honest, I can’t remember, I just register that they are talking about walking again, contrasted with the fact that they never mention cycling.
Gardening is apparently worth £5bn to the economy, while cycling was worth £2.9bn in 2010, but gardening gets its own much repeated R4 prog, while cycling gets nothing except criticism. Cycling is increasingly popular, but the BBC just ignores it at best, and at worst, seems to want to destroy it.
On that Australian article,
On that Australian article, presumably that’s why there were signs on every bike stand within a couple of hundred metres of Bristol’s main war memorial on the Centre a day each side of last year’s Remembrance ceremony thing, saying you couldn’t park here?