The backlash to a Telegraph article published on Thursday evening that claimed a cyclist was clocked riding at 52mph in a 20mph zone on Chelsea Embankment has caught the attention of Chris Boardman and numerous other prominent figures, with Boardman describing the article as “hate speech” in an X/Twitter post last night. It has also emerged that the co-author of the controversial Telegraph article, currently a data editor at the broadsheet, is a former fact-checker at BBC Reality Check, now known as BBC Verify.
I don’t normally get involved in calling out headlines but it’s just getting bonkers.
If this was directed at a gender, race or religion it would be rightly called out as the hate speech it is. Mums, dads, sons and daughters being labelled as killers. It’s just got to stop. pic.twitter.com/DWWBSNbQl8
— Chris Boardman (@Chris_Boardman) May 17, 2024
Boardman’s full post read: “I don’t normally get involved in calling out headlines but it’s just getting bonkers.
“If this was directed at a gender, race or religion it would be rightly called out as the hate speech it is. Mums, dads, sons and daughters being labelled as killers. It’s just got to stop.”
The Sky Sports News presenter Sanny Rudravajhala also expressed his anger at the article’s inaccuracies, addressing the authors on X/Twitter: “Your whole piece centres on injuries and deaths from cyclists without anything to compare it with. Four deaths caused by cyclists for example versus say the 1,711 from cars in 2022?
“Or 143,326 injuries from car accidents versus the 462 from cyclists that you mention.
“And bloody hell, this quote, “Strava enthusiasts claim dangerous cyclists are a small minority.” – I mean, clearly they are? Or are the majority of Strava cyclists dangerous?
“I just cannot imagine compromising my entire journalistic training to the point of providing no balance whatsoever bar one random rider vox in an entire piece. Please do better.”
Jeremy Vine commented: “…The Telegraph is in full culture-war mode, and hating on cyclists is seen as an easy win.”
The inaccurate headline on the article in question remains unchanged at the time of writing. As we reported yesterday, an 80kg cyclist on an 8kg bike would have to hold 2,500 watts to ride the Tite St to Chelsea Bridge Strava segment at 52mph, which would be physically impossible for the world’s best cycling sprint specialists.
road.cc has approached the Telegraph’s data editor for comment.
The current glut of media coverage around ‘dangerous cycling’ was sparked by a recent coroner’s inquest into the tragic case of 81-year-old Hilda Griffiths, killed in a collision with a cyclist in Regent’s Park back in 2022, with the inquest being told that the cyclist would face no charges.
Last weekend, the Telegraph reported that another pedestrian was hit by a cyclist at the same spot where Ms Griffiths was fatally struck. Strava responded by urging cyclists to “prioritise everyone’s safety”, stating that “hazardous” segments could be flagged on its platform.
Earlier this week, the Government agreed to introduce tougher laws for “dangerous cyclists” who kill or injure. The amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill, put forward by Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, would introduce the offence of ‘causing death by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling, and causing serious injury by careless or inconsiderate cycling’, with Transport Secretary Mark Harper saying the proposed legislation would ensure the “tiny minority” of reckless cyclists would face the “full weight of the law”, while protecting “law-abiding cyclists”.
The son of Hilda Griffiths, Gerard Griffiths, has appeared in television interviews this week accompanied by Matthew Briggs, the husband of Kim Briggs who was killed in a collision with cyclist Charlie Alliston in 2016.
Mr Briggs has long campaigned for changes to the law surrounding dangerous cycling, saying at the time of Alliston’s conviction that the “case [has] clearly demonstrated that there is a gap in the law when it comes to dealing with causing death or serious injury by dangerous cycling.”
In 2017, Alliston was convicted of causing bodily harm through wanton and furious driving, via a law that dates back to 1861, and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment in a young offenders institution.
Commenting this morning on recent debates he has had with a number of prominent cycling and active travel campaigners and journalists, Mr Briggs said on the @BriggsCampaign X/Twitter account: “Any road death is an absolute tragedy. I know the awful consequences. My point has always been that motor related deaths have clear paths to prosecution. If it’s felt that they are not done so adequately, that’s a valid but different debate to my call for new laws.
“We ALL share these imperfect roads. We are ALL pedestrians at some point. And we owe it to ALL that we conduct ourselves on the roads with care, consideration and awareness.
“This has never been anti cycling. If people attribute that to me, they are misled. It’s always been a legal matter.”
72 thoughts on ““Mums, dads, sons and daughters being labelled as killers. It’s just got to stop”: Chris Boardman comments on Telegraph ’52mph in a 20mph zone’ article as it emerges co-author is former BBC fact-checker”
“If this was directed at a
“If this was directed at a gender, race or religion it would be rightly called out as the hate speech it is. Mums, dads, sons and daughters being labelled as killers. It’s just got to stop.”
Not while it sells media, and not while peurile editors and writers make money from publishing outrageous lies about an out group. I fully expect an increase in the ksi rate for cyclists as a result of these despicable articles.
Matthew Briggs “This has never been anti cycling. If people attribute that to me, they are misled. It’s always been a legal matter.”
No. He hates cyclists and doesn’t contradict the hate speech. If he was really interested in road safety and wasn’t anti-cycling, he’d be condemning it.
Alliston was charged and
Alliston was charged and prosecuted for manslaughter, for which a jury of his peers, probably containing very few fellow cyclists and many drivers, did not convict him of.
In other news…
In other news…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-69026059.amp
Chapeau Ms Jones.
Chapeau Ms Jones.
No doubt Sunak will have her
No doubt Sunak will have her arrested for being an extremist or terrorist.
You think he’d confuse her
You think he’d confuse her with Jeremy Corbyn (another cyclist of mature years)?
Who knows, Sunak doesn’t seem
Who knows, Sunak doesn’t seem to be very bright. Denying things he said, which are recorded and reported, shows there isn’t much between the ears.
dubwise wrote:
Tory voters don’t usually care about reality and facts, but are driven by hatred and spite (see Telegraph for details). He’s not going to alienate his supporters by lying and the rest of us already despise his unelected leadership.
Quote:
Oh bollux to that, Mr Briggs
How can you or IDS possibly say, with a straight face, that this is “not anti cycling”??
And mr briggs is perfectly
And mr briggs is perfectly happy to align himself with cabbie lobbyists who are campaigning against things like tachometers in cabs, despite long shifts being the cause of several pedestrian deaths.
He is anti cyclist, not pro pedestrian
the little onion wrote:
And who swamp social media with complaints about how unfair it is that they might lose their badges for their illegal behaviour when caught using their phones at the wheel by grass cyclists.
Tachograph not tachometer.
Tachograph not tachometer.
Hate to be that person, but most cabs are already fitted with a tachometer … It’s otherwise known as a rev counter.
Tachograph on the other hand, is a recording device used to record speed, distance, time, work types and as they are digital nowadays (and not the paper disks I used to use), could easily record other functions such as throttle/ brake use, gps location, etc.
When the tachgraph was introduced, it was considered the “spy in the cab”, as it gathers evidence to confirm adherence to the Law …
So no surprise that cabbies are against them.
Apparently according to the
Apparently according to the latest Telegraph piece titled “I fought the blob after a cyclist killed my wife”
He popped a bottle of champagne to celebrate the announcement.
Took me a bit to process it
Took me a bit to process it last night after my 105 miler, at first I thought it was something new but it was the same old Charlie A case from 2016. As tragic as they are and they should have been avoidable that and the old woman represent 2 pedestrian deaths from interaction with cyclists in circa 10 years. Some statistician will know the numbers better than me but last year alone there was something like 385 pedestrians killed (5901 seriously injured) by vehicles. That’s the perspective that the rags miss out in the attempt to sell a story.
HLaB wrote:
I think there are probably a few – though only a few – more than that, if you’re talking about deaths from interactions with cyclists rather than cyclists necessarily at fault: there was one in Manchester two or three years ago where the cyclist was acquitted in court, and one in Tower Hamlets in 2021 where a 71-year-old man was killed by a red-light-jumping cyclist. There may be others, still a very small number but definitely more than two in the last decade.
Rendel Harris wrote:
it’s typically about one a year
so 385 pedestrian deaths a year seems to be ok, but 386 tick it over into “death trap” territory. I also don’t think any of the cyclist/pestrian collison deaths occur on the pavement, which is sadly not the case for motor vehicles
Yep, I think it shows how
Yep, I think it shows how Briggs is motivated, it’s not about road safety at all.
And as I’ve had to repeatedly point out to people this last week, 3 cyclists from my area of the UK have been killed on the roads in the last 12months by drivers, 4 if you go back another year, and they are only the ones I remember off hand, because I knew 2 of those cyclists killed.
not a single driver has faced any charges or been prosecuted for anything related to those deaths, there hasn’t been any media outrage, MPs introducing new legislation, nothing it just gets treated as one of those things
The Telehgraph have been
The Telehgraph have been trying to generate increased numbers:
https://archive.ph/t6LPL
How can the quite man of
How can the quite man of politics keep a straight face? ‘Cos he’s a Tory….
jaymack wrote:
I suppose that not having a soul does help with that…
jaymack wrote:
He’s not so quiet – in the amendments document, he’s named as sponsor of two amendments (including NC57 “Offence of causing death or serious injury by dangerous, careless or inconsiderate cycling”) but is mentioned as a co-sponsor in 30 other amendments.
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/bills/cbill/58-04/0155/amend/criminal_day_rep_0515.pdf
Seems to be a serial
OffAmender.I think he’s realised he’s
I think he’s realised he’s probably not going to be in the next Parliament, and so wants to try and secure a Legacy (his place in legislative history).
brooksby wrote:
Unfortunately, his legacy will be to be on the wrong side of history. Why would you want to be known as someone that wants to clamp down on such a beneficial (in health terms) form of transport?
Chapeau to Chris Boardman.
Chapeau to Chris Boardman. The Telegraph and Daily Mail agenda is a travesty. I really hope all cyclists ignore these publications just as the people of Liverpool turned their backs on the Sun after its Hilsborough coverage.
Quote:
I agree, but Boardman is talking as if demonization of out-groups was a bug not a feature of right-wing rags like the Telegraph. As if they weren’t going after cyclists now precisely because they can no longer get away with demonizing on the basis of gender, race, and religion, at least not as blatantly as they once could.
Yes. Which means it needs
Yes. Which means it needs relentless calling out more, not less!
And it needs to stop, now!
Is being left-wing a
Is being left-wing a requirement to cycle? I missed that memo..
grOg wrote:
It’s more that the UK Tories have declared themselves the Party of the Motorist, so riding a bike is now almost a political statement. It’s divisive claptrap – I welcome any political leaning to cycle as much as possible as it can provide common ground between people.
6 or 7 years (around the time
6 or 7 years (around the time of that brexthick thing) I worked on a project – funded by the EU and TfL that donated second hand, refurbished bikes to refugees and delivered free cycle training to Muslim women. I often thought to myself ‘blimey, if the Daily Mail knew about this’ lol. ?
Very anecdotal but it seems
Very anecdotal but it seems this has put people on edge around cyclists.
I work for a mostly pedal powered courier company and on Friday I was reported to my boss by a member of the public for cycling in a shared path..
Of course it has. This is why
Of course it has. This is why shit like this winds me up so much – it’s not like I’m thin-skinned, but the constant dehumanisation, demonisation, and disproportionate scrutiny of cyclists does very much embolden those with existing anti-cyclist leanings and makes them feel justified in lashing out.
Every time there’s a campaign against cyclists in the MSM, it noticeably translates to an increase of aggression towards us on the roads. You saw it when the media lied about the HC changes, you saw it when Dan Walker was hit by a car “because he should have been in the cycle lane”.
Stories like this directly lead to cyclist deaths.
BalladOfStruth wrote:
Sorry, but they don’t “directly” lead to cyclist deaths, although they may be a factor. The real issue is with emotionally immature drivers that believe that their vehicle and how they drive is part of their personality. What we need to do is remove the drivers who let emotions lead their decision making when in charge of a vehicle – they are the real problem as they can be highly strung and react violently if anyone dares to comment on their driving skill.
hawkinspeter wrote:
simple test to find these people, anyone buying a car with more than 200bhp, probably not a mature driver treating their car as a tool, but rather as a toy or an expression of their virility.
I disagree – when the
I disagree – when the majority of anti-cyclist sentiment is a result of decades stories in the MSM (we know it’s nothing to do with how cyclist act because we can see from statistics how disproportionate it is, and other road user groups don’t get held to anything like the same standard), they are the root cause of the problem. When a driver that has bought into the rhetoric reads a Torygraph anti-cyclist hit-piece and decides to punish the next cyclist he sees, screws it up and accidentally hits them, that story has led to that collision.
Every time there’s an anti-cyclist campaign in the MSM, you can go out an observe the uptick in aggression on the roads. That uptick absolutely leads to more cyclists getting hit.
BalladOfStruth wrote:
I don’t dispute the malignancy of the MSM with regards to cycling, but they don’t create angry drivers, they just rile up already angry drivers. As I said, these kinds of anti-cyclist nonsense pieces can indirectly lead to more aggression on the roads, but they don’t directly hurt cyclists (apart from the excessive rolling of eyeballs)
Car companies market their
Car companies market their vehicles as extensions of peoples personality and have done so forever; if only emotionally mature and stable people were allowed to drive, the roads would be remarkably empty.
grOg wrote:
I’ve got no issue with people expressing their personality through the selection of a vehicle (including bikes) and maybe even customising it with shiny bits, but the problem is when people drive emotionally – anger is the real problem as a vehicle should never be used as a weapon. Someone can be as emotional as they like, but if it affects their driving then they shouldn’t be on the road with other traffic.
The circulation of the Daily
The circulation of the Daily Torygraph is about 360,000. Not many really. If I think I can change someone’s mind through education then it’s worth talking to them. Otherwise I find it better to save my energy for elsewhere and leave them to munch on that red meat. It is my opinion that most Torygraph readers munch red meat.
But then stories get shared a
But then stories get shared a thousand times on social media.
But its like a domino effect,
But its like a domino effect, Telegraph prints a story thats anti cycling, before long its picked up by the other tabloids repeating the same lies, then its picked up by the news channels repeating the same lies none questioning the facts because they hide behind the Telegraph reported, so it must be true.
Iain Duncan Smith often writes comment pieces for the Telegraph, where do you think his burning desire to tag cycling into the crime bill came from ?
Not the government, if they were that bothered about some kind of culture war on cycling, they’d have included it from the off.
But now we have an MP championing the Telegraph’s cause and introducing legislation on the back of one story
So it goes way beyond circulation figures.
True, but it only took 81,000
True, but it only took 81,000 people (Most of them probably telegraph readers) to leave you with the inexplicable embarrassment of Liz Truss is your Prime Minister.
Telegraph wants number plates
Telegraph wants number plates now to stop dangerous cyclists.
Where to begin …
Looks to be an opinion piece
Looks to be an opinion piece by Simon Heffer ? When I looked him up his surname seemed quite apt and probably needs to partake in some active travel !
How would numberplates on
How would numberplates on cycles stop dangerous pedestrians who cause accidents by walking out onto the road without first looking carefully to see if anything was coming?
kingleo wrote:
I don’t know if it’s a culture thing, because segregated cycle lanes are so rare and new compared to the likes of the Netherlands and Denmark, but certainly cycling in London you need to be constantly aware of people stepping randomly out on to the cycle path directly in front of you without looking. I had one today, motor traffic on the road was stationary and a guy just stepped across right infront of me walking straight onto a busy cycle path without looking once. I’d already anticipated and braked but you constantly have to be aware (don’t get me started on the mess on Westminster bridge). Maybe a public information campaign on not stepping out onto cycle paths would be more helpful.
We get very limited
We get very limited “education” or training in using public spaces:
a) as children (mostly from parents). Of course, we could do more of this…
b) driving lessons plus driving test, for those who do. Once per lifetime.
There’s also a very rare:
c) being stopped by road police.
However we get a great deal of repeated feedback – by using the roads! Other road users are the main “teachers”.
I suspect the main way things “work” and people learn is through practice. Maybe we could do it differently, but historically … we haven’t. When we changed from no / few motor vehicles to “mass motoring” and vulnerable road users had to adapt was this mainly done though education / awareness campaigns? No. (There were some…)
Unfortunately it was practical learning – tragedies, repeated unpleasant experiences, witnessing terrible things or reading horror stories. Learning “what was no longer your space” and developing caution / fear (“appropriate respect”).
So if mass cycling takes hold, it’s likely there will be some initial conflict between modes and indeed a lot more collisions. Because the mass of people cycling will be no “better people” or “careful road users” than when they were driving cars.
Fortunately a) we have a slightly better regard for human life now b) we’ve developed our understanding of “human factors” and public infra design c) cyclists are less danger than drivers (mass cycling: they’ll mostly be going significantly slower and they weight less) and I don’t think you can get to mass cycling without overall system being safer for everyone – that includes most pedestrians. (Slight question mark as usual about how best to cater for the visually impaired).
If you thought Friday’s front
If you thought Friday’s front page was cringe….one of of lads ain’t he, in to football and all that.
I’m 81, I wish I was told off
I’m 81, I wish I was told off for cycling too fast. All you young cycling enthusiasts, don’t take any notice of all the moronic anti-cyclists – you have made the correct lifestyle chose
I had a reassuring Sunday
I had a reassuring Sunday evening. I got back after 105miles to an anomymous post on the residents farceboke group complaining about a noisy cyclist on a Sunday morning. The group totally shot them down and it was deleted a bit later.
Genuine question: the
Genuine question: the practice of including a social media post in full, and then telling us what it said, in full – is that an accessibility thing? If so, as you were.
quiff wrote:
Probably more a method to bump up the number of words in the article. However, my browser has most social media sites blocked, so it’s useful for me as most of the time I won’t see the original post (though I do for St Chris’ post above).
Boardman is a saint?
Boardman is a saint?
grOg wrote:
Maybe not officially
It does 3 things (at least).
It does 3 things (at least).
1 – Makes it guaranteed to be accessible to eg screen readers or “read out this article” buttons on the page.
2 – Makes the content still coherent if the original tweet has been deleted. As a comparison, IIRC we had a video that had been made private recently, so we could not see the main thing the article was about. We whinged in the comments.
3 – Makes sure that search engines get the words of the tweet. It may be they index embedded things, but I’m not sure they all do – depending on how it is embedded perhaps.
Thanks, good points.
Thanks, good points.
It makes it easier to copy
It makes it easier to copy and paste the text from the post without having to click on twitter, which only takes me to a logon page.
All of this hoohar just makes
All of this hoohar just makes me want to reduce my possible interactions with pedestrians. So when I’m riding on the road next to a shared use path I hope the telegraph readers are happy waiting to overtake safely.
Apparently you can get high
Apparently you can get high just by driving/riding, and it still happens to me in both positiions, even though I can also feel the pain caused by other road users… and it’s obviously not getting better with fast e-bikes, on cycling lanes and wilderness trails!
Anyway, I’m not in the UK, but if you live near a city, it’s seems just overcrowded everywhere?
As much as people on the
As much as people on the right in particular drone on about the woke agenda, they know they can’t be as blatantly racist, homophobic or sexist as they would’ve been in the old days. They’re still able to unleash their bigoted bile against cyclists, partly because cyclists are more likely to be lefties. Or that’s the eganda the right wing press seems to work to anyway. Bigots will be bigots.
OldRidgeback wrote:
Why do they even want to be bigoted? All they’re doing is closing down their own opportunities to make connections with other people and instead filling their need for human connection with hatred instead. Doesn’t make sense to me when they could just open their eyes and see that differences between people are what enriches society. I mean where would be without all the contributions from other ethnicities, sexualities or genders?
Why do they want to be
Why do they want to be bigoted? They don’t. They’re right-wingers. That’s their nature.
Put in simplest of terms, right-wing is the political expression of selfishness, while left-wing is the expression of community and solidarity. Just look at the policies and political programmes of right-wing parties. I don’t want to pay taxes. I won’t have MY taxes supporting THEM. I don’t want to obey rules, the rules are for THEM. Everything I achieved is fruit of MY effort and to MY credit, while THEY are af fault for whatever befalls them. I’m allright Jack, keep your hands off of my stack.
That’s why they constantly look for any kind of identifiable group to denigrate and vilify, and deny them any right they can. Homeless, unemployed, working poor, single parents, immigrants, refugees, asylum seekers, gays, trans people, cyclists… Doesn’t matter, as long as they can flatter themselves, and be constantly in panic about these other groups supposedly being after their stuff, their privileges, their money. So they keep electing people who DO, and ALWAYS WERE stealing their stuff.
George Carlin explained it brilliantly. There are only three kinds of people: the rich people, the middle class, and the poor people. The rich people own everything and everyone works to make them money. Middle class is there to work to make the rich people even more money. And the poor people are there to scare the shit out the middle class and keep them working.
Car drivers hating cyclists
Car drivers hating cyclists has zero to do with politics, but your rant has exposed how toxic lefties are, not to mention mixed up; most wealthy people I know are leftist creeps; highly educated and enjoy all the fruits of capitalism, yet follow a socialist dogma that seeks to undermine capitalism; arrogant hypocrites.
grOg wrote:
Sheer coincidence that the vast majority of anti-cyclist rhetoric comes from right-wing politicians, pundits and publications then?
Did I say drivers hate
Did I say drivers hate cyclists because they’re right wing? Remember, what I said is right up there ^^^ and everyone can see it.
Of course I didn’t. That would be silly. I was responding to the observation that the right-wing media and right-wingers always seem so eager to jump on some hate-bandwagon against any sort of group that isn’t them. Sure, anyone can be bigoted – hell, I even sometimes hate cyclists myself when I’m not on a bike – but only the right-wing has made an institution out of it, and a whole industry. Maybe you’ve become numb to it because you’re in the UK, but trust me, it is not at all normal that almost the entire press of a country lives off whipping up hate for this and that and another, and uses hate speech so openly and unabashedly. “Lycra-clad louts”, are you f**** kidding me? That’s dehumanising and giving their audience permission to hate you, and they are not even subtle about it. Straight out of Goebbels’ textbook. If you had regulators worth a damn, this cynical type of behaviour would have these “papers” fined to kingdom come or even have their rags banned.
Leftists aren’t toxic. Right wingers just don’t like mirrors.
They live in Australia and
They live in Australia and frequently comment on UK issues that they fail to understand or have inadequate knowledge of. Also prone to racist comments.
horrovac wrote:
In a nutshell.
You forgot to mention
You forgot to mention squirrels 🙂
Mr Hoopdriver wrote:
Quite – who can forget the many, many contributions made to society by squirrels?
hawkinspeter wrote:
They invented hi-viz?
chrisonabike wrote:
Also flourescent bellies (https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/artful-amoeba/for-some-reason-new-world-flying-squirrels-fluoresce-pink/)
looks like the rag is cashing
looks like the rag is cashing in with all the views and comments about it (mine included to the tally just here though)- better chance the scribe lose his job if everyone just ignored him instead ?
I wish I had the self
I wish I had the self-restraint. I’m often 3 replies deep before I realise I’m helping someone monetise their bile.