The Worst Anti Cycling journalism Ever?

I cycle through Goostrey regularly, usually 2-3 times a week.  I rarely use the Bridge Lane/Twemlow Road junction though, because that road can be a nightmare.  And that junction is awful to use, being right at the bottom of a valley, along a usually busy road used by HGVs.

The whinging in the article is complete bullshit.  It is identical in tone to the Great Budworth whingers, who also talked absolute bollocks.  Nobody is cycling along Bridge Lane at 30mph, not unless they have a 20mph tailwind or are in a huge group.  It simply isn't that type of road.

I've also experienced some serious road rage using Blackden Lane, heading north, because it's about as wide as a single van and motorists often queue there.  I've also had road rage on Hermitage Lane.

Goostrey is generally a very nice place to visit, and the Trading Post shop is a great place to get snacks and drinks.  But the morons commenting in that article are basically lying bastards.

At least the editor replied.  I recently wrote to Autocar about some ignorant anti-cyclist comments in an article; my letter was not published, nor did I hear anything from them.

I don't know about "worst" (there is some seriously awful anti-cycling stuff out there) but certainly pretty terrible. The Editor's reply isn't much better.

Although the article doesn't directly blame the cyclist who was recently killed, it does exclusively focus on cyclists being the problem. There is one very vague sentence that suggests the problem might be wider than just cyclists ("It is understood the Bridge Lane junction where the accident happened has been an area of concern discussed by Goostrey Parish Council because of the number of accidents in the vicinity, and an increasing amount of traffic using the lane.") The article doesn't mention any of the other issues the Editor mentions in his reply (HGVs, tractors, illegal waste dumping, road disrepair). 

Everything else is just cycle bashing (although there's no mention of road tax or registration tabbards so not quite a full house on the anti-cycling bingo)

A few of the more glaring issues:

Why on earth does it matter if a cyclist is wearing black? 

With very limited exceptions (e.g. possibly the Royal Parks) speed limits don't apply to bicycles. That said, I doubt many are actually going at 30mph, let alone faster. I particularly enjoyed Tony's comment that the speed limit on Twemlow Lane (currently mostly NSL) should be restricted to 30mph, but the problem is still the cyclists who wouldn't be bound by this hypothetical change. 

A club/group pays to hire out a car park for their own private use and expects to actually get private use of it? Shock horror. No complaint against the landowner who was evidently happy to agree to this arrangement.

The driver in a safe metal box who is traumatised by not killing someone - certainly the victim in this scenario. The cyclist who was nearly killed has no reason to be upset...

There's also complete conflation/confusion of time trials, road racers, and leisure cycling. I assume the average villager thinks anyone who is wearing lycra must be either in a time trial (if riding alone) or in a race (if with others), whilst to be classified as a "leisure cyclist" one has to be dressed in tweed (or, at a pinch, Barbour).

Wow.. that article is pretty special.

I can see why the 'reporter' wouldn't want to put their name to it.

I know Goostrey fairly well. I've trained, raced and done TTs around there. My best friend is also from there although he now resides in the graveyard mentioned in the article. I've managed to get over and see him quite often and I've always managed to do it without a car. Even if I had driven and couldn't use the village carpark there are plenty of other places to park really close by.

I 'get' frustrations with bad roads, speeding drivers, illegal dumps, HGVs and tractors. However using cyclists as a kind of proxy for dissatisfaction over these issues isn't acceptable, especially attached to the death of a rider. The article is bollocks

Here is the response I just got:

Thanks for the email.
We had the story about the fatal accident in the week before, with
tributes etc and quotes. The story you have seen was the week
after, part of a long-running issue in the village about the roads - there's
an illegal waste tip nearby, the lanes are used by HGVS and
huge tractors and fatalities are sadly all too common.
I'll copy a long letter I've just written to two local cyclists
below, which  explains it all in more detail than you
probably wanted.

Jem

Jem Condliffe, Editor / MD 
Congleton Chronicle Series
Market Square, Congleton CW12 1BW. 
(Company number 2154383)

Before I start: I have no car. I walk or cycle most of the time, although I cycle much less than a decade ago, when I was run over by a car at the bottom of Astbury village and lost my nerve. All I saw for years when I got on a bike was road kill. My sympathy is not with the cars. I think every road should have a cycle track and cars should be forced to go slower, in fact I find our obsession with cars slightly depressing. I have never done a time trial, but I have done triathlons, which involve a road stage.

That's me, however. As editor, the Chronicle has to represent all sides in the community without bias.

As for the general principle: we often report a fatal accident involving a car and then have letters / stories / parish council reports about speeding / bad driving / bad roads in the area. Usually these are ongoing issues, and the fatality brings them to the fore. This is the case here. Traffic is a regular issue in Twemlow and as you will know the main road through the village has had a number of fatal accidents. We reflect the views of the communities we cover.

In this case, we reported the tragic death of the cyclist. The following week - and I would stress it was the following week - a freelance who sends us copy almost daily sent us the story you have complained about. He is retired but worked for the nationals, then ran a successful news agency in Goostrey and now runs a blog in the village covering the area. He lives there and knows everyone. He has a family member on the parish council. He does not charge us for his stories and sends them in to promote the village he loves.

On this occasion he followed up concerns in the village about road use. This was not an attack on the cyclist or cyclists per se and nor was it a few random people who dislike cycling in itself. He mentioned Reg Harris to show that the area has a long cycling heritage and pointed out that time triallists are using the same roads as leisure cyclists.

I remember a similar issue in Great Budworth a few years ago, when the parish council wrote to cycling to clubs and, while admitting that the problem was not club riders but more unregulated groups, the issues were very similar.

One person quoted in the story is the chairman of Twemlow Parish Council. He is concerned enough with the issue to put it on a parish council agenda. This was not just a made-up story.

The background is that people in Goostrey/Twemlow are upset about roads: there is an illegal waste transfer station, so they get lorries using the country lanes as well, and now tractors, which are causing great damage to the roads.

The chairman of the parish council's involvement makes this a matter of public interest. Are you suggesting we should ignore what the elected chair of a parish council says because he takes a stance with which you disagree? If the parish council has a discussion about the roads mentions the fatal accident, do we not report it? I'm sure you would not want that.

Nor would you want us to silence villagers with real concerns over safety: you may not like it, you may disagree, and they may be confusing organised time trials with ad hoc groups racing through the village, but we cannot just tell them to shut up.

I do not dispute it is an emotive issue but that does not mean it cannot be discussed, and such tragedies often bring to the fore long-standing issues.

As for the roads and lorries: as I have said to one of you, I have heard that the cyclist rode into a pothole and that neither he nor the van driver are to blame. I don't how true this is and only an inquest and / or court case will reveal the truth, but residents are concerned about the state of the roads and the danger this represents.

We tried to make sure the story read that the cyclist in this case was not to blame - and as I say above, the information I had was that he was not.

There is possibly an issue about road use more generally and whether the Chronicle – as someone else has suggested – should “censor” anti-cycling new. As you will know the Government is planning to to introduce new rules to the highway code. I would hope it would change the hierarchy of the road use to protect the more vulnerable users. You might argue that the Chronicle could do to adopt a more cycle / pedestrian friendly policy as official, but again it's difficult - do I then delete letters from people who don't like cyclists?

When I wrote an editorial supporting the highway code changes, I had irate emails from drivers (some advanced drivers get particularly narky) and the same happened when we promoted active travel, with motorists giving us abuse over our support for cycling. We carry many pro-cycling stories throughout the year, too. Only the other week we reported on the new trikes that active travel is introducing in Congleton.

Having typed all this out, I suppose the fundamental problem is that you see this as a standalone issue - a cyclist has been killed and we have run a story criticising cyclists. I see it in the context of all the stories we write about transport where people are constantly fighting over access to roads and safer road use, parish councils are discussing potholes, bad roads and bad driving, and people are campaigning for active travel measures to be taken and we report them all.

Clearly, I am sorry that the story has upset people and that was never the intention - but equally clearly there are concerns in the Twmelow area about certain road users, and as a local paper we will report this.
 

Don't know if it is the worst, just an example of how poor local journalism is on any subject. My local rag now has a letter/comment item but they don't organise a right of reply or fact check anything. There was one letter about corona virus or 'chinese virus as I like to call it, after all they called it the spanish flu'. And that got published as is with no comments from the Ed. Cue 3 or 4 letters the next week to correct this.

Usual nonsense in the article - a group exclusively hires the village hall car park so of course they don't want any one else using it during in their hire period - why even include a complaint about it.

“Someone needs to have a word with the clubs" - so why didn't the paper do that and tell us their protocols and code of conduct ?

Standard junk- cyclists breathing and spreading Covid, and 'cyclist killed in collision with a van', implying cyclist hits blameless van, whereas it's almost invariably (it's a time trial, so I admit there is another possibility) it's van hits cyclist because the van driver thinks cyclists are always travelling at 10 mph. It appears there is a lot of inbreeding around there.

Quote:

But residents are increasingly concerned that many cyclists, often clad mostly in black and travelling at speeds of more than 30mph, could collide with a walker or cyclist using one of the narrow lanes.

...

Simon Greenwood, of Chelford Road, said: “I have been overtaken by a group of four cyclists going down the hill at Bridge Lane. I was doing 30mph and they were exceeding the 30mph limit. That cannot be legal.”

Hmm... 

(and we get the 'cyclists spreading the Plague' stuff too (is that extra credit?)).

That's extremely one-sided reporting - I didn't see that they'd asked any cyclists or clubs about their opinion.

Most probably down to economics, but most of the previously well-regarded local newspapers have grouped up under various on-line news channels; the standard of journalism is woeful and just designed to generate click-bait and get people wound up ala Daily Mail style.