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Stay Wider of the Rider close pass campaign launches with amusing video of the Brownlee brothers

London Cycling Campaign asking government for clearer guidance and a public education campaign

London Cycling Campaign (LCC) has launched its Stay Wider of the Rider campaign with this video of the Brownlee brothers. ‘Not everyone should be this close’ runs the tagline as the charity seeks to raise public awareness of the dangers of motorists passing cyclists too closely.

Alistair Brownlee said: “Jonny and I both drive cars as well, and obviously ride our bikes an awful lot. Just take care. Remember when driving, as I do, that you're in a metal box and a cyclist doesn't have that protection around them, so it's really important to leave as big a gap as possible.”

Our Near Miss of the Day feature shows what a common occurrence close passes are. In a survey of 3,000 LCC members and supporters, two thirds said they regularly faced risks from close passing, while 23 per cent said it happened every time they cycled.

The Stay Wider of the Rider campaign – which is sponsored by Continental Tyres and Uber Eats – comes after Transport Minister Jesse Norman on Friday announced two measures to try and combat the problem: £500,000 funding for a pilot scheme to improve driving instructors’ cycle safety awareness, together with more resources to help police to crack down on close passes.

The campaign’s staywider.org website includes an online map for cyclists to log close passes. There’s also an online petition to Norman which calls for:

  • Support for every police force to run close pass operations
  • A major public education campaign
  • Clearer guidance on safe passing distances

The Highway Code states that drivers should leave the same distance as if they were passing another car when overtaking a cyclist (advice half of drivers are unaware of).

Both the LCC and Continental are going further that this, urging drivers to leave a minimum of 1.5m at 30mph, 2m at faster speeds and never less than 1m in slow-moving urban traffic (below 20mph).

Tom Bogdanowicz, Senior Policy and Development Officer of the London Cycling Campaign, said: “While it’s good to see the government beginning to take action, deterrence won’t be enough to tackle close passing. What we urgently need is a far wider campaign to raise awareness among millions of drivers just how dangerous close passing is. That’s what Stay Wider of the Rider can achieve.

“LCC has successfully campaigned for Dutch-quality cycling infrastructure for many years, but even in Holland a huge proportion of cycling still takes place on non-segregated roads where drivers and cyclists need to share road space. LCC will continue to campaign for more protected space for cycling, but we need initiatives like Stay Wider of the Rider to help educate drivers and reduce road danger for cyclists.”

Mark Griffiths, Safety Expert at Continental Tyres, said: “Earlier this year we launched our own Sharing the Road campaign as a branch of our Vision Zero Initiative which aims for zero fatalities, zero injuries and zero accidents on the road.

“As a committed partner of events like Prudential Ride London, we believe it is crucial that drivers and cyclists can be safe side-by-side when travelling. Research we carried out showed three out of five car drivers, pedestrians and cyclists and nearly eight out of 10 lorry drivers believed training for road users should include more on awareness and consideration for other types of road users so we welcome the Government's new pilot for driving instructors but would hope this becomes compulsory in the future.

“Initiatives such as the Stay Wider of the Rider campaign reaffirm the idea of how we can raise much-needed awareness to ultimately keep every road user safe.”

Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.

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9 comments

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hawkinspeter | 6 years ago
1 like

I'd define 'safely' as leaving enough space for the cyclist to avoid potholes/hazards which I would guess as being a minimum of 1m and more if the overtaking vehicle is going faster than 40mph (maybe 1.5m?) to avoid issues with wind/air pressure.

Although there are problems with specifying a minimum distance, it's far more preferable to the ambiguous "at least as much room as you would when overtaking a car".

Avatar
ChrisB200SX | 6 years ago
3 likes

On Sunday morning, going through Silchester with a couple of friends, we experienced an old bloke in a very well maintained classic drop-top Bentley from yesteryear, trying to overtake us declaring in a posh voice "I can't get through!". I genuinely thought it was Toad of Toad Hall, goes to show the mentality of some drivers.
If you can't... then don't. It's not rocket science.

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brooksby | 6 years ago
1 like

The LCC site has guidance for drivers, one of which is

If there’s not enough space to pass safely, travel behind the cyclist until space becomes available.

Seems to me that's the problem and if motorists could get that into their heads then a lot of cyclists' problems would go away.

How many motorists, if there's not enough space to pass safely, become irate, blame the cyclist, expect the cyclist to get out of the way and, if the cyclist doesn't just get out of the way, bowing, scraping and doffing their cap, just force their way through anyway...? 

(Their 'MGIF' video is also pretty horrendous, BTW).

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds replied to brooksby | 6 years ago
3 likes

brooksby wrote:

The LCC site has guidance for drivers, one of which is

If there’s not enough space to pass safely, travel behind the cyclist until space becomes available.

Seems to me that's the problem and if motorists could get that into their heads then a lot of cyclists' problems would go away.

How many motorists, if there's not enough space to pass safely, become irate, blame the cyclist, expect the cyclist to get out of the way and, if the cyclist doesn't just get out of the way, bowing, scraping and doffing their cap, just force their way through anyway...? 

(Their 'MGIF' video is also pretty horrendous, BTW).

Define 'safely'?

To a motorist 'safely' is massively different to how a person on a bike sees it, clamped in their protective shell a couple of inches is safe because 'I haven't touched you'. They can't even be trusted around children to make that judgement.

Oh and as per the WMP twitter feed re a close overtake they'd seen and were appealing for the cyclist to come forward, someone said about it's all well and good being right if your dead/injured. Well that's just saying defer all the time, cede priority, get out the way bowing and forlock tugging nonsense that simply encourages more shitty driving and makes drivers think people on bikes (and on foot) should behave all the time)

Avatar
brooksby replied to BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
2 likes

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

brooksby wrote:

The LCC site has guidance for drivers, one of which is

If there’s not enough space to pass safely, travel behind the cyclist until space becomes available.

Seems to me that's the problem and if motorists could get that into their heads then a lot of cyclists' problems would go away.

How many motorists, if there's not enough space to pass safely, become irate, blame the cyclist, expect the cyclist to get out of the way and, if the cyclist doesn't just get out of the way, bowing, scraping and doffing their cap, just force their way through anyway...? 

(Their 'MGIF' video is also pretty horrendous, BTW).

Define 'safely'?

"Oh god, oh god, I'm still alive!" yes (with thanks to Joss Whedon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBEUQSpRvSI)

Quote:

To a motorist 'safely' is massively different to how a person on a bike sees it, clamped in their protective shell a couple of inches is safe because 'I haven't touched you'. They can't even be trusted around children to make that judgement.

I know that: I've had discussions with motorists about that exact matter from time to time, most recently a couple of weeks ago.

Which I guess brings us right back to the HC definitions being a bit rubbish.  "Enough space as you'd pass a car" doesn't work at all, because - as you've said - many motorists think they've passed safely so long as there's no actual contact.  Which is clearly b*ll*cks...

Avatar
BehindTheBikesheds | 6 years ago
2 likes

if you OVERTAKE too close and I feel alarm, distress, fear  you've commited a criminal offence contrary to offences against the person Act 1861 (the one used against C.Alliston), it's as simple as that.

The problem is plod/CPS/'justice' system, that's why a specific distance in law will not work, as has been proven in all the countries were it has been rolled out. Without actually policing it and punishing those that cross the line as it were it's utterly meaningless. Just like the maximum tariff of 14 years for death by dangerous driving because no judge will EVER hand that out. 

Until we change motoring offences that harm people to actual offences against the person crimes and get plod to do their jobs and keep the peace, not a fucking thing will change.

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DrG82 | 6 years ago
2 likes

would be nice if they just added "it's the law" to it somewhere.

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fukawitribe replied to DrG82 | 6 years ago
0 likes

DrG82 wrote:

would be nice if they just added "it's the law" to it somewhere.

Not sure they can from a legal standpoint - there is no specific passing law i'm aware of in the UK, and the over-taking sections in the HighWay Code are advisory in nature AFAICS.

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SculturaD replied to DrG82 | 6 years ago
0 likes
DrG82 wrote:

would be nice if they just added "it's the law" to it somewhere.

It might not be law, but at least there are now consequences.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/motorists-face-fines-driving-close-cyclists-pa...

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