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Live blog: Chris Boardman says “Too many in Westminster do not consider cycling important” as fallout continues from Conservative Party’s “dangerous cycling” tweet + more
All the news from the site and beyond as we start a new week
Mon, Aug 13, 2018 14:14
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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
Bill H 9 minutes ago
Poor Vincent cannot get over the simple fact that given the choice people prefer dedicated cycling spaces, rather than pretending to be cars like vehicular cyclists.
pbunyon 16 minutes ago
What is the point of the fancy air sensor if it can't account for changing weather conditions?? If all you care about is a delayed approximation of aerodynamic watts in steady conditions, you don't need any special sensors for that. Just your speed on a decently flat course is enough to approximate rolling resistance and drivetrain losses. And the rest must be aero. If you assume a less aero body position at the same watts, your speed will drop while rolling resistance also drops, which means approximated aero watts goes up. And that's enough to demonstrate what you've shown in your testing protocol ("I sat upright and the number went up a little while later").
chrisonabike 41 minutes ago
Your correction is accurate - it's almost always been "the (lack of) thought that (doesn't) count". "Massive" - less than a billion a year spent on active travel (trying to catch up / building a network across the entire country) Not massive - 6 billion every year (2026-2030) spent on road *maintenance* of existing "already built, goes everywhere, very convenient" road network for inactive travel Ultimately the reason "cycle infra" is *needed* is those unbelievably colossal amounts spent every year (and for more than a century now) on making mass motoring not just viable but apparently the "best choice" for most journeys. As the Dutch and others have shown, the majority of people *are* prepared to cycle and even mix with very light, slow local motor traffic *if* cycling is also made safe and convenient for the whole of their journey (including secure parking at both ends). (The history of the financial drivers of the current situation are a complex topic but note that while people complain about "crumbling roads" and underfunded motor infra - with some reason - by us continuing the fuel duty escalator freeze (for example) we're actually helping motorists pay *even less* for that activity / subsidising more of the cost of driving than ever.)
belugabob 41 minutes ago
yes, but people will still object - which was my point.
Astralstroll 3 hours ago
So ' Priority of Road Users' and 1.5 metre clearance at 30mph has been been reduced to 'sharing'? NCN route 2 here in South Hams is an absolute scream with white vans, tractors and total idiots who refuse,or are totally incapable,to reverse on high Devon banked lanes ...means you have to get off and pedal back to a passing place....could be at that all day...so I don't bother...
Mr Anderson 4 hours ago
@MaxiMinimalist Agreed. The big problem I see now is today's parents grew up being driven to their schools, and therefore, see private motor vehicles as the only viable form of transport. The vast majority of UK infant and primary schools have a catchment area that is within easy walking distance from home to school. Yet, the traffic caused by pupils being driven to/from school is astonishing. Banishing the "School Run" should be a priority for all schools.
MaxiMinimalist 5 hours ago
When I was a kid (that was during the previous millenium when phones were connected to a plug in the wall), I rode my bicycle to school, music academy, sport grounds, parties even during the winter. The government didn't have to spend, correct that, didn't have to think of spending massive amounts of money to build cycling specific infrastructures. Over the past 3 or 4 decades, cars have grown bigger, taller, safer (for their drivers) and faster. Meanwhile, motorists have become abusive, aggressive, hypersensitive to people moving on two wheels, aka cyclists. Spending billions upon billions on new infrastructure won't address the crux of the matter. Sadly.
Paul J 5 hours ago
Obree had some actual talent in his legs though, in addition to his bike/aero engineering talent.
Maruis Kalchev 5 hours ago
Малко като опит за доказване е излязло... Никой няма нужда от толкова голям въртящ момент и мощност на шосеен велосипед с тънки гуми, които дори трудно ще предават тази мощност върху пътя. А ако има и ограничение от 25 км/час е още по-безмислено.
mdavidford 5 hours ago
Not sure how informative that is. I imagine for all most of us know it could be Europe's only 'volumetric modular building'. 🤷♂️
25 thoughts on “Live blog: Chris Boardman says “Too many in Westminster do not consider cycling important” as fallout continues from Conservative Party’s “dangerous cycling” tweet + more”
Who do they *think* are the
Who do they *think* are the most vulnerable road users?
(Perhaps its those delicate little HGVs – I mean, a crushed bike frame could leave a nasty scratch in the paintwork if it got caught under a wheel arch…).
I just hope they
I just hope they (Conservatives) put as much energy into introducing laws to protect people living in tower blocks run by unscrupulous landlords. But yeah, forget Grenfell and lets target cyclists.
Here’s a little ‘Ready
Here’s a little ‘Ready Reckoner’ to provide some comparisons of the kinetic energy of bikes & cars at a range of speeds.
The highlighted cells demonstrate that a cyclist needs to be traveling at 80mph to match a car trundling along at 20.
Close pass someone at 80 on a cycle path and they’d probably be outraged, perform the same pass in a car at 20 in a car park & they’d think it ‘normal’ – Odd!
p.s – I’m more than happy to be corrected on my ‘workings out’
pps – Have you heard of the constipated mathmagician? – She worked it out with a pencil….
HowardR wrote:
80/20 ok, though the ridder has gained an extra 10 kg (perhaps from a refuel!)
hirsute wrote:
Thats, ahem! based on my own chips & beer intake & judging by the 10 + 80 = 100 & “ridder” – too much of the beer…. (not two selv – choke details)
HowardR wrote:
I actually think 1600kg is pretty low considering the number of ‘crossovers’ (god I hate that term) and suv type vehicles around now, add in the number with 4 wheel drive and it could well be another 200-400kg more, and that’s just for the cars, before you even get to vans and HGVs etc.
The other point people seem to foget about when they complain about the speed of cyclists (no wonder the uk has had recent success in the sport as apparently we’re all riding around at over 30mph if a lot of the complaints are to be believed) is braking, a bike will decellerate quite quickly, and with it’s already reduced mass even slight reductions in speed will remove a considerable amount of kinetic energy. A car with great brakes and an alert driver may have a greater rate of retardation and will possibly out brake a cyclist, but the chances of them bringing the vehicle down to a speed where the kinetic energy is going to be less lethal is pretty remote.
But by all means, get those dangerous nonagenarians off the road, what menaces they must have been for the last 80 years…
So, in and around the village
So, in and around the village near Bristol in which I live(d) – just moved. Over the past two years, 3 pedestrians and a cyclist died on the roads.
2 of the pedestrians were killed by cars; one car didn’t stop at a junction and the other car went straight across a zebra crossing. The other pedestrian died after a lorry drove through a red light at a pedestrian crossing.
The cyclist was killed by a car that hit them from behind.
I regularly cycle(d) from where I live(d) to Bristol, cycling straight through the city centre. Many of the cyclists were appallingly behaved, as were many of the motorists and, in fact, pedestrians. In the few years I commute in and around Bristol, I saw a few pedestrians hit by vehicles, one was fatal. I also saw 2 cyclists hit by vehicles (one was entirely the cyclist’s fault for riding like a total idiot, literally road into a bus).
I also saw several collisions between pedestrians and bicycles, mostly caused by both parties being totally unaware of each other. I also hit 2 pedestrians, one was on their phone and stepped into traffic without looking, the other ran across the road at a pedestrian crossing (when the light was green for the road traffic & red for pedestrians) – neither pedestrian was hurt, the Iphone & coffee of the first pedestrian didn’t fare so well.
To protect vulnerable road users, pedestrians and cyclists need adequate room from motor vehicles (and each other). The stats speak for themselves, motor vehicles are killing people. Despite this cyclists and pedestrians are causing some problems but in the order of 1% of total deaths (from the gov stats of road deaths).
The amount of untaxed, uninsured and un-MOT’d (is that even a word?) vehicles is horrendous. Drink, drug and phone driving are also big problems.
Cycling laws need updating to the 21st century, all road laws do – but it won’t do anything to protect vulnerable road users (which is sad because I prefer walking and cycling to driving).
And the shame is, the story
And the shame is, the story just before the Conservative one is about a 95 year old couple retiring their tandem because of bad drivers and near misses. I think this sums up the problems on our roads. I ought to say, there are a lot of courteous drivers out there but the few idiots make life miserable for everyone.
Well, as a Green, I know
Well, as a Green, I know which party to vote for, but for anyone in doubt, vote anyone except tory. They are interested in one thing, money, and the safety of cyclists and pedestrians doesn’t matter as long as their mates in car making and road building get to make even more.
BTW, Jeremy Vine was wrong:
“1. When I’m on a bike, I’m a vulnerable road user.
2. The people in this photo don’t look like criminals to me, they look like they’re following the govt and Mayor of London’s advice to cycle
3. In 2016 there were 1,700 road deaths; THREE were caused by cyclists.”
It isn’t clear that the three deaths were caused by the cyclists, but they were involved.
burtthebike wrote:
Chris refers to “Westminster” and he’s right to. “Anyone but Tory” is terrible advice if you’re serious about making the pols do anything for cycling. Don’t give your vote to the other 1.1 major parties who also don’t give a fuck about cyclists’ safety on the roads, just because they’re not the Tories. Their records are all lamentable.
srchar wrote:
2 likes
Not sure about that, and I think that this is the worst government in my life for cycling, if I may dignify this shower of s**t with that epithet. Full of promises and lots of words appreciating all the benefits of cycling, but no investment and lots more road building. Oh, and an investigation into dangerous cycling. The tories give hypocrites a bad name.
Just nipped on to the ‘daily
Just nipped on to the ‘daily heil’ to see some funny comments for the tory tweet story.. came away not laughing as expected, but actually really quite sad 🙁
peted76 wrote:
Why would you do that to yourself? No problem has ever been solved by anyone commenting below the line.
The fact that the tweet was
The fact that the tweet was published gives us real insight to the way cycling is viewed by some within Government, if not all. Jesse Norman can apologise all he likes but it’s a clear message.
Is whoever authorised the tweet losing their job over this?
ChrisB200SX wrote:
You might be right. A bit like the comments made by one Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, is this a case of testing the political waters and seeing if they can get away with it..?
brooksby wrote:
Any news is better for the government than coverage of Brexit. Theresa May will get caught eating a baby next week, just to keep it off the front page.
vonhelmet wrote:
Yep. And it’s a good job Jezza went to a cemetery 4 years ago, cos that’s what the Heil reasoned should keep EVERYTHING off the front page today.
davel wrote:
Apparently there were nine, NINE! pages of it. This country has now drifted so far to the right, we might need a revolution to restore normality.
burtthebike wrote:
Revolution, you say?
vonhelmet wrote:
Wasnt it Johnson himself who talked about dead cats? Throw one on the table in the middle of a meeting and it becomes the thing that everyone talks about. We are that dead cat.
So sad that the 95 year old
So sad that the 95 year old couple have had to give up tandem riding because of bad drivers.
Reading their life story proves how much people can do and how much they can enjoy life using only sustainable transport.
Unfortunately the government’s current policy of demonising cyclists can only ensure that fewer people than ever feel safe enough to do so in future.
Very odd that the Tory tweet
Very odd that the Tory tweet shows very normal cycling on a cycle route in daylight but with additional hi viz and lights.
I’m launching a consultation
Norman! I’m launching a consultation between my boot and your ass!
An even remotely well
An even remotely well maintained car will outbrake a cyclist. A car will stop from 20mph much quicker than a bike. Official tables say there’s 6m thinking and 6m stopping distance in a car. The problem you have is that in a lot of cases the thinking distance ends up being about 400m because drivers are looking at their phones.
vonhelmet wrote:
This. A car has massively more rubber in contact with the road and is much more stable than a bicycle under braking.
Having said that, I reckon I could still manage to stop the bike within the distances quoted in the (rather outdated) braking distance tables.