Live blog: Manchester offering free family cycle training; petition for enforcement of safe passing distance in Australia; father and son everest the Kemmelberg + more

If the reporting is correct and complete, nobody picked up on Moron Madeley's reference to road tax- we all know that hasn't existed for several decades, but it appears that is too short a time for Driver Decayed Brain (and Hyper-Junk TV Presenter Slow Brain) to register the fact. BF64 TGE shows that drivers get away with not paying it for years anyway, despite DVLA being informed about the evasion for years, a letter from my MP and the laughable assertion by former DfT Minister Lilian Greenwood that "DVLA makes VED easy to pay and difficult to avoid".

@slc Fabulous, thank you. That clip can't be repeated too many times.

@eburtthebike I totally agree. I remember the good old days when all BBC news presenters (and some on ITV as well) were passionate about news, current affairs, politics etc and had most of the relevant facts at their fingertips and news was factual. Nowadays many seem to be lazy and rely on briefings from ignorant equally lazy researchers. And all of this while earning huge salaries. Much of the news today seems to feature sensationalist personal angles. "And we're about to hear from Sharon near Wittering. The recent surprise Russian thermonuclear strike has vaporised all beauty salons within a 30 mile radius and Sharon is struggling to find somewhere to do her hair and nails in time for a Halloween party this weekend. She wants to know how the government are planning to resolve this crisis." "Weapons of mass destruction. Are they a good or bad thing? Text us and let us know what you think."

Good to see that ITV is keeping up the media's attacks on cyclists, so that the BBC don't feel lonely. Mind you, I suppose that they've also got almost the entire print media, and the radio, and the internet on their side, so is there any form of media which isn't anti-cyclist? As for the asinine inaccuracies, those 'journalists' should be hanging their heads in shame and be forced to ride a bike until they have the faintest idea what they're talking about. Could take some time, they are incredibly dumb. Have they been reported to Ofcom? Not that Ofcom is anything more than a toothless cuddly toy tiger.

It's worth noting that rain gardens don't simply soak up more water than tarmac by virtue of having soil, but the 'garden' bit with soil tends to be over a layer of sand and/or aggregate, which eventually feeds into the surface water drainage system, often via an attenuation tank. The design will vary according to how much space there is, the status of surface water drains and local geology. The point is to slow down the rate at which rain enters the surface water drainage system to prevent them from overloading the network in times of heavy rain. Guaranteed half of the people complaining about the bike lane, lack of parking and the planting will also complain about flooding and blame that on the council not maintaining the drains. In reality, unblocking or even fixing collapsed drains only takes you so far. With increased probability of periods of heavy rainfall, combined with paving over everything, we're going to need a lot more of these and other sustainable drainage systems. Installing them at the same time as making changes to streetscapes which may or may not include bike lanes is essential. We can be sure that the costs of installing these will be attributed to the price of bike lanes, so something to watch for when people complain about value for money.

MP "I'm all in favour of cycling infrastructure around the city for those people who want to use it, but it can't come at the cost of people being able to move safely around the city." Which is exactly the point of cycling infrastructure. Dumbest MP of the year award goes to Alex McIntyre. Just to make sure he gets the award, he goes on to say that AT funds should be spent on things other than Active Travel. Could the cyclists of Gloucestershire arrange an award ceremony to give him his prize? Including a certificate detailing what he's won it for. It's lucky that it's only cyclists who are arrogant, selfish and inconsiderate, not those lovely, caring, altruistic, considerate drivers. I suppose I should be grateful that I'm still young enough, at 75, to be able to ride a bike. As for the "My whole life will be disrupted by this cycle lane." possibly the greatest exaggeration and demonstration of motornormativity since the Bristol Evening Post had a front page article about the College Green cycle lane with three local business men claiming it would bankrupt their businesses. Perhaps if Gerry Haretin rode a bike, she wouldn't be quite so miserable and selfish. I've lost count, is this the 1,811,254th BBC attack on cycling or only the 1,811,253rd?

@Rendel Harris I think you mean the good old National Federation for the Blind; Whose total budget (per charities commission) when I last checked was comparable to what a local rotary club spent running social events for local blind residents...

Slow news day was it? Struggling for engagement? So just wheel out the old "bloody cyclists eh?" piece.

@saw442000 Ahh yes... In an 1hr30 commute in the rain today had 1 driver turn across the cycle lane I was in and 2 drivers look straight at me (and my bright red helmet and flashing front light) before pulling out regardless (2 forcing emergency stops; still no idea how I managed to squeeze past the driver turning across the cycle lane as I didn't have enough time to grab the brake at all!) I suspect these are the 'otherwise good drivers'... I do wonder if part of the solution would be to allow police to issue a certain amount of points with the reasoning + evidence being documented at the time; Then if the driver gets more than X points (e.g. enough for ban/suspension) the evidence is THEN reviewed in court for all of the offences as a whole rather than going to court for each offence. Of course I suspect the issue with this is currently the main penalty for points on a driving licence is insurance costs... So you'd get massive complaints about running up insurance costs 'without a fair trial'... (I also think there is a lot of bad driving where 1 point should be a suitable penalty; but we seem to never issue less than 3 (so WTF have a 12 point system).

@saw442000 "... we don't want to prosecute otherwise good drivers." Well, if such good drivers do something that would be a straight fail on a driving test (thus proving they shouldn't have a licence) ... what then?