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Live blog: MP says yesterday’s Commons debate on road justice “absolutely not” about motorists vs cyclists, cyclist in Canada loses his sh*t literally (well, throws it at driver), “Cycling is better for your sex life” says government minister + more
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Wed, Nov 21, 2018 15:06
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Jack is group editor across road.cc, off.road.cc and ebiketips, overseeing all three sites in the F-At Digital group to make sure everything’s up to scratch. He’s been writing about cycling and multisport for over a decade, arriving at road.cc via 220 Triathlon Magazine in 2017. He worked across all areas of road.cc including tech, news and video, and also contributed to eBikeTips before being named editor of road.cc in 2021 (much to his surprise). Jack has been hooked on cycling since his student days, and currently has a Trek 1.2 for winter riding, a beloved Bickerton folding bike for getting around town, and an extra beloved custom Ridley Helium SLX for fantasising about going fast in his stable. Jack has never won a bike race, but does have a master’s degree in print journalism, and two Guinness World Records for pogo sticking (it’s a long story).
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Latest Comments
chrisonabike 4 hours ago
"All that's required is an to roads policing" - that's a big all... Although no doubt the "idiots just keep coming" aspect does apply: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9lel2wz93o "Man charged after car crashes through bowling alley" - luckily they only skittled over skittles.
chrisonabike 5 hours ago
Almost any change to roads and streets is accompanied by a period of heightened danger, and in the UK "look out for cyclists" will need to be learned... practically. And over the time it takes for cyclists to become a regular feature. OTOH once (if...) good designs are in and frequent enough such that drivers encounter them AND the cyclists on them regularly (another big if) I don't think they should be much more difficult than a footway to deal with. These things are all over NL - don't have the collision stats but they should. (NL isn't perfect but collecting info on the safety of designs to feed back into better designs as required is part of the "sustainable safety" philosophy - if they're really a killer I think they'd be altering these.)
wtjs 6 hours ago
I'm in the happy position of agreeing with everybody here! I've never considered a bike with a stand, yet I'm impressed by the ingenuity and adaptability of this axle. I tow a Yak Bob with a Robert Axle, employing my El Cheapo Vitus gravel bike and I just have to be very careful where I stop. Hedges are generally a dead loss, and I seek walls, telegraph poles and signposts and generally lean the widest part of the Bob against it. One very awkward task is removing the two steel pins which lock the trailer arms onto the special mounting slots on the Robert axle, and when you have one out, the sodding weight in the trailer can twist the whole caboodle and bend the Bob fitting before you can get the other out and unhitch. I doubt if a stand would help with that. You can imagine that this combo is a real pain when you have to get it over the bridge at railway stations, and it nearly resulted in Merseyrail nearly parting me and the trailer on the platform from the bike on the train. It's a long story for another time. Another axle example recently featured on here, with a 12mm front axle bearing the Herculean weight limit of a monster American front rack.
HoarseMann 8 hours ago
This has nothing to do with the type of bike - it's the type of behaviour that's the problem. Banning the sale of such bikes will not curtail the behaviour. They'll just find another type of vehicle and continue to drive dangerously as there's such a lack of enforcement. I'd sooner see them ban the bally. But really, all that's required is an improvement to roads policing.
AidanR 8 hours ago
The EAPC Bill is welcome, but full of holes. What's to stop an overpowered but temporarily limited e-bike being sold and subsequently delimited? This is often a trivial process.
Sredlums 9 hours ago
@KiwiMike Yeah, in my over four decades of riding all over Europe I've never 'been for a ride in the countryside'. That must be it. Or, and I know this is a wild concept, you just accept that I just voiced my personal experiences and never missed a kickstand, like I wrote. Anyway, what's the big horror of laying your bike on its side for the very few occasions where there is nothing to lean your bike against?
mdavidford 9 hours ago
They may have looked, but did they see?
jackcycles 9 hours ago
Ds2025: where they are going wrong is that they are crushing the motorbike rather than the person sat on top of it. If they did the latter this issue would be solved in less than 24 hours.
Rod Marton 9 hours ago
I came this way today with the car boot sale in operation. There was a marshal at the entrance, who stopped a car turning right across the cycleway as I was approaching. So that certainly works. I think it necessary for the marshal to be there, I couldn't say if the driver would have turned if he hadn't been there but you always have to suspect the worst. Unfortunately there is no marshal at the exit, and there was certainly a car stopped across the cycleway as I was approaching it. But he pulled onto the road before I reached it, and the following car stayed off the cycleway as I went through. Ideally there should have been a marshal there too. On the whole, though, it's a really high standard piece of infrastructure. Just a pity it doesn't extend a bit further.
eburtthebike 10 hours ago
“absolute carnage” So right! Just look at the bodies piled up, blood running in the gutters and injured people limping away. It's a bit of a problem with a road, delaying some people for minutes at a time: it isn't carnage, let alone 'absolute carnage'. Anyone who exaggerates so ridiculously really shouldn't be allowed to comment in public, unless they want to demonstrate their idiocy to all and sundry.
31 thoughts on “Live blog: MP says yesterday’s Commons debate on road justice “absolutely not” about motorists vs cyclists, cyclist in Canada loses his sh*t literally (well, throws it at driver), “Cycling is better for your sex life” says government minister + more”
Well, at least he’s
Well, at least he’s referencing those stats.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-46225696/rory-stewart-apologises-after-making-up-brexit-stat
I’m not so sure if cycling is
I’m not so sure if cycling is that great for my sex life, but it sure gets some strange looks from the drivers that we pass.
hawkinspeter wrote:
Was it the tandem position?
burtthebike wrote:
Suspect it depends on who’s the stoker and who’s the captain
I wouldn’t agree that cycling
I wouldn’t agree that cycling is good for my sex life, everytime i buy a new bike the wife seems to go off me for some reason!
RE: 10 ways drivers make
RE: 10 ways drivers make cyclists feel unsafe – so, even on the Grauniad, some of the BTL comments are a bit worrying…
brooksby wrote:
The fact that they had to close the comments section says something too… 8 of the first 10 comments were removed. People claiming the guy filming had a thing about saying “Woah” . . while a range rover is pretty close to turing him into a pizza. . . I think I might have said more that that….
brooksby wrote:
Normally I quite like the Guardian’s comments section; there are some really clever folk on there. However, the modération can get a bit odd at times. I made a perfectly reasonable response to some clown banging on about cyclists wearing headphones and it has been removed, along with a couple of other posts supporting my viewpoint. Annoying really.
RE: Road rage cyclist
RE: Road rage cyclist literally loses his sh… – someone who’s clearly a bit too in touch with their inner chimp?
Most of the Guardian vids are
Most of the Guardian vids are pretty tame compared to the close passes on this site, but at least they seem to have recognised that it is Road Safety week, unlike the vast majority of the msm.
Perhaps the cyclist’s reaction was extreme, but it was better than dragging the driver out and beating them to a pulp, and I’m pretty sure that driver and the drivers who’ve seen the vid will be a bit more careful as a result. Interesting that the police seemed only interested in the cyclist, not the driver who knocked him off.
I don’t agree the Guardian
I don’t agree the Guardian vids are tame as such,or that Road.cc are conversely extreme,the guardian vids are more simply demonstrating the regular ways cyclists are badly treated on the roads,I could count at least half of those instances as daily occurrences on my commute, and that’s the real issue,as it ultimately creates a massive learning curve for new cyclists to adopt behaviours to cope with this seeming onslaught of vehicles determined to shove you out of their way,as no one with the authority to do anything about it is bothering to stop or prevent it happening
Doesn’t do much for your sex
Doesn’t do much for your sex life if your squashed under an artic. I’d prefer to see MPs discussing cycling safety.
john1967 wrote:
They did. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-11-20/debates/7CCA537F-54DB-4F17-92AE-60DABD4137C6/RoadSafetyAndTheLegalFramework
Completely ignored in the media, just as they are ignoring road safety week.
Brilliant to see club
Brilliant to see club volunteer Dean Barnett getting to the last 3 of the Unsung Hero award.
They did. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-11-20/debates/7CCA537F-54DB-4F17-92AE-60DABD4137C6/RoadSafetyAndTheLegalFramework
Completely ignored in the media, just as they are ignoring road safety week.
— john1967Even if the media made a noise about it every driver would think “That’s not an issue for me, I’m a competent driver”.
burtthebike wrote:
They did. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-11-20/debates/7CCA537F-54DB-4F17-92AE-60DABD4137C6/RoadSafetyAndTheLegalFramework
Completely ignored in the media, just as they are ignoring road safety week.— john1967
Worth reading that Hansard article in full.
Rory Stewart also said, shortly after the sex life comment:
‘We have therefore concluded that we must now extend the maximum penalty for causing death by dangerous driving to a life sentence, and the maximum penalty for causing death by careless driving under the influence of drink—alcohol—to a life sentence as well. That has been a difficult decision because of the question of balancing the impact on the victim with the culpability of the individual. However, in the end, the conclusion must be that someone who commits an extremely dangerous act in a vehicle is driving a weapon and committing an unlawful act. Ultimately, if a death results, that is morally equivalent to unlawful act manslaughter. Individuals under the influence of drink or drugs who get into a vehicle knowingly propel an extremely dangerous weapon, having consciously made a decision to incapacitate themselves. That is in direct contravention of their duty of care towards other road users and is therefore equivalent to gross negligence manslaughter. They should therefore face the penalty of a life sentence as a maximum.’
That is excellent news …
jaysa wrote:
Absolutely worth a read…. Now we just need to keep reminding the politicians to actually get something done, just discussing it is not enough.
jaysa wrote:
No it isn’t. Excellent news would be that they had passed a law about it, hot air doesn’t count, especially when we’ve heard it all before. Excellent news would be that they were going to implement the promise they made in 2014 about an inquiry into road laws, but there is no sign of that.
Judge people by their actions, not their words.
burtthebike wrote:
They did. https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2018-11-20/debates/7CCA537F-54DB-4F17-92AE-60DABD4137C6/RoadSafetyAndTheLegalFramework
Completely ignored in the media, just as they are ignoring road safety week.— john1967
Thanks burtthebike, it all sounds quite promising.Some very level headed thinking going on there.There also seemed to be a general consensus that the cyclist being a danger to pedestrians is a white elephant.if only the debates on cycling forums could be as calm and respectfull as that one was.:-)
john1967 wrote:
As someone rather longer in the tooth than perhaps some others here, no, that isn’t promising and I’ve heard it all before too many times to count. This was a pr stunt to make it look as if the government was listening, nothing else. Sure there are some MPs who understand the problem, but the government drives cars, it make billions out of fuel tax and ved, and their mates make billions out of building more roads for more cars. We need to break the cycle, no pun intended.
burtthebike wrote:
post.
burtthebike wrote:
dup post
john1967 wrote:
<northern-comic>
That’s no way to talk about t’missus!
</northern-comic>
Glad to see things have moved
Glad to see things have moved on massively in terms of driver behaviour around cyclists since the 1970s (not).
CygnusX1 wrote:
many thanks to all the cyclists who persisted over the years since then, often in the face not only of danger but of ridicule and ignorance, and cleared the way for us to reap the recent benefits.
ConcordeCX wrote:
Thank you. I can only wish that the progress was rather more than what was promised to us forty years ago. If they had done what I and others told them then, we wouldn’t have to be fighting now, but they ignored it then, and they are ignoring it now.
Thanks Jaysa, good words from
Thanks Jaysa, good words from Rory, kind of like him, in bits. His promise to resign over prisons if they don’t improve will cost him, and he does seem like one of those with honour.
Cannot see it being used much, jury of motorists even less likely to convict, and don’t forget – war on the motorist and all that.
BurtTB is right, it’s
BurtTB is right, it’s meaningless when it’s merely a discussion, a success is not just a changing of the law but to actually enforce the law by police and get them to understand that victim blaming bollocks and them applying equal responsibility between people with killing machines and those who don’t is not acceptable.
Also that the current thinking of reducing severity of charge because bias same acting peers of the accused will not condemn/find guilty because they themselves act in this criminal manner yhus can see little wrong is unwholly suitable as part of a civilised justice system. As mentioned before it’s akin to the white man going on trial for killing a black man in the deep south BITD.
Without enforcement and judges giving out penalties that reflect the severity of the act and the above change needed for judging guilty/not guilty it’s meaningless waffle. We need to remove motoring laws and when it’s a person suffering make them come under crimes against the person laws.
It needs widespread condemnation, repeated PIFs, education in schools and changing the whole focus of how we get people to move about in built up areas and beyond.
Things won’t change in any meaningful way because as BTB says, we’ve been here before and vested interests take priority not to mention pure unadulterated ignorance and bigotted viewpoints.
I’m not holding my breath. SNAFU
BehindTheBikesheds wrote:
Reading BTL on that Guardian article, and on one in the Bristol Post today (
), you so often see people writing that the police need to crack down on law breaking cyclists, who need insurance and registration so that they don’t get away with it… They completely fail to see/notice that many, MANY, motorists ‘get away with it’ despite (usually) having insurance and registration… 
The Grauniad had an op-ed recently about removing rape cases from juries, as juries can’t be trusted to deal with such cases open-mindedly/disinterestedly. They said they think that there’s an awful lot of “Do we really want to ruin this young man’s life just because of some youthful high jinks / sexual assault?” going on (both in juries, and even in the police).
I wonder whether something similar ought to be tried out for anything involving motoring/cycling? Remove juries from the equation, make sure such cases don’t just sit with low-level magistrates (whose range rovers are sitting outside in the car park…).
brooksby wrote:
Either that, or involve expert witnesses more.
Studies and surveys consistently show that people (ie. representative samples of society) overestimate their (particularly driving) abilities.
So if a jury is also a representative sample of society, it will be made up of people who overestimate their driving ability.
And in these cases, they are judging what is careless or dangerous against their version of ‘reasonable’. But we already know that their version of ‘reasonable’ is probably flawed – because they most likely overestimate their driving ability. They are not qualified to judge driving standards.
The man on the Clapham Omnibus could do with a lot more help these days – or being removed from judgement calls completely.
davel wrote:
The obvious answer is to use driving test examiners. If someone’s driving would fail a driving test, then it’s clearly below the required standard.
hawkinspeter wrote:
…as any collision with a cyclist, that was caused by the driver, would. Anyone can envisage that scenario failing a test: it’s substandard and that should be fairly straightforward to agree.
But the real problem the system currently seems to be having is with whether it falls into careless, dangerous, or neither. And my argument is that a jury is not qualified to answer that.
https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/delivery-driver-who-mounted-pavement-12782437
This van driver waved a family (mum and daughter) across the road, then mounted the kerb and hit and killed the daughter (a four year-old girl). There was no doubt that he caused death by driving. A jury cleared him of causing death by dangerous driving, and death by careless driving. Somehow, 12 good men and true thought that this was a mistake that doesn’t fall into ‘dangerous’ or even ‘careless’.
‘Fucked up’ doesn’t begin to cover it.