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news
Cyclist on Hills Road Bridge in Cambridge (copyright Simon MacMichael).jpegCycling UK urges end to tribal depiction by media of drivers vs cyclists after Sunday Times hailed motorists' "victory"
Cycling UK as urged the media to stop depicting cyclists and drivers as two distinct tribes that are fighting with each other, describing it as “a tired and lazy cliché.”
The charity was reacting to an article in The Sunday Times which, as we highlighted here on rosd.cc at the weekend, claimed that drivers had scored a “victory” due to a fall in the number of cyclists.
Quoting some of the opening words of the newspaper’s article – “Motorists’ long-running battle with cyclists on British roads – Duncan Dollimore, head of campaigns at Cycling UK, said: “We’ve heard it all before, and while it sets up a ‘heroes and villains’ narrative that is perhaps more engaging for some readers, it simply is not true.
“It’s a tired and lazy cliché, trying to create tribes on the road that doesn’t stand up against the facts, and could arguably reinforce the wider public’s perception that cycling is a dangerous activity, when the stats show it is not.”
Dollimore emphasised that cyclists are more likely than not to be motorists themselves,
“Over 90 per cent of Cycling UK’s members drive, so when you exclude the young, we think it’s fair to say most people who cycle do drive,” he said.
“What is clear though with only 2 per cent of all journeys being made by bike, most people driving do not cycle – and therefore do not understand or even know how to drive around people on bikes safely.
“It’s our firm belief therefore that most poor driving around cyclists is therefore not malicious in intent, but rather comes through a lack of awareness.”
He went on to highlight some of the initiatives the charity is taking to try and make Britain’s roads safer for cyclists.
“That’s one of the main reasons Cycling UK launched our Too Close For Comfort campaign and have supplied police forces across the UK with close pass mats and VR headsets – to educate people unfamiliar with cycling and the dangers of close passing,” he explained
“It’s why last summer Cycling UK campaigned for changes to the Highway Code that would create greater clarity on overtaking of cyclists and clearer guidance to prevent car-dooring through the Dutch Reach.
“More than 10,000 people wrote to the Department for Transport in support of this, and together we made a difference, as last October the Cycling Minister, Jesse Norman MP, announced these changes would be going through,” he added.
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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18 comments
No it's not a SE England thing. Here in Lancashire we have our fair share of dickheads. I have to say, in my opinion, from my experience of cycling six days a week, most dickheads drive Audi, BMW and Mercedes, and the total dickheads usually drive Audi A3, BMW 1 series, and the usual big egocentric mobiles, the Chelsea tractors. Our cyclepaths around the Preston area are woefully inadequate. This means that cyclists usually ride on the roads, further angering the dickheads who think that because there is a path supplied and paid for by the drivers, cyclists must use it at all times.
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Didn't understand the "victory" angle when the original story appeared, and don't now. How is it a victory for motorists if cycling numbers drop and those people go back to driving their cars and adding to the general congestion already apparent on most roads? Is there a genuine belief somewhere that drivers "win" by not having to deal with cyclists? Idiotic.
As for drivers not knowing how to drive around cyclists, it is more than that. On my morning commute, endless drivers demonstrate their lack of understanding of, or respect for, the law and the highway code. One section of my route in is a winding lane, 50mph limit with double white lines along a half mile section where you cannot see oncoming traffic.
This morning I was overtaken by 9 cars along that section despite it being illegal as I was doing quite a bit more than 10mph ... 8 of them were quite good overtakes, in that they gave me plenty of room (even if one of us (most likely me) would have been roadkill if a car had appeared around the bend) while the other seemed to know he wasn't allowed to cross the double whites and squeezed past me as closely as he could, edging nearer and nearer as he passed pushing me towards the side of the road.
That said, I have had a driving licence for over 30 years now and at no point have I been forced to update my knowledge of the HC or anything else. Time for drivers to be retested and relicensed as a minimum every 10 years (even just a compulsory theory test would be an improvement). That would be a genuine victory for all road users.
A Pyrrhic victory at best -“traffic’s getting worse and worse around here”. Iiiisss it??
It’s a pity if cycle numbers / miles really have dropped. Did we have a 2012 Olympics “bounce”?
People in this country are longing to cycle - they just need some decent conditions to do it. To mis-quote the famous line, “you don’t have to be mad to cycle in British roads, but it helps”.
I’m writing this having missed my usual train home because my bus to the station was stationary in traffic for 10 minutes - the car has robbed me of this hour. If I was rational, I would say “the bus is too unreliable” - and then add my +1 to the traffic problem.
Are they, how many, say in % terms? Maybe, just maybe you might encourage a few more, we MIGHT get to 5% modal share IF lots of things change, that would be a 250% increase, that is not going to happen in the next 10 years or even the next 20 years.
It's not decent conditions, it's ideal/excellent conditions that are needed whilst at the same time making motoring etremely difficult/very expensive.
That segregated lane that is disjointed with little or no priority that doesn't really go anywhere is too narrow to allow a mother and child or two adults to ride saide by side safely whilst allowing faster riders to get past with plenty of space to spare thus avoiding some from having to slow to 1/3 their average speed freqently and the 'this feels like a race track of commuters' so that mum won't take her kids to school/shops etc and kids won't use it as a matter of course anyways as it'll still mean having to cede way at every junction or get squished (NL has over 60 deaths at infra/motor roads every year)
Even in Netherlands just 26% of people use cycles to get about, that only just over a 1/4, look at the roads in most NL cities, wide, smooth, direct and virtually uninterrupted, private car ownership is around 85%, two car households have almost doubled since the mid 90s. In fact most of the political parties want travel by motorcar to be discounted for work purposes. "Table 12 gives an overview of the political measures related to car ownership proposed by nine political parties in The Netherlands. VVD, PvdA, PVV, CDA, SP, D66, ChristenUnie and SGP all propose a discount on the taxation in relation to work travel by car"
Predictions on the same study suggest that in NL car use will start increasing again by 2020 if going by the subsidies given out by four of the political parties
This is one of the many reasons why cycling in NL has stagnated for over a decade and more, it's still too easy and too cheap to drive.
The same thing has been happening here, motorcar ownership and running has been discounted/subsidised for yonks and this again is part and parcel as to why people will not move to cycling when it's relatively cheap to use a motor.
Some limited numbers of people want to cycle, but the reality is firstly not enough will ever be done in my lifetime to change the minds of those that want to, second, that number is going to be fractional increases in any case. It needs a massive revolution not evoution, it needs force not encouragement for people to leave their cars, even for trips to local shops/work!
at least someone else understood the "victory" sense in that article
though badly written as it was in tabloid language, I dont think it was making out a narrative that doesnt exist on the roads.
none of the 5 cars who overtook me close, fast & lent on the car horn for good measure at the weekend, all whilst they had an entirely free opposite side of the road and plenty of room to use, did so because they were cyclists who were just driving, or motorists who didnt understand how to drive around people on bikes, there were treating me as an out group who I guess they felt they could intimidate in that manner, because what could I really do about it.
Everyone has heard of at least one friend,relation, work colleague knocked off their bike and everyone in a car then just treated them like a mini roundabout, we even have videos to share now it seems of that in action.
whilst I agree deliberately provoking more angst between road users through media articles is counter productive, I think its foolish to pretend there arent actually these divisions between alot of the groups of users on the road and how certain groups treat others or view others, regardless of how the venn diagram of transport mode aligns, and cyclists seem to bear the brunt of that and often pay the ultimate price because of it.
When driving, the only 'problem' I have with cyclists isn't with cyclists, but with drivers.
Exactly this. The only difficult or stressful thing about encountering cyclists whilst driving is the hassle you receieve from other drivers if you treat them safely and considerately.
Yep, another +1.
A while ago, a driver hung back carefully and only passed (widely) when safe to do so. The driver behind (I'm sure it was a pure coincidence that he was driving a BMW...) was so incensed at being held up by the driver treating me carefully that he punish-passed me and then aggresively overtook the driver in front.
In effect, he bullied two people. I was entirely innocent of any wrongdoing - just riding along a road in econdary position - and the first driver was "guilty" of treating a vulnerable road user with care. Clearly all too much for Mr Entitled BMW.
It's a regular occurrence here. I get into the car and head to pick up the missus. 30 mph road all the way to the station, with the exception of half a mile through a small town where it's 20 mph. If I obey the speed limit, I'm tailgated - and I do mean tailgated. We conducted an experiment with our rear-facing dashcam to 'guage' distances and the last one was at 4-6 inches from our rear bumper at 30 mph.
When there's a cyclist and I hang back, the guy behind me will usually pass me and the cyclist - often on the right-hand side of the bollards.
And yes - it's almost always a BMW, Audi or Mercedes.
When I drive my car i have Zero problems with cyclists
When I ride my bike I have 5-10% issues with car drivers....i'm beginning to think the issue is just dick heads
When driving, the only 'problem' I have with cyclists isn't with cyclists, but with drivers. Because I don't pass cyclists unless it's safe to do so, and slow down to keep a '2 second rule' distance behind them.
The inevitable - and wholly predictable - result is that I am tailgated at inches from my rear bumber, and drivers angrily 'honk' at me.
When I cycle, however, it is relatively easy to get by without any issues with car drivers. All you need to do is to remember that you are filth, that your life is worth nothing, and that drivers are your betters. Do not get in their way, do not hold them up even for a second, and do not answer back if (or rather: 'when') they remind you of your status as a thieving usurper whose presence on their roads is entirely dependent on their approval. Should you be unlucky enough to be 'punished' by a driver and sustain injury, don't bother the criminal justice system with trifling matters like that, as 'everyone drives', and the police and CPS will use your complaint as bog roll.
Sadly, I don't do the whole 'doff the cap and genuflect' thing very well.
Hell is other people. Especially when those other people are dick heads. Especially when those dick heads are behind the wheel.
tbf when I'm driving 5 - 10% of other drivers act like entitled dick heads... maybe it is an SE England thing?
No, this seems to be a universal law; a certain proportion of people are dickheads all the time, the rest are dickheads sometimes. It is a sad fact that we are human, not machines, and we have emotions and prejudices and we get wound up. What would really help is if the msm stopped feeding those prejudices and normalising aggressive behaviour towards cyclists.
“It’s a tired and lazy cliché......" which unfortunately defines almost all of the msm, and it pretty accurately describes it for the past hundred years at least. Cliches are the stock in trade of the msm, especially the tabloid press.
The msm is a reflection of society, even if it does form opinions to some extent. It would undoubtedly help to achieve the required change to the view of cyclists if the msm would drop its "them and us" attitude, and give cycling a fair crack of the whip. The example of smoking springs to mind, with much of the msm being largely in favour of allowing smoking everywhere all the time, to gradually accepting that it needed to be controlled, but it took many years for editors to catch up with public opinion.
What can we do about it, besides venting our spleens here of course? Reply to every cycle bashing article you see, write to editors demanding that they drop their blatant bias, complain if necessary.
It's not a war, it's fecking slaughter.
It's certainly only a 'war' in the same way that the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a 'war'. Bullies only ever pick on those who can't fight back, and it was US neocon doctrine at the time (and no doubt still is) that the projection of power and hegemony had to be directed at an easy target who was wholly incapable of defending itself. Hence the wholesale slaughter of the Afghan and Iraqi people, the overwhelming majority of whom had never taken any offensive action against the United States or its allies.
But I digress. The 'war' on Britain's roads is really a campaign of intimidation, assault and even murder. I fully believe that in at least two cases where cyclists have died as a result of a driver's actions over the past decade, the driver deliberately killed the cyclist.