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news
London:cyclist in traffic (copyright Simon MacMichael).jpgReview: Channel 5's Cyclists: Scourge Of The Streets?
Cyclists are “lawless,” “aggressive,” and “like a plague of” – wait, what? – “lotuses coming down the road … herds of them.” Those were phrases fired during the opening salvo of last night’s Channel 5 documentary Cyclists: Scourge Of The Streets? which was so one-sided it makes you wonder why they bothered with the question mark.
Besides being treated to the wit and wisdom of three of ‘London’s finest’ – that’s black cab drivers to you and I, who are apparently among the “many drivers in the capital” for whom “cyclists have become public enemy number one” – we were also told how the “adrenaline junkies infiltrating Box Hill” were destroying the “pastoral dream” of Surrey – including, apparently, by defecating in people’s front gardens.
The opinions masquerading as facts that were allowed to go unchallenged were too many to count. One taxi driver insisted that “they’re not obeying the law like every other road user” – despite a recent study finding that cyclists are less likely to break the law than drivers.
Various rules from the Highway Code were cited as a means, we imagine, of highlighting just which laws cyclists break – but when the programme briefly looked at West Midlands Police’s award winning operation close pass, there was no specific mention of rule 163, which sets out the space drivers must give cyclists when overtaking.
We had Nick ‘Mr Loophole’ Freeman – you know, the lawyer who gets celebrities off driving related charges, often due to a technicality – saying “a lot of cyclists behave in a very poor way,” with no apparent sense of irony as he performed a piece to camera while driving his convertible sports car in an urban area.
Former Surrey resident – the sheer number of cyclists forced him to move out of the county, and we’re guessing not to the Netherlands – Ian Huggins proudly pointed out that his petition against the area being turned into “an open air velodrome” had garnered more than 3,500 signatures; no mention that a counter-petition to Surrey County Council, instigated by a road.cc reader, no less, got even more.
Much was made of people cycling on the pavement – including a segment showing an apoplectic cabbie taking a cyclist to task for daring to gently move his bike to where he could park it – but no mention made of Home Office guidance, supported by senior police officers, for fines only to be issued where others were endangered by the rider’s actions.
Missing were the voices of reason such as Chris Boardman or Will Norman that one might expect to find in a programme seeking to strike balance rather than sensationalise an issue – we’re not sure if they or other campaigners were approached, but we’d be unsurprised if they were.
Instead, we got a lengthy focus on Dave Sherry, described as “Britain’s most hated cyclist,” who has made it his mission to get as many motorists as possible brought to account for breaking the law.
Sherry appeared in a segment of the programme that narrator Craig Kelly prefaced with the words, “But before all cyclists are burnt at the stake” – seriously, he actually said that – “there’s another side to this story.”
We were told Sherry was a member of “a whole army of self-appointed avengers” who use action cameras to catch drivers breaking the law. He’s by no means the only cyclist to record his rides, as our Near Miss of the Day feature attests, but he is almost certainly the most extreme example in terms of his determination to seek out and confront transgressors and instigate action against them.
And again, balance went out of the window; whereas the notion of cyclists breaking the law went unchallenged, motorists doing it was almost normalised, Sherry presented as some kind of self-appointed quasi police officer stopping motorists from going about their business.
The programme’s saving grace was the all too brief appearance of PC Mark Hodson of West Midlands Police, who – in a sharp observation of just how invisible cyclists can be on the roads – pointed out that even when riding a bike in uniform, with a hi-viz jacket with the word ‘Police’ on his back, many motorists didn’t see him.
Hodson’s appearance in fact jarred with the tone of the rest of the documentary; here was someone with an expert knowledge of road traffic law and who, through his work on West Midlands Police’s roads policing unit sees daily the harm that motorists can inflict, and the effect it has on victims and their families.
Pointing out that motorists are involved in “99 per cent of all fatal collisions,” he added that “cyclists don’t cause us the problems drivers do.”
A programme looking at law-abiding people on bikes, just trying to get from A to B safely whether for sport, fitness, leisure, commuting or going about their daily business would reflect the reality of Britain’s roads, rather than trying to depict a “war” that does not exist – but we doubt you’d get a commissioning editor to greenlight it.
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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54 comments
Double post
I've written to Ofcom directly to ask them to explain why they did not investigate the complaints. If that doesn't work I might try a freedom of information request
Ofcom report, surprised it wasn't more:
Weekly broadcast report
Report covers complaints received between:Tuesday 9 July2019to Monday 15 July2019
ProgrammeService
Transmission date
Number of complaints
Cyclists: Scourge of theStreets?
Channel 5
9 July 2019
<<<<<351>>>>>
Love Island
ITV2
15 July2019
124
Good Morning Britain
ITV
9 July2019
19
Love Island
ITV2
10 July2019
18
The fortnightly broadcast bulletin has 327 complaints listed in the "Complaints assessed, not investigated" section, categorised as "Materially misleading". It also lists 36 complains about the programme in question as being "Complaints outside of remit" due to being sent prior to the programme transmission.
I guess we're only left with reporting this incident as a hate crime directly to the Police.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the response to the programme on pistonheads.com (for those who don't know, the UKs premier forum for petrolheads). The overwhelming response from died in the wool petrolheads reads exactly like the response on here, ie biased, inflammatory, unfair to the majority of cyclists, where did they find these idiot drivers, etc. It seems then that cyclists and motorists are for once in agreement.
My favourite part of the entire program was just how much time they gave to me "Why you go fast" when a cyclist (who probably shouldn't have been on the pavement, but we don't know where he came from, maybe he came from a cycle route that led out nearby and the normal means to access the road was blocked by parked cars) comes across a guy blocking over half the pavement with his car wheel, tool box etc etc etc, cyclist tries to pull in closer to wall and misjudges it. Rather than accept the apology (which was instant and without being prompted) he goes off on a bender about the cyclist's speed. As he had his head under the wheel arch . . . how precicely could he gauge the cyclists speed prior to him clipping the wall. When falling off, even a slow rider falls relatively fast. For me that segment simpy showed more of the motorists feeling they have more rights than others, as he was using the footpath as a workshop. (I believe a number of local authorities also have rules that anything other than emergency repairs [swap a wheel for a spare, etc] is not allowed at the kerbside, so should he even be working there ?)
I loved the bit where the cab driver points out one idiot ignoring a red light at a roundabout, whilst in shot at the next junction there are 10 (I counted them) cyclists waiting patiently.
"Much was made of people cycling on the pavement". That's funny. When I visited Japan this year the majority of cyclists there cycle on the pavements which are wide enough to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians. Every major city I visited had this and it worked well. You can see for yourself on Google street view.
I've filled in a complaint on the Ofcom website - https://ofcomforms.secure.force.com/formentry/SitesFormCSLEStandardsComp...
Feel free to join in.
Thanks - I've filled in a complaint too. I didn't watch it, but it sounds like there wasn't much attention to facts in the programme.
Added my voice to the Ofcom complaints. I went with the perpetrating hate speech angle, and the inclusion of Mr Sherry as a caricature to be ridiculed rather than an reasonable counter point. It was the narrator's intro of that section that really got me riled, inferring that violence towards cyclists is acceptable if they're not being filmed.
All eyes on Ofcom's Broadcast Bulletin #383 out on the 22nd to see how many of us spoke out.
Added.
I complained to Ofcom. I called the program “sensationalist hate crime”...think that sums it up.
Interested to see how many complaints this trash gets!
"highlights" for me:
The guy going up the zigs being forced to go slowly by many cyclists. What a shame for him that he wasn't able to speed between the massive speed bumps. Also the idea that this was a road that actually goes somewhere (apart from a nice cafe) and so would be on someone's commute.
The solicitor who specialises in getting drivers off saying with a straight face that cyclists get away with things while drivers get caught.
The same guy who was annoyed about box hill co.plaining about litter while also doing clay pigeon shooting
The abuse of stats: using number of pedestrians hit by cyclists has "doubled": from a tiny number to another tiny number.
The almost complete lack of anyone saying that it is cars that kill people
Yeah, shows you what a gulf in thinking (or not) exists between cyclists and motorists. This kind of inflammatory bs TV doesn't help. I can imagine there are plenty of drivers having their prejudices reinforced by watching this one-sided bollox which is clearly designed to lead to legislation - like the Charlie Alliston case. Irresopnsible show boating telly.
"...we’re not sure if they or other campaigners were approached, but we’d be unsurprised if they were."
Methinks this is a double negative and not what was meant to have been said
I hope that those of you who post here do not have the bad cyclist behaviour shown in the programme. Bad programme, yes, Did it show bad cyclists yes also.
Have you been falling off your bike and hitting your head on the ground again Ray?
Don't dismiss this program, it was highly educational. For example, I've leant that I can poo in peoples front gardens and there is nothing they can do about it as I don't wear a tabard with a registration number on it. No longer will I have to make do with a covert pee near a farm gate. I can now go full on poop in public.
You have to remember that TV programmes, even a cheapo piece of tabloid bum-wash like this, take a long time to commission and produce. In this case, they probably conceived it back when everyone thought the UK was going to leave the EU in March. If that had gone ahead, now would be about the time when the "get our country back brigade" would've been ready for the next phase, to "get back their" other things, such as schools, hospitals, and roads.
Any idea who the narrator is? Would be nice to get in touch and understand why he took the gig. I can only assume he's desperate for the cash to peddle so much hatred
Craig Kelly.
Just checked and he doesn't seem to have twitter. What a shame...
Thankfully this was on channel 5 so the only people watching (other than curious cyclists) are ripple necked, pudgy, sun reading worshippers who already have a preset hatred for anything that isn't a white van.
Trash TV, couldn't bring myself to watch it.
I had somone have a go at me the other day for being a danger (i was stationary). Looking at his car I pointed out that his tyre tread was clearly below the legal limit, got my camera out and he sped off. dick....probably one of the above.
Thankfully this was on channel 5 so the only people watching (other than curious cyclists) are ripple necked, pudgy, sun reading worshippers who already have a preset hatred for anything that isn't a white van.
Trash TV, couldn't bring myself to watch it.
I had somone have a go at me the other day for being a danger (i was stationary). Looking at his car I pointed out that his tyre tread was clearly below the legal limit, got my camera out and he sped off. dick....probably one of the above.
Gutter TV, that's all it was, and very typical of Channel 5.
The problem is drivers will watch this and harbour even more hatred against us.
Gutter TV, that's all it was, and very typical of Channel 5.
The problem is drivers will watch this and harbour even more hatred against us.
Gutter TV, that's all it was, and very typical of Channel 5.
The problem is drivers will watch this and harbour even more hatred against us.
Gutter TV, that's all it was, and very typical of Channel 5.
The problem is drivers will watch this and harbour even more hatred against us.
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