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Boris Johnson says he'd back ban on cyclists wearing earphones

Mayor of London also suggests HGV rush hour ban urged by Chris Boardman wouldn't work...

Mayor of London Boris Johnson has said that he would support a ban on bike riders in London wearing earphones – leading one commentator to suggest that his credibility with cyclists “is evaporating.” In an interview with BBC Radio London’s Vanessa Feltz, Mr Johnson also appeared to downplay calls led by British Cycling’s Chris Boardman for London to ban lorries at peak hours.

The Mayor told Ms Feltz that Transport for London (TfL), which he chairs, regularly discusses the issue of cyclists and pedestrians using handheld electronic devices.

He described earphones used by people to listen to music while riding bikes as “and absolute scourge,” and said he would be in favour of banning them.

Boris Johnson paying close attention to the traffic
Boris Johnson paying close attention to the traffic

Mr Johnson continued: “Call me illiberal, but it makes me absolutely terrified to see them bowling along unable to hear the traffic.

"You've got to be able to hear that car behind you or about to come out of the road in front of you," he added.

It’s an issue Mr Johnson has addressed before.

In a 2011 reply at Mayor’s Question Time when the Green Party’s Jenny Jones quizzed him about pedestrian casualties in London, including children, he said: “I am afraid I see too many cyclists with iPods, earphones in both ears, which I think is wrong. I do not agree with that. I am worried.

“Speaking as one who cycles all over London, I see a lot of people using handhelds, using BlackBerry devices and not paying proper attention to the road.”

However, one photo circulated widely on Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday showed Mr Johnson himself using a handheld mobile phone while cycling.

In an article for the Guardian, Peter Walker, who regularly writes its Bike Blog, said: “What credibility Boris Johnson had with London's cyclists… is evaporating. Six cyclists have died on London's roads in just under two weeks. All but one were killed by lorries, coaches or buses. The mayor's reaction? To talk about headphones.”

What isn’t clear is whether Mr Johnson might be in possession of information suggesting that one or more of the six cyclists killed in London within the past fortnight may have been using headphones, and if so, whether police believe it may have been a contributory factor.

Meanwhile, British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman addressed an open letter to Mr Johnson on Tuesday in which he urged the Mayor to ban lorries from London’s roads at peak times.

In his letter, the former world and Olympic champion and wearer of the Tour de France yellow jersey says:

When I rode alongside you to help you launch your vision for cycling in March this year, you made a verbal promise to look at the successful experiences of Paris and many other cities in restricting the movements of heavy vehicles during peak hours.

Also, in the document, the Mayor’s Vision for Cycling in London (2013), you state: ‘In consultation with business, we will study the experience from cities such as Paris and Dublin, where lorries over a certain size are restricted from certain parts of the city or at certain times of the day.’

There have now been six cycling fatalities on the capital’s roads in two weeks and a total of 14 so far in 2013. HGVs were involved in nine of the fatal crashes – that’s 64% of the fatalities – despite making up less than 5% of traffic. In Paris last year [sic] there were zero cyclist fatalities.

British Cycling is disappointed that, eight months later, nothing has been announced on progressing this. Now is the time to make the tough and critical decisions necessary to achieve your vision – without that, more lives will be put at risk.

Paris is a safer place to ride a bike and we believe that this is, at least in part, due to the restrictions on dangerous vehicles entering the city during peak hours. London has an opportunity to emulate and surpass Paris and to lead the way for the other ambitious cycling cities across Britain. Let’s not waste this opportunity to do something now. The longer we delay, the more lives will be lost.

Improving HGV safety is a key aspect of our road safety manifesto. My colleagues at British Cycling are willing to help on this matter in whatever way they can. Do let us know if we can be of any assistance.

I would welcome an update on how this matter is progressing at City Hall.

During his interview with Ms Feltz, however, while acknowledging that there needed to be a "much bigger conversation about HGVs" and the risks they present to cyclists, Mr Johnson seemed to distance himself from a complete ban at certain times of the day.

He said that introducing such restrictions could lead to a "serious influx as soon as the ban is over," and thereby increase the danger for cyclists and other vulnerable road users travelling outside rush hour.

As for that statistic quoted by Boardman that no cyclists were killed in Paris “last year” – in fact, it relates to 2011 – it is an attention-grabbing one, regularly invoked to support calls for a restriction on movements on lorries similar to those in the French capital; however, it does need to be put into context.

For a start, the French statistics relate to the area covered by the Prefecture of Police of Paris, which covers 762 square kilometres; Greater London, for comparison, covers 1,572 square kilometres.

Secondly, even the Prefecture of Police of Paris points out that 2011 was unusual, with a spokesman quoted by the website 20minutes.fr earlier this year as saying “it was truly an exceptional year because since 2007 we generally see between two and six deaths [of cyclists] a year on the roads.”

In 2012, five cyclists lost their lives while riding their bikes in the area covered by the Prefecture, including Philippe Le Men, a cycling journalist with L’Equipe, killed by a lorry as he rode to work at the sports daily’s offices.

You can find more thoughts on that zero casualties in 2011 statistic in this blog post published in September last year by Buffalo Bill, who founded the Moving Target ezine.

One other startling statistic from Paris is that in 2012, there were 39 people killed in road traffic incidents in the city, 18 of them pedestrians; the same year, in that area of Greater London that is a little over twice the size, there were 134 road traffic fatalities, of whom 69 were pedestrians.

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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74 comments

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Argos74 | 10 years ago
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The correct way to listen to music whilst cycling is, of course, to tow a massive f*** off boom box on a trailer behinds one's bicycle, and share one's taste in punk, ska, or reggae* with one's fellow road users. Thus demonstrating that cyclists can also get to 11.

* other forms of music are rumoured to be available.

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skivandal | 10 years ago
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They can prise my headphones with the Archers podcast on, out of my cold dead ears.

Seriously if you want to listen to really loud music so your oblivious to any aural warnings you can. In the same way you can choose to close one eye or even both, if your feeling especially daring.

As many have pointed out headphones, and what you listen to, and how loud are personal choices we should all be able to make. Some will hate to lose out on hearing things around them, others won't mind at all, others will be happy with a mix and choose headphones and material to allow it.

To be fair with my helmet on I can't hear much due to wind buffeting at anything over 12 mph or there abouts.

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skivandal | 10 years ago
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They can prise my headphones with the Archers podcast on, out of my cold dead ears.

Seriously if you want to listen to really loud music so your oblivious to any aural warnings you can. In the same way you can choose to close one eye or even both, if your feeling especially daring.

As many have pointed out headphones, and what you listen to, and how loud are personal choices we should all be able to make. Some will hate to lose out on hearing things around them, others won't mind at all, others will be happy with a mix and choose headphones and material to allow it.

To be fair with my helmet on I can't hear much due to wind buffeting at anything over 12 mph or there abouts.

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drfabulous0 replied to Argos74 | 10 years ago
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Argos74 wrote:

The correct way to listen to music whilst cycling is, of course, to tow a massive f*** off boom box on a trailer behinds one's bicycle, and share one's taste in punk, ska, or reggae* with one's fellow road users. Thus demonstrating that cyclists can also get to 11.

* other forms of music are rumoured to be available.

Overkill, you can mount an MP3 player on the stem with speakers, amp and batteries in a box on top of the rack. I never listen to headphones anymore because they broke and I realized that I liked riding without them, but on the noise bike only metal is played.

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Agony Guy | 10 years ago
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I listen to music, don't wear a helmet, and ride no-handed when possible. (Clearly long overdue for a Darwin Award.) Naturally I hope Boris keeps his hands off my earphones. Cycling is about freedom.

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Gordy748 | 10 years ago
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Ban cyclists wearing headphones but not enforce a requirement to wear a helmet?

Reeaally?

Not that I'm necessarily a fan of either, but wearing headphones or not won't stop the car behind you or coming out a side street ploughing into you regardless of whether you've heard it or not. A helmet, on the other hand, might just save your bonce as you go through the windscreen.

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girtlush | 10 years ago
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Can someone please call Boris to warn him that the Met police are stopping cyclists for not wearing hi-viz and helmets...

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FluffyKittenofT... | 10 years ago
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"The correct way to listen to music whilst cycling is, of course, to tow a massive f*** off boom box on a trailer behinds one's bicycle, and share one's taste in punk, ska, or reggae* with one's fellow road users."

"They can prise my headphones with the Archers podcast on, out of my cold dead ears."

I so hope no-one ever combines these two ideas!

Its bad enough having to race to the radio to turn it off when _that_ theme tune starts. Never mind being blasted with it in the street as the R4 posse cruise past.

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Cuba | 10 years ago
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I don't think wearing headphones makes too much difference to where you place yourself on the road. It's how you ride that matters.

Eye contact, more eye contact, signal, manoeuvre (and finish with a thank you if needed).

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Jimbonic | 10 years ago
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Perhaps not where you place yourself. But, how you react to the presence of other road users, yes.

But, you are correct; you should always signal your intentions and be polite.

(Unless you've just been given a left hook, of course...)

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JonD replied to Simon_MacMichael | 10 years ago
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Simon_MacMichael wrote:

"Greater London" isn't at all arbitrary; it's a precisely defined area, made up of the 32 London boroughs. If you live within it, Boris Johnson is your mayor, you will have a London Assembly member representing you, if you live outside it, you don't. It's policed by the Met, not Kent or Essex constabularies, or whatever. And it's entirely relevant here because TfL's road casualty stats cover Greater London - no more, no less.

It may be a "simplistic" comparison as you say, but it's a valid one, as is pointing out that the zero deaths Paris stat is an anomaly, confirmed by police in Paris - but it's one of those stats that is now becoming set in stone, Boardman's letter mistakenly gives it as "last year" ie 2012, BBC reported that as fact.

You make a good point about Bow, which we've covered in depth, likewise the area with a high incidence of female cyclists being killed (roughly speaking, an area centred on Bloomsbury).

I'll try to clarify.
The point you were making was that the Paris figures are over a smaller area than those for G.London (and your caveat was, by implication, perhaps the figures aren't that different when comparing for non-zero death years in Paris). Ok, that may be an indicator of some sort, but it doesn't actually tell you very much apart from some sort of baseline figure, which is why I said it's too simplistic to be very useful - I'm not having a go at you  3

I'm well aware of the *definition* of Greater London - I've lived there for most of the last 25 years (and last time I had the chance I voted for Livingstone !) - that isn't the issue. I said it's an arbitrary selection of region because it's merely selected on the basis of the figures that are available, rather than applying criteria that might make a more meaningful comparison. If the figures included the suburbs out to the M25, that'd be equally arbitrary - do you see what I'm getting at ?

More telling would be deaths per unit area, or regioning over where the majority or deaths occur, and see how they compare between cities. I have the distinct impression from reading road.cc etc over the last few years that if you mapped death distribution by area, then the vast majority would be within a relatively small area in central London, with some clustering within that.

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horizontal dropout | 10 years ago
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By the way the photo claimed to show Boris riding while talking on the phone is quite inconclusive. He is holding his left brake on and his right leg is up and left leg is down, exactly how you would be if you were stopped by the kerb.

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Tarmac and dirt | 10 years ago
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I must have a word with God to make sure the wind doesn't blow next time I'm out on the bike so I can hear the traffic more clearly.

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matthewn5 | 10 years ago
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Judging from the comments above, Boris _has_ successfully deflected concern at his inaction on cycle fatalities to a discussion about headphones.

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