BBC Panorama – Road Rage: Cars v Bikes – the road.cc Podcast debrief

It’s just over a week now since BBC aired its Panorama episode entitled Road Rage: Cars v Bikes, which has given plenty of time to reflect on the issues raised in the programme, and its treatment of them.

> Review: Panorama – Road Rage: Cars v Bikes

In this special episode of the road.cc Podcast in association with Laka, host George is joined by road.cc editor Jack and community manager Simon to discuss what the programme did well – for example, highlighting the dangers cyclists face every day on Britain’s roads – and where we think there could have been some room for improvement.

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Much of the criticism of the programme on social media lay in the decision, when presenting a counterpoint to experts such as Duncan Dollimore of Cycling UK who put the case for active travel, to choose newspaper columnist Rod Liddle, no stranger to penning anti-cyclist pieces, to put forward the contrary view, and we talk about how perhaps a more balanced view could have been sought.

> Road Rage: Cars v Bikes’: BBC’s Panorama episode receives mixed reception

Also highlighted in our discussion are issues including the difficulties of fitting such a wide-ranging topic into the constraints of a half-hour programme aimed at a general audience and, more widely, the importance of language and need to avoid generalisations in coverage of cycling and road safety.

> ‘Road rage’ on BBC Panorama: fuelling the fire or raising awareness? We interview the presenter on the road.cc Podcast

The road.cc Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and Amazon Music, and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the road.cc Podcast. It's also embedded further up the page, so you can just press play.

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