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news
Deal Farm Biogas Highway Code opposition campaign (credit - Hazel Dormer)Road safety group draws ire after advising cyclists to “stop and allow drivers to overtake”
A road safety group from Warwickshire has advised cyclists to be “considerate of motorists who are trying to pass them”, amongst other instructions that go against the new Highway Code, kicking off a huge round of criticism.
The campaign called Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership claims to introduce guidelines and offers counsel to road users to reach its target of reducing road deaths and serious injuries by 50 per cent by 2030.
The group, on Saturday evening, posted on Twitter: “Cyclists need to be considerate of motorists who are trying to pass them, by moving from a central ‘Primary’ road position o a Secondary road position to invite a vehicle to pass. If there is insufficient room they should stop when safe to do so to allow vehicles to pass them.”
It also contained an image with "updated advice” for cyclists riding in groups, which reiterated the Highway Code 66, which came into effect in January 2022, suggesting cyclists to allow drivers to overtake, for example, by moving into single file or stopping, but only when they feel that it is safe to let them do so.
> Highway Code changes: ‘What about cyclists, or do the rules not apply to them?’
As many people, including journalist, writer and cycling campaigner Peter Walker pointed out, Warwickshire Road Safety’s guidelines were misleading. Other people also replied that the post was contradictory, will confuse people and simply untrue in some aspects.
“Cyclists should only do it when THEY feel it is safe. It's not up to the driver to beep when they want you to single out. If I'm cycling with my daughter on the inside, they may have to wait some time. Her safety is more important than a driver's time keeping,” said one reply under the post.
BicycleBen said: “Motor-centric tweet puts drivers first. But remember the hierarchy. It's not the job of cyclists to get out of the way of drivers or to facilitate an overtake. Cyclists *may* consider moving over or pulling in to let other traffic pass, only *if they* consider it safe to do so.”
Can @warkspolice comment? Since you are a partner of the organisation below.
Cyclists give way to motorists? I thought it was the other way around. The way this "advice" is written is not a good look. It makes it seem that cyclists should not "inconvenience" motorists. https://t.co/anhi6wtvOC
— Andreas (@cargobikerLDN) April 23, 2023
The road in the graphic is wide enough for a vehicle to overtake on the opposite side of the carriageway. On a narrow road it would make sense for the cyclists to ride single file, providing it leaves sufficient clearance for a vehicle to overtake safely.
— ExitStrata (@ExitStrata) April 23, 2023
Why are you tweeting untruth? pic.twitter.com/Raw5eDTRSd
— CyclingMikey (@MikeyCycling) April 23, 2023
The Highway Code changes that came into effect last year introduced a new road hierarchy as one of the eight changes, which also included the much contested Dutch Reach that involves looking over your shoulder when getting out of your car so as to not injure any cyclists or pedestrians.
The hierarchy of road users placed road users who are most at risk in the event of a collision at the top. According to the UK Government, this rule is meant to remind all road users that they have the responsibility to ensure other users remain safe.
In the hierarchy, pedestrians are placed at the top due to their lack of protection on the road making them the most vulnerable in a road traffic accident. The code rules are based on the lower a road user is in the hierarchy, the more harm they can cause others. This explains why cyclist sit second, yet bus or lorry drivers come in last place due to the size and damage the vehicle can cause.
> Have Highway Code changes made drivers more aggressive?
However, when a lot of people started pointing this out, Warwickshire Road Safety posted: “The hierarchy of road users underpins the changes to the Highway Code but there are a number of specific rules for cyclists & drivers to understand. It's really important that all road users behave responsibly, consider each other and do what they can to keep each other safe.”
The partnership group was formed in 2019 and has recently published the Warwickshire Road Safety Strategy to 2030. It says on its website: “Using an evidence based Safe System approach, we will strive to eliminate fatal and serious casualties, thereby creating a safe road environment which will encourage active and sustainable travel.”
Last week, we reported that over half of UK drivers were still confused by Highway Code changes, with only one in five bus and lorry drivers could identify the correct hierarchy of road users, and nearly half of them believing that they topped the hierarchy.
The new changes to the Highway Code also outlined that drivers should “leave at least 1.5 metres when overtaking cyclists at speeds of up to 30mph, and give them more space when overtaking at higher speeds”.
Recently, we had also reported that of the 286 reports of careless, inconsiderate, or dangerous driving around cyclists considered by West Midlands Police in 2022, 213 reports of careless or dangerous driving around cyclists last year resulted in no further action being taken, and only one resulted in a prosecution.
We have reached out Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership for a comment regarding their tweet.
Adwitiya joined road.cc in 2023 as a news writer after graduating with a masters in journalism from Cardiff University. His dissertation focused on active travel, which soon threw him into the deep end of covering everything related to the two-wheeled tool, and now cycling is as big a part of his life as guitars and football. He has previously covered local and national politics for Voice Wales, and also likes to writes about science, tech and the environment, if he can find the time. Living right next to the Taff trail in the Welsh capital, you can find him trying to tackle the brutal climbs in the valleys.
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Never heard of this Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership before. Okay... let's get poking about on t'internet.
Chaired by Philip Seccombe, also Police & Crime Commissioner for Warwickshire, and has been in local government fot the Conservative Party. The WRSP is a partnership between Warwickshire Police, Warwickshire Fire & Rescue, and Warwickshire County Council, current leader, Cllr Izzi Seccombe OBE.
It does have lots to say for and about cyclists, including a pretty anodyne 52 page booklet. Duncan Dollimore gets quoted on page 23, I'd be interested to hear his views on WRSP's more recent position, particularly in light of WRSP's stated position on page 29 under the section "Stay Out Of The Gutter". The last page made my eyes go funny and say "What?" in the style of Amber Ruffin. But. Yeah. Moving on.
What does it have to say for drivers? The page for Young Drivers holds a 116 page booklet, of which I read precisely nothing. And three videos from Cycling UK and the British Horse Society about watching out for cyclists and horse riders. Including something about the Dutch Reach, which google tells me it wasn't what I initially thought it was. Anyway, more Amber Ruffin impersonations.
There are other pages for Mature Drivers (only 52 pages in their booklet), Motorcyclists, Pedestrians, Horse Riders, and a curiously empty page on Commercial Drivers, serving largely to advise drivers to check their commercial vehicle before being driven, and then redirect browsers to the more national Driving For Better Business. No 50+ page booklet for you
Also Mobility Scooters. There is lots of the WRSP site I didn't read.
Overall... the WRSP seem largely to be a fairly harmless and ineffective talking shop. Their latest missives seem not so much to conflict with intelligent and coherent thought as - more pertinently - some of their own previous stated posiitions as regards driver behaviour and the heirarchy of vulnerable road users. Most odd.
I can guarantee those leaflets will have zero effect, because nobody is going to read booklets of 52 and 116 pages. I'd look up how long the HC is to see if it's that long, but I'm too lazy, and the HC is much too long for most people.
In parts of rural Scotland, where A-roads are single track with passing places, road users are explicitly requested to allow overtaking by using the passing places. My experience is that this system works well and I try to use it on all single track roads. My experience is that I get more frequently and seriously bullied as an often slower driver/rider on my local Yorkshire single track than I do in Scotland, but I'm happy to pull over and allow overtaking when safe to do so.
We visited Skye last year and noticed this. There's definitely a better understanding, I think our biggest hold up was sheep 😂
I'm sure it does work well where the passig places are more frequent than cars, but my experience in the chilterns is that if you pull over into the passing place (risking a puncture because they are all mud and flints and not tarmac) More likely than not you will catch the car tha passed up ahead where they have met an oncoming car and Mr Jaguar does not want to back up for Mr Mercedes and vice versa.
Is that also required when on "safe cycle lanes"
https://road.cc/content/news/councillor-cycling-road-safety-meeting-hit-...
The wonderful enforced balance issue...
We have told drivers to do something (don't overtake cyclists before turning left).
So now we have to tell cyclists to do something.
Despite the fact that only one of these significantly improves road safety.
To be fair, they did also do a tweet about correct road positioning (https://twitter.com/WarksRoadSafety/status/1648718104246239238), something that will actually improve safety.
I can count on one hand the number of (unique) times (inc videos) I have seen a cyclist intentionally blocking traffic. But I will see drivers complaining about cyclists 'blocking the road' on a daily basis. Regularly see people complaining about it on twitter when there are several obvious, clear hazards that fully justify riding in primary (per the rules).
If we want to improve road safety we would be far better encoraging riders to keep central more often as most ride too close to the road edge in a misguided attempt to keep out of the way... We don't need to tell people to let faster moving traffic pass when safe - they are already doing it, even when not safe...
Like the Australians bringing in a legal distance for passing cyclists, but then "balancing" it by bringing in massive fines for cyclists not wearing helmets or fluoro clothing...
Don't forget they then can choose which laws to enforce, depending on various factors such as colour of skin and socio-economic groups.
I think enforcement here is more focused on behaviour than other factors. The cops have too much else going on to harass poverty stricken cyclists, regardless of skin colour.
They would probably grab you for using a mobile phone while cycling through, and that's a $1,000 fine in Queensland where I live. I think it's more in a couple of other States.
The helmet laws are seldom enforced here in Australia and the fines are not "massive". In some tourist areas (usually near popular beaches) they are not enforced at all.
There are no laws at all, to the best of my knowledge, regarding clothing colour and more than half of all cyclists wear dark clothing, even after dark.
Helmets became compulsory during the 80's but minimum passing distances were introduced about 20 years later so it's not a matter of introducing one law to "balance" the other.
Just saying... 😀
Why do we even give Twittery groups like this air time and report what they say like its news? Who are they and what are their credentials? The worst thing about social media is that it allows insignificant outfits to get a bigger voice than they should.
I wouldn't call a local Road Safety organisation that includes the police and fire and rescue services among its partners an "insignificant outfit".
Just those two affiliations give the organisation (and its advice) credibility that it doesn't deserve ... and makes it more likely that people will trust that the advice they give is correct.
Well, at least Warwickshire Road Safety Partnership wasn't also advising doffing one's cap to one's lords and masters...
Implied.
What trickery is this?
I WILL NOT YIELD!
Common sense at the end of the day, but sadly that's missing from society these days.
Highway code rule 66 is specific to group rides, but the other week I was out on narrow country roads. It clearly made sense in that situation to allow traffic to pass when possible rather than hold traffic up for a few miles. It doesn't take much to slow up at a passing place and wave a following car through, but the that doesn't create the kind of conflict situation so many crave to post on YouTube these days.
In general, cyclists don't want motorists following behind them for too long, so it's usually in our interest to let through following traffic. The problem is when motorists think that they have a right to overtake and try to do so when it isn't safe - that's what tends to create conflict.
No denying that. There is also a problem though of some cyclists wanting to make a point and deliberately causing conflict, makes for good clicks on their YouTube channels and outrage on their TV shows in some cases too.
Really? Can you be more specific about these cyclists "causing" conflict?
I suspect that it's far more likely to be cyclists rallying against the appalling behaviour of some drivers and not allowing their law-breaking to go unchallenged.
Just how many cyclists are you talking about across the UK - 2? 5?
Plenty of dickheads out there doing all sorts of stupid sh*t for Youtube/TikTok but that doesn't seem to be a problem, only when cyclists are supposedly at fault.
And if you're referring to experienced cyclists 'taking the lane' i.e. riding primary for their own safety then getting aggressively cut up and/or threatened with physical violence then you can get in the sea.
On these narrow lanes where there is insufficient space to over take a cyclist safely, and you pull over into a hedge to allow the driver to pass because obviously their urgency to be somewhere is greater than your need for safety, what happens when that driver meets another car coming the other way? Should they both drive into the hedge to allow you to pass now that you have caught up with that conflict and are being held up? As a regular driver and cyclist on narrow lanes I will often go at well below the speed limit so I don't have to slam on the brakes and avoid a collision with a knobhead coming the other way at 40mph thinking they are in a rally. Two cars colliding at 40mph is an 80mph collision, i.e. likely killing all occupants and potentially throwing cars into the cyclist they have just squeezed past. Why can't people just acknowledge these lanes were never designed for speeds above a horse and cart, because that is exactly what created them.
Aside from the whataboutism making an assumption all drivers on country roads are speeding twats, you claim to drive counrty roads and don't understand the concept of passing places. I certainly wouldn't pull into a hedge.
As someone who has always lived and driven in the countryside, and who now lives somewhere properly remote and does almost all their driving on singletrack, I agree - it's unreasonable to suggest that all drivers on country roads are driving at an unreasonably fast speed for the winding, blind lane they're on, and would be totally unable to avoid an unexpected hazard. It's more like 98% of them.
Now if you'll excuse me, I need to hike up to our top pasture to dig another Fiesta ST out of our boundary hedgerow...
Nice anecdote. Still not representative of rural traffic as a whole.
More likely a 120mph as both drivers will likely be travelling at 60mph, if not exceeding the speed limit. Also many people seem to be unable of doing the simply arithmetic to work out that when you overtake a cyclist on a blind bend at 60mph and hit another coming at 60 mph in the opposit direction, that is the same impact force as if you were to drive at 190 mph on the motorway and hit a vehicle travelling in the same direction at 70 mph.
Nice see the usual road.cc suspects proving my point regarding common sense, adding a nice dose of whataboutery to the mix too. Kudos
No mate, that's your own little strawman there. I clearly stated in my example
" I was out on narrow country roads. It clearly made sense in that situation to allow traffic to pass when possible rather than hold traffic up for a few miles. "
If you have a clear road ahead for miles it makes no sense to hold up faster traffic... you know... that common sense thing.
Your posts seem to be vague and hinting at things without being specific. What was your point about "common sense" and who are these "usual suspects"?
Also, you didn't answer my question from earlier: "Can you be more specific about these cyclists "causing" conflict?"
I agree with the squirrel. Perhaps a link to a YouTube video showing someone on a bike deliberately slowing traffic?
I don't have a rear camera so sadly cant explain the mind numbingly obvious any further. As I stated in my own example, cycling 15ish mph along an open stretch of country lane with a car behind it is nothing but common sense to let them pass when the road widens with a passing place. They're not speeding, but they are the faster traffic in this instance.
It is fascinating that all that has happen here is my point has been proven. Common sense is non existent these days.
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