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Fabian Breckels (Facebook)Labour councillor slams "arrogant" cycling group, claims cyclists are "biggest threat" to pedestrians
A Labour councillor in Bristol has launched a series of verbal attacks on a cycling campaign group and certain sections of the city's cycling community who, he says, endanger pedestrians.
Cllr Fabian Breckels waded into a Facebook post by Bristol 24/7 about the Mayor of Bristol's reply to a petition calling for safer streets for cycling, calling the Bristol Cycling Campaign "arrogant and dismissive of other road users" before calling out cyclists who are "often the biggest threat to pedestrians".
Cllr Breckels' post was soon edited to say: "Inconsiderate cyclists and scooter users can pose a real threat to pedestrians."
Now, the Labour councillor has partially cooled his war of words, insisting he has "no issue with responsible cyclists" and argued his "concerns about how one lobby group come across do not make me against cycling".
Cllr Breckels was challenged by the Green Party's Bristol leader Heather Mack who shared collision statistics from the Department for Transport which showed in Great Britain between 2009 and 2013 just two per cent of pedestrian casualties involved a cyclist, compared with 82 per cent which involved the driver of a car.
I asked Cllr Fabian Breckles to reconsider his attack on cyclists. His response was to double down on the 'dangers' (and ignore evidence of the greater harm caused by cars) Comment here on why you love cycling and what we think needs to change to make walking and cycling safer. pic.twitter.com/zYtxa0Qe38
— Heather Mack (@HeatherMack4) November 28, 2022
Writing to the fellow Bristolian politician, Cllr Breckels asked for a "balance" between "conflicting travel needs and limited road space".
"Cycling is part of the solution, but it is not the be all and end all as we decarbonise how people get around our city," he wrote.
"I am all for sensible infrastructure to make cycling and walking safer for all. I am also fully supporting the Liveable Neighbourhoods pilot which will also make walking and cycling safer in our neck of the woods."
However, his reply was not totally without accusations of cyclists causing pedestrians danger. Cllr Beckels said his partner was nearly knocked down and both of them have "had near misses since".
"While many cyclists are sensible and considerate, and several in my group cycle, a few years back I had to deal with a cyclist objecting to a pedestrian crossing being installed on a busy road because it would inconvenience him. My trying to save pedestrians from taking their life in their hands just to cross the road didn't seem to matter to him.
"My partner was nearly knocked down by a cyclist in Broadmead when coming out of her bank in broad daylight. We've both had near misses since. I've become wary of cyclists in shared spaces because I have to get out the way of cyclists who are oblivious to my existence as a pedestrian far too often. I can still move quickly, not everybody can.
"A friend and her 70-year-old mother were knocked down in Bristol by a cyclist who then sped off. She raised the incident with the [Bristol] Cycling Campaign and got a whole lot of grief for it."
Returning to the Green Party leader's point, Cllr Breckels concluded: "By the way, I'd be interested to see the actual figures, rather than percentages from the table attached to your email, but even so one collision between road users is always one too many."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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24 comments
"was nearly knocked down"...
TBF that's the pedestrian version of "close pass". No-one likes to be surprised by something big passing quickly by them. Even if it's possible that with more familiarity they might have expected a cyclist to be there (e.g. it's a cycle lane). Still "new" to many though. Also "shared use" paths have much to answer for. They've seen me getting shouted at several times by people who clearly felt threatened - on one ridiculous occasion where I was actually waiting behind some folks for 10 metres or so to allow them to turn off out of the way and they still got very upset - right in front of the blue "shared use" sign...
I think councillor Fabian Breckels is a demonstration of exactly how right wing the labour party has gone. He not only spouts demonstrably wrong BS, he looks like one of those characters from Monty Python from the Silly party, or possibly even the Very Silly party.
Every morning and evening I have to cross the main road between Bristol and Portishead/the M5. It's a 40mph speed limit (now - used to be 50) and the crossing is at the bottom of a dip, on a long straight section of road. You have to cross one lane to an island/refuge, wait, then cross another lane to the other side.
When the island was put in a few years ago, along with shared use paths, the council (IAF North Somerset not Bristol) absolutely refused to put in a light controlled crossing because "it would hold up traffic".
So I and many other cycle commuters have to 'take our lives in our hands' to get to and from work.
Why can't foolish politicians leave vulnerable road users alone. Why not try and see the anti cycling rhetoric whipped up by their irresponsible comments. Is this fiend getting paid by a lobby group to whip up anti cycling hatred?
Also. While I'm on. I noticed that Damien Gayle, Guardian. Deposited a good piece on the tyre deflators. Not roadcc worthy?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/29/tyre-extinguishers-d...
I think the biggest threat to pedestrians are motorists.
You don't have to just think it. There's all sorts of useful data that shows this is true. And no, the data being alluded to by Martin isn't what he says it is, and he knows it.
There's a reason why Labour lost 13 seats at the last election in Bristol, and greens gained the same amount. A decent swing towards green in Breckels' own seat. Hopefully that will continue. Labour will soon lose their stranglehold with Marvellous Marv being booted out for being so rubbish.
I voted Green in the last election, but as Bristol is heavily skewed to Labour my vote was mostly harmless. The sooner that Marv goes, the better (stadium in Filton? Millions on investigating an underground system that won't happen).
It's not difficult to see why when jerks like this gobbing off about things without knowing the facts.
Perhaps Cllr Breckels could discuss the contributory factors in the 138 people killed & seriously injured and the 778 other people injured in road collisions in Bristol last year.
If cyclists are the "biggest threat" to cyclist then why does his council insist on building facilities specifically to be shared by both groups? And if one collision is too many then why does he and his fellow councillors do nothing about the hundreds, possibly even thousands that happen every year?
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A Lay Bah councillor.
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A LAAAAAAAY Bah councillor!
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Troopers Hill (or is it Trooper's Hill or even Troopers' Hill?) is just a few minutes away from me, but I'm glad to say that I didn't vote for him.
It does demonstrate the folly of people voting along partisan lines when you get councillors like this.
I'm in my forties, and it's only because I didn't get out enough in my youth that I recognise the reference. You might want to consider some fresher material.
I'm also in my forties (just). Maybe I went out too much, but I don't get the reference, and Google is no help. What is it?
Neil Kinnock, at a mid-80s Labour conference, highlighting the behaviour of Militant in (I think) Liverpool which resulted in a Labour council - a Labour council - sending taxis round the city with redundancy notices to its workers.
It was a pretty powerful bit of rhetoric, in the context of the times. You can decide for yourself what the commenter's choice to render it in a phonetic approximation of a Welsh accent says about him.
https://www.ukpol.co.uk/neil-kinnock-1985-labour-party-conference-speech/
This is such a boring response. You do this every time. It's almost like the website isn't the hot bed of far left extremists you seem to think it is but rather a place where poor decisions get criticised no matter who makes them
Once we seize the means of production, comrade, we'll get some more leftist extremists.
Good. I hope they(the leftist extremists) like squirrels/are squirrels
I don't think this is a response to road.cc directly.
I see it as a parody of various commenters who post similar nonsense under any story about a Conservative politician.
If that is the intent, it's actually quite effective.
It's a pretty poor attempt at parody (most of us are familiar with what that looks like) and does not appear to improve with repetition.
Perhaps you could consider why so many Conservative MPs seem to be purely in it for their own benefit; the #ToryScum hashtag appeared for a reason. My own MP Kawczynski and the former MP for
North ShropshireRandox, Owen Paterson, for example, lining their own pockets and ignoring their constituents. There are snouts in the trough across the political spectrum but there are invariably more (and more egregious) actions and greater greed demonstrated by those on the right than the left.And these days being a Labour member doesn't even necessarily mean you're a Leftie or even have vaguely Socialist leanings (shock! I said the naughty word). There were plenty of 'Red Tories' and neoliberals in Blair's government and also now on the Labour benches.
Still, if that's how he gets his kicks... after all, there's always worse stuff on twitter.
As a target of the parody it's not surprising you don't appreciate it.
I would suggest that the ad nauseam repetition of 'Tory Scum' comments is what is being directly parodied by FB's own repetitive posting.
Kudos to Road.cc in calling this out. Credit where credit is due.