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"Grant Shapps should be congratulated": Frothing talk shows and Mr Loophole discuss number plates for cyclists

How Grant Shapps' pledge to enforce tougher rules on bike riders was reported in print and broadcast media...

It has been a whirlwind morning of newspaper front pages, talk show rants and social media doomscrolling since Grant Shapps' pledge to introduce tougher rules on bike riders (and subsequent comments from the Department for Transport that a softer approach published in a second interview is a "more accurate reflection of the Transport Secretary's view")...

> Confusion as Grant Shapps now says he is "not attracted to bureaucracy" of number plates for cyclists

So, how was the news reported in the written press and broadcast media? Let's start with the newspapers, which went to print late last night, headed by the Daily Mail front page interview with Shapps, headlined: 'Cyclists may need number plates'.

Simultaneously, across London, The Times also went front page with their own Shapps interview, including the ever so contrasting comment: "I'm not attracted to the bureaucracy of registration plates. That would go too far."

By the morning, the talk show ranters had fired themselves up for the usual 'debate' and 'discussion', Talk TV's Mike Graham dropping an all-time anti-cycling bingo monologue, letting us know exactly how he feels...

"Cyclists are up in arms as usual, guess why? They don't fancy being held accountable for their actions," he said. "They don't fancy having licences and registrations for their vehicles. They don't like the idea of crashing into people and being identifiable, they don't like the idea of being held to account for stuff they do.

"There are plenty of cyclists who do the right thing, who obey the law, but there are also equally plenty of what I would call extreme cyclists who love the idea of disobeying the rules, who love the idea of not going in cycle lanes, who love the idea of cycling across traffic when they are not supposed to.

"Putting themselves at risk, putting other people at risk. There are loads of cyclists who enjoy riding on the pavement, loads of cyclists who enjoy going down one-way streets the wrong way. Cycle lanes have destroyed most of the infrastructure of many cities in this country and it's getting worse. So why not make it possible for an even playing field for everyone who uses the road?"

If you needed any more?

Graham's guest, Nick 'Mr Loophole' Freeman the lawyer whose 2021 petition, to have cyclists be required to wear hi-vis tabards with identification numbers, scraped across the 10,000-signature mark for a government response before being rejected.

> Government confirms it has "no plans" to make cyclists wear identification numbers as it rejects ‘Mr Loophole’ petition

Freeman told the show: "There are an awful lot of cyclists who actually do want this. It's the minority who are particularly vociferous. I have had signatures from other cyclists saying what's being suggested is going to increase safety of those on our roads, and who can ever criticise that?

"I, of course, accept motoring doesn't have the same benefits that the green agenda has, but at the same time it [cycling] is dangerous and why would anyone say 'I should be exempt from legislation?'

"Just imagine taking number plates off cars. It would be mayhem [...] because we're suddenly saying 'we can't trace you' so we are relying on your integrity. That is the situation with cycles, so a registration tabard or a visible sign that can be easily read by members of the public. So if you are a motorist with a dash cam and you see a cyclist cycling dangerously, you can record it.

"If they do not respond to it they are going to get six points on their driving or cycle licence and face a heavy fine, and of course need insurance. What we're saying is all of us who use the roads are going to be accountable. Nobody can seriously argue against it."

The Talk TV comments added to his quotes in the Daily Mail's story, where Freeman suggested "Grant Shapps should be congratulated".

Elsewhere on Good Morning Britain, panellist Andrew Pierce of the Daily Mail ranted: "They are a nightmare. Cyclists are a nightmare. Riding through red lights all the time, riding on the pavement all the time, clattering into people all the time. They are not insured, you don't know who they are, they don't wear helmets."

And breathe, that's all, for now... 

Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.

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32 comments

Avatar
Oldfatgit | 1 year ago
1 like

If I only ride on cycle paths, shared pedestrian
paths and cycle lanes, why should I have to have a registration plate?
After all ... I'm not on the road, I'm on the area reserved for cyclists and pedestrian traffic (I'm including murder stips in this as we get moaned at for not using them).

Avatar
EM69 | 1 year ago
2 likes

Isn't this hate crime? Police should be all over it.

Avatar
eburtthebike replied to EM69 | 1 year ago
5 likes
EM69 wrote:

Isn't this hate crime? Police should be all over it.

Sadly, cycling isn't a defined characteristic (or whatever it's called)  under the relevant act; maybe it should be.

Avatar
Jenova20 replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
0 likes
eburtthebike wrote:
EM69 wrote:

Isn't this hate crime? Police should be all over it.

Sadly, cycling isn't a defined characteristic (or whatever it's called)  under the relevant act; maybe it should be.

It's not a "protected characteristic" since you can just choose to not be one. It's like religion, but without the privileges, and it's still socially acceptable to malign or threaten to kill cyclists for being different than you.

Avatar
Cycloid | 1 year ago
15 likes

Interestingly, North Korea is the only country in the world to currently have a cyclist registration scheme. 
It definitely works.
They have zero problems with reckless Cycling. 
They've all been shot!
Good to know the government is taking us in the right direction.

Avatar
eburtthebike replied to Cycloid | 1 year ago
3 likes
Cycloid wrote:

Interestingly, North Korea is the only country in the world to currently have a cyclist registration scheme. 
It definitely works.
They have zero problems with reckless Cycling. 
They've all been shot!
Good to know the government is taking us in the right direction.

Our government is arguably fascist.

Avatar
Cycloid replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
5 likes

I would argue with the word arguably

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Cycloid replied to eburtthebike | 1 year ago
4 likes

A second reply to your comment:-

I originally put this comment on our local Facebook page, the same topic was being discussed, so I just did a copy and paste.
We have loads of cyclist haters in the area and one of them gave it a like - I think he thought I was serious!
Scary

Avatar
Muddy Ford | 1 year ago
16 likes

Whilst riding my bike I experience dangerously close punishment passes, verbal abuse, threats, and objects being thrown at me from moving cars. The mainstream media encourages this by dismissing as funny the comments by their journalists to 'string piano wire across the road for these cyclists'. When a cyclist is killed, the perpetrator is often given a very lenient sentence if they killed them whilst driving a car or simply because the victim was riding a bike. I'm expected by the misinformed and stirred up public, to ride in the gutter on the most unsafe part of the road and to yield to any motorist regardless of the priority that I have according to the law for all road users. And now Grant Shapps supports the idea of oppressing cyclists further and putting them 'in their place' despite the overwhelming evidence that cyclists are the least dangerous road users and it would be better to concentrate effort on stronger policing of the most dangerous road users.

On social media whenever a cyclist has been beaten up or hit by a car, there are many abusive comments that support and encourage that abuse simply because the victim is a cyclist. 

All of the above because I am a cyclist. Not because I personally have done something that warranted that abuse (no abuse should ever be warranted), but simply because I am part of a group that can be categorised by my mode of transport. 

Yet none of the above is considered a hate crime, even though it is so similar to the legal definition of a hate crime. I don't want to dilute the policing of hate crime, but I do think the definition should be expanded to include crimes where the victim is simply a victim because they are considered a member of a stereotype. That is the only way to reduce it.   

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Fignon's ghost | 1 year ago
7 likes

GMB. What an utter disgrace this programme is. Full of disingenuous, cretinous vanity project wannabees.

That lawyer. He ain't no Jimmy McGill!

Avatar
eburtthebike replied to Fignon's ghost | 1 year ago
5 likes
Fignon's ghost wrote:

GMB. What an utter disgrace this programme is. Full of disingenuous, cretinous vanity project wannabees. That lawyer. He ain't no Jimmy McGill!

The main reason the tories want to get rid of the BBC and Channel 4 is so that all the population could watch is far right propaganda.

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Clem Fandango | 1 year ago
10 likes

Wait, what:  "Cycle lanes have destroyed most of the infrastructure of many cities in this country" ?

Is that the same as how I'm constantly destroying cars when I (deliberately apparently) cycle into them?

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OldRidgeback replied to Clem Fandango | 1 year ago
6 likes

I remember a certain ex Conservative minister who claimed cycle lanes had caused more damage to London than the Blitz in WWII. Hmm, there were about 40,000-43,000 civilians killed in the Blitz, plus 46,000-139,000 seriously injured. And that's without counting the 3,360 or so aircrew killed. My dad first  travelled through London in 1943 when he was called up and on his way to Chatham Dockyard and he described it as looking almost like the surface of the moon in places.

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IanMK | 1 year ago
5 likes

I'm trying to find a positive spin in all of this. I'm going with - now that all the gammons believe that Shapps has their backs and will sort out the "cyclist problem" they can go back to concentrating on their own driving and not being triggered everytime they see a cyclist sad

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IanMK replied to IanMK | 1 year ago
7 likes

Just got another one. Now that drivers realise that if I'm on a flatish road in a 20mph speed limit I might actually be doing more than 20mph perfectly legally they may now stop overtaking me.

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giff77 replied to IanMK | 1 year ago
5 likes

Nah. Doesn't work. They still bomb past as they're that traumatised that you're in front. Fella did that to me and I asked the peeler behind him when stopped at the lights why they weren't doing them for speeding. Got a shrug from Strathclyde's finest. 

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Kirk Patric replied to IanMK | 1 year ago
1 like
IanMK wrote:

 they may now stop overtaking me.

fat chance

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Kirk Patric replied to IanMK | 1 year ago
4 likes
IanMK wrote:

not being triggered everytime they see a cyclist sad

On the contrary, they will be emboldened

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eburtthebike | 1 year ago
8 likes

Talk TV's Mike

"They're not an elite group."

Depends who you compare them to Mike; people like Talk TV presenters for instance.

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brooksby | 1 year ago
3 likes

(Sorry - was finishing my lunch and trying not to punch the monitor)  3

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Hirsute replied to brooksby | 1 year ago
8 likes

I've got 2 monitors - well I did have.

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brooksby | 1 year ago
6 likes
Mr Loophole wrote:

"Just imagine taking number plates off cars. It would be mayhem [...] because we're suddenly saying 'we can't trace you' so we are relying on your integrity. 

Cough-cough-Captain Sunroof...

Avatar
OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
12 likes

The Guardian has a good take on the suggestion by Grant Shapps:

Grant Shapps’ bike licence plates proposal ‘a strange and pointless idea’ | Grant Shapps | The Guardian

And reminds us that North Korea is the only country with licencing for bicycles:

North Korea – a model for Grant Shapps’ bicycle licence plate proposal? | North Korea | The Guardian

All I can add is that you've read The Trial by Franz Kafka, you'll know why Shapps just made a Kafkaesque proposal.

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brooksby | 1 year ago
11 likes
Mike Graham wrote:

Cycle lanes have destroyed most of the infrastructure of many cities in this country and it's getting worse. So why not make it possible for an even playing field for everyone who uses the road?"

I'm not sure that he entirely understands what he's saying...

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brooksby | 1 year ago
9 likes

Does Mike Graham not understand that most cyclists don't actually like the idea of crashing into anyone?

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wilkij1975 | 1 year ago
4 likes

Just imagine the outcry from society if these so called journalists and lawyers made such generalised comments and hate about any other group in society whether that a religious group or race etc. They'd be cancelled before they had a chance to publish an insincere apology. 
 

The hate for cyclists needs to be stamped out in this country. People will soon feel emboldened to actually aim for us in the near future. 
 

I think we also need to distinguish between cyclists and people who ride bikes. It's usually those who just ride bikes that break the law (sorry for generalising after moaning about generalising🤣). 

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BalladOfStruth replied to wilkij1975 | 1 year ago
10 likes
wilkij1975 wrote:

 

The hate for cyclists needs to be stamped out in this country. People will soon feel emboldened to actually aim for us in the near future. 
 

Will? Soon? Future?!

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hawkinspeter replied to wilkij1975 | 1 year ago
11 likes
wilkij1975 wrote:

I think we also need to distinguish between cyclists and people who ride bikes.

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Kirk Patric replied to wilkij1975 | 1 year ago
3 likes
wilkij1975 wrote:

People will soon feel emboldened to actually aim for us in the near future. 

 

where have you been for the past x years, a common occurrence and often not just aiming but hitting, driving so recklessly that they might as well be aiming for you is an everyday occurrence for many. It's war

 

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lonpfrb replied to wilkij1975 | 1 year ago
0 likes
wilkij1975 wrote:

The hate for cyclists needs to be stamped out in this country. People will soon feel emboldened to actually aim for us in the near future.

That's the responsibility of The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, who clearly are not doing that.

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