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news
Nick Freeman Mr Loophole talkRadio Mike Graham (talkRadio)Expect carnage and more danger...Mr Loophole rants about Highway Code changes to talkRadio's Mike Graham
Nick Freeman, often know by his Mr Loophole nickname, made an appearance on Mike Graham's talkRadio show this morning to slam the new Highway Code changes, and warned of "carnage" on Britain's roads.
Freeman, who regularly makes headlines for getting celebrities off driving charges, was highly critical of the changes which come into effect on Saturday 29th January, particularly the Hierarchy of Road Users.
Under this, road users most at risk in the event of a collision are at the top of the hierarchy and should receive priority over road users that are less vulnerable. Pedestrians are at the top of the hierarchy, followed by cyclists.
Speaking on 'The Independent Republic of Mike Graham', Freeman predicted "carnage" and warned "our roads are going to be much more angry and much more dangerous."
"It's well-intentioned but ill-conceived," he said. "The whole point of this is to increase safety. We're all in favour of trying to make our roads safer. Safety doesn't equal priority. I fear it is going to be carnage. Particularly for the most vulnerable people.
"Pedestrians and cyclists have this sense of entitlement, and they're now going to have the force of the Highway Code behind it, which will only increase this sense of entitlement. It seems to lack common sense. Wouldn't it be more sensible to say to those who are most vulnerable 'you have to share this responsibility as well?'"
> Press misrepresents Highway Code changes – just days before they come into force
Under the changes cyclists have a responsibility to reduce danger to pedestrians in the same way the less vulnerable driver has a responsibility to both.
On the issue of road positioning, Freeman was characteristically outspoken, saying the advice for cyclists to ride in 'primary position' (in the centre of the lane) in certain situations "would not end well".
The Code will tell riders to adopt primary position on quiet roads (but to move over when road users approach from behind), in slower moving traffic, and approaching junctions where overtaking is dangerous.
Freeman said this would "infuriate motorists, increase frustration and lead to many incidents because motorists are not going to want to sit behind a cyclist. You can see how this is going to unfold, and it's not going to unfold well.
"I think what the government needs to do is let everybody use common sense, and that tends to work because most people have common sense.
"What they're trying to do is control us, take that away, by putting these rules in place it is going to have the reverse effect. One wonders who is advising the government. Who are the people saying this is a good idea?
"There needs to be a balanced, sensible approach which works for everybody not just for a tiny minority, that's what we've got here. Cyclists need to play their part. I saw a picture of Chris Boardman cycling the other day. He wasn't wearing a helmet or a hi-vis jacket. It doesn't send out the right message."
Freeman went on to echo a sentiment expressed by the AA's head of roads policy Jack Cousens over the weekend, warning the lack of publicity, and polls showing many road users are unaware of proposed changes is worrying.
"The other very alarming thing is that nobody knows about it," Freeman explained. "It's coming in on Saturday but the polls suggest a significant amount of motorists don't even know there is going to be a change, and of those, some are saying 'we're not even going to look, we don't care', which isn't healthy as motorists obviously need to be educated."
The discussion also included criticism of the Code's guidance on cycle lanes, with host Graham asking "if cyclists are now being told they don't have to use cycle lanes what was the point of butchering the road system to put all those cycle lanes in at a significant cost to the taxpayer?"
Freeman replied: "They never had to use them anyway. They're spending hundreds of millions of pounds on cycle lanes but it was never a mandatory requirement that they use them. So what is the point? Either have them and say they're there for a reason or let's not bother at all."
With the lawyer off the call, Graham ended the segment with a rant of his own, calling the changes "absolute and utter madness".
"I'm not going to mince my words here this is not to do with cyclists vs drivers or pedestrians vs cyclists, this is to do with road safety for everyone. And what these measures say to me is that there will be a lot more accidents, a lot more injuries, a lot more deaths on the road, and that is not really a very good idea, is it?"
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.
Latest Comments
- mattw 1 min 22 sec ago
Sorry, but WTF on some of that?...
- chrisonabike 15 min 7 sec ago
Good point, I'd probably conveniently forgotten that due to my part in that (voting, "I paid a lot of tax and bought a fraction of a bomb" etc.)
- Paul J 1 hour 11 min ago
Top sports people have to focus on their sport, or they won't be the top of their sport. That they focus intensively on their sport does not give...
- the little onion 2 hours 35 min ago
Rather artistic photo of this (driverless) car that has ended up on its roof on a dead straight road in Bradford....
- hawkinspeter 3 hours 20 min ago
Cool - that removes one of my issues with Garmin. I'm quite happy with the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt, so I doubt that I'll be switching unless Garmin come...
- slc 4 hours 16 min ago
No doubt it will catch on in Plymouth, but it is Devon, where everything happens 10 years later. Not least the buses....
- mctrials23 4 hours 57 min ago
GCN just did a cool video on this. All I could think by the end was that perhaps if you got to do what the presenter did and mince around Italy in...
- ravenbait 5 hours 5 min ago
I missed that, thanks for pointing it out. I can't comment, as that's outside my area of expertise. Apologies to Rendel. This is why they should be...
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94 comments
drivers - why does it say cyclists can ride in the middle of the road
cyclists - it's middle of the lane, not middle of the road
drivers - you are being pedantic, that's what we meant
Nick Freeman -
“Who says it is sensible for pedestrians to have the power to step out in front of a car at a junction and have priority?
“Or for a cyclist to take the crown of the road when we've got limited space?”
AS far as I am aware there is only one crown of the road, down the middle of the road, there is not a crown in the middle of each lane with gullies to trap water in between.
The All New Adventures of Nick Poophole and Graham the Porcine!
Is that a bit like Ren and Stimpy?
Or maybe like Happy Tree Friends? https://mondomedia.com/channel/HappyTreeFriends/
Or could be Pinky & the Brain. I wonder which one of them thinks he's the Brain...?*
*Trick question - they are Pinky and Pinky's clone; the Brain left.
I don't agree that pedestrians and cyclists have this sense of entitlement - all I see is nervous pedestrians sucking up to car drivers, thanking them for stopping at zebra crossings and doing that little skippy run when a car offers them the opportunity to cross the road.
Not enough pedestrians or cyclists take the space they are entitled to in my opinion
You know, like every driver does when another driver stops at a give way line, and doesn't just drive into the side of their car.
If only we could get extinction rebellion to glue them together it would halve the chance of meeting either of them when out and about!
Great comment. You owned him there!
If only we could get Extinction Rebellion to glue them together it would halve the chance of meeting either of them when out and about!
This observation only applies if the probability of the composite person being out cycling is the same as the probability of either of them individually being out cycling- as this probability is indistinguishable from zero at reasonable levels of precision, the point will require specialist maths to elucidate.
can you explain how he has confused "cente of the lane" with the "crown of the road?"
after years and years of drivers complaining about lawless untrained cyclists who don't know the highway code, we are now told that it's unsound to give cyclists and pedestrians (travelling straight on) priority over cars (turning left) because the drivers may not give way to them and there will be accidents. Or other drivers will drive into the back of drivers stopping.
Perhaps drivers are not very good at following the rules after all.
There do seem to be a lot of opinion pieces about how the Govt shouldn't proceed with this because there'll be terrible road rage and people will die and there'll be collisions caused by impatient motorists, etc etc.
Seems to me that what they are all saying, is that the motorists are the problem...
No point debating this post.
Not even the spelling of "Willowby"?
What exactly was it that made the well paid car industry shill Philip Schofield call Dave Sherry a militant, intransigent cyclist?
Of course he's millitant. Claims to be a bus driver and got his mate to knock up some photoshopped video
https://metro.co.uk/2018/02/07/cyclist-catches-moment-lorry-driver-knock...
In reality, the lorry driver used the other half of the carriageway to safely pass him.
HIRSUTE!!! Someon's hacked your account, and I think we know who....
I wondered why I had to sign in just now.
Must be that Clem bloke.
I bet there are a lot of burglars out there who are really angry that the police stop them entering other people's property and stealing from it. Therefore I think we need to change the rules and legalise burglary.
Simple question:
Will making burglary a crime lead to less crime?
Try to see it from the other perspective. In reality it's not homeowners vs. burglars but just two groups both concerned that property should not be unclaimed. But a minority in the media is manufacturing divisive rhetoric around this. Some of them even equate the enterprise and industry of Britain's world-leading burglars with the selfish rapaciousness of capitalists! (I apologise, my Chinese mind is getting confused now.)
I have a friend who was jalied for his beliefs. He believed that nobody would catch him....
Godber in Porridge: "I'm only here as a result of tragic circumstances."
Fletcher: "Oh yeah? What are they then?"
Godber: "I got caught."
Go away.
Good old Mr @rsehole. No matter how bad life may get, he's always there to remind us that things could be a lot worse - you could be the human equivalent of a dog egg on a very aggressively-treaded shoe sole.
So a man who makes the roads more dangerous by allowing rich bad drivers to continue driving by finding loopholes in their charges is maoning about the dangers of road safety measures? This is beyond ironic.
Surely the headline should read "Expect ranting and more loopholes..."
What a tool.
The only way it "isn't going to end well" is if a driver drives their car into a cyclist. There's really no other way for harm to be caused because a cyclist poses no danger to a car or its driver in terms of physical harm.
Avoiding this is quite simple for drivers, slow down and exercise care and patience around cyclists. Exactly what the code is trying to codify.
I just don't see what's so difficult about that fundamental concept.
I honestly just don't get all the angst this is causing; just drive with attention & awareness, and there's no reason to worry. If it's causing people trouble, then I'd suggest they probably shouldn't be driving a motor vehicle.
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