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news
Nigel Havers and Laura Laker (via Jeremy Vine on Twitter)“No cars go through a red light – every cyclist does,” claims Nigel Havers
Actor Nigel Havers has claimed that “no cars go through a red light,” while “every cyclist does,” during a discussion with cycling writer Laura Laker hosted by Jeremy Vine on his BBC Radio 2 TV show.
The exchange took place during Vine’s afternoon programme on the station yesterday, with footage subsequently shared on his social media channels by the host.
Absolutely fascinating today @BBCRadio2 — @NigelHaversUK in the studio to complain about the behaviour of cyclists, along with @laura_laker who has written #PotholesAndPavements disagreeing that they offend more than any other road user.
Really worth hearing this exchange — pic.twitter.com/ebUPmDjxUT— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 10, 2024
“All road users break the law in equal amount,” Laker pointed out. “I’m not saying that that’s right.
“We know that roads policing got decimated a decade ago, we lost 20,000 police officers, and so all of road user behaviour has got worse, drivers have become more aggressive, perhaps cyclists have become more aggressive too.”
Interjecting, Havers said: “I don’t break the law, I don’t break the rules” before claiming that “motor cars aren’t going through red lights.”
Havers invited Laker, whose book on the National Cycle Network Potholes & Pavements was published just last week and who is a contributor to road.cc, to join him “at a crossroads where no cars go through a red light, every cyclist does.”
“That’s not true,” Laker countered. “Definitely people break the law in their cars, with mobile phone use, we know that’s illegal and it’s as bad as drink-driving, even driving hands-free.”
“I don’t know what planet you’re on,” said Havers, who is reported to have been fined £500 and banned for driving for 12 months after being convicted of drink-driving in 1991.
“Come and stand on the crossroads with me and you’ll see every single cyclist go through the red light.”
While it’s true that some cyclists do go through red lights, so too do many motorists, and Laker highlighted that it is the latter who are involved in, on average, five deaths a day on Britain’s roads as well as crashes that leave thousands more people seriously injured.
Undeterred, Havers, who in 2020 called for the removal of the temporary cycle lane briefly installed on Kensington High Street, insisted: “I have not seen a car go through a red light in London in years.”
“I know, but because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” replied Laker.
“So you think cars go through red lights just as much as cyclists?” asked Havers, incredulously.
“It’s not cars, it’s drivers,” clarified Laker, who in 2021 worked alongside Westminster University’s Active Travel Academy in developing guidelines for the language the media should use when reporting on road traffic collisions, which are still all too often deemed to be chance ‘accidents’ or in which vehicles crash without a driver seemingly being present.
“If car drivers are not breaking the law, how come vehicles are killing 1,700 people a year,” asked Vine, whose regularly posts videos of law-breaking drivers to his social media channels.
“Well, I mean …” responded Havers, before pausing, eventually breaking the silence by spluttering the word, “cyclists.”
The issue of cyclists and the law has been a high-profile one in the media this week after a coroner’s inquest into the death of a retired teacher who was struck by a cyclist riding in group in London’s Regent’s Park heard that the rider would face no charges in connection with the crash.
A Metropolitan Police officer told the inquest into the death of 81-year-old Hilda Griffiths that there was “insufficient evidence for a real prospect of conviction” of the cyclist concerned, Brian Fitzgerald, with the officer also confirming unlike motorists, cyclists are not required to adhere to posted speed limits.
Thankfully, road traffic collisions in which a pedestrian is killed following a crash with a cyclist are very rare, with Cycling UK citing official statistics that reveal there are on average around three such fatalities each year.
And it is the very fact that they happen so rarely that sees such incidents and, in their aftermath, wider cyclist behaviour, become the focus of intense media attention in a way that the vast majority of road traffic fatalities in which a motorist is involved do not.
Often, such media coverage takes the form of newspaper columns from celebrities – one example this weekend being found in the Express, with broadcaster Richard Madely calling for cyclists to be registered, and forced to carry insurance – something the government has rejected time and again.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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116 comments
Yeah - I was meaning blocked by the green-light flow of traffic.
If only. At temporary lights (3 way light sign warning of delays) I pulled up at the red light, short of a left hand side road to leave space for traffic coming through the lights and wanting to turn in front of me. Numbskull No.1 got fed up waiting and came around the queue behind me, only to be met by a postie's van coming the other way. Blocked the junction, blocked the postman and then continued on his merry way , lights still on red. Numbskulls No.s 2,3 & 4 then got fed up of waiting and pulled the same manouevre. Lights changed and Numbskull No.5 ran me into the pavement as he came from behind and tried to squeeze in in front of me. Idiots will find an opportunity to be idiotic whatever the circumstances.
This is the scenario I was thinking of in my comment above where I ran a red. I'm pretty sure the lights *were* actually working - it's just that drivers find a three-way signal wait inordinately long (they should try watching as the drivers get a full two cycles at a junction before the cycle lane gets its turn) and I didn't want to stick to my guns while they all started coming past me.
If I'd been on a bike I might have nipped on to the pavement and ridden through...I was in a car at the time which makes the idiots' idiocy even more idiotic I suppose.
He's obviously wrong. We've all seen cars go through red lights. But it would be dishonest to pretend that the proportion of cyclists who go through red lights isn't greater. If we want to be safe on the road then we should obey the rules of the road in the same way we expect and demand that drivers should. Any cyclist going through a red light is fuelling the likes of Havers, and worse, the aggressive anti-cyclist drivers that are a danger to us. By cycling through a red light you are making the world a less safe place for cyclists.
If we include drivers who go through on amber despite it being perfectly safe to stop, then I'm not convinced this is true. And legally the offence is the same.
Agreed. The offence is the same, but people don't equate amber gambling with what many cyclists (but far fewer motorists) do - ignoring a (wait for it...) "established" red light.
I'd argue its dishonest to claim it is greater, what happens in London doesnt automatically translate to how the rest of the country behaves on the roads
I literally just nearly got killed by a driver blatently flying through a red light while I was on my bike in the cycle advance box.
Shame on that fossil for being such a gross liar
We’re on about things that happen only occasionally, like crashes involving bikes planes and trains - things that happen wholesale like anything to do with cars were accepting of/ conditioned to.
We had to seriously brake to avoid a car running a red light this weekend; we were also in a car, following a green light.
But, sure, drivers never break the law! https://www.kcci.com/article/super-speeders-iowa-state-patrol-pulls-over-teen-120-mph-fort-dodge/60759963while texting!
The strangest RLJ I saw by a car was when I was stopped in an ASL at a red light. The driver initially stopped behind me outside the box. But after a bit they lost patience; carefully went round me, through the red and merged with the traffic who actually had green. The only thing I could to surmise from the delibrateness and cautiousness (it had to be its a busy road they were merging into) that the driver is from a country where that manouvre is allowed
The worst offenders for going through traffic red lights are pedestrians - watch them outside any train /underground station in London, they have an irresponsible attitude towards safety - I expect many of them are motorists.
Havers should be made to make the same claims to the faces of all the victims (and families of the dead) of motorist violence who have suffered.
Presumably this is the first ever driving offence in the UK
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/hampstead-camden-met-police-crime...
"One witness described how two passengers inside the car jogged away from the scene.
A Metropolitan Police spokesperson said: “A 16-year-old boy on a bicycle was injured on 11 May around 4pm when a vehicle mounted the pavement on Fleet Road, Hampstead and collided with the fence of Fleet Primary School. "
Mind you it was a driverless vehicle, so maybe no offence.
Havers should take a look at the DfT's casualty statistics.
Well informed people don't get booked to spout anti-cyclist nonsense though. As soon as anyone looks at the statistics they soon realise the scale of the problem with cars and drivers.
This is the problem with the BBC feeling they must provide balance. So often the people on one side of the "debate" can only be the uninformed.
I'd say the bigger problem is that they only provide balance on selected topics. Just have a look at their many articles about the monarchy and their family and almost zero articles about how some people want to get rid of the parasites.
There's also many world events that they're not providing balance on, so it seems they just cherry pick the topics to "balance".
Very correct Mr Havers, and cyclists crossing red lights is exactly the reason why we have thousands of people killed by these law abiding cyclists.
Consequently it makes sense why in many countries like US, France, Germany, Netherlands or Belgium it fully illegal for bicycles to cross red lights.
You sure about that? In NL, I can turn right on many red lights. And when I lived in the US, I could even turn right in a car on a red light. In both cases, technically the red light is crossed.
I assume this was satire / parody.
In NL would it not be more correct to say that cyclists are not "passing through the red lights" - they are passing by them as they don't apply because they often have their own separate cycle path? So the red lights for motor traffic no more apply to them as do signals on e.g. a parallel railway apply to the vehicles. Indeed cyclists may sometimes have their own separate lights.
The US is different - cyclists will be on the main road but in some places are allowed to proceed through a red light which otherwise would definitely apply to them. Indeed motor vehicles are allowed to turn right on red in some states, but this is starting to be recognised as unsafe and generally a bad idea. Hence part of my skepticism about permitting this for cyclists.
The ol' Idaho stop. And yes, in NL, you'll often see a sign beside a traffic light that says "Rechts voor fietsers vrij", that basically means cyclists are free to turn right.
Anyway, let's not distract ourselves from being flabbergsated by the idiocy of Mr. Havers.
You're quite right - [1] [2]. Are these common?
However in some cases there still seems to be a Dutch / everyone else difference. The one in the video on David Hembrow's blog (Thorbeckelaan / Groningerstraat - there's one turning the other way also), at least. Here it's "cycle path" (not cycle lane - although there isn't much separation from vehicles) before AND after the junction. So the cyclist would only be turning across the pedestrian crossing, not across / joining a lane with oncoming motor traffic. In the UK it's quite likely you'd be on the road the whole time - so there would be conflict between turning cyclists and pedestrians (perhaps twice - depending if it's "all ways green" for pedestrians) AND conflict between cyclists and vehicles.
So the UK version of the picture here would likely have none of that red area going round the corner (we just give up at junctions) and the pedestrians would be crossing closer to the junction.
Of course, in much of the UK currently there would be no markings indicating space for cycling whatsoever, or at best a "magic" line of paint at the side of the road.
Cant believe this actually got a 'like'. Why are you here anyway? Go back to the Daily Mail.
I think it is sarcasm. But it is easy to miss that kind of sarcasm when people actually hold those kinds of views for real
Sorry to the confusion I may have spread but guys, there may be one or two per year killed by cyclists in UK, it is as almost as likely to be killed by a thunderbolt, or other crazy deaths, definitely not the thousands I mention.
Maybe somebody understood worldwide, that number could seem sensible (do not know really) but still miniscule among the ~1.2 million killed in motor traffic accidents annually.
Think you've missed the sarcasm there squire, fairly sure the OP knows that thousands of people aren't killed by cyclists and also that all the countries they mention have laws that allow cyclists to ride through red lights in specific circumstances.
Sarcasm - I doubt even the staunchest DM reader believes it is 1000s.
If history has taught us one thing, it's that the dinosaurs eventually become extinct.
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