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OPINION
Cyclists to be given “carte blanche to go sailing through red lights,” apparently … except they’re not
Fri, Jul 30, 2021 17:38
34
London cyclist approaching junction.jpgCyclists are to be given “carte blanche to go sailing through red lights” under forthcoming changes to the Highway Code unveiled today. Except they’re not. But it’s an example of how some parts of the mainstream media seek to portray a tribalism among road users that simply does not exist.
Transport secretary Grant Shapps’ announcement today of revisions to the guidance for road users has made much of Fleet Street lose its collective senses, for want of a better expression.
“Fury over 'confusing' new Highway Code rules that give cyclists MORE rights than cars at junctions amid warning they will cause 'avoidable collisions',” ran MailOnline’s headline.
Their article included the quote, attributed to a spokesman for a pro-motoring lobby group, that appears in the header to this piece. It’s laughably inaccurate – there is no suggestion whatsoever that cyclists will be allowed to ride through red traffic lights – but it was published unchallenged.
Similarly divisive headlines – as if looking to provide greater protection to vulnerable road users including pedestrians – appeared in other outlets. But it’s an entirely false narrative.
If you’re reading this on road.cc, it’s a pretty safe bet you’re a cyclist. But it’s highly likely that you have a driving licence, too – the vast majority of adults who ride bikes do.
And research consistently shows that people who ride bikes are more likely than average to live in households with access to more than one motor vehicle.
So the whole “them versus us” narrative – the “war on the motorist” – is a myth.
Yes, for many of us, the bike is the main way we choose to get around. And in the interests of disclosure, I’ll say right now that I’ve never driven a car.
Partly that’s because I’ve lived most of my life in London, but I’ve also lived in rural Oxfordshire.
Jeremy Clarkson, who lived near me, found the idea of someone living in the Cotswolds without a motor vehicle rather hard to process the one time I found myself in casual conversation with him in Chipping Norton.
I thought his head was going to explode. Instead, once he’d calmed down, he switched into character and told me, “Work harder. Ask your boss for a pay rise. Buy a car.”
One of the problems of the opposition to initiatives aimed at promoting active travel adopted by much of the mainstream media is that they in some way take away motorists’ ‘rights’ – and that’s largely underpinned by the assumption that driving is the ‘norm’.
That simply isn’t true. In certain London boroughs that have seen the most bitter arguments over low traffic neighbourhoods over the past year, most households do not have access to a motor vehicle at all; it’s drivers who are in the minority there, but you will never see that acknowledged in most national newspapers.
And no-one – I repeat, no-one – is saying that people shouldn’t drive at all. What we are saying, is think about the most appropriate transport for your journey. Sometimes, that may be a bus or train. Sometimes, it may be a bike or on foot. And sometimes, yes, it may be a car or van.
We know that there are huge numbers of short journeys currently done by car that don’t have to be – and guess what, if you remove a lot of those by providing safe cycling infrastructure, or better public transport, or more attractive and direct routes on foot, fewer of those car journeys will be made, and congestion will ease. Join the dots.
One final observation. You can make as many changes to the Highway Code as you like, but if no-one reads it, driving habits aren’t going to change.
Everyone who has a driving licence will have read it and, in recent decades, been tested on the theory.
But you don’t have to spend too long reading below-the-line comments to a MailOnline article on the subject (not something we’d recommend) to realise that many will have forgotten what they once learnt.
The ideal, of course, would be to require people who have a driving licence to undergo periodic re-examination – every five years, say – but it’s difficult to see that ever happening.
Maybe I’m being pessimistic, but I don’t the changes outlined today will have a meaningful impact on the safety of vulnerable road users unless they are accompanied by a major public awareness campaign via print and broadcast outlets and social media.
But again, that just brings us back to square one; the same newspapers we’ve seen rail against the measures announced today to improve the safety of the most vulnerable on Britain’s roads would no doubt be up in arms again, and that’s the cycle we somehow need to break.
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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34 comments
I made the mistake of following the link to Mail article, then had to stand in front of the open fridge to cool my blood.
It starts with the picture of old rule vs new rule. The rule that states give way to pavement users crossing the road has always been there, that's what the single dotted line is for. When I took my motorbike test, this was stated many times. It was never stated on my car test however, and perhaps there is where the problem starts. F#cking ignorant driving instructors.
Is it fair to point out that your very own article is a bit misleading? Sure the title reads "Fury over 'confusing' new Highway Code rules that give pedestrians right of way at junctions and let cyclists ride in the middle of the road amid warning they will cause 'avoidable collisions". It reports the words of some motoring lunatic, but actually there are plenty of quotes from MPs, journalists, lobbyists and Chris Boardman in support of the rules.
you can say that by giving oxygen to some of the opinions is 'anti-cycling', but how do you define those comments it includes which support the move?
it might have helped had you said that the bit about RLJ-ing is a quote that has nothing to do with the article since it's commenting on the change in prioritising road users, the rights of pedestrians crossing at junctions and the rights of cyclists to take the lane. Listen, we don't win wars by taking sides. We win wars by getting people onside.
I put,in a complaint to press complaints commission about Daily Mail. Please do the same about any publication
"will cause 'avoidable collisions',"
Seems like this post is based too much on London where biking or public transport is best way to travel.
Unfortunately in places like Peterborough it's more reliance on biking & cars due to poor public transport so driving is the majority.
As a driver & a cyclist I mostly wish there were more cycle lanes as alot of drivers do not give enough clearance when overtaking.
I once represented a driver who accelerated when approaching an Amber light. An elderly woman was obscured by the right turning van. As the lights turned red her dog stepped out; both dog & owner died at the scene. The photographs of that evening are etched in my memory. The driver didn't loose his liberty but in fairness made no attempt to flee (his BMW was totalled & it was a long walk home). A cyclist just doesn't pose the same risk to others however irksome the behaviour of some may appear. I just cannot fathom why the public puts up with the carnage.
Because most of the time they're the ones who are causing it, or at least think "there but for the grace of God ..."
As soon as they are in a position to realise the risks and harms - whether it's because they join a group of vulnerable road users (by taking up cycling, perhaps) or because they have first-hand experience (because a friend or family member is killed or seriously injured) - their opinion will change. But then that just puts them in a very small minority.
A depressingly accurate summary I'm afraid to say.
The Daily mail spouting lies to encourage hatered? That's a new one on me
I live near and often drive through Cambridge. cyclists who stop at red lights are in the minority.
This is fairly typical:
https://youtu.be/84BwdkfFdjA
As a cyclist myself, the biggest threat here is other cyclists, then taxis, then drivers, then buses.
Disappointing but the last 2 stopped.
TFTFY
To be honest, and if those lights are where I think they are, I can fully understand why the cyclists proceeded in frankly a very safe manner across the the lights in order to be in clear road space and ahead of the large number of cars with a somewhat complex double roundabout ahead.
cyclists who stop at red lights are in the minority
Quick!- get the straitjacket, we've got a live one here!! This new poster actually writes the pathognomonic phrase 'As a cyclist myself', and links to some lame instance of a few slow cyclists edging across a pedestrian crossing. Call that passing traffic lights at red? This is crossing traffic lights at red! Audi Q5 T90 JDT with caravan at 50-60 mph which was so far from the lights when they turned red that the road train wasn't on the frame. Think that's comparable, Bird-Brain?
Jut watched 10 motorists jump the lights at the junction below my flat. 6 on amber 4 on red. All accelerating hard from about 25 metres out so no excuse for being caught out. And all doing at least 40 by my estimations. Yes I'm that sad to do this. But it winds me up when motorists wring their hands regarding cyclists jumping the lights when they're just as guilty themselves. The only difference is that with the clip you provided the cyclists were bimbling through at less than 10mph while a motorist will be tanking it in 1.5 tonnes of metal at 30mph at least. The forces involved in a collision with either of these vehicles is phenomenally different. So ask yourself. Which would you rather have hitting you? I've put you're risk list in the correct order.
Bus drivers; Taxi drivers; Car drivers, Cyclists
nice try though
I guess the truth is that there are those people who think red lights don't apply to them. The only question is, would you rather they travelled by car or by bike?
Oh. That's one I need to give a lot of thought to.... yeah. I definitely know who I'd rather be clattered by...
Salt 'o' vee erf cabbies, evwee day
Nicely put. There is a "them and us" on the roads, and generaly in life. There are those who don't think they need to follow the rules, and those who see the benefits and comply for the greater good. Mode of transport is pretty independent of which camp they fall into. The level of harm is definately dependent of their mode of transport.
I'm more concerend about the inconsiderate driving from the camera car, why take a position to the left behind the car turning right? Does the driver think the car might squeeze through the gap, clearly unable to judge the size of the space relative to their car? or are they trying to prevent cyclists who might arrive from behind from filtering while the lights are green?
Meanwhile the cyclists appraoching the crossing slowly, waiting for it to be clear and then proceeding cause no danger or inconvenience to anyone.
I live near, and previously in, Cambridge, and (until Covid) worked in Cambridge. You're an idiot, a liar, or both.
As a motorist and cyclist who lives in Cambridge I very rarely see dangerous cycling against red lights, I have, once in the thirty five years I have lived in Cambridge, had to grab my child and drag them back as a young cyclist tore through a red light on a pedestrian crossing at insane speed, but that is the sole occasion I have ever felt truly endangered by a cyclist running red lights. Most running of red lights by cyclists is of unoccupied pedestrian crossings and I have no problem with that, if as is almost always the case in Cambridge, it is done at low speed with care. In contrast I witness dangerous speeding by motorists almost every day and the damage to roadside barriers and pavements on tight corners bares witness to the deadly danger that cyclists and pedestrians are routinely exposed to by careless motorists throughout the city. Since you claim to be a cyclist might I suggest you take advantage of our park and ride schemes and take to your bicycle for the remainder of your journey.
Without going into the rights/wrongs of the cyclists there, those pedestrian crossings which dumbly enforce a delay between the button and the light are a frustration to everyone. The delay should count down from the end of the last phase, not from the moment the button is pressed. Otherwise the predictable result is that pedestrians take their chances against a red pedestrian light, and the vehicles are asked to wait at an empty pedestrian crossing. Madness.
Is this welcome change now cut and dried? No watering down, following outrage in the Daily Mail, etc?
What a monster we have created for ourselves over the past 100 years.
I understand the point you make re the "us and them" falsehood, but (I) for "them" it really is 'them' - drivers who who clearly haven't been on a bike in decades pontificating about cycling as always (ii) cyclists don't need to validate themselves by reference to a driving licence.
Most of today's mainstream media are trash anyway with a non existent moral compass. It doesn't matter how divisive the subject is, all that matters is that they get as many people bickering against each other as possible. In fact, the more divisive and controversial the subject the better. Cycling always hits the sweet spot for many of the trash rags as they know they'll have a perfect storm between an endless line of entitled simpletons clambering over each other to make an illogical moronic point on road tax or cycle lanes and the cyclists that generally speak with common sense and logic correcting them often several times per comment.
Aircraft pilots; ship's captains; people with professional responsibility for the lives of others - are required by law to keep abreast of the latest changes in regulations affecting their activities. If they fail to keep up to date, they can have their licences/certificates removed or restricted. I see no reason why these sanctions should not also be applied to persons operating land-based vehicles which can inflict harm on passengers and/or the general public.
Declarations of interest:
I am a pedestrian; I am a cyclist; I drive motor vehicles of varying weights and sizes; I also drive high-speed passenger-carrying boats for my living.
Perhaps we should've going after the press barons who are ultimately responsible for this situation. Outrage sells newspapers and newspapers need to sell copies to attract advertisers.
Ultimately they will print anything that generates outrage in one or more of their key demographics and "motorists" are an easy cover for a few in one go.
Make it illegal to print something clearly not factual Or tax their owners as the pigopolists they are
Isn't "Carte Blanche" who of those pretentious coffees, ice creams or chocolates, that's advertised on TV?
If so, bring it on.
That could be a Dame Blanche. But I'm pretty sure the Belisha Beacon is similar to the Peach Melba.
Carte Blanche is also a techno/trance/ dance song - by Veracocha
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