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Boardman in SPACE.pngGovernment to ensure all driving instructors watch Chris Boardman SPACE for cycling film (+ video)
Remember the video released in August in which British Cycling policy advisor Chris Boardman teamed up with senior driving instructor Blaine Walsh to urge motorists to give space to cyclists?
Well, there’s some great news about it – the government is making sure that all driving instructors across the country will see a slightly edited version of it, and a shorter cut of the video, called SPACE, will also become a public information film.
The news was confirmed on Twitter on Thursday evening by Carlton Reid, who made the video.
Reid, executive editor of BikeBiz, author of the book Roads Were Not Built For Cars, and the man behind the website I Pay Road Tax, tweeted:
Gov’t has asked for a few edits to the @Chris_Boardman SPACE video. It will then go out to all driving instructors. https://t.co/CWUPZHjdeL
— Carlton Reid (@carltonreid) November 5, 2015
In response to questions from followers on Twitter, he added:
The edits are minor, and won’t take me long. I’m also going to make shorter version to be used as official Gov’t public information film.
— Carlton Reid (@carltonreid) November 5, 2015
We’ll have more on this story later on Friday. In the meantime, see here for our original coverage of the video.
- Video: Chris Boardman demonstrating safe overtaking of cyclists
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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25 comments
This is good news but my feeling is that driving instructors are not really the problem; it's the parameters of the test that need attention. If driving tests had to include driving in areas where contact with cyclists were guaranteed we'd be making real progress.
There have, over the years, been many calls for particular things to be included in the practical driving test. Motorways, fast dual-carriageways, heavy town traffic, wet weather, snow and darkness all spring to mind. The problem is not one of willingness, it is one of practicality. How could motorway driving be included in a test in most of Scotland or Wales without making the candidates travel long distances to the test centre? And these same areas are hardly awash with cyclists, even in summer. The DVSA does what it can to offer a universal test, similar in substance wherever in the country it is conducted. It's not perfect but the alternatives are riddled with difficulties.
My own preference would be for all drivers to be re-tested every ten years up to the age of seventy, and then every three years. But any political party putting that in their manifesto is committing electoral suicide as most voters are more frightened of the test than the consequences of their declining standards.
But things could be worse - we could live in one of the countries where the traffic death statistics are a hundred times worse than ours
Hi Mike
I completely agree with you about mandatory re-tests. This is done by the aviation industry and this is why the level of accidents are low. I would further suggest that there should be government subsidised driver skills training e.g skid pan, driving in ice and snow etc
Regards
Mike
This video is great. My wife should watch it. She beeped a couple out riding (single file) last weekend to "let them know she was there" when they were out in the middle of the road to avoid a bad surface. She complained that they stuck their fingers up and that our 10yo daughter witnessed this. Some explanation of how scarey and utterly infuriating car horns are to pretty much anyone outside a car was provided over a slightly dis-harmonious dinner.
Not so sure about the two abreast being legal thing. I mean it is of course, but is it courteous on our busy roads and the narrow country lanes we all love riding? I always drop back to single file when riding in groups of 2-4 if there's a car up. Funnily enough, I don't mind if a group of riders doesn't do the same when I'm driving.
Depends on the circumstances surely? If riding single allows an impatient to overtake in a dangerous location, it's a bit silly. They won't die because of waiting a minute or two, we might if they get it wrong.
+1 on this initiative. IMHO driving instructors are part of the solution. Yeah, some people are bad simply terrible at their jobs in every profession, but in general the couple times I've waved at poor student drivers I've seen them one time getting chewed out at the next stop and another giving a ridiculously wide berth to the next cyclist. Beats the 'f off' attitude many drivers take on when waved at.
how to I vote CB into position of our glorious leader.
gotta love that man
I ride past the local driving test centre several times a week. It's horrifying how many instructors are teaching poor practice with regard to cyclists on the road.
This film, along with the side-by-side (2 cyclists abreast is legal) video, should be compulsory viewing during -- and part of -- the theory test!
This film, along with the side-by-side (2 cyclists abreast is legal) video, should be compulsory viewing during -- and part of -- the theory test!
fantastic idea, there is already a similar initiative called The Honest Truth, that gives driving instructors information, training and resources to address road safety issues with thier pupils during lessons, such as drink driving, seatbelt use for back seat passengers, not showing off etc etc. So it is built into thier driving from the very start with the idea of influencing behaviour and changing attitudes. I can see this doing something very similar.
Be great to get it into cinemas. The biggies would charge but local independents might be more helpful. Our local Plaza is keen Carlton!
It's a good start. Compulsory cycle training for all driving instructors would be the next step.
Because people not knowing what they should do is the problem isn't it ......
Yes actually I think in a lot of cases I think it is. The ignorance on the highway code is pretty staggering. The number of drivers that don't know why cyclists are in the primary. The people who think that cyclists should be inside the white line (the one that marks the edge of the road) That cycling two abreast is illegal, that overtaking stationary traffic on the outside is illegal, that usinmg the road when there is a bike path is illegal. I have heard it all including that my lights are illegal because they are bright and I'm not aloud to cycle when it's foggy.
Apart from all that nonsense, the hooting and the subsequent punishment pass when I take the primary over a single lane bridge shows that a lot of motorists really don't know the rules and really do think it's cyclist doing the right thing that are in the wrong.
BTW it happens in cars as well. Last month a driver just starting to overtake parked cars on his side of the road and therefore on my side of the road came bonnet to bonnet with me as I was on the correct side of the road. He jumps out and starts trying to get me to back up into a side road claiming I should have given way as he was travelling faster.
Yeah go figure.
My daughter's test examiner was mightily impressed when she held back and went wide around a cyclist on her driving test. He complimented her after the test. She said my dad a cyclist and has drummed it into my driving.
Teaching my daughter to drive was a real eye opener in how poor my own driving had become. Refresher exams should be mandatory
Now they just need to have a storyline in a soap opera featuring this safety film and later on the 'consequences' for not observing the message...
Maybe that's the only way the greater mass of the public will ever get the message, because these public information films only seem to go out on an other channel while the soaps are on... need to do something similar with some soap character being wiped out by a texting motorist... or actually texting while driving and wiping a child out and facing the consequences including prison.
And there was me assuming that driving instructors were the "better than average" drivers who knew this already, and it was just the "average" drivers who'd forgotten or chosen to ignore what they'd been instructed. As a Gov't information film it'd be better shown to the general public than to the instructors IMO.
Rotten fish smell from the head
Driving instructors are usually independent businesses or self employed. The job is to get the student through the test and make some money. If the test examiners failed you for going too close to cyclists then the instructors would teach that. Don't blame the teacher for teaching to the test. Blame the test or the examiners for not marking properly.
Becoming an examiner is hard. Theory tests, interviews, practical tests, daily driving tests, residential courses, constant supervision ( both personal and electronic ); there's a huge amount of dedication needed to earn that little badge. Lots of applicants give up and lots fail to make the grade, some of them in tears. And all for less than the average salary.
But the standard of the finished article is very high. Official visitors from all corners of the world study our methods and take them home. We are regarded as the best.
And to suggest that examiners fail to record unsafe passing of cyclists is, quite frankly, tripe.
Dear gods. If we are the best what do the not best look like?
Hopefully a new batch of drivers will be fully tolerant towards cyclist. Right now there is still that 1% that tries to squeeze in when overtaking
You missed a zero out....Fixed it for you.
"Right now there is still that 10% that tries to squeeze in when overtaking..."
More like two missing zeroes. So far as I can tell as an ex-driver, pretty well everyone who drives becomes intolerant at some point in the day. I think because of the increasing mismatch between all the shit still pushed about cars and feedom, versus the reality of crowded, slow, roads.
And it will only take decades for the old generation to be off and during that time the new generation can learn bad habits. If we had software to drive cars we could update all of them in a matter of months with a software patch. Updating could be part of the MOT.