Openreach driver adds van sticker implying filtering cyclists are suicidal

An Openreach van sporting a sticker equating filtering up its near side with suicide has been spotted outside an exchange in Nottinghamshire. The sticker was reportedly added by the driver. Openreach has apologised and said it has now been removed.

A subsidiary of BT Group, Openreach owns the pipes and telephone cables connecting almost all businesses and homes in the United Kingdom to the national broadband and telephone network. The firm does not deal with customers directly, but is accountable to the various telecoms providers.

Twitter user Kimberley spotted the vehicle.

This is in no way appropriate or acceptable @bt_uk @btcare pic.twitter.com/kQwTIFGGI2

— Kimberley (@Kimberleytew) July 25, 2017

It is not illegal to pass slow or stationary traffic on the left – and where there is a cycle lane, a cyclist is highly likely to be passing a queue of stationary traffic to their right.

Cyclists filtering under fire in local press

When the sticker was brought to the attention of Openreach, a member of the team manning the company’s Twitter account responded to one complaint, saying “please accept my apologies for this. I've raised this with the engineer's manager and this will be dealt with.”

Our own David Arthur was later told: “The driver is a cyclist and was trying to promote safety. This wasn't meant to cause upset and has been removed.”

An Openreach spokesman said: “Road safety is absolutely paramount at Openreach and we’re sorry if this caused any distress.

“The sticker was put on one of our vans by a cyclist with the best intentions, but it doesn’t adhere to our policies so we’ll be removing it immediately.”

The sticker also brought to mind one that featured on some Edinburgh and Glasgow buses, produced as part of Scotland’s controversial Nice Way Code road safety campaign.