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news
Big Ben © Simon MacMichaelGovernment tells Lord Winston it has no plans to make cyclists have licences and insurance
The government has made it clear that it has no plans to require cyclists to be licensed and take out third-party liability insurance, in response to Lord Winston’s appeal to make both compulsory for bike riders.
The Labour peer’s call for mandatory insurance and licences received widespread media coverage the weekend before last ahead of him tabling the question at the House of Lords, but other than a paywalled article in The Times, the debate itself seems to have gone unreported, possibly because Westminster correspondents had other priorities last week.
He asked the government “what assessment they have made of the case for requiring adults riding bicycles in city centres to have a licence and third-party insurance.”
In reply, the Conservative peer Baroness Barran told him: “The government considered this matter as part of the cycling and walking safety review in 2018.
“They have no plans to require cyclists to have a licence or third-party insurance.
“The costs and complexity of introducing such a system would significantly outweigh the benefits, particularly the requirement for a licence.
“However, the government believe it is wise for all cyclists to take out some form of insurance, and many cyclists do so through their membership of cycling organisations.”
Lord Winston continued to press his point, however, saying: “Of course, most cyclists are conscientious and law-abiding but an increasing number are extremely aggressive and ignore, for example, the fact that some streets are one way, pedestrian crossings and red lights at traffic lights, and from time to time they collide with pedestrians.
“In view of the fact that the government obviously wish to encourage cycling – and I agree with that – does [Baroness Barran] not think that they should consider their obligation to improve public safety and therefore implement these or similar measures?”
Baroness Barran expanded on her previous response, underlining that such a scheme would be impractical. She said: “The government obviously want to reinforce safety for all road users, particularly those described as vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and cyclists.
“[Lord Winston] will be aware that there was a review of cycling and walking safety, and licensing and insurance were considered as part of that.
“Over 3 million new cycles are sold each year. Licensing and insurance would require the establishment of a central register, and the government’s view is that this would be very cumbersome and expensive to administer.
“There is evidence that other countries that have trialled these schemes have then withdrawn them. The government have committed, through the cycling and walking investment strategy, to a 50-point plan and £2 billion of investment to improve safety for all road users.”
Labour peer Lord Wills highlighted that few fixed penalty notices for cycling on the footway – introduced 20 years ago – were issued in 2017/18, saying that during that year, “30 out of 38 police forces issued fewer than five fixed-penalty notices and 12 of them issued no fixed-penalty notices at all.”
He asked Baroness Barran whether she really thought “that there is so little irresponsible cycling on pavements,” and if not, what the government planned to do “to protect disabled people, vulnerable pensioners, mothers with babies in buggies and many others from these hoodlums in Lycra?”
Her response included what may well be the first use of the term “smombies” in the upper house.
She said: “The government take these issues extremely seriously. There are small minorities of motorists, cyclists and, dare I say, what are now known as “smombies” – smartphone zombies, including pedestrians – who cause danger on our roads, but only a tiny percentage of accidents on our roads are caused by cyclists so the government are seeking a proportionate response that upholds the law but also encourages cycling and walking.”
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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49 comments
Canada's gun registration scheme was estimated to cost $2 million to establish. It cost over $2 Billion before they gave up on it and it was scrapped.
I see this statement as a precursor to loosening, then abandoning the requirement to have a driving licence in the UK. The roads are full of people driving well below the standards of the test, so one might argue: would it be any worse if we abandoned the driving test? In my lifetime, UK driving standards have fallen to the point where they're barely distinguishable from those found in third world countries with weak governments. For example, I remember the days when a driver who inadvertently crossed a solid white line, however slightly, would get seriously worried that they would get their license "endorsed". Nowadays drivers are generally both careless and shameless and have scant knowledge of the Highway Code. Also remember that the requirement for riders of small motorcycles to take a test within two years of the issue of a Provisional Licence has been dropped.
Now, that I didn't know. But it explains a great deal.
The clue to improving the issue is surely in the statistic that the police simply aren't doing much enforcement - in the statistic quoted it was for prosecutions for cyclists riding on the pavement, but it could equally apply to any road policing.
The solution? More enforcement, better infrastructure and somehow changing the mindset of people like Lord Winston that cycling is part of the cure, not the disease.
Legs, as much as I appreciate your spittle fuelled rants, and I really do, and I have to agree with what you say about both drivers and politicians, please calm down a bit on the personal attacks of other users on this site, I really do not wish to see you banned.
Yeah, fair enough.
In my 'defence', I have an inordinate amout of patience for idiots. I also have some patience for malicious people. But malicious idiots like the one up there who thinks that politicians are 'all decent people (I paraphrase) and who then gets gobby when someone smarter than he, laughs at him, are not as easy to tolerate.
Nor are the cretins who think that 'troll' is in any way an effective epithet to aim at someone whose opinions they don't like.
Anyway. I'm off to do some work.
@Mungecrundle
Stop feeding the troll.
All good comrades here, comrade.
Oh. Another dimbulb who thinks that anyone with opinions with which he disagrees is 'a troll'.
Can't you come up with something more original, you dozy twat?
Most people are insured under household insurance although I'm surprised the number of people who are unaware of this.
Given the level of cover for 3rd party liability it's clear that the number of claims is low.
Although to echo bobbypuk, I wonder if deliveroo riders should have some form of visible id.
And do they have work based insurance ?
Lord Winston says, “Of course, most cyclists are conscientious and law-abiding but an increasing number are extremely aggressive and ignore, for example, the fact that some streets are one way, pedestrian crossings and red lights at traffic lights, and from time to time they collide with pedestrians."
If he spent any time at any type of crossing or traffic light, he would see that motorists do this all the time.
He really does sound like a typical blithering, non-thinking, old-fart. The type who says "it's just common sense" in lieu of gathering evidence and constructing an argument.
Fascinating that someone supposedly trained in rational thought and evidence-based argument could be a climate-change-denying UKIP type at heart.
To be honest, I have a slightly jaded view of medics in general (it's a young science and its practitioners do not, to me, appear to be as 'scientific' as they often imagine they are - see the constant stream of research that finds that long-accepted medical 'wisdom' isn't actually supported by the evidence, and see the general acknowledgement that medicine is second only to psychology in terms of non-repreoducable research papers). Robert Winston really isn't helping me have confidence in his profession.
Bicker away amongst yourselves folks, the Tories will love it. Divide and rule.
Both liability and legal support are not available to those with Bronze Race membership.
https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/membership
I was unaware of Commuter membership (£37 p.a.) until now, which also has this cover.
Until very recently BC members have generally been a more race-oriented subset of the people who ride bikes. Would be interesting to compare with successful claims against CUK (formerly CTC) members.
Given that BC membership comes with third party insurance maybe it's possible for them to provide some indication of how many members have actually had a claim against them. That would give an accurate picture of how many cyclists were at fault for accidents. My feeling is that it would be a vanishingly smal percentage
Maybe we should also enquire to the MIB regarding uninsured driver claims and also to find out how many claims against people on foot for damage they've caused as well as the number of times people on foot have killed and maimed others.
We already know that people on bikes have been involved in fewer than 40 serious injuries to pedestrians in the last lot of annual stats and FOUR at fault deaths in the last 7 years, given the circa 23,000 SI plus the 1800 deaths on the roads and what damage pedestrians do to other pedestrians like stabbings, assault, murder etc, people on bikes are the last group one needs to consider for insurance, licences, more surveillance and checking. Statistically we are not just the least criminal on the roads but are massively less harmful than even pedestrians are to themselves!
The government should come straight out and state that given the extremely unlikely nature of people on bikes harming others, even compared to those on foot, that we will never consider requiring insurance or licencing for those on cycles, we would consider compulsary licencing and insurance for pedestrians first given the higher risk they present to society as proven by the stats.
That would go down like a fucking lead balloon but would be wholly fact based and true.
Bearing in mind that a lot of people do have insurance currently it would be interesting to know how often that has to pay out. I suspect not very often. Also interesting would be to know how many often people would have had claims against them if they had insurance. I suspect the answer to both is very small.
Finding out this sort of information should be the bare minimum of evidence if you're going to argue for a scheme like this. Not just anecdotes about about your neighbour who knows somebody who saw a cyclist kill a kitten.
In terms of limited registration he may have a point. Cycling home last night I was surrounded by commercial workers on bikes who were jumping lights, using pavements, nipping on and off the road randomly and all the things that the rest of us are being accused of constantly doing. Is there any reason that all commercial drivers and cyclists cannot display a license plate and be fined for violating traffic rules? The companies would be liable for people working for them and could pass this on to the workers as they see fit. At the moment we have a situation where Deliveroo are making money from a business model that is making life for all cyclists worse by encouraging reckless behaviour.
'The costs and complexity of introducing such a system would significantly outweigh the benefits'
Translation: they're not refusing licensing and insurance for cyclists on the grounds that cycling is almost entirely harmless to others, and immensely beneficial both to the health and wellbeing of the person who is engaged in it (as well as to the community at large thanks to less reliance on the NHS, less pollution etc).
No. They're tories, so it all comes down to money.
Fucking vermin. Social justice will come when every single one of them is swinging at the end of a noose.
If you want to selectively quote and interpret through your warped lens of political bias in order to pursue a personal agenda based on willful ignorance then go for it. However I would also refer you to:
She said: “The government take these issues extremely seriously. There are small minorities of motorists, cyclists and, dare I say, what are now known as “smombies” – smartphone zombies, including pedestrians – who cause danger on our roads, but only a tiny percentage of accidents on our roads are caused by cyclists so the government are seeking a proportionate response that upholds the law but also encourages cycling and walking.”
I mean, "seeking a proportinate response that upholds the law but also encourages cycling and walking", what sort of Fascist Oligarchy are we living under?
Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't believe something that a tory said.
How fucking dare I be so cynical???
[/quote]
Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't believe something that a tory said.
How fucking dare I be so cynical???
[/quote]
You have every right to be cynical, but you come across as more of a twat to be honest.
Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't believe something that a tory said.
How fucking dare I be so cynical???
[/quote]
You have every right to be cynical, but you come across as more of a twat to be honest.
[/quote]
No I do not.
Mungecrundle wins this part of the internet today!
Jog on Legs, take your blinkered political prattling elsewhere.
You have every right to be cynical, but you come across as more of a twat to be honest.
[/quote]
No I do not.
[/quote]
yes you do
You have every right to be cynical, but you come across as more of a twat to be honest.
[/quote]
We can all be twats sometimes, so I find it's best to forgive and forget, unless they are irretreivable twatish, and Legs11 is far from that. We all disagree sometimes, even if we have a shared interest, so it's usually best to respect other people's views, and hope they'll respect yours; and don't call them names, it makes you look like a twat.
Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't believe something that a tory said.
How fucking dare I be so cynical???
[/quote]
Because you've learned from experience. The real question is why do so many still believe them when they demonstrate every day that they are working against their interests; the same question is being asked in the USA.
Because you've learned from experience. The real question is why do so many still believe them when they demonstrate every day that they are working against their interests; the same question is being asked in the USA.
[/quote]
Because fucktards like 'mungehead' still exist.
You display exactly the sort of blinkered prejudice that some drivers use against cyclists. An inability to accept that many groups (whether Tories or cyclists or motorists) contain just a small minority of wankers that generate a disproportionately high level of press coverage. If you were a reasonably mature, level-headed and logical person, you'd perhaps consider the likelihood that even some Tory MP are able to put forward sensible and thought-out arguments. It's very lazy to say that all drivers and Tories and Daily Mail readers are "fucking vermin" – maybe it makes you feel better, but it doesn't contribute anything to a grown-up debate.
You seem to have purposefully misrepresented my views. Why is that?
For one, I have never said that all car drivers are vermin. All black cab drivers are vermin, that's indisputable. And the vast majority of car drivers are selfish, unrepetent psychopaths. But not all of them.
If you think that all tories are not vermin, however, then there isn't much I can do for you.
It must be really confusing when your charmingly naive and overly simplistic world view based on political labels gets turned upside down.
In this particular instance Lord Winston, your Labour hero of the people, is clearly anti cyclist. Barroness Barran, evil Tory, has slapped him down using logic, common sense and with some restrained dignity whilst doing so.
Some politicians are wrong uns for sure. More interested in their personal advancement or pushing some easy fix ideology regardless of the cost to wider society. But for the most part they are decent, hard working people with a genuine passion based on a range of life experiences who want to create a "better" society. You may not agree with with their views of what exactly "better" means or how to achieve it but you should at least have the ability to avoid a slavish sycophancy to an opinion based on the colour of the badge that the politician wears and apply some critical thinking skills to what is actually being said.
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