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London cyclists at traffic lights (copyright Britishcycling.org_.uk).jpgChris Boardman calls for end to drivers v cyclists rhetoric as British Cycling reveals two-thirds of bike riders say roads no safer than five years ago
Media coverage that promotes a “turf war” between people in cars and those on bikes is “divisive, unhelpful and only serves to fuel the problem we have on our roads,” says Chris Boardman, as British Cycling publishes a State of Cycling report which finds that more than two-thirds of its members who responded to its survey believe that conditions have not improved for cyclists within the past five years.
The report, which you can find here, makes for depressing reading. Among the key findings of the research, based on 15,000 respondents to British Cycling’s survey – the largest such exercise it has ever undertaken and equivalent to one in ten of its current membership – are:
70 per cent do not believe that conditions have improved in the last five years
66 per cent are concerned about their safety when riding on Britain’s roads,
87 per cent of cyclists are ‘close passed’ at least once a week
The three most common hazards encountered by people on bikes are close passing (79 per cent), unsafe road surfaces (68% per cent) and vehicle speed (34 per cent)
76 per cent of British Cycling members do not believe that cycling is taken seriously by their local authority, while 81 per cent say the same of national government
77 per cent say their employer could do more to encourage people to cycle to work.
Boardman, who remains a policy advisor to British Cycling in addition to his role as Greater Manchester cycling and walking commissioner, said: “Five years ago I appeared on breakfast television to talk about what would make people on bikes safer, and caused uproar on social media for having the cheek to wear my normal clothes, and not hi-vis and a helmet.
“Despite the evidence repeatedly telling us that it’s sustained investment in better infrastructure that keeps people safe, for 20 years society has continued to tell us that the answer lies in safety equipment.
“It speaks volumes that 96 per cent of those surveyed do wear a helmet on the road, and yet today's report still reveals the shameful fact that the vast majority don’t feel safe.
“I sincerely hope that this will act as a wake-up call for us, to let evidence lead our decision-making and make bold decisions on funding and investment, rather than simply taking the easy option and telling people to look after themselves.”
Some elements of the mainstream media – for example, the Sunday Telegraph last month – continue to report on cyclists and motorists as though they are two mutually exclusive groups, but as British Cycling points out, nine in ten of its adult members hold driving licences.
The governing body’s research resulted in a couple of near-identical levels of response regarding its members’ views of some road users – whether behind the steering wheel, or riding a bike – that could perhaps erroneously reinforce that perceived division.
Those were that while 71 per cent agreed that drivers are often hostile towards people on bikes, 72 per cent said that they often see people on bikes riding in a way which puts themselves in danger.
The government’s review of cycling safety launched in the wake of Charlie Alliston being jailed for causing the death of pedestrian Kim Briggs, leading to calls for an offence of causing death by careless or dangerous cycling, is still ongoing.
Perhaps mindful of that, Boardman, who rejected the divisive language often employed by the media and, acknowledged that people riding bikes needed to do so in a responsible manner, but said that punishment of law-breaking road users needed to be “proportionate.”
He said: “The idea of a turf war between motorists and people on bikes is divisive, unhelpful and only serves to fuel the problem we have on our roads. We know that 90% of our adult members are also drivers, and we are all at some point a pedestrian too.
“We all need to take responsibility for our own actions on the road – whether you’re a cyclist skipping through a red light or a motorist using your phone at the wheel – we need an enforceable commitment to punish people in a way that is proportionate to the danger they pose.”
The three key recommendations of the report, based on the research, which British Cycling believes would “help individuals, businesses and policymakers drive a cultural shift in the future state of cycling in this country,” are:
A public mutual respect campaign for all road users
Ring-fenced funding for cycling and walking in line with levels suggested by the Walking and Cycling Alliance
The establishment of a national network of major employers by the Department of Transport to better understand how the Government can help small and large businesses to get more of their employees riding to work.
British Cycling’s chief executive, Julie Harrington, commented: “Both the growth in our membership and the response to this survey reflect the evolution of the role which cycling plays in Britain today.
“While we have achieved great things within the sport, our biggest battle lies ahead in the towns, cities and communities we are seeking to help transform, and the support of our members is absolutely vital in helping us to drive that forwards.”
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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55 comments
Who is GCN? And when did British people pick up irritating US terminology, saying things like 'called out'? You'll be saying 'woke' and 'optics' next.
Your point is bollocks, by the way. The 'us and them' mentality comes entirely from one side, the side who actually have the ability to act on it. Cyclists menacing motorists is rare to non-existentas a phenomenon. And utlimately it's fuelled by political decisions about allocation of road space and road design that works to set people against each other.
Look up the word 'mentality'.
The irony of your response to an article calling for an end to divisive rhetoric is wonderful.
I struggled not to laugh!
So you still don't understand the point? Or are you just pretending to be dim?
Is the point that the 'us and them' mentality is entirely the fault of 'them' and not 'us'?
Inofofar as there is a 'us and them' mentality, and that that is a problem, yes. To claim that people objecting on websites to bad driving and motor-centric road design is an equal part of 'the problem' is dishonest. That's the same old 'both sides' dishonesty that crops up in any number of disputes that in reality are in no possible sense symetrical. It's just a lie.
As far as such a mentality is a problem, it's entirely down to how it finds expression in driver behaviour.
[edit] even if you are talking about the media commentary that fuels it, rather than how it comes out on the roads, it's still absurd to pretend that the tiny number of active cyclists and their negligable media presence is somehow of equal importance to the vast motor industry media presence. It's again, just a lie.
But of course the 'problem' of a 'them and us mentality' is not the primary one anyway.
Ultimately I think the real problem is motorists not paying the true cost of their habit. We need to stop subsidising driving, it's massively inefficient.
[edit] interesting Economist article on the topic...I didn't realise Uber was a loss-making enterprise. The cost of motoring is one issue where the libertarian/neo-liberal arguments are worth listening to (at least as a starting point). We have a strange form of socialism-but-only-for-the-better-off when it comes to the roads.
https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/05/08/riding-alone-...
If the 'us and them' mentality is harming cyclists then, as a society, we should be doing what we can to reduce it.
This is what Boardman is trying to achieve.
The tone of articles on road.cc is often needlessly inflammatory which can only worsen the 'us and them' mentality and unfortunately make cycling more dangerous.
Edit: thanks for economist link. I agree with you about ending subsidies.
I agree that it's bollocks.
It's not road.cc's fault that cyclists get close passed and the site highlights one of these a day. Perhaps he'd rather we brush it all under the carpet.
The 'us and them' thing comes mainly from the media, including the BBC Scotland's John Beattie on twitter yesterday (some excellent responses though). And he claims to ride a bike every day. Yeah, sure you do, you shit-stirring wanker.
Road.cc is part of the media.
Do you honestly not see the irony in what you're posting?
We all have a responsibility to tone down the rhetoric even if our influence is relatively small.
Look at how Boardman engages with irresponsible articles etc. We should all seek to emulate that rather than perpetuate the cycle of anger and division.
Road.cc is up there in reach and influence with LBC (whose presenters, barring one, are uniformly and relentlessly pro-motoring) or the Beeb and the Daily Mail? You sure about that equivalence?
Nah, you aren't convincing me.
This is pretty much the same sort of false-equivalence that comes up with arguments about Trump ("hey, Nazis on one side, and those extreme radicals who want some sort of single-payer health care on the other, both sides are to blame") or whenever racism is discussed ("what about this black guy who once said something slightly negative about white poeople?").
And again, no problem with Boardman's approach, but the 'cycle of anger and division' is not really the fundamental problem anyway and insofar as it is, it's not the likes of road.cc that is driving it. Go ring up presenters on LBC or complain to the Mail or the BBC. Not only do those have vastly more effect, they also go way beyond vague implications of 'them and us' they actively tell lies to encourage hate.
There's no 'irony' in pointing out the facts.
You seem to have completely ignored my point to make an argument about equivalence.
If you believe that the 'them and us' mentality directly contributes to harm to cyclists then anything that exacerbates that mentality is making that harm worse.
That is true regardless of the influence any individual or organisation might have.
The harm is greater when the influence is greater but the harm still exists when the influence is less significant.
By contributing to the mentality, even in a minor way, you are contributing to the harm suffered by cyclists.
Yes, 'we' may have a responsibility to tone down the rhetoric; but so do 'they', and 'we' are not the ones doing the vast bulk of the aggression, or the killing...
If every single cyclist behaved perfectly, and the government introduced bike number plates and some form of registration fee, it still wouldn't change a darned thing - it is the very presence of bicycles on the road which offends so many motorists, and therefore it's their problem, and there's nothing 'we' can do about it.
https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-gre...
Statistics on reported road casualties in Great Britain for the year ending June 2018 shows there were:
1,770 reported road deaths
26,610 people killed or seriously injured
165,100 casualties of all severities, a decrease of 6%
How many of those were deaths by collision with motor vehicles? (edit) How many were collisions with bicycles?
And finally: how many motorists have said, "There are just too many cyclists on the road and they're too darned aggressive - I'm going to hand in my licence and start taking the bus"?
+1. Everyone (except cyclists) thinks its ok to talk about "bloody cyclists". Roadcc are right to flag up the close passing thing.
Cyclists wouldn't need councils and governments spending huge amounts on infrastructure if the stupid and lazy drivers took some responsibility for their driving. Yes, there are some bad cyclists, but they are very few in number, and cause less problems than the majority of dirvers, nearly all of whom could drice better.
Have to admit I thought Beattie was pro-cyclist (he does ride every day) but his posts on this are appalling. (He didn't even get the distance right) Good to see the ever excellent Callum Skinner calling him out.
well a little part of me did cry when I saw BC had distilled the 3 mains points of the survey in to the "key asks"
When I hear "called out" I always think about period drames, knee breeches, and slapping someone's face with a handkerchief or a glove...
I saw this beauty the other day: https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/driver-suffers-broken-jaw-after-2842277
Sounds as if the 'cyclist' was not in fact cycling at the time the injury was inflicted. So I blame pedestrians.
Man in car hits man on bike with car
Man in car gets out of car
Man on bike hits man from car with fist
I've been the man on the bike... seems fair enough to me. And yes I understand that my outlook, and use of violence, is reprehensible.
Incisive stuff from CB, drawing out the lessons of the survey in clear chunks, especially;
“Despite the evidence repeatedly telling us that it’s sustained investment in better infrastructure that keeps people safe, for 20 years society has continued to tell us that the answer lies in safety equipment."
The government's pathetic funding of cycling is an insult, and just a sop to keep cyclists quiet. We need a fully funded, ambitious programme, with short, medium and long term targets, not endless bidding wars for one off tiny pots of money that achieve almost nothing. And we definitely need an end to the interminable promotion of helmets as the answer to cycling safety.
As well as mutual respect, I'd like motorists to have a better knowledge of what cyclists are allowed to do on the road and why they would choose to ride in that way. The use (or not) of cycle lanes and close passes are the two biggest sources of conflict on the roads.
70 per cent do not believe that conditions have improved in the last five years Got worse
66 per cent are concerned about their safety when riding on Britain’s roads, Yes
87 per cent of cyclists are ‘close passed’ at least once a week Every time I go out on the road
The three most common hazards encountered by people on bikes are close passing (79 per cent), unsafe road surfaces (68% per cent) and vehicle speed (34 per cent) I agree
76 per cent of British Cycling members do not believe that cycling is taken seriously by their local authority, while 81 per cent say the same of national government True
77 per cent say their employer could do more to encourage people to cycle to work. Probably right
I Think I'll stay in on my turbo
That is so true.
My previous employer was very supportive of my leisure cycling and used to promote my charity rides among clients which encouraged quite a few to donate to the various causes. On the other side, there was no dedicated facility for me to securely lock up my bike at the office, and I wasn't allowed to take it inside because they didn't want it cluttering up the place when clients visited. They finally relented on that when our subtenant moved out to new offices and I was allowed to leave it in their now unoccupied office space, but that meant carrying it up three flights of stairs.
Now I am a teacher, I try to ride in a few times a weeks but there's no separate facility for staff so I have to lock it in the students' bike shed and, let's put this politely, teenagers are not gentle when getting their bikes out of there and don't really care about other bikes getting knocked about. Two bent derailleurs and and various handlebar and level resetting sessions have not yet put me off, but will in time. Given staff car parking is at a premium, a bit more encouragement for us to ride in would probably make quite a difference.
But you won't, because the boredom will be excruciating...
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