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news
Grant Shapps TV interview (public domain)Confusion as Grant Shapps now says he is "not attracted to bureaucracy" of number plates for cyclists
Confusion reigned this morning as transport minister Grant Shapps' comments in an interview given to The Times appeared to contradict his widely-reported pledge to enforce tougher rules, namely possibly introducing number plates for cyclists, as part of the current legal review.
> Grant Shapps: Cyclists should have number plates, be insured and subject to speed limits
Speaking to the national newspaper, the Tory cabinet minister said: "I'm a keen cyclist, I'm very proud of the big expansion in the number of miles being cycled. I'm not attracted to the bureaucracy of registration plates. That would go too far."
These comments, published in a story on the front page of The Times, contrast with Shapps' interview simultaneously published on the front page of the Daily Mail, in which he says he "absolutely proposes extending speed limit restrictions to cyclists" before stating: "That obviously does then lead you into the question of 'well, how are you going to recognise the cyclist, do you need registration plates and insurance and that sort of thing?'"
Wednesday's Mail: Cyclists May Need Number Plates #TomorrowsPapersToday #DailyMail #Mail pic.twitter.com/xwsJplT1sW
— Tomorrows Papers Today (@TmorrowsPapers) August 16, 2022
The Mail interview prompted something of a media frenzy, with talk shows, news outlets and social media filled with debate about the prospect of cyclists needing a number plate to use the roads.
road.cc contacted the Department for Transport for clarification on the matter and were told: "It's just proposals. No new policy has been introduced as of yet. The Times piece is the more accurate reflection of the Transport Secretary's view. That's his position on it."
The Department for Transport is likely to clarify the position further in the coming hours.
Speaking to the Mail, Shapps said: "Somewhere where cyclists are actually not breaking the law is when they speed, and that cannot be right, so I absolutely propose extending speed limit restrictions to cyclists.
"Particularly where you've got 20mph limits on increasing numbers of roads, cyclists can easily exceed those, so I want to make speed limits apply to cyclists.
"That obviously does then lead you into the question of 'well, how are you going to recognise the cyclist, do you need registration plates and insurance and that sort of thing.
"So I'm proposing there should be a review of insurance and how you actually track cyclists who do break the laws [via identifiable markings].
"I don't want to stop people from getting on their bike, it's a fantastic way to travel, we've seen a big explosion of cycling during Covid and since, I think it has lots of health benefits.
"But I see no reason why cyclists should break the road laws, why they should speed, why they should bust red lights and be able to get away with it and I think we do have to not turn a blind eye to that and I’m proposing setting up a review to do exactly that."
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
Latest Comments
- brooksby 21 min 47 sec ago
What fresh devilry is this??? - perhaps they had a design for some handlebars, and another design for some forks, and somewhere along the line the...
- brooksby 25 min 26 sec ago
And finally: I wonder how many of the "more than 3,000" signatures on that petition are actually locals, who live or work there (and are not just...
- Matthew Acton-Varian 35 min 6 sec ago
Lucky too - if they misjudge their cut and hit the battery... you'll be scraping their charred remains from the windows of next door.
- Doug_D 2 hours 1 min ago
Another book suggestion - I can highly recommend "Lost Summers and Half-Forgotten Afternoons: A Mint Sauce collection" - a beautifully presented...
- chrisonabike 3 hours 13 min ago
But... the last is only not the case with drivers on normal roads because driving on the cycle path / footway / rolling a vehicle up there is seen...
- mdavidford 3 hours 51 min ago
I think you're missing an opportunity to pack even more tech into it - add accelerometers that can detect whether they're pedalling or stepping....
- chrisonabike 4 hours 16 min ago
Thanks. I guess the question is "need". If the road is busy, it sounds like it is a desired route between places? In which case (given this an...
- mdavidford 4 hours 24 min ago
Don't know what you mean. I thought my suggestion was entirely practical.
- Rapha Nadal 4 hours 59 min ago
I'd buy a motorbike fo rthat kind of money!
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92 comments
But his profiteering held back the development of the steam engine.
An electric motor rated at one horsepower outputs 746 Watts, mechanically that's 76 kgf⋅m/s i.e. it can lift a 76 kg mass a metre vertically in a second. That's about half what a top sprinter can manage, but the cyclist will do it for a few seconds while the motor (or horse) can do it all day.
I think you're doing cycling wrong.
Why? He might be a truly epic descender...
Oh yes, I'm a great descender
Descending a vertical wall
My speed is such, I descend too much
I can't tell it apart from a fall
Surely even DM readers must be wondering if such a trivial issue deserves to be 96pt front page headlines? They couldn't possibly be distracting from the massive, complete, total ultra-shambles that passes for a government, could they?
DM readers are not so self-aware, on the whole at least.
Look, they know that they're angry, they just need to know what they're angry about
The briefing to the Mail fulfilled exactly its purpose.
A headline to feed red meat to the loons and no intention of actually doing anything, and setting "us" against each other instead of against the Tories.
#CrushTheTories
And how exactly are you going to do that Wolfie? That would require: a) a general election; b) someone massively less useless and massively more worthy of winning a vote.
Btw, please drop the Macmillan monicker, if you're going to get nastily political and rude underneath it. It's such a turn-off and I just put a wad Macmillan's way too. Maybe, I'll give it elsewhere if people like you associate themselves.
You'd consider withdrawing your support for a charity to which you previously donated because you don't like the opinions of a random Internet poster who also supports the same charity? Well, that sounds perfectly reasonable.
Macmillan stands for everything that the Tories don't.
Macmillan provides help and support and care for those that need it most, when they are at their lowest and weakest.
Macmillan provides a safety net for those whose world is falling apart.
Macmillan appreciates every contribution made, and I'm truly happy that you have provided your support to them.
Threatening to abandon such people that we both want to help is incomprehensibly perverse,
#IdReallyRatherThatWeVotedTheToriesOutOfPowerEverywherePossibleThankYou.
I rewatched "V for Vendetta" recently...
Isn't it obvious? One interview was with Grant Shapps and the other was actually with Michael Green.
(We await the next set of interviews, with Corinne Stockheath and Sebastian Fox, shortly...).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grant_Shapps#Business_ventures
I had no idea just how scummy he is until reading that!
They all are. Our government is run by gangsters.
Hmm... I did not know that. With that many aliases I wonder whether he's ever posted on road.cc?
Idiot two faced minister is caught being an idiot and two faced.
How long do we have to wait for him to be sacked?
Sacked? Have you been living under a rock for the past twelve years? Like every other slimey, truth-twisting hypocrite in this government, he won't be sacked, he'll be promoted.
Or he'll take up a job with whatever company is given the contract to deal with the licencing sh!t that he has created....
Sounds about right, and as with track and trace will cost millions and deliver nothing.
TEST AND TRACE - "TRACK" is Parcelforce.
ROYAL MAIL
Well, he was promoted by Boris as clearly they have a similar approach to truth and integrity (less of an approach though and more of a run the opposite direction from). Presumably, he wants a job under poundland-Thatcher or defund-the-deprived Sunak?
Too long
Does anyone else think that "bust red lights" is a really strange phrase?
I did wonder if it only applied to women cyclists, but I couldn't quite see how.
I've come to the conclusion that Grant Shapps doesn't know his arse from his elbow.
Other countries which have a more developed and mature cycle culture
. If other countries governments have a weekly briefing on the UK, I'd call it the 'comedy hour' ("their Prime Minister is on a bender in Greece and, get this one, they want to put registration plates on bicycles
")
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