“It demonstrates the reality of cycling on UK roads”: Panorama Car v Bikes host responds to accusation that he jumped red light during programme

The one I encountered was at junction of Blackfriars Road / Southwark Street / Stamford Street - turning off CS6 towards Southwark Street. Can't remember the exact details, but I was left stranded in the middle of the junction not sure where to find my signal. Quite alien when I was perfectly comfortable following car-based signals. 

I recall a 2-stage turn design used on the 1st (or 2nd?) blue paint gen of cysling superhighways which involved doing a horizontal loop the loop across the shared pavement.

IMO this design is too complex, and will get simplified.

I hope on that jumction Camden will provide alternative attractive routes avoiding it altogether - eg an alternative via Queren Square for left turners from Southampton Row into Theobalds Road.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5AyytzMMyM&t=74s

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How dare he say things like 'cyclists are not totally innocent in these situations'? How DARE he?

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He pointed out that it was likely Bilton's first time riding whilst speaking to camera, and so the mistake was entirely understandable, whilst he himself  had a lot of experience of similar so was probably better at it, whilst certainly not being perfect.

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As ever, Ashley tries for a reasonable, balanced interpretation of situations.

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Clearly, that's nowhere near good enough for you. What are those rules again?

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Ah yes. Rule 1: cyclists are never wrong.

Rule 2: on those rare, largely theoretical occasions when a cyclist might, just possibly, marginally, debateably be in the wrong, well - see Rule 1 above.

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Gosh, talk about seeing / hearing what you want to see.

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Blinkered much?

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you've missed the

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too

I think Richard Bilton looked terrified riding around the Holborn gyratory. I'm quite sure he'd rather not do that again!

He was unfamiliar with the road layout and probably distracted by the camera, but who can honestly say they've never found themselves in the wrong lane or missed a road sign when riding or driving in an unfamiliar location - especially such a busy location in London, where there's so much going on.

It's a shame you didn't dig a bit deeper in that video into the road layout that might have caused Richard to be confused about the traffic lights. It's highly unusual. I have never seen anything like it before. It's kind of like an advanced stop line on steroids, with traffic light controls to hold cars back whilst cyclists get a head start.

https://goo.gl/maps/epUzVo5CEuhyRqpg6

I don't know how anyone can give 100% attention to driving when giving commentary about some other event and also looking at the camera.

Nice to see you over here, Ashley.

I posted a long comment over at your place (re-edited above or below following the comment from Bilton), and I think Panorama rather missed the opportunity to explore how difficult it can be to get these right.

The type of meandering route followed by the presenter is exactly the type of thing that can get a cyclist killed by a left-hooking lorry, and I would argue demonstrates the need for far fuller segregation for passive safety reasons.

A couple of the 9 people on bikes killed in that area can perhaps be characterised as inexperiened. There's nothing wrong with that, but inexperienced in a high risk situation with no passive protection, such as lorries or buses not being able to get at you by intention or mistake, can be fatal.

Matt Wardman

Ashley Neal wrote:

Time for me to get myself down to Holborn gyratory on my bike I think. Are you up for it Richard Bilton?

I haven't watched the Panorama programme, but caught your above-linked clip and thought it was fair enough. That most certainly does look like Richard Bilton went through on a red and it seems like a strange mistake to make as the peds were obviously crossing the road and the approaching bus was certainly a big clue. I don't know that junction myself, but it didn't look too bad from my brief view through the camera.

However, I don't agree with your characterisation of cyclists in that cyclists never accept blame or apportion blame to other cyclists - there's plenty of examples on this site that show otherwise. I think the confusion comes about as a lot of motorist commenters (e.g. on Twitter) take a strange and outdated view of road laws and responsibility and falsely accuse cyclists of not getting out of the way - that's when some of us stand up to make our interpretation understood.

I would say, however, that in general a cyclist's view of the road and surroundings is much better than the limited view that drivers get through a windscreen (and A-pillars) and so cyclists are on average a lot more observant than drivers. Also, cyclists have to be alert as otherwise we tend to get hurt a lot - it can be something as simple as not spotting a wet drain cover on a corner or not anticipating a left-hook. That's partly why the Near Miss of The Day series can be useful to watch so that common issues can be better anticipated and hopefully common errors avoided.