But now we are prompted by a rather good Editorial in the 2nd September Guardian which leads: “Unthinkable? Declaring war on motorists: When the transport secretary said ‘We will end the war on motorists’, the obvious question was: what war on motorists? Regrettably, the article restricts itself to suggesting the subsidising of public transport, but does at least refer to the reduced cost of motoring brought in by the previous Government.

Of course, in a sense there has been a “war on motorists”: a continuation of unnecessary levels of danger on the road which many motorists are prepared to oppose and from which they may suffer.

Many would like to have a greater option for themselves and their families to use more sustainable transport and to have more people-friendly communities. They might not want scarce public money to be squandered on road building, or the damage to public health and the local and global environment from current levels of car use. Although they may be a minority of the motoring public, they are still motorists and want a more civilised, less car-centred society: they have had a war against them.But that’s not what the Minster is talking about. So perhaps the following could be pointed out – and they really are just a few parts of the story:

These are a few points which could be brought to the attention of the Minister. As with so much in transport policy and road safety, what we have is not so much a mistake as – this needs to be repeated – an inversion of reality.

1. The massive increase in car travel under New Labour.  On 6th June 1997 Transport Minister John Prescott said:

“I will have failed if in five years time there are not many more people using public transport and far fewer journeys by car. It’s a tall order, but I urge you to hold me to it”

 Forecasts published by Prescott’s department for 2007 at the time of his 1997 statement, based on the assumption that there would be no real interventions to reduce or control rising motor traffic, such as effective methods of replacing car usage by alternatives such as public transport, walking or cycling were:

• Registered motor vehicles +27% = +6.85 million *  Traffic (vehicle miles) +35%, (as average mileage per vehicle was set to increase as well as the increase in registered motor vehicles).

Over the following 10 years registered motor vehicle numbers and motor traffic went up in accordance with the 1997 forecast. On May 16 2007 John Prescott said: “I had never envisaged we would have 7 million new cars. It has created real problems.”

From 1997 to 2008 the costs of motoring as measured against the Retail Price Index (which does not include the cost of housing) fell by 13% while public transport costs increased.

2. The failure to support alternatives. Unlike the Guardian’s editorial, transport professionals know that alternatives top car dependence are not just (or at all) about pumping money into public transport, but about supporting local communities, cycling and walking and alternatives to travel. Under New Labour the Road Traffic Reduction Act and the National Cycling Strategy were dropped. Restrictions on car dependent developments, real support for everything from car-sharing to home-working – well, you should know the answer.

Despite the victories of the anti-road building movement in the early 90s, we have had the continuation of road building projects. The only attempt to restrict car traffic is a very limited scheme in the least car dependent part of the UK (central London) for the wealthiest motorists, which was associated with a major road building (Thanes Gateway) project.

 3. The increased need to reduce car dependence and motor traffic. While New Labour had an awareness of global warming when it first came to power, the evidence for it and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has become greater. The health problems generated by sedentary lifestyles have been illustrated by more and more evidence. The old issues of congestion, noxious emissions, loss of public space etc. remain or are even more obvious.

4. Making motoring cheaper: motorists are not paying their way. The decline in the price of motoring has been mentioned above and in the Guardian editorial. We have a longer discussion on this at http://rdrf.org.uk/2010/01/a-very-moderate-suggestion/ and http://rdrf.org.uk/2010/05/a-very-moderate-suggestion-part-2-%e2%80%93-increase-the-price-of-petrol/  . There has always a case for pointing out that the external costs of motoring (as calculated by perfectly conventional economists) are not covered by motorists. The idea of “paying for the road” plays a part in all too many motorists’ bigotry against other road users, particularly cyclists.

But there are additional reasons for raising this issue now: given the imminent public spending cuts, might it not be an idea for transport professionals to raise the alternative of increased cuts in motoring?

 Furthermore, reductions in motor traffic reduce the attractiveness of road building – a form of public spending. And bribing motorists out of their cars with large scale spending on public transport is always difficult: cheaper schemes to support smarter alternatives can be attractive to politicians – although increasing costs of motoring should be on the agenda as well.

5. Continuing road danger. Tolerance of illegal motoring behaviour is, well, tolerance of anti-social, if not life-threatening behaviour. RDRF is principally about this aspect: do go to    http://rdrf.org.uk/2009/10/a-safer-way-making-britain%e2%80%99s-roads-the-safest-in-the-world-2/ to see what we thought about Philip Hammond’s Department’s efforts in this area under New Labour.

So we have had a war for cheaper motoring at a time when there were plenty of increased financial problems – not least purchasing housing – before the credit crunch and the now imminent spending cuts.

 In the same issue of the Guardian referred to above, Polly Toynbee http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/01/conservative-conference-public-sector-cuts addresses professionals with knowledge of the effects of Government policies: “Professional associations and managers in the public sector, specialist charities, quangocrats, thinktanks and institutes concerned with health, economics and social policy – experts of all kinds are zipping their lips.” And:  “The dangerous result of the silence of the clerks … is that neither government nor people hear what they should from genuine expert opinion”

This applies to transport professionals as much as anybody else. Of ocurse, there is a deep-rooted tendency to feel that the Great British Motorist must be able to drive when, how, why or where (s)he wants more cheaply while being told (s)he is an oppressed victim. For them, there will always be a feeling that they having war declared on them. But that doesn’t mean one actually is.

We need to inform them and those we work for of the true facts. Perhaps some close to the Minister could have a go at getting him to get his world-view the right way round.

Dr. Robert Davis Chair, RDRF 3rd October

So RDRF Chair Dr. Robert Davis thought it time to give some support to the columnist “Hedgehog” in the mass circulation Private Eye. “Hedgehog” had been opposing proposed cuts in speed cameras and pointed out, among other things, that existing criteria for installation  are far slacker than those required in safety regimes other than those of “road safety”. Unusually for a mass publication, he has also raised the central RDR issue of low cycling and walking casualty numbers  often being associated with more, not less, danger on the road deterring walking and cycling. This drew the wrath from the usual quarters, so here’s the reply:                                            

“Sir,

Speed freaks like Chas Bazeley (Letters, Eye 1270) invert the correct use of physics and psychology. Smeed’s Law shows that increasing traffic congestion intensity reduces casualty rates as motorists are compelled to slow down and watch out for other traffic; also lower (and therefore less destructive) kinetic energy is dispersed on impact due to lower speed when crashes do occur.

 His ludicrous alternative is that motorists can only concentrate properly if they drive faster. Of course, this does point to one of the failures of speed cameras: their advertised presence and small numbers, thus allowing motorists to feel less need to watch their speed elsewhere. As with all the other areas of rule-breaking on the road, the real prospect of law enforcement and deterrent sentencing for those endangering others could work wonders for creating necessary motorists’ concentration levels. Speed is only one factor in threatening other people’s lives: that is an argument for extending controls to other areas, not cutting them for speed.

 Speed fanatics will cherry pick the statistics, and they are right that some casualties will indeed be declining – but due to the (Smeed again) relationship of economic recession with road death numbers.

 Most importantly, the splendid Hedgehog has shown how casualty numbers are anyway a poor indicator of danger on the road. Very often the more vulnerable (and less dangerous to others) forms of transport are restricted – such as with parents preventing children from cycling and walking – precisely because of excessive danger on the roads, whether or not casualties are recorded ”

Dr. Robert Davis, Chair Road Danger Reduction Forum

Published Private Eye 17-30 September 2010 No. 1271

But there’s no doubt about his latest piece for Transport Times http://www.christianwolmar.co.uk/2010/09/norman-save-cycling-money/ where he is absolutely spot on in opposing any threat to the existence of Cycling England.This is on the cards as part of the “bonfire of the quangos”. Of course, there should have never been any need for the Cycling England quango – cycling should have been dealt with as part of an integrated transport policy (remember that?) within the DfT. In fact, Cycling England came into being after the National Cycling Strategy (remember that?) was abandoned by New Labour in the 1990s, and struggled with pathetic amounts of finance.

In fact its achievements have been limited.

The Bikeability scheme has not been organised in the kind of way that driver education has, with a fully staffed national body overseeing it and making sure that the syllabus is properly evidence based and checked up on. (Are people claiming to train to Bikeability actually doing so?). The Cycling Towns initiatives have covered a very small area of Britain and generally been of the “quick and easy win” type.

But these are arguments for more support for Cycling England, not threatening its existence!

Bikeability needs clarification about areas of doubt among trainers, particularly the recommendations on when to take primary and secondary positions. The whole scheme then needs full national supervision to check it is being taught properly , and made available to adults as well as children. The right lessons in good practice learned  from the Cycling Towns need to be pushed as what is expected from all Highway Authorities.

Even with cuts in public spending, funding for Cycling England should be at least on a level with monies going towards public transport. Funding levels could be related to the external costs of motoring. Or at least using the figures well presented by Cycling England on the health benefits of cycling. If there really is a need to save a few millions quickly, maybe even the stereotypical motorist courted by this administration wouldn’t mind a crack down on uninsured and non-VED paying drivers.

But of course, if we really are going to save money, it’s time to cut the roadbuilding programme and gently raise the issue of the real downward cost of motoring being reversed.

Meanwhile, saving Cycling England and boosting i’s finances is a simple, moderate exercise which shouldn’t threaten the composure of even someone who thinks there has been a “war on the motorist”. Although that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

 That said, there is a plausible case for engineering the highway to reduce danger and inconvenience for cyclists, so there is a need for engineering at particular dangerous or inconvenient locations for cyclists like large gyratory systems. Or a network of signed cycle routes. Or both. In fact, it is arguable that without doing anything special “for cyclists”, all roads should have danger to cyclists engineered out of them as much as possible as a matter of course.

 So what has happened in London?

Various plans for cycle routes were promoted by the old Greater London Council, but the first “strategic network” was planned in the 1990s, backed by organisations representing the 33 London Boroughs, and called the “London Cycle Network” (LCN), and due to be on 25% of London’s roads at some 3000 kilometres.

 When Ken Livingstone became Mayor of the new Greater London Authority, Transport for London “reconceptualised” cycling and walking and the LCN was ended, to be replaced by the “London Cycle Network Plus” (LCN+) at a somewhat reduced 900 kilometres. Thus was born the first step in ushering a less extensive engineering scheme with a more impressive name. (Of course, it can be argued that having a “cycle route network” in the first place when all roads should be properly cyclable is the first step in this process.)

 LCN+ was never finished, with some 600 kilometres completed. Why? One central reason is that if there is to be a special “route for cyclists”, space will have to be allocated to it. Either there happens to be lots of spare road space around, or else it has to come from motorised traffic. Since there has been no large scale removal of motor traffic road space, “cycle routes” dependent on this do not get completed.

 In fact, Boris Johnson refused to complete the LCN+ on the grounds that doing so would be “unpopular” – that is to say, inconvenience motorists. (To be fair to Johnson, Livingstone had not pressed Boroughs to finish the LCN+).

 This brings us to the latest step in the progress to more grandiose terminology combined with a shorter network: the Cycling Super Highways (CSHs) – now down to 250 kms by 2015, if the money does not run out.

 The Cycling Super Highways

 Under the heading “Not so Super Highways”, our colleagues at the CTC address some of the issues:
“This video of riders on trial Cycle Superhighway 7 http://www.youtube.com/user/gaz545   in London shows that simply painting a thin blue line isn’t enough. While CTC supports the approach of creating continuous routes and making the busiest roads more cycle friendly, proposals on the cycle superhighways don’t go far enough to make conditions safer and more attractive for cycling. More must be done to reduce overall levels of motor traffic or reduce speeds on the routes. You can read further comments from CTC on the superhighways in this article from yesterday’s Guardian. http://email.ctc.org.uk/a/tBL7S6QB7uaWDB8Ily4NKS87ymQ/superhigh  . ”

 Despite the CSHs being supposedly committed towards less confident cyclists, criticisms have been pouring in that they do not offer sufficient safety. This is precisely because the old bug bear of “cycle route” engineering – namely taking road space from motorised traffic – has not been dealt with, particularly at gyratory systems and other junctions. At the same time, those practitioners who have focussed on training cyclists to ride in urban traffic without relying on “cycle routes” have claimed that the positioning advised by National Standards cycle training would not be in the marked out blue lanes for much of the CSHs’ length.

 Mayor Johnson looks like getting criticism from all sides of the “cycle route” debate, with plenty of jokes about CHSs being little more than expensive blue paint. Then there is the issue of cost – possibly £150 million if all the CSHs are completed. But apart from these issues: do we seriously think that Boris’ targets are going to be significantly met by this kind of engineering on 2% of London’s roads?