Category Archives: Cars

What traffic policing COULD be like

My last post argues in favour of the potential benefits from traffic policing, but that – unlike the apparent bias underlying Operation Safeway – it needs to be done differently. The key point is to prioritise law and rule breaking done by those with greater potential to endanger other road users. Otherwise the bias, which is not so much against law breaking cyclists as in favour of law and rule breaking motorists, will continue. So here are some ideas: Continue reading →

Is there a police blitz on unsafe driving in London?

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Harry Venning of the Guardian’s take on the “blitz” in “Clare in the Community”

After a spate of cyclist deaths in London, cyclist safety is on the national agenda. For some, getting cyclist safety in the public eye is inherently good – we’re not so sure. The key issue is, after all, to do the right things for the safety of cyclists. Last week we were told that there is a “new zero-tolerance approach” with a “huge escalation” in policing involving “stopping lorries and cars and where there is unsafe driving they will be taken off the road.”

But is a blitz on unsafe driving – under what is called “Operation Safeway” in London – actually happening? We don’t think so. So what exactly is going on? Continue reading →

If we want safer roads for cycling we have to change how we measure road safety

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Below is the text of this article which appears in the current issue of Local Transport Today Issue 635 15 Nov 2013. Subscribers to the electronic version can also read it here Continue reading →

Hi-viz for cyclists and pedestrians: the evidence and context

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UPDATE: 24/04/2014- the scan below should now be readable! Below I post a scan of Chapter 9 from “Death on the Streets: cars and the mythology of road safety“. Since the subject of cyclist and pedestrian conspicuity has raised such interest, I took another look at the evidence for conspicuity aids such as h-viz clothing, and the context in which the advocacy of such items occurs. In the twenty years since publication, I am not aware of any fresh evidence which contradicts the conclusions to this Chapter, or the Precaution which I suggest is taken when considering advocacy of hi-viz. Continue reading →

Intellectuals’ resistance to motor danger in the first half of the 20th century in Britain

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We take a break from today’s debates to look at the response to motorisation and its attendant danger from some commentators at the time. Britain tends not have a group of people described as “intellectuals”: however celebrated and articulate people who would pass as such in any other European country existed and gave their views on road danger. Some of this work comes out in ordinary journalism – see the reports on Carlton Reid’s web site such as this others elsewhere. Here I give extracts from AP Herbert , Max Beerbohm and W.S. Gilbert (the Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan).

Max Beerbohm; W.S. Gilbert and A. P. Herbert

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Just how anti-cycling is this Government?

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We have already given first impressions on the Government response to the “Get Britain Cycling” report . After the dust has settled from the Parliamentary debate on the report, it’s time to take stock. The bitter truth is that there is a contradiction between Government pro-cycling rhetoric and what it is actually prepared to support, with fundamental ideological and institutional barriers in place to prevent genuine support for cycling. Continue reading →

All Party Parliamentary Cycling Group’s Get Britain Cycling Inquiry HM Government Response

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Out yesterday, here are some first thoughts on this Government response which you can see here. Do read the “Get Britain Cycling” report and our comments on it when it came out, The ‘Get Britain Cycling’ report’s 18 recommendations are given below. I give comments on how the Government has responded: Continue reading →

The “Get Britain Cycling” Parliamentary debate: Should anything be “done for cyclists”?

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Now that I have your attention: the clue to my question is in the quotation marks. As we line up for the September 2^nd House of Commons debate on cycling , I discuss below how the phrasing of the question tells us about many of the problems confronting cycling. Continue reading →

“Investing in Britain’s future”: The zombie arguments rise again.

“Get Britain Cycling”: Are cyclists set to win?

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Today sees the launch of the Summary and Recommendations of the “Get Britain Cycling” report. Reporting on this on the front page of The Times we see “Cyclists are set to win revolution in road safety”. Is this so? Road Danger Reduction Forum President Lord Berkeley is one of the Panel members of The Get Britain Cycling Inquiry. I have a reputation for pessimism (or as I would say, healthy scepticism) and as RDRF Chair I give a detailed analysis of the Summary and Recommendations below.

Make no mistake, along with Mayor Johnson’s “Vision for Cycling”; the production of this report is a pivotal moment for the possibility of not just cycling, but sustainable transport as a whole in Britain. So: are cyclists – and all those of us interested in the development and implementation of sustainable transport policy indeed “set to win”? Continue reading →