Fighting against the greater good.

There is a recurring theme from a small but vocal minority of cyclists. They tend to speak with great authority on their subject (for they *are* the cyclists), yet despite providing very little evidence for their cause, appear to have a disproportionate influence in the public mindset. This is business as usual for the politics of fear:

Hold on tightly to your nurse, for fear of finding something worse.

These are the anti-infrastructure cyclists, the I'm all right, Jack cyclists, the vehicular cyclists. Here is the latest crass example that seems to pass for journalism.

These are the cyclists who appear to have no real interest in increasing the safety or modal share of transport cycling. They participate in a predominately male niche activity, an exclusive club. And they'd like to keep it that way. All this nonsense about 'don't need more cycle lanes', 'Britain is not Holland' [sic] or 'we have a different culture' appears to be just a method to distract from the unfounded fear of losing their 'right to the road' or the very real fear their 'club' may not remain exclusive.

Segregation has formed the basis of every safety improvement we have made to almost every mode of transport. We segregate people from motor vehicles using pavements, bridges and underpasses, yet people have not lost the right to walk on the roads, except for motorways. Even on motorways we partially segregate HGVs from light vehicles - all in the name of safety.

We almost entirely segregate rail traffic from road traffic. Why? Well, 100+ tons of express train does not mix well with vehicles. There were seven fatalities at level crossings last year. When a tragedy occurs there are calls to remove these dangerous points of conflict. I do not hear any vehicle or train passengers calling for them to be retained. As a nation, we have invested heavily in making air, sea and rail safe.

Yet we are expected to accept that people on bicycles will mix well with fast moving 2-40 ton vehicles? We have a selfish few, claiming to represent the vulnerable, fighting against investment in safety. How absurd is that?

Let me put this very simply: 

• I can find no evidence that significant increases in safety and modal share occurs without segregated cycle provision.
• I can find plenty of evidence (from Netherlands to New York City) that segregated cycle provision significantly increases safety and modal share. 

So, if you think segregation should not be front and centre then increases in safety and modal share are clearly not your priorities. 

Footnote: Whilst we're talking about absurd arguments, I suggest anyone berating others for not wearing a helmet whilst riding a bicycle on the road should consider how effective a seat belt would be on a level crossing. Similar physics.

Bikes for Transport: Word Association

This is a follow up to my previous post about Bikes for Transport.

It's not always about the bike¹. Sometimes it's about riding the bike. Sometimes it's about the journey. Often it is about simply enjoying a shared pleasure with other people or for getting from A to B.

Entirely understandably, but sadly, nonetheless, in the UK the 'best' choice of bike for commuting is frequently in the style of a racer. We're mixing it daily with large vehicles, trying to stay safe in an environment that is designed solely for motor vehicles - we need to be fast and agile. As a result, as Councillor Deirdre Alden so eloquently put it, the perception is that cycling is dominated by white young men. Of course this isn't true. Granted, you have to be fit and confident to cycle on UK roads in rush hour but these are just the cyclists most visible to motorists.

It is this twisted perception of those decision makers, influencers and general public that we have to try to change. Play this word association game with your friends & family (and strangers in the pub). For me it went a bit like this:

1. Road/racing Bike (responses: men, lycra (always, the bloody lycra), red lights, saddle, fit, young, Wiggo, racing)
2. Mountain Bike (responses: teenage boys, dirty, baggy shorts, hills, effort, fun)
3. BMX (responses: teenagers, hoodies, caps (backwards), pavements, tricks, cool)
4. Dutch Bike (responses: ladies, commuting, healthy, comfy, practical, pretty, chic)

You can of course include other types of bike - tandem (fun), tricycle (aaaah), recumbent (what? Oh.), but the general theme is that the negatives out weigh the positives.

All except the Dutch bike provide plentiful ammunition for editors, politicians and Mr Angry from Purley to reinforce the stereotype. Yet all are perfectly valid bikes for transport and/or pleasure.

So perhaps I should have been more explicit in my previous post:

If we want to overcome some of the prejudices against (transport) cycling, we (may, sometimes) have to ride different bikes.

Stupid? Yes. Illogical? Yes. But hey, we ain't dealing with smart or logical, are we?

1. ^↩ Yes, I know this conflicts with Rule 4 but I'll take my chances.

Bikes for Transport

I tend to avoid the term 'road bike'. To me (being an old geezer), it is a 'racing bike'. Drop handlebars, head down, bum up, it's all about getting there as quickly, or perhaps as efficiently, as possible.

A 'road bike' is not really a bike that is well designed for the road. No built-in lights, mudguards, storage etc. Often accompanied by special pedals, shoes, clothes. The equivalent in motor vehicle terms would be something like this:

Not quite a racing car, street legal, but stripped to the bone. Probably comes with some H&S advice to 'wear safety equipment'. Sound familiar?

Now imagine most of the cars you saw on the road looked like (and were driven like) this? What would be your perception of car drivers? Imagine if there were hundreds, or perhaps thousands of them all out for a 'motorsportife'?

We are culturally indoctrinated to blindly accept millions of 'ordinary' cars on our roads, but how could we fail to notice these?

In order to progress cycling as transport, so eloquently advocated by Chris Boardman, we have to change public perception of the bicycle.

There will be no political will to do the best for this country until people demand it. Politicians will do nothing to risk the low hanging votes. Nothing will change until there is the political will to allocate funding. Nothing will change until we have leaders who have the best interests of the nation uppermost in their mind. We have to make that happen.

While ever cycling is regarded as a 'sport', it will be treated as such. We have to separate sport cycling from transport cycling.

We have to ride different bikes.

In Italy recently, the driving was absolutely tedious. As in the UK: zero pleasure. However, on the borrowed bike I was transformed. It was an upright, staid affair, with a basket on the front. No head down rush, just flowing. This is what transport cycling should be.

Italy: the birthplace of chic. Chic sells anything, but cycle chic is probably the most under utilized tool in the armoury of active travel advocates.

Here is the UK version of cycle chic: helmets. No, no, no, no, NO! For crying out loud! Wrong again. Go to the back of the class and hand out pencils. And make sure you do your homework properly next time.

Now let's try Copenhagen. Better. Much better. Now look at the bikes. Bikes you can ride in normal clothes. Bikes that can carry things.

This is what we need to sell.

People on bikes. Not cyclists. Just people.




Update: A follow up post after feedback on Twitter.

How to Convince a Lobbyist?

This was originally going to be a private letter, but having received 'boilerplate' responses from every politician I have contacted, I thought it would be more productive to have this kind of policy lobbying discussion in the open.

Although I have concerns about the policy being lobbied for, I have far greater concerns for how the foundations upon which that policy were built. I really need to try to understand more about the process of how that lobbying viewpoint is formed. My fervent belief is that government (and government policy) should be for the benefit of the society it serves as a whole. As they used to say: "For the greater good."

I read with interest the assertion of Mehboob Khan on Twitter:

Been convinced by the strong case for compulsory helmets & will start lobbying in my private capacity for a change in law @cyclingweekly
— mehboob khan (@cllrMehboobKhan) July 22, 2014

As I was a little late to the conversation, I went back over Mr Khan's timeline to learn more. As a result, I would dearly like to open a dialogue and possibly meet Mr Khan to try to understand how he managed to be convinced to do the wrong thing. This is important. This is not an insult. Mr Khan is clearly a smart man who has great energy and passion for his causes. I admire that. Yet, even based solely on the anecdotes he has chosen to use, I cannot, for the life of me, arrive at the same conclusion that he has.

Here is the question every helmet compulsion advocate should ask of themselves:

Would you entrust the life of your child to a cycle helmet on the roads of the United Kingdom?

If your answer is 'Yes', then you need to do a bit of research about cycle helmets. They are not motorcycle helmets and the vast majority of KSIs (Killed or Seriously Injured) of people on bicycles are not from head injuries.

If your answer is 'No', then you should devote your energy to campaigning for a solution to the cause, not attempting to stick a plaster on the symptom. Campaigning for helmet compulsion is a distraction. It does not solve the problem. It will never solve the problem. People will continue to die unless you address the root of the problem.

That's not to say you shouldn't wear a helmet if you are cycling for sport. I wear a helmet. I make my children wear a helmet (unless we're on holiday in Denmark). I usually wear a helmet when I ride on the road, but I am under no illusion. It will not protect me from an impact with 2-40 tons of vehicle at any speed. Cycling for transport is not dangerous. Being hit by people driving motor vehicles is.

There are many interesting statements from Mr Kahn's on his timeline, some of which I may address later. For now, I would like to focus on the several 'savings to the NHS' comments, as these are symptomatic of the fallacious logic in  almost every other argument put forward for helmet compulsion.

Even by TRL's flawed analysis, helmets may save just 15 lives per year. Well, that's 15 people who would be still alive, so that good isn't it? Well, no it isn't. Because along with those hypothetical 15 saved lives, are over a hundred lives will still be lost and thousands of lives will still be irrevocably changed through serious injury. Additionally, we have tens of thousand of people who die each year from polluted air in our towns and cities and tens of thousands more who die as a result of an inactive lifestyle. Many, many thousands more in both groups suffer a long slow decline, placing a huge burden on the economy and the health service.

Danish government figures show the health benefits of cycle infrastructure to be DKK 2 billion krone per year for Copenhagen residents alone. [pdf]. Yes, I had to read it again too, DKK2,000,000,000 just in Copenhagen, each and every year.

So, potentially, we could save the NHS £200 million every year for each city and large town in the UK. That has to be a greater incentive than the cost savings of (perhaps) 15 lives per year. But it gets better. With proper infrastructure, those 15 lives (and the hundred or so others) will not be lost.

There is no other national project that can give such a massive return on investment to the economy and the health of the nation than building proper cycle infrastructure.

It is an absolute no-brainer. A slam dunk. A sure thing. Yet neither side of the house has politicians with sufficient courage to do the right thing for the nation.

I hope, Mr Khan, you read this far.

I hope you seek out the wisdom of people who can give you guidance.

I hope you have the grace to acknowledge there is a far, far better solution than helmet compulsion.

I hope you have the passion to lobby our political decision makers for the courage to do the right thing for the greater good.

National Policy Statement for National Networks

My response to the National Policy Statement for National Networks:

I am responding to the consultation on the draft National Policy Statement for National Networks (NPS).
This nation does not need 40% more road capacity. There is no 'national need'.  DfTs 'forecasts' have been proven to be wrong time, after time, after time. We need courageous politicians who do what is best for the country, not simply repeat the mistakes of the past. This weak and feeble 1970s policy.
We are fighting a losing epidemic of obesity caused by unhealthy and inactive lifestyles. Encouraging yet more inactive travel is not the answer. Studies by the Danish government show that for every £1 invested in active travel (primarily cycling infrastructure), the health service will save £7. Where else can one get a 700% return on investment?
Building more roads would be a disaster for the many people who suffer from respiratory problems as a result of the current levels of air pollution from traffic, yet section 3.4 tries to limit objections based on CO2 emissions. The UK government is responsible for the long and drawn out deaths of its own citizens from air pollution but now wants to make the situation much worse. This is immoral.
I suggest you fix the appalling state of the current roads first and do what is best for all the people of this country: invest in active travel.
Because of all these grave concerns, I oppose this draft policy as it would set a disastrous course for transport in this country.             

Advocacy or Direct Action?

I read with interest the news that a national rollout of Space4Cycling was being proposed. This seemed like great news - the message is clear and concise. Yet there were some murmurs of discontent. 

Then I read with dismay the CTC support for the use of cycle funding for a 'turbo' roundabout, that really isn't cycle infrastructure at all. Their response to objections was not at all helpful - these are not idealists with keyboards, these are people trying to get about on bicycles! 

This brings to the fore the question of what actually is it we need to do in order to achieve any progress towards a more sustainable transport culture in the UK.

However, that is really the wrong question. What we should be asking is why has every single campaign for better active travel conditions in the UK failed for the last 40 years?

Advocacy is great. Every great plan needs an advocate to promote it. Particularly if it perceived as 'not how we do things'. I'd like to think I'm a cycling advocate. I tweet, I blog (a bit) and I talk to anyone who will listen about the benefits of active travel vs the detrimental impact of our car centric culture (whilst being very aware of the dangers of 'puke evangelism').

But what have I actually done? What changes are on the ground that are there because if me? Well, when it come to cycling, actually none. And I'm slightly ashamed if that.  Yes, I have a busy life, young children, trying to fit everything in and also make a living. 

It wasn't always this way. Before life was quite so family focused, I was part of a group of residents who tried to make a positive difference in our village. We were non-political bunch of people who were fed up with the main road being used as a rat-run. There were no committees (I have an aversion; too many, 'mm's, too many 'tt's and too many 'ee's) but plenty of discussion with all affected residents. It was time consuming, but allowed us to find a consensus and draft a number of letters signed by a large number of people. These letters gave the active few a degree of 'authority to speak' to Parish Council, Borough Council and most importantly, the senior surveyor of the local Highways Agency. 

To cut a long story short, I believe we made a difference. There are still too many cars, but the number of lorries has been significantly reduced (the road is now 'Unsuitable for HGVs). Although we haven't managed to reinstate the road width, it has at least stabilised for the time being, so traffic speed is not increasing.

In these pre-social media days, we took inspiration from the historic turnpike milemen. Each of us felt we had the best insight into the issues blighting our particular section of the road, simply because we were there, on site for the most time. We saw the crashes, the near misses and the dangerous driving.

Could we apply this type of localised direct action to the design and implementation of space for cycling? Small face to face meetings with decision makers resulted in change. These were almost always on site and always well prepared with support from local residents and the Parish Council. We were very diplomatic, non-political but quite insistent that residents should be prioritised over through traffic. Perhaps we were just lucky and had an understanding highways surveyor?

Cycling needs advocates, but without positive change 'on the ground' (both literally and metaphorically), we are getting nowhere. Large institutions such as CTC clearly struggle with momentum and politics. We need institutions but to have positive change, we need to be free to be able say to infrastructure designers: "Stop. This is wrong. Local people do not support this." with the evidence to back up the statement.

For positive change to happen, perhaps we need local action by local milemen, with a national (or international) network of expertise to support?

Helping out the ASA

The Advertising Standards Authority (@ASA_UK) have landed themselves in a little hot water. An adjudication of complaints against one of Cycling Scotlands misguided Niceway Code campaign videos. This particular video was actually one of the few that was not disingenuous or victim blaming, so it is somewhat ironic that the ASA decided it was 'socially irresponsible'.

However, the assessment is clearly written by a person who has little understanding of neither cycling or the Highway Code. Given that the ASA is likely to be a little busy sending out stock responses to all who have complained about the adjudication, I thought I'd save them some time by re-writing the assessment:

Assessment

Not Upheld

The ASA acknowledged that the ad was primarily encouraging motorists to take care when driving within the vicinity of cyclists. This is a good thing.

We noted that the cyclist in the final scene was not wearing a helmet or any other safety attire, and appeared to be more than 0.5 metres from the gutter. We also acknowledged that the cyclist was shown in broad daylight on a fairly large lane without any traffic.

We understand that UK law does not require cyclists to wear helmets. However, it would be detrimental to the health and well being society as a whole to attempt to enforce (by proxy) the wearing of cycle helmets by only allowing helmeted cyclists to be seen in advertisements.

We understand that drivers of motor vehicles have an extra duty of due care and attention towards vulnerable road users. Reflective clothing may provide additional visibility in the dark or in poor conditions but it does not absolve drivers of their responsibilities. This advertisement shows a clear day with exceptional visibility. 

Furthermore, the person on the bicycle is riding in a safe position that ensures she is seen by other road users and also to avoid the dangerous road surface ahead of her. This advertisement clearly condones a safe approach to cycling in an urban environment.

Drivers of motor vehicles should expect such behaviour and drive at an appropriate speed and distance from vulnerable road users to ensure their health and safety. Under the UK Highway Code, Rule 213:

Motorcyclists and cyclists may suddenly need to avoid uneven road surfaces and obstacles such as drain covers or oily, wet or icy patches on the road. Give them plenty of room and pay particular attention to any sudden change of direction they may have to make.

The driver of the overtaking vehicle should expect to have to slow down and to use the right hand lane to overtake only when it is safe to do so.

Action

None.

Update

@magnatom has written a reminder of where our focus should lie. I cannot disagree with anything he says - we must fight to get justice. However, it was a jury of our peers that found a man not guilty of anything after killing a man in broad daylight. 

These jurors are influenced by the media. Advertising is all pervasive and (deliberately) trying to influence opinion. 

The ASA judgement, if allowed to stand, will reinforce the belief that only motor vehicles have the right to be on our roads. The message could not be clearer: drivers are absolved of any responsibility towards vulnerable road users who stray into the motor domain.

The pernicious nature of this continual drip of pro-motoring, anti-cyclic rhetoric from perceived 'authorities' has a real and lasting impact on the safety and well being of vulnerable road users.

It is absolutely critical that we continue to address both the justice and the culture that shapes that justice.