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Since everyone’s favourite angry, cyclist-chasing, comically-falling motorist is doing the rounds again online (thanks to the No Context Brits Twitter account), it would be remiss of us not to feature it on the live blog:
No better way to start the day. https://t.co/2BUYRcaanC
> "Clown takes a pratfall" viral video cyclist talks to press
While British Cycling’s partnership with Shell may have produced the kind of mitigated PR disaster once confined to an episode of The Thick of It, cycling journalist and author Sophie Smith this morning lifted her head above the parapet to offer the first (at least the first that I’ve seen) attempt to provide a balanced, or at least not wholly negative or angry, take on the controversial deal:
Understand the furore around Shell sponsoring British Cycling, but there is a degree of ‘don’t hate the player, hate the game’ to it. Carbon bike frames are made from oil and no one objects to those.
The noticeable change in environment and weather at the Tour de France this year especially was terrifying. The furore is warranted and I support it. But we should equally be lobbying the likes of Shell as ruthlessly, and, dare I say, making more conscious choices at home too.
One of cycling’s biggest weaknesses is coin - or rather a lack thereof. It’s hard for a sport with a poor funding model to say no to big bucks based on ethics. Not saying it’s right, but it is - until stakeholders come up with/agree to a better business alternative - practical.
Unsurprisingly, it hasn't gone down too well:
"you use oil-based products at home so maybe think twice about objecting to @Shell sponsoring @BritishCycling"
The idea that consumers are somehow to blame, or lack ethics / morals, for multi-billion dollar company's marketing decisions gives me the ick
— Jack Thomas (@Jack_R_Thomas) October 11, 2022
@100Climbs said something similar which in fairness to him has since been taken down.
This idea that "everyone needs to do their part" is pretty futile if 90% of packaging in supermarkets is plastic, 90% of new cars are petrol / diesel, councils not offering recycling
— Jack Thomas (@Jack_R_Thomas) October 11, 2022
Technically a loud contingent of people do object to carbon frames, preferring more renewable and durable materials like steel or titanium
This feels like a big false equivalence, Sophie. Fossil fuel companies such as Shell have had a huge hand in growing and sustaining our immensely damaging car culture. That they now give a tiny amount back via this sponsorship doesn’t undo that, nor are they now on our side.
— Simon von Bromley (@simonvonbromley) October 11, 2022
People generally don’t set fire to the petrochemicals in their carbon bikes everytime they go somewhere on them.
We all want less traffic in Bath itself during the rush hours, and for that traffic to be moving. @evanrud is right: blocking roads, hoping traffic will ‘evaporate’ isn’t the way to do it.
“Boy rushed to hospital as 'pollution' brought on asthma attack” https://t.co/qfnNg1lHfS
— Bath Local Conservatives (@BathCA) October 10, 2022
Turns out British Cycling wasn’t the only organisation getting grief for its environmental position yesterday…
The Bath Conservative Association – a longstanding advocate of active travel, judging from its Twitter timeline (or maybe not) – was roundly condemned by cycling campaigners after it weighed in on the issue of congestion and pollution in the city… by claiming that the only answer is to get motor traffic “moving”.
The party association was responding to a letter in the Bath Chronicle by Evan Rudowski, a local who has lived car-free for over two decades but believes that the conversation surrounding how best to reduce car use in the city has been “poisoned” by “a small but vocal minority of ideologues who are convinced that cycling is the solution”.
In the letter, which can be read in full here, Rudowski writes:
Bath is choked with cars. Reducing car use would benefit the city greatly in terms of overall quality of life – reducing traffic, congestion, pollution and, in the long term, our collective carbon footprint.
Of course, getting rid of cars is a massive challenge and needs to be solved primarily on a societal level. But all of us are still obligated to do what we can locally, and personally. In my family’s case, we’ve chosen to live a car-free life for the past 24 years. We’ve made deliberate choices to achieve this, in terms of where we live, work and go to school…
Unfortunately, the conversation regarding how best to reduce car use has been poisoned in Bath, and more broadly, by a small but vocal minority of ideologues who are convinced that cycling is the solution.
They argue that closing certain roads to car traffic, thus making it less convenient to drive but more friendly for cyclists, will hasten the shift to different modes of transport. Such schemes are referred to as low-traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs) or active travel or, sometimes, Liveable Neighbourhoods. They are not so much intended to improve things immediately, but rather to help us achieve net zero carbon in the future.
Living alongside the A36 as my family does, no one would like to see car traffic reduced more than we would. The frequently poor air quality we suffer here, and that all of Bath suffers from regularly, has had real health impacts. My oldest child uses an inhaler. I’ll never forget the night I had to rush him to the RUH with breathing difficulties. But low-traffic neighbourhoods are not the answer.
Yes, LTNs make some people’s streets very pleasant, reducing through traffic on those streets while still enabling those residents to keep their own cars and drive in and out or receive deliveries however they please. How nice for them.
But the traffic, congestion and resulting air pollution moved off those privileged streets has to go somewhere. Where? Onto main roads where many more residents live, work and go to school. Neighbourhoods such as Bathwick, where I live, already have enormous amounts of through traffic but relatively low car ownership. It’s unfair, impractical and self-defeating to push more traffic onto our main roads.
Praising Rudowski’s letter, which also called for the introduction of a Clean Air Charging Zone, a workplace parking levy and increased spending on public transport in place of the more “extreme” LTN measures, the Bath Conservatives wrote: “We all want less traffic in Bath itself during the rush hours, and for that traffic to be moving. [Rudowski] is right: blocking roads, hoping traffic will ‘evaporate’ isn’t the way to do it.”
Unsurprisingly, many on Twitter, for some reason, disagreed with the apparent sentiment that increasing car usage would reduce pollution:
Is this a parody account? https://t.co/VOfzEaWiPZ
Sorry if I’m being dense, but isn’t “getting traffic moving” a recipe for more traffic, not less?
Do you actually read and think about your own tweets? Someone is a victim of traffic pollution and you use that to justify the free movement of cars? Take a good look at yourself.
Call me fixated, but I still can’t shift the idea from my head that it’s the motor vehicles that are creating the pollution. If only there were more space-efficient, less expensive, less polluting alternatives to motor cars. https://t.co/MxRGHVTfc5
— Tim on two wheels (@2wheelsgoodBrum) October 11, 2022
As an asthmatic myself, I would appreciate you not appropriating my condition to further your misplaced cause. As transport preference is clearly the issue here, you should be encouraging motorists to adopt other forms of transport to get from A to B to protect my lungs.
It's been proven time and time again. Increases in road capacity are absorbed by more traffic. "Induced demand".
And it works the other way too. Removing capacity and the trips reduce. Traffic ends up reverting to similar levels... Just with less pollution.
And no better way to illustrate that than the single occupancy SUV that is seen in this picture
The only way to reduce pollution is to move people from driving to public transport, walking, and cycling. Making traffic flow more freely just generates more traffic and more pollution.
Built many new roads in my life, as a highway engineer of 20 years. I can go back to any road I've been involved in and it will be most congested and most polluted part of that area.Restricting traffic in urban areas only way to resolve air pollution.More capacity=more pollution
Gardaí have launched an investigation following a hit-and-run incident in Dublin over the weekend, in which a motorist deliberately struck a cyclist from behind as one of the car’s passengers filmed the collision on their phone.
Sticky Bottle reports that the victim was cycling just outside Dublin Airport on Saturday morning when he was hit by the motorist, leaving him with what the police have described as “non-life threatening” injuries.
The footage, which was posted online and has been shared widely on social media, shows the driver gaining on the cyclist as a passenger is heard to say: “Here we go, watch, watch, watch”.
A bang follows as the driver ploughs into the unsuspecting cyclist, before someone says, “Gone, go, we’re gone”.
According to Irishcycle.com, the TikTok account responsible for posting the footage of the sickening collision online also features a video of a motorist driving erratically on a Dublin road, running red lights, using the bus lane and weaving between cars.
“Gardaí are investigating a road traffic collision involving a cyclist and car that occurred on the Naul Road, Ballymun, at approximately 7:45am yesterday morning, Saturday, October 8th,” a police spokesperson said.
“The cyclist, a man in his 20s, was taken to Beaumount Hospital to be treated for his injuries which are non-life threatening. Investigations are ongoing.”
Ryan joined road.cc as a news writer in December 2021. He has written about cycling and some ball-centric sports for various websites, newspapers, magazines and radio. Before returning to writing about cycling full-time, he completed a PhD in History and published a book and numerous academic articles on religion and politics in Victorian Britain and Ireland (though he remained committed to boring his university colleagues and students with endless cycling trivia). He can be found riding his bike very slowly through the Dromara Hills of Co. Down.
Those takes are all over the place and I can only assume they are not genuine arguments. Nobody could reasonably do those kind of mental gymnastics...
On the other hand, I am willing to help you with your research to the extent of providing a link to my report on York & North Yorkshire's...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15309357
No, not at all. I just meant that they are on the CUK/BC leash and therefore slightly less likely to be ambulance chasers.
10 minute warm-up just to calibrate before every session? I'm out.
The two right handers before the long drag could be the location possibly.
I cancelled my BC membership last year to join CUK (I still think of them as the CTC) because of their campaigning. From their website ...
I know it rained here in the East yesterday morning, so maybe the roads werent as grippy, but I'm lost at how a car ends up there on that corner,...
a 9-42 cassette and you didn't find you were nbtween gears due to the gaps? Ok if true but I find that very hard to believe!...
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