Even within the context of the UK media’s famously curious protection of on a regular basis biking, this was a shock. Away from the extra acquainted tabloid cries of a “battle” over adjustments to the Freeway Code, tucked away within the sober enclave of the Occasions’s editorial pages one thing odd was occurring.
It was close to the underside of a chief column on biking {that a} paper which, lower than a decade in the past, launched essentially the most concerted and efficient media marketing campaign for secure biking seen on this nation for years, determined in impact to declare conflict on those that go for two-wheeled transport.
It was, the column famous, past doubt that drivers ought to have licences, insurance coverage and quantity plates for his or her autos. Then got here the follow-up: “Requiring the identical of cyclists is truthful.”
This was a triple-whammy, the complete bingo card, the full Littlejohn, the title that also types itself the nation’s newspaper of document formally declaring that it not needs to see cyclists on the roads.
After all, it wasn’t phrased so instantly, however in the event you argue for such measures, that’s in impact what you need. Any of these regulatory handcuffs being utilized to bikes, not to mention all three, can be so unwieldy, so counter-productive, so completely, completely pointless that just about no nation or territory has ever tried it, and the few that did usually gave up fairly rapidly.
If the UK enforced these measures absolutely and with gusto, my guess is that someplace between 50% and 75% of cycle site visitors would vanish. And sure, it is a guess. There isn’t any actual knowledge to base it on – as a result of nobody has been so silly as to strive it.
The arguments in opposition to such regulatory tangles for biking have been made many occasions earlier than and don’t want repeating in full, however let’s simply take into consideration a few the potential hiccups.
Take into account kids. Would they should take a check and have insurance coverage? In that case, from what age? Some youngsters journey on the roads, with their mother and father, once they’ve 5. Good luck giving them a a number of selection check on the Freeway Code. And if under-18s are exempt, how do you implement guidelines for youngsters? Would a 16-year-old have to hold ID when out on a motorbike to show their age?
Secondly: quantity plates for bikes. Something gentle and sufficiently small can be too small to learn past a distance of some metres. And what of individuals [holds up an apologetic hand] with a number of bikes? Would we have now to register each, or switch plates between them?
That is the purpose at which somebody normally suggests riders put on a numbered, hi-vis tabard. One each gentle sufficient to put on on a 100-mile journey in mid-summer, but in addition large enough to go over the winter coat of somebody biking to work within the snow? And that’s assuming the commuter doesn’t have a bag on his or her again.
You might go on, virtually endlessly, which is why, when requested about such concepts, UK ministers and officers, in frequent with nearly all people else who has given the thought greater than 90 seconds of thought, dismiss them.
Biking for transport is an undisputed social good – even the Occasions editorial concedes that. So why argue for all this? The Occasions, virtually insultingly, doesn’t even attempt to sq. the circle, merely saying, with none try at elaboration: “The objection that it could deter official biking will not be persuasive.”
As a substitute we get this very odd sentence: “The street community is a service obtainable to everybody, and it’s affordable to count on those that profit from it to abide by its regulation and contribute to its maintenance.”
Ignoring the mental howler of “contribute to its maintenance” – it’s embarrassing for the Occasions to have bought that one so improper – we finally come to the crux of the argument, resembling it’s: “equity”.
It’s the cry extra normally seen within the murky depths of reader feedback or the fringes of Twitter arguments: drivers face all types of rules to make use of the roads, what’s so totally different about cyclists?
One response can be: in the event you use a desk noticed and a screwdriver for a similar wood-based DIY mission, and also you don goggles, ear safety and a masks for the noticed, why don’t you for the screwdriver? That’s proper – one is notably extra harmful than the opposite.
Once more, the statistics are well-known. Of the 1,700 or so deaths and 25,000-plus critical accidents on the UK’s roads yearly, solely a handful are attributable to a bike owner hitting another person. To emphasize one more well-worn level: it’s not about morals, it’s simply physics. If I hit a pedestrian whereas doing 20mph in a Vary Rover I’d impart 25 occasions extra kinetic power than on the identical pace on my bike. When you make the speeds extra lifelike – bike at 12mph, automotive doing 30mph – then the distinction is 150 occasions.
What ought to we make of the Occasions’s sudden outbreak of idiocy? It’s arduous to know. It could be good to suppose that is the response of a dinosaur class who realise historical past is in opposition to them. However even within the context of the UK’s cursed media narrative on on a regular basis lively transport, it’s deeply miserable.
