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OPINION
Iain Duncan Smith's anti-cycling crusade is anti-reality
Mon, Oct 14, 2024 18:02
19
Iain Duncan Smith (parliamentary portrait) and cyclists at lights (Simon MacMichael)Iain Duncan Smith, a man who has had to deny responsibility for the deaths of thousands and suffering of millions of benefits claimants whilst he was in charge of the benefits system, has found himself a new target: cyclists.
This started in the final days of the previous government when Iain was desperately searching for some kind of culture war issue, and he seems to be at it again, penning an article in the Telegraph that is once again attempting to spread hatred about cyclists.
> Cyclists "horrified" by Iain Duncan Smith's Telegraph column
The article has what might be considered a reasonable headline at first glance: 'Dangerous cyclists should be driven off our roads'.
However, the true purpose is clear from the first sentence: "In Denbighshire a few days ago a two-year-old child was knocked down on the pavement by a cyclist on an e-bike."
The reality is that a two-year-old was hit by a 65-year-old woman, in a park, not a pavement. The mother of the child has even been quoted saying: "I understand it was an accident, and it wasn’t the cyclist’s intention - it was just a case of ‘wrong place, wrong time’’.
The police have even said that no crime was committed. After all, it is not illegal to ride a bike in a park, and I don’t think any sane person would claim it is.
Iain won’t let some good old reality get in the way of a culture war though, ploughing on with ill-informed opinions:
“Only a few months ago I had amended the Conservative government’s Criminal Justice Bill to bring cyclists on the road network under the law.”
Let’s break this down. Iain thinks that an accident in a park would be solved by a law to ‘bring cyclists on the road network under the law’...
This is indicative of the wider challenges that cycling has in that the voices against it are often louder (and more ignorant) than the voices for it. Iain joins broadcasters Mike Graham and Julia Hartley-Brewer in firstly identifying cyclists as a problem, then offering nonsensical solutions to that problem.
Throughout this article, there is a litany of facts that are wrong, unsourced, or manipulated to suit his narrative, so anybody reading this would consider it to be reasonable because it doesn’t overtly call for the chemical castration of every cyclist in the UK.
He claims: “The problem is getting worse.
"The number of pedestrians hit by cyclists has increased by a third since 2020. In 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available, there were 462 collisions and those were only the ones that were reported to the police.”
Four years seems like an odd timeframe to compare data, right? I wonder what would have happened to the data in 2020 that would have seen the number of accidents be so much lower? Only something like everybody staying indoors for most of the year could cause anomalous data like that...
There is even this bizarre paragraph: “Sadly, there are some who persist in claiming absurdly that if such restrictions were put in place, cyclists would stop riding bikes, which apparently trumps road safety. Riding safely within the law isn’t a threat to cycling, it is only a threat to those determined to ride unsafely.”
If this is such an absurd thing to claim, then why has Iain been unable to explain why it is absurd? Instead, he makes the same argument that any faux-intellectual makes about a bad piece of legislation: ‘It’s only bad for people who break the law'.
That kind of sums up this article really, it is a poorly researched, awfully written, and totally misleading piece of anti-cyclist propaganda. It is a faux-intellectual moral crusade by a man who tries to claim the moral high ground, despite many legitimately questioning whether his track record suggests he has any morals at all.
George is the host of the road.cc podcast and has been writing for road.cc since 2014. He has reviewed everything from a saddle with a shark fin through to a set of glasses with a HUD and everything in between.
Although, ironically, spending more time writing and talking about cycling than on the bike nowadays, he still manages to do a couple of decent rides every week on his ever changing number of bikes.
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19 comments
He's not known for telling the truth or accuracy.
It is a faux-intellectual moral crusade by a man who tries to claim the moral high ground, despite many legitimately questioning whether his track record suggests he has any morals at all.
This, a thousand times this.
It is obvious that to become a tory, you have to have your morals surgically excised, and all the mirrors in your house removed so you never have to look yourself in the eyes.
Being anti-reality hasn't stopped a politician yet.
There's already laws in place for cyclists. Just the same as there is for vehicles. Dangerous driving and driving without due care, there is dangerous cycling and cycling without due care. I think the real issue here is enforcement. There's not the resources to enforce these laws - and this comes squarely back to the Conservatives
The level of enforcement has been low no matter what the government in the UK.
We do rely heavily on people being largely honest and obeying the spirit if not the absolute letter of the law.
To want total enforcement is like asking for 1984 to be your political manifesto.
Yes and no.
Yes needs mostly self-enforcing *.
BUT ... UK is incredibly light on enforcement (indeed several offenses are de-facto or explicitly decriminalised). And we have had a dip in numbers of police per head of population.
I've no idea of the numbers but I imagine it's something like ... say it takes a 10% chance of getting caught (never mind punished) to really change behaviour but policing at that level would be cost-prohibitative / have lots of side effects. However there is a noticable effect on behaviour at 1% chance and that might be achievable with (expensive) boosting the police and tech. Meanwhile the UK is currently at 0.01% chance of detection or below for much road crime (or indeed definitively zero for certain offenses).
* There are several things which could contribute. However some of these are "chicken and egg" to start with:
- A more subtle version of "safety in numbers" e.g. if there are cyclists everywhere drivers will expect them and understand them. But this is made much more salient (with emotion) if they include a driver's family and friends!
- The Dutch use of "sustainable safety" principles. Infra (not just for bikes) which pre-emptively prevents some ways of going wrong, is "forgiving" e.g. warns / guides you if you make a mistake - like rumble-strips - and mitigates the consequences possible failures - think energy absorbing crash barriers. Designs which acknowledge human nature (people are lazy, get impatient) and try to work with that. The minimum of different types of designs which are really clear so everyone knows what to expect / what they should be doing.
Ian Duncan Smith would do well to look at the DfT's extensive data on road crashes. It is very clear what category of road user causes the vast majority of deaths and serious injuries on UK roads. It isn't cyclists or pedestrians or motorcyclists or scooter riders.
Is it relevant who causes the most?
Should a group of people not be included in legislation governing assault because they only do it once every other year? Or worse rely on legislation written in The Textus Roffensis.
It is relevant when lots of people are dying from the most common cause and yet traffic policing appears insufficient. Why focus your efforts on the group that will provide the least benefit in terms of safety? It'd be like going to a GP and they focus on an ingrowing toenail and ignore the broken leg.
However, the laws governing cyclists do appear to be sufficient and the few cycling cases (that get immense exposure from the MSM) tend to end up with harsh penalties compared to similar driving cases.
It's clear that the danger on the roads comes from one place only. Drivers are seemingly incapable of following even the most basic rules of driving, such as rule 180 in the Highway Code, which states 'Do not cut the corner'. Every single driver cuts the corner.
If they can't even get this stuff right, how can they be trusted with the more difficult rules such as what the traffic lights mean?
"Every single driver" is as unhelpful as "all cyclists". I make a point of not cutting corners when in my car, and also position my car to prevent others from doing so. OK, I am a cyclist, who like most cyclists drive a car. But to say all drivers cut corners is just not true.
Sure. I was just a bit annoyed earlier as on a five minute cycle back from dropping my daughter at school I had to take evasive action to avoid a collision with a car.
It was certainly every single driver at the junction where we were waiting to cross the road on the way into school.
It is of course not true to say 100% of drivers cut corners. However I think it would be true to say that when turning right at T junctions, coming from a straight road, 99.9% don't observe the road markings unless there is another vehicle emerging that forces them to do so (unfortunately this usually has to be a motor-vehicle, the presence of an approaching cyclist doesn't seem to deter them at all).
Not every driver, I don't because I've been on the receiving end too many times.
There is one junction at the start of a ride where it is rar for someone to take the corner correctly.
The other stupidity I find is so many people turning right out of a side road and turning their wheels immediately, thereby driving on the wrong side of the road at oncoming traffic. What happened to turning just before halfway ?
I would have a slightly different take on this. No-one (or at least very few people) are claiming that the existence of such a law would put people off cycling - that's a bit of a straw man. Some people are (justifiably) concerned that cyclists would be treated far more harshly by the justice system than drivers of motor vehicles in similar circumstances under such laws.
What people are actually saying is that such a law would not make the slightest bit of difference to road safety so it is a complete waste of parliamentary time, and a distraction from the largest cause of collisions, injuries and deaths (i.e. drivers of motor vehicles).
What does put people off cycling is the anti-cycling rhetoric that IDS and others are spouting, which "others" cyclists and, I have no doubt, contributes to deliberate acts of violence against cyclists we have seen (e.g. https://road.cc/content/news/cyclist-breaks-arm-after-car-passenger-shov... and countless punishment passes featured on NMotD).
Who would have guessed that a member of the Tory death cultists would be spreading lies, hate and fear?
If this idiot was spouting this same type of nonsense about Jews or Muslims or black people or those with disabilities etc, he would quite rightly find the Police knocking on his door.
It is time such ramblings were considered a hate crime, because that is exactly what they are and all minority groups like cyclists should be covered under the equalities act.
Irritable Duncan Syndrome is just a guy desperately looking for significance and will do anything to get the spotlight, even at the expense of vulnerable people.
Quite sad really, but unfortunately this is the world we live in and all we can do is deal with it as best we can.
'Dangerous cyclists should be driven off our roads'
Where to Iain - onto the pavements ?
There's a lot of aggression and subtle (and quite often not quite so subtle) intimidation of cyclists with the sole intention of "driving them off the roads" without an idiot like IDS (Incredibly Dangerous Scumbag) adding petrol to the fire.
Because if they're dangerous they might make motor vehicle occupants fearful?