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James May (CC BY-SA 2.0 licence by Airwolfhound:Flickr)Top Gear's James May hits out at "complete bollocks" bike lanes and the myth of 'road tax'
In an interview giving his support for The Times Cities fit for cycling campaign, Top Gear presenter James May has slammed the poor quality of many bike lanes, demolished the idea that 'road tax' gives drivers more rights on the streets and called for an end to "road sectarianism".
“I’m all for bicycles in cities,” May told The Times' Kaya Burgess. “We use bicycles to go around locally and also for fun occasionally. Typically, our bike rides would be three or four miles. I go to the shops on it.”
May owns three bikes, and has been riding since the age of three. He said he supported the Commons transport committee recent call for the government to spend £600 million a year on cycling.
"I think that is fair enough,” he said
He added, however, that many cycle lanes found on roads were “complete bollocks” and created confusion rather than improved safety. Urban planners should spend more time riding bikes to understand what was needed, he said.
May also came out in support of segregated cycle lanes on roads.
He said: “That would take a lot of brains and thought, but it is an essentially good idea.
“Cycling is becoming more popular in London, there are a lot of bikes and people are starting to recognise that they need to be accommodated.
“There are so many more bicycles now than there were, say, a decade ago, that people notice them and subconsciously we are modifying the way we drive around town.
“There are people who talk about wanting to make safety clothing mandatory, road tax for bicycles, registering them and insuring them,” he added. “I think all that stuff is utter nonsense. The whole point of the bike is that you get on it and you ride it and you can ride it when you’re a kid or when you’re absolutely flat broke and it’s so agile.”
And speaking of road tax, May clearly understands that it doesn't afford drivers any extra rights, and, indeed, isn't a road tax at all.
"The roads belong to everybody,” he said. “That old argument that ‘I pay road tax and the bicycle doesn’t’ often isn’t true. In any case, roads are funded centrally so the tax [from Vehicle Excise Duty] doesn’t actually go on roads, so no one has a greater right to the road than anybody else, that’s nonsense.”
While he supports better cycling facilities, May thinks the curent situation could be helped if we all just got along better.
“We need to get rid of road sectarianism,” he said. “Car drivers supposedly hate cyclists, cyclists hate taxi drivers, taxi drivers hate motorcyclists, bus drivers hate lorries. I just think if everybody was a little bit more pragmatic, that would do more for safety.”
He added that cyclists should look for quiet backstreet routes to avoid dangerous roads and suggested that it was reasonable for cyclists to ride “slowly and carefully” on wide pavements.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
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53 comments
Oddly, I have just watched a program presented by James May where he pulls the small car that he was driving over to let a lorry past, talking the whole time about how terrifying the experience of driving this little motor was. It just made me wonder how he was avoiding such situations on his bikes.
I'm grateful to hear that a top tier celeb is publicly advocating more, professionally designed and segregated cycle paths.
Especially one whose career is so obviously linked to "car culture".
Mutual respect. That's all.
I am pleased to hear a voice of common sensewe need to learn to understand and accept each other. We have one world to live in with conflict going on all around.
If a journey takes a moment or two longer, or you pull over and wave a driver through what is the big deal.
Try being thoughtful. It feels good and those who benefit feel good Too.
Well done James. I think his sentiment matches mine.
looks like some people have had a humour bypass and can't tell the difference between jokey banter and serious social commentary.
It reminds me so much of the very earnest people that called Warren Mitchell a racist for playing the character Alf Garnett. There was Warren doing his damnedest to send up the idiocy of racists via the comedic utterances of Alf and some people just didn't get it.
If you really want to see the piss ripped out of cyclists try reading "the rules."
http://www.velominati.com/the-rules/
What? I've been taking those pretty seriously. Are you trying to tell me that it's actually OK to carry more than a litre of water on a long ride and to have a cup of coffee big enough to warm you up a bit on a cold day?
This is a lifechanging revelation!
May needs to get his hair cut. He'd look well smart without that ridiculous birds nest on his head.
I wonder if it will make a difference to top gear fans... Err
A good way of getting at the "I pay a tax" bollocks is to show how motoring has been getting cheaper despite the massive external costs 9as economists call them) of motoring http://rdrf.org.uk/2014/07/02/the-scandal-of-cheaper-motoring-yes-it-has...
So, motorists do not "pay their way" compared to cyclists. Will May or others take that up?
I doubt it.
Interesting reading but doesn't really counter the 'road tax' argument put forward by motorists with an exagerated sense of entitlement. The comparisons made are with public transport, there are no details of the comparitive cost of cycling so it's only relevant in a 'bikes vs cars' comparison if we are looking specifically at multi-modal journeys that include cycling. I agree that motorists get a good deal when we consider the damage to roads and polution that they are responsible for but cyclists don't do so badly in the value-for-money stakes either.
In absolute terms motorists do pay a certain amount of tax and duty that cyclists don't and this is the reason for the sense of entitlement that many drivers have. Most will not consider what they get for their money and be able to rationalise this in the context of comparison to the contributions from cyclists.
The real scandal is the high cost of public transport.
Good points Matt,
The point can be countered however by the fact that most adult cyclists are also motorists and therefore pay those taxes you refer to.
Additionally the average income of adult cyclists is higher than average income of non-cyclists so the cyclists also pay more income tax, spend more moneyand pay more VAT on the stuff they buy (except those who squirrel it away and pay more tax on their investment).
In short the counter arguments are:
The average adult cyclist pays more tax in total than the average non-cycling motorist.
Roads are a facility for all including those who pay no tax at all.
Payment of any tax does not confer any entitlement.
You couldn't be more right, and that's even before we consider how cyclists have a lower burden on the state. We're healthier, happier and more productive. We don't contribute to air polution and the associated fines for missing EU targets and any damage that bikes do to our roads pales into insignificance when compared to that caused by motor vehicles.
As I'm sure you do, I use these points when talking to friends and family about these things but I do find that they tend to glaze over a bit when I get into the detail. I'll keep trying though
Well you just fell straight into the trap. There is no such thing as "Road Tax" It was abolished in 1937. Roads are paid for from general taxation. Most adult cyclists aare also motorists so they pay the Vehicle Excise Duty as well even if they are not driving the vehicle.
I have only had such an argument with a van driver once. At lights. Having told him the above I then mentioned that I probably paid a hell of a lot more tax than he did not least on the three cars I own and pay the VED for.
Although the comments are welcome It would be nice if those sentiments were expressed in a motoring magazine or on Top Gear itself rather than an article whose readership would probably be cyclists anyway.
I'm not sure that I'd consider The Times as a publication with a majority cyclist following (probably more motorists if anything) but you're right - it's rather a case of preaching to the converted.
Trouble is, that's how the media works. It provides content that is interesting an acceptable to it's audience and doesn't challenge their beliefs of opinions too much. Such an article couldn't appear in the Daily Mail; it would be far too challenging for the bulk of it's readership.
And that's why the top gear piece wasn't the pro-cycling propaganda people on here want it to be.
That doesn't mean such pieces aren't useful though. Face it: most people don't really care much one way or the other. You just have to be smart. If you go in telling them how stupid they are to want cyclists to have insurance etc, they'll dislike you - because you're telling them they're stupid and that's more important to them than being right.
Tell them "interesting, but maybe doing [cycle friendly thing here] would actually make your life better"? They'll listen. That's what mr may is talking about - nobody benefits from councils putting in crap bike lanes.
People don't always need to choose between eating their cake and having it.
WHAT"S THIS. Top Gear presenter talking sense!!!!!!
Chapeau Mr May.
It's great to hear possitive noises from someone considered part of the motoring fraternity but there are a coulple of points that I'm not so sure about.
“I’m all for bicycles in cities” - maybe this quote is out of context but what about bicycles outside of the city? Are rural roads the preserve of the motor car?
'He added that cyclists should look for quiet backstreet routes to avoid dangerous roads and suggested that it was reasonable for cyclists to ride “slowly and carefully” on wide pavements' - wrong on both counts. Cyclists should be able to use the most direct and efficient route to their destination and do so safely. Sending bikes round the long way is one of the biggest problems with current infrastructure. I'm personally pretty tollerant of pavement cyclists however it's become an excuse for a lack of provision and good design, epitomised by the proliferation of shared use paths that used to be footways.
I like James May as a presenter and am not surprised at this pro-cycling message. I'm being a bit picky I'll admit but these points in particular read almost like they have been lifted from a TfL leaflet about cycling. Maybe they just reflect his personal predudices based on the way that he uses a bike which, quite reasonably, involves short journeys around town on quiet back-streets by the sound of things.
James May is 100% correct. I cycled 15000km last year.
When is something going to be done about this, all the talk is just annoying. We all know what needs to be done. The question is, when is someone going to do it? It's not as if we don't have examples of how things could be done. We are not in pioneer territory here.
If kids could ride to school, there would be less traffic and no obesity problem.
Who doesn't want less pollution and less congestion? For London specifically, the next mayor should be elected on a promise to provide better cycing infrastructure. Why not just divert all the money from the congestion charge to creating better cycling infrastructure...
A friend came to visit from overseas and wanted to visit London. The joke was, 'Ah UK, great past, but no future'. I reacted, "Come on, that's a bit harsh". In hindsight it was probably spot on. Whilst we have these idiots in power, nothing will change.
Cycling makes you feel positive. Imagine all the positivity if half of the population cycled on roads made for cycling. You'd be able to run the economy on that much positive energy.
Rant over.
But James May's Toy Stories was very good.
I like choo-choo puffers.
Similar to koorby I recently spent 3 weeks in Sweden and Denmark. Bikes everywhere in the cities. In Copenhagen there wes road for cars, cycle path and pedestrian walkway parallel to one another. Each kept to there own lane.
In the UK the non road sections people walking will walk where they like - almost picking the cycle lane as default where I am!
Councils do need to start sweeping cycle paths where they run along side a main road. So much rubbish ends up on the cycle path leading to punctures and a poor surface and cyclists end up on the road.
We all need to get along though.
We've been saying this in the UK for the past 40 years - and May says it above - and where has it got us?
The problem we have now is that the 'shared use' solution to UK cycling infrastructure, currently highly favoured by LAs who persist in creating it inadequately and to wildly different standards, rather than helping us all get along, generates enormous conflicts between vulnerable and other road users as well as the tiresome tit-for-tat debate we're all fed up with.
As you yourself also said, with clearly demarcated and properly designed infrastructure for each kind of user, you naturally gravitate to whichever best suits your journey, so positioning yourself to avoid conflict with other types of road user is easy and becomes second nature.
Spent four days riding in Holland recently, in Amsterdam, Haarlem and Sandvoort. Pure bliss, top-notch infrastructure and utter respect from motorists.
By comparison the UK is still in the dark ages. I'm in the Portsmouth area and what little bikes paths there are, aren't fit for purpose, full of potholes, not weeded by the council and generally a mockery to cyclists.
The government needs to create a "work for the dole" scheme where every bloke on the social nationally is put to work making bike lames and paths; solve two massive problems in one go.
So when does the new series start then?
Well said Mr May.
Can't argue with that. In the words of someone smarter than me whose identity currently escapes me, "painting the roads does not constitute a cycling infrastructure".
(might have been Jon Snow??)
The only 'quiet backstreet routes' in London are the ones that have been deliberately blocked to stop rat-running. This needs to be done on a much larger scale, most residential roads do not need to be through-routes. Drivers simply don't respect 20mph zones. Even with speed bumps and giant 20mph lettering on the road, drivers still piss about trying to over-take when I'm doing 20mph down the 'quiet backstreet'.
Other than that, it's nice too hear a top gear presenter talking good sense.
We live on a 20mph road, and are used to hearing cars driving too quickly along here (raising a wry smile when they bang the exhaust bouncing over the speed bumps), but I find crazy the guy that comes belting along here in his people carrier, dodging the kids playing football, then pulls up across the street at his house and lets his little boy out who then joins the kids playing!
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