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news
Viral video debated on Jeremy Vine show (screenshot Twitter video/ @azb2019)"Should not be on the public highway riding a bike": Conservative politician weighs in on viral clip of driver refusing to stop for child
A second Conservative politician has spoken out about the viral video which has been doing the rounds on Twitter and shows a motorist driving past a five-year-old cyclist within touching distance.
How can we expect parents to let their kids ride to school if this is how their neighbours drive towards them? He's five by the way and this is 100m from his home. @theJeremyVine @MikeyCycling @TheWarOnCars @London_Cycling @KingstonCycling @markandcharlie @cyclegaz pic.twitter.com/TPoqThXmiG
— AZB (@azb2019) November 4, 2022
Just as Tory peer Baroness Foster did yesterday, Susan Hall — the leader of the Greater London Assembly Conservatives and chair of the Police and Crime Committee — argued the child should not have been cycling on the road in the first place.
Responding to a Jeremy Vine tweet suggesting anyone who does not think "the driver must go dead slow, or stop" should "cut up their driving licence and send the pieces back to the DVLA", Hall argued: "Surely the issue here is that a 5-year-old should not be on the public highway riding a bike!"
Surely the issue here is that a 5 year old should not be on the public highway riding a bike! https://t.co/jxyjcuXdvh
— Susan Hall AM (@Councillorsuzie) November 8, 2022
Then responding to a replier who pointed out the footway is part of the public highway, Hall doubled down, saying the child should cycle "slowly on the footway, or preferably in the park".
"I'm amazed however that given road behaviour by all that you find it acceptable for a five-year-old to be on a bike in the road," she responded to another before writing another reply saying the "worry" is children are "generally so small [...] they might not always be seen".
Conservative peer Baroness Foster — appointed to the House of Lords by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson in December 2020 — yesterday argued similar, writing: "A child that small should not be cycling on a road! A completely irresponsible decision along with your comments that put the entire onus on the car drivers if/when something goes horribly wrong!"
After the video went viral on Twitter, racking up 2.3 million views and more than 9,000 replies since Friday, the father of the child appeared on Jeremy Vine's Channel 5 show during a segment titled 'Cycling row: Who's in the wrong?' where Vine and journalist Mike Parry criticised the driving.
Ashley, the father, told the show "the facts are clear on this one — the driver was wrong and my son has every right to ride on the road."
He added that it would be "factually wrong" for anyone to claim the driver did not put the young cyclist at risk.
Panel guest Parry agreed, saying the debate about whether the child should have been cycling on the road is "utterly irrelevant".
"Surely human compassion, surely human nature says that if you're driving a car at speed and there's a little child coming the other way your instinct should be the protective nature of an adult in a car over a child," he told Vine.
"There's no argument there. Every time I see this I flinch, I get a shiver down my back [...] I don't know whether the child should have been there or not, that's a separate scientific argument on roadcraft and all that... but when you see a child on a bike, a little five-year-old coming towards you, you pull in just to make absolutely sure no harm is going to come to the child. It's natural instincts."
"He's certainly riding competently and with confidence"
In response to a question from the Sunday Times Driving, Tim Shallcross of IAM Roadsmart said: "There is no minimum age limit for cycling on a road; the lad is a little younger than most cycling organisations recommend to be on a road, but he's certainly riding competently and with confidence and under supervision, so no problem there."
He also pointed to Rule H3 of the Highway Code, referencing the 'hierarchy of road users', which tells drivers to "stop and wait for a safe gap in the flow of cyclists if necessary".
"Highway Code guidance is for cars to give 1.5m clearance to cyclists in 30mph limit, and since the cyclist was already passing parked vehicles and there was clearly not room for 1.5m clearance, the car should have waited until the cyclist was clear before carrying on," he concluded.
Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.
Latest Comments
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Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
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83 comments
I honestly don't know why this is being debated in favour of the driver. Some replies in the twitter thread backing up the cyclist below:
https://twitter.com/SurreyRoadCops/status/1588887395831009280
https://twitter.com/markandcharlie/status/1588459706137579521
(from traffic cops)
A point brought up in the first link echoes my thinking - if the driver had done that on a driving test, they would have failed.
I was looking at the road hierarchy picture and was thinking that the horse-riders and cyclists should be swapped around and then saw that there was already a reply agreeing. When cycling, I'd give priority to horse-riders every time.
The pavements are really safe for peds and children in pushchairs.
No doubt if in Norwich and you tried to stop the driver, the police would intervene and claim you were obstructing.
https://mobile.twitter.com/azb2019/status/1590455020360994817
A second topic over the same video and we are still missing the point, that people when have to think fast and in unusual situations, will make errors. The solution is simple, think and built in advance. This is not a speeding 18year old driver with a black tinted 20year old hatchback, seems more like an average joe judging from his speed before and his car.
The point is that we have a road with scarsely cars parked left and other right. I think there is enough space for a 2m cycleway and enough space for all cars to be parked. Simple as that.
I cannot estimate ages good, but if he is indeed is five years old, I would never ride with him on the main road. The footpath would be perfect. I can undestand that people will have to put law in front and say "this is my right" but we have to always think of our safety first for any given context. Risking of becoming a martyr to defend your rights is not good, even more when it is your son's life .
Doesn't fit our "I'm a great driver! I passed my test 30 years ago!" narrative. Whereas authorities for all other transport modes (Civil aviation authority, MCA etc) recognise that even in the professional sphere with much more training, regular recertification etc. humans will still make mistakes. And the more you can engineer things beforehand to make decisions simpler / give people more time and space to make them, the safer.
Strangely this is the approach taken to "road safety" by the place which has the highest proportion of journeys cycled and is the safest for pedestrians. (It's pretty good for drivers also.) Still, not invented here...
Every day, I'm becoming more and more astounded how, despite just about everybody having 24 hour instant access to any information they desire, by way of a small device that fits in their pocket - so many people simply don't know anything (but profess to be experts on everything)
https://tenor.com/Tbz9.gif
Can we stop peddling this 1.5m nonsense please?
Rule 163 states: "give way to oncoming vehicles before passing parked vehicles or other obstructions on your side of the road"
The driver should not have proceeded at all with another vehicle oncoming. They should have given way to the oncoming vehicle. The fact that the vehicle was a bicycle is utterly immaterial.
And while I'm here, this talk of roads being for cars is laughable. Roads have been around for about 4000 years. Bicycles have been around for longer than cars, and widespread car ownership is a relatively new thing. To anyone who thinks that roads are for cars: keep your trap shut and go read a book or two.
Roads are for everyone, but as I'm sure you're aware road users should have a high degree of competence before they commit to an activity which can be risky to the untrained.
I wouldn't put a 5 year old cyclist who is clearly wobbly on the road any more than I would pop him on a specially adapted driving seat and expect him to drive a car safely.
On Rule 163, it does not apply here as there was plenty of space for both sets of vehicles to pass slowly and safely. The driver was perfectly entitled to drive past as videoed, and isn't legally in the wrong. However, if I was driving the car, I would have paused to let the child past, regardless of entitlement and his father's parental incompetence and error of judgement .
UK law only requires a high degree of competence for a subset of vehicle users. That is drivers of MOTOR vehicles. That competence is ostensibly achieved through testing and licensing. The reason why motor vehicle users require such a high degree of competence to use the roads is because of the level of risk associated with the use of those vehicles. The risk is caused by the motor vehicles and is greatly exacerbated by low competence amongst the licensed road users. A 5 year old on a bicycle is not a significant cause of risk and therefore they are not required to be licensed and are not legally required to be competent.
Rule 163 does apply here. The car driver pulled out round parked cars with not one but two vehicles oncoming. They most certainly were oncoming, regardless of whether you or the driver in the clip thinks they can just squuuuuuueeeeeeeeeze through. Time 163 does not say "keep going as long as you can squuuuuuueeeeeeeeeze through", it clearly says "give way".
Absolute drivel. Rule 163 is for overtaking and has nothing to do with this incident. The 1.5 meter rule and 163 generally does not apply here. There was enough room for the vehicles to pass safely and I stand by my first comment.
It's always nice to see someone taking the time to properly title their post, thank you.
I'm replying to this not really for Rakia's benefit - I realise that they are a troll, idiot, or both - but rather for the benefit of others who might otherwise believe Rakia's nonsense.
Rule 163 says: "give way to oncoming vehicles before passing parked vehicles or other obstructions on your side of the road"
It expressly and specifically includes exactly the scenario shown in the video.
It is my understanding that passing parked cars is considered a type of overtaking (hence why the above text is included in rule 163), and that is why the 1.5m is brought up. My original point though is that leaving 1.5m does not magically make the manoeuvre safe, and the highway code specifically states to "give way".
I'm not really posting this for your benefit, as I know you will continue to argue "black is white", but for people who might be suckered in your falsehoods.
Rule 163 refers to overtaking parked cars. You cannot "overtake" someone who is going in completely the opposite direction as you. A child knows this.
If you pass someone going in the opposite direction, you are not overtaking them. You are passing them in the opposite direction. This is a deliberate misuse and abuse of rule 163.
If you paused to think logically for a second, you would realise that makes perfect sense rationally. There are many roads and lanes where it is impossible to leave a 1.5 metre gap between passing vehicles, so what are people meant to do? Sit there in a perpetual traffic jam because some idiot thinks you need 1.5 metres to pass someone safely?
Rule 163 refers to oncoming vehicles. If you cannot tell the difference between a parked car and an oncoming vehicle, you should hand your licence in.
You cannot overtake a vehicle (or anything) going on the opposite direction of travel. You pass it. At the part you are mentioning, the code is referring to overtaking parked cars.
Later in the regulation (and completely independently), it refers to overtaking cyclists. There is then a gigantic photo illustrating an overtake, for people who get easily confused, where the car and cyclist are traveling in the same direction.
There is no photo showing your fictitious, truth bending, definition of vehicles travelling in opposite directions.
Seems pretty straightforward to me that the oncoming motorist had decided that the HC didn't apply to them...
Rule 163 says amongst other things: "give way to oncoming vehicles before passing parked vehicles or other obstructions on your side of the road"
That is very clear and does not talk about overtaking something traveling in the same direction as you.
There is no "side of the road". Can you see a dashed white lane in the centre separating the lanes? The vehicles were not "oncoming" in the spirit of the highway code, they were positioned in a way that both parties could easily pass.
The road narrows where the pass took place due to the parked cars. As there was enough room to overtake the parked cars safely and pass the cyclists at a reasonable speed, the driver was within their rights to perform his manoeuvre. If it wasn't for the pearl-clutching antics of the father no one would have batted an eyelid.
That's all I'm posting on the subject now, I think you know that you are writing rubbish for laughs and I'm not willing to engage on this topic again. The evidence and law is clear.
Do you think that you need a white line to tell which side of the road to drive on? Do you have a lot of head-on collisions Rakia? It would explain your level of intelligence.
The driver is not within their rights to perform the manoeuvre at all. Rule 163 states that they should have given way to oncoming vehicles before passing the parked vehicles on their side of the road (near verbatim copy from rule 163, by the way). And yes, their side of the road would be the left hand side (we drive on the left in this country by the way Rakia, I remember that sometimes you claim to be foreign with poor English, and other times you don't - I suppose it depends on which alias you think you're posting as?) when viewed from their direction of travel.
It's one of those new-fangled double Mobius loop roads. First Mobius loop removes one side. Second Mobius loop removes the other.
[This works better if you read it in Victor Kiam's voice]
Did he like the road network so much that he bought it?
I'll see your Victor Kiam's voice and raise you a Cliff Stoll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAsICMPwGPY
If you cut a Klein bottle in half, it becomes two Möbius strips.
Fun fact: I first learned about Möbius strips through a story in a Doctor Who annual c.1975. I was at primary school...
No wonder you've managed to over 10000 posts!
I don't remember that, I remember the tie-in episodes - The Brain of Morbius in 1976. That was back in the day that Tom Baker could happily go around making cyanogen gas to kill enemies and no-one minded.
Apparently, there's a bit of story continuity confusion with The Brain of Morbius as the Doctor and Morbius have a brain-fight and it shows previous incarnations of them including Doctors preceding William Hartnell.
It was a story about getting lost inside the TARDIS, IIRC (and predates the Castrovalva/Logopolis 'what happens if you park a TARDIS inside another TARDIS' thing...).
The faces in the Brain of Morbius (not Möbius!) game has been retconned away in the most recent Who by saying that the Doctor isn't even Gallifreyan, and has had a LOT of lives prior to Hartnell: they just have their memory wiped every twelve or so lives...
I just happened across this Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/heyUK/comments/yojgml/in_1976_the_bishopbriggs_times_interviewed_a/
Brilliant!
Is that a bit like asking the mods to close your account because you're going away and never darkening our door again?
It looks like he has just moved to another account to comment already.
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