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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.
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83 comments
Come on Boo, I realise you have been banned from this site for awhile but rule 101 of trolling is to remember the troll you put down the other day.
Of course, as with previously banned
SocraticyclistMartin, you also seem to look at a video and interpret something that is not there. I mean I don't see a wobble on that video, so maybe it is your head that is wobbling in life.For once I agree. And the road user displaying risky behaviour, a lack of competence and demonstrating need of further training was ... the motorist. The 5 year old cyclist rode with aplomb and respect for the Highway Code.
If the 5 year old was fully capable of cycling "with aplomb", then his daddy has confected the incident for the clicks.
I've suddenly had a nasty thought that this whole incident was created to generate publicity for the Jeremy Vile show, has anyone checked to see if the dad works for Channel 5?
Having a nasty thought? Well you are a downright nasty person so shouldn't that just be "I've suddenly had a reason to spout more nastiness".
You're saying that given the five year old is cycling with aplomb therefore the motorist is driving safely. I'm sorry, I don't see the connection.
No. Look up the highway code.
Yep, UK roads started being paved about 10 years before the first car after a campaign by cyclists.
Given the parked cars I don't think, under rule 153, the driver should have moved through the chicane. I don't think they would have done if it was another car. Add to that rule 204 the hierarchy is clear.
It's so depressing that there's any debate at all. idiots disagreeing with the experts, deciding that their 'my way' code takes precedence over the highway code.
The thing I find most depressing is that not only do many of these morons get to vote in the same country as me, some of them are part of the furniture in Parliament (eg baroness Foster).
Even if one agreed with Baroness Foster, and she provides no evidence from the HC or anywhere else that a child can't cycle on the road, and thought the parent was irresponsible any responsible driver would still stop. Don't pick a side and say one is irresponsible and the other isn't.
Also isn't Baroness Foster part of the legislative process of this country. If you see something you think shouldn't be allowed then lobby to legislate against it don't go on social media to give incorrect opinions.
I agree completely. But please don't go giving anyone ideas about legislating against cycling in the road! I'll need to start sharpening my pitchfork!
Stools?
I experience this a lot on the residential roads in my borough. The motorist creates a dangerous situation regardless of the age of the cyclist. Often the motorist expects the cyclist to yield to them even though they were in the narrow section first and the motorist has to cross the centre line to proceed through the narrow section. For this reason I think the so-called "quiet ways" are more dangerous than the main roads because on a main road you get far fewer head-on collision conflict situations like this.
For me it this an unwise decision by the parent as much as poor observation from the driver. He clearly encourages the child to ride on when he could see the approaching car and could have anticipated the car would also proceed into the part of the the road with cards on both sides. By my reckoning the cyclists and motorist got to the edge of the parked vehicles on their side at about the same time.
While there are new rules about overtaking. I am not aware that these apply to passing a vehicle going in the opposite direction. eg on single track roads it is very rare for either cyclists or motorists to give way to each other and passing with less than 1m between handlebars and mirrors is common. And when filtering how much space do we cyclists consider ok to move up to the front of an advanced stop line.
So ideally the motorist would have stopped, but they were driving slowly, quite possibly didn't notice the small child infront of the larger adult, and passed in the opposite direction quite normally.
So good for raising the debate about enabling kids to cycle to school, but not sure this was the example for the internet to meltdown about. I honestly think there are greater issues when riding with kids to school eg motorists overtaking then hugging the kerb in a queue to prevent filtering, MGIF manoeuvres, speeding, rapid approaches to junctions then slamming on the brakes, left turns across a cycle path without indicating, pedestrians stepping into the cycle path without looking, being shouted at for not using a cycle path that is crowded with pedestrians, being shouted at for not using the pavement, being overtaken while indicating right etc
It is not overwhelmingly bad, when teaching my kids to ride on the road it was a blessing when courteous motorists gave way unnecessarily, smiled encouragingly and anticipated an inacurrate turn/ hasty approach to a giveway line. So lets be sure we highlight and praise good behaviour too. Teaching kids to ride on the road is not easy.
They're not new rules, just a reinforcement of the old rules, but like you I'm not altogether clear on the extent to which they apply to oncoming vehicles, clarification of this would be good.
However, that's not the relevant rule here, the relevant rule is Highway Code 163:
The cyclists are the oncoming vehicles, staying on their own side of the road, the driver has pulled round the parked vehicles and is partially on the oncoming side of the road. Regardless of any opinions about whether the child should be on the road, whether the father and child should have stopped etc, the motorist has put themselves in the wrong by not observing this rule.
Actually they are both overtaking parked vehicles and both start the move past the obstruction at the same time, see beginning of the clip
If you look one second in the cyclist is into the "funnel" created by the parked cars before the car is (see below), which confers right of way; more importantly, the cyclist remains on his own side of the road throughout whereas the car driver has to encroach over halfway. There's no scenario ever (apart from for emergency responders on call) where a driver gets priority when driving in the oncoming lane.
Well I'd say that they arrived at the hazard at the about same time and both chose to proceed. One party had much more to loose than the other from any subsequent error and being right doesn't prevent injury.
As I said training kids to ride on the road is hard and heart stopping at times. This may not be great driving but it is certainly normal and the example posted of driving on the pavement is a reason why they aren't much better for learning. If kids do learn on pavements when should they move to the road? How will they learn the survival craft needed if they aren't allowed (they are) on the road with sensible coaching when young and cautious?
Well, we could borrow a corner of a car park or two and have one of these - we're only 70 years behind the Dutch:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0yzZLVsTCE
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/bicycle-training-in-the-ne...
Note - this doesn't preclude younger kids getting to school with their parents on bikes, or indeed on their own...
On the other hand, cost of living, agenda of economic growth... maybe we should just be building more of those car parks, and roads to access them? Sounds like a fair few people think there would be more space so less congestion, and some even think we'd all be richer.
Can I please check, do you think the driver not having their eyes open enough to see another road user, coming from in front and in broad daylight is a good excuse? If the driver didn't see them there, they should pull up on the side of the road there and then and stop driving!
From the road position of the car I expect the driver saw the cyclist, but did they count the number, estimate age/ability .... Not quite broad daylight, both had lights on suggesting less than ideal visibility.
Equally what was the parent thinking in encouraging the child into a hazard/pinch point when the car was entering the same space at the same time?
Regardless of the number of cyclists and their age and ability, the highway code (rule 163) says that the driver should have given way to the oncoming vehicle (or in this case vehicles). It doesn't say you should only give way of there are two or more cyclists, or if the cyclists are young or otherwise vulnerable.
A motorist driving head on at a child is definitely something to have a meltdown about, no matter how much you think they 'deserved' it because of their parent's decision.
'driving head on', melodramatic but the description doesn't fit the footage, IMO.
A bit of a give-away really. Got a feeling I might know who this is.
I think we've got at least two revenants with us, possibly with multiple sockpuppets.
Still, if it fills the time between rides...
Sock puppet, lol! I only have 1 id on the site and have no previous id. People can share the same perspective. Sometimes people agree on some things and disagree on others ... it is part of what makes us unique!
You know, that's exactly what we'd expect a sockpuppet or a PBU to say...
I like the content on this site and agree with much of the comment. I have noticed a tendency to see phantoms where there are none if someone expresses an non-road.cc-orthodox opinion which makes discussion about cycling and how to survive difficult.
Last week everyone was saying how awful it was that there was a growing toxic culture on the road. Seeing things from another perspective doesn't make me a troll / idiot.
As I said in my original post on this thread, there is real debate to be had about training kids for the road (cycle infront, behind, beside which is best) but this hasn't sparked that debate, which is a missed oportunity IMO. Survival is about hazard perception and avoidance not an encyclopedia knowledge of the highway code or case law.
Fair enough: you must have seen already that road.cc has had a lot of problems with persons signing up just to create conflict, getting banned, then signing up under a new user name, and on and on and on...
We can be a bit sensitive about it, so if you are genuinely a new commenter who just happens to have dissenting opinions then accept my apologies for being suspicious
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