Hooray, everyone's favourite (former) GBNews producer and anti-cycling bingo enthusiast Charlotte Gill is back at it, this time with something a bit more flamboyant and swashbuckling than what her previous attempts have been, some might say.
Her hall of fame highlights include the article in the eye-openingly conservative magazine The Critic, criticising a new study on Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, despite failing to address any of the study’s findings, as well as the elite, deluxe edition of the anti-cycling bingo with a top of the shop entering, ticking off every single uninspired checkbox: from "a war is being waged against car drivers", "a ‘Lycra Lobby’ of cycling activists and eco wonks", "I don’t drive, enjoy cycling and probably have a relatively low carbon footprint", "an assault on democracy"…
Oh before I forget, she was also behind bringing up an argument on Twitter in March that it’s mums who should stand up and oppose the dreaded Lycra lobby – because they can’t “cart around children” by bike, apparently – a claim swiftly shut down by loads of women posting pictures of them doing exactly the same activity, including Bath's bicycle mayor Saskia Heijltjes.
> “Oh dear, can you imagine being a mum carting around children”: Bath’s bicycle mayor shuts down GB News producer’s claim that mums need cars
Gill, who last month left her role as producer at GB News, was most recently under fire for comparing the 20mph speed limit in Wales to cyclists needing stabilisers. I know the list is long...
Well now, Gill has been on an expedition on the streets of London, and for once, she couldn't stop herself from applauding a cyclist, albeit only for a tiny bit of inspiration. Following in the footsteps of one "lycra-loving" Jeremy Vine, she strapped on a body cam (her iPhone) and took to the streets, becoming the "pedestrian version" of the Channel 5 presenter and "play cyclists at their own game, filming their transgressions".
Lo and behold, the inception of the one and only 'Chaz Cam', as christened by her.
> “Perhaps cars should have great big beanbags taped to them, too?” GB News producer slammed for comparing 20mph speed limits to cyclists requiring stabilisers
She wrote on her blog: "It goes without saying that cyclists aren’t as dangerous as cars on average, and of course, not everyone cycles badly. But too often you hear “it’s only a few bad eggs giving others a bad name” to minimise the number of naughty cyclists - when the issue is actually quite pronounced, as I have found. I would guess it’s more like half of cyclists behaving badly on the road, not a minority."
And in case you didn't feel like clicking on the link above this very fine day, worry not! Your live blog host has done his homework and read through Gill's handiwork, laying down all the horrible, spiteful and malicious deeds cyclists are responsible for.
It begins with probably the most common one — one which we at road.cc have also brought up in our discussions on the live blog: Going through red lights. "I lost count of the number of cyclists doing this on my day out with the Chaz Cam," she wrote.
"Although you might say I was being pedantic (well, I was pretending to be the pedestrian version of Jeremy Vine) and that cyclists may as well go through the light if no pedestrians are waiting, I found they do even when a pedestrian is there. One female cyclist dashed out at me as soon as the pedestrian light went green (see below).
> Are red-light jumping cyclists "great adverts" for cycling? Jeremy Vine seems to think so...
Alright, next up, cyclists on phones. She said: "It wasn’t unusual to see cyclists riding with one hand or none on their handlebars, as if thinking they looked extremely cool while doing so.
"One cyclist, who a van white beeped at, due to his being dangerously close in front, sped away, only to look at something other than the road (my guess being his phone)."
> "If you don’t like cyclists going through red lights, support proper cycling infrastructure": Calls for better cycling infrastructure after cyclists jumping lights goes viral
Also in the findings of the investigation were the age-old "lighting issues" and "riding on the pavement" (cough, yesterday's live blog comes to mind, cough). And finally, she took aim at another easy target, delivery riders, claiming that they were just "bad cyclists" rushing through people for "tiny sums of money".
In conclusion? She said that the "Chaz Cam investigations" have hardly convinced her that "the UK is ready for a cycling revolution".
"The reality, in my opinion, is that half of cyclists behave well, and half of cyclists don’t. It’s definitely not the case that 'most cyclists follow the rules'," she said. "They don’t - because they perceive themselves as "the green and the good" of British society. It’s also generally my experience that most cyclists are male (and young), and the most aggressive ones almost always so, countering councils’ propaganda of inclusive transport."
So if not all cyclists are bad, and the ones which are do not cause nowhere nearly as harm or damage as a bad motorists, shouldn't by the same benchmark we all should be in agreement that the UK is also not ready for a driving revolution? Ah well.
That was quite a way to start my Wednesday, is this all a painstakingly wonderful and detailed attempt at parody or just a lousy attempt with poor arguments for cheap clicks? I feel I'm losing my mind here, help me figure this out...
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91 comments
Maybe they were an extra on The Sweeney, back in the day?
Not a single complaint in these comments thus far about being filmed, not one. People are criticising the stupid interpretations the "journalist" has made things that she films, but not one person has complained about her filming. You've made yourself look a bit of an arse there (again).
As I'm doubtless right up there on your list of "grasses", for the record anyone is welcome to film me on the road at any time, I've got nothing to worry about just as the majority of safe, law-abiding drivers have nothing to worry about from me filming them.
I'll go one step further - I would be very happy for (in fact I would absolutely encourage it) a police officer to follow me every time I go out on my bicycle.
Indeed, it can be hilarious sometimes when you're riding along at, say, 20 in a 20 zone and thinking well everyone's very polite today, nobody is trying to pass me, the oncoming drivers are all driving at a reasonable speed and waiting for me to come through before pulling to my side of the road if they need to…then you get to the lights and look round and find there's a police car somewhere in the cars behind you!
Excellent suggestion. You could call it a "red lantern act" - every cyclist upon the king's highway should be followed by a copper waving a red light. That would warn motorists about the potential hold up and inconvenience also!
Could this cause problems for the police though, due to the number of road offenses they would have to fail to observe (problems outside of Scotland and Lancashire that is)?
Look at all this frothing, they do say the cut hog squeals the loudest
I think it's quite sad that you have to reply to your own comments.
Better than having multiple accounts to reply to myself with eh Clem/Perce?
"I would guess it’s more like half ..." doesn't seem consistent with doing 'research'. Maybe a random sample with appropriate stats would help.
I think that Gill has actually demonstrated why we do need a "cycling revolution" - because everything she captured simply demonstrates that we need proper infrastructure that meets the (separate) needs of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians. At the moment, cyclists are mostly expected to use infrastructure designed for motorists, or occassionally use infrastructure designed for pedestrians.
For example, take the cyclist who "dashed out at me as soon as the pedestrian light went green". It seems pretty clear that the cyclist was waiting until the pedestrian phase in order to cross the junction, presumably because she didn't feel safe sharing the junction with moving motor vehicles. (Let's ignore the fact that the cyclist hardly "dashed" out and certainly not "at" Gill).
Similarly, if "most cyclists are male (and young)" that's precisely why we need better infrastructure. If it's young males at the moment, its because you need to be brave and fit to feel (relatively) comfortable sharing the road with motorists. Other groups don't cycle because they don't feel safe doing so.
We definitely do need better infra, but it will not fix cyclists on phone while riding on roads shared with cars. To me it seems more dangerous than the stuck in traffic drivers Mickey catches.
Yes, but dangerous to whom?
A cyclist on a phone is at risk of losing control and getting themselves hurt. A driver on a phone is at risk of not seeing someone and causing a KSI.
Note that one of those cases is illegal and the other isn't which reinforces that one causes far more danger than the other.
A distracted cyclist can cause a car to go off planned course and cause serious accident. The standing still drivers stuck at traffic, hardly seem a danger to me, the only danger in Mickey's videos is himself going back and creating tension that could distract car drivers on the not stuck direction.
Why would a distracted cyclist cause a driver to crash and has that ever happened?
Meanwhile it takes approximately 30-40 seconds for a distracted driver to sufficiently pay attention to their surroundings after looking up from their phone. This is why you see RTCs caused by drivers just following the vehicle in front as they haven't clued themselves into the situation fully after using their phone. It's a real problem and that's why it's illegal to be using a phone when driving even if the car is stationary.
As an example, if a pedestrian decides to cross the road between stationary cars that are stuck in traffic, then a driver may see the car in front starting to move and assume that they can also move forward, but unless they look up and actually pay attention, the crossing pedestrian will likely get injured.
One of the scariest moments of my cyclist life is when stray dogs popped up in front of me just a few meters in front and instinctively changed lane without checking traffic to avoid them. It was a wrong decision because if a vehicle had been passing me, I would be dead now, but I had no time to think. Had the dogs been a cyclist on phone and I was driving a truck, I could have made a great mess.
Everything that moves on the road, must be under control.
How exactly do dogs "pop up" in front of you? Where they underneath a manhole cover and were climbing up the ladder?
With a cyclist and a truck, why would the truck be following so close behind the cyclist as to cause a collision and why would you blame the cyclist for that?
Also, if my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle (though her pronouns may stay the same)
They were lying on the side of the road in shadow and then pop up, because sometimes cyclists seem like a giant kebab for untrained dogs.
The truck could similarly overtake a cyclist and he could start changing course. In general if you try to take eyes off road and try to control arguably the hardest to control vehicle with one hand, crazy things can happen, it's not that rocket imagination.
So why would the truck driver be overtaking a cyclist and not leaving enough room? How would a safe overtake leave the driver at risk of crashing if the cyclist got distracted?
My interpretation of safe roadcraft would be that the truck driver might start to perform a safe overtake and if the cyclist starts drifting in front of them, they'd brake and abort the overtake. They'd probably feel agrieved and use their horn angrily, but how would it cause a crash?
Is this an actual scenario or just a thought experiment?
My dog example was to showcase that when something goes out of control, bigger unexpected problems may occur, affecting other people. You may say your scenario, I may refer another (also real to me) example when a rider holding with one hand handlebars turned in a crazy angle, and you come up with another scenario etc etc and continue forever
I believe that riding a bike while holding and talking to a phone an one hand, is dangerous for both the rider but other road users as well, so this Final Destination scenario making will not lead anywhere.
A cyclist can turn "in a crazy angle" to simply avoid a pothole and that should not cause a collision, but could cause a driver to perform an emergency stop. I just don't think any of your examples demonstrate a danger to someone in a vehicle.
Better not take a hand off the handlebar to signal, fiddle with my bike computer, ring the bell, wipe snot from my nose, take a drink...
My daughter has just started driving lessons. I asked her about passing distances, as she's cramming for her theory test. I explained it as "You should pass them with enough space that if they suddenly fell over, you wouldn't drive over them".
Eh ???
You are supposed to give cyclists tons of room precisely because they can change direction.
HC 163
I was riding an unlit trail about dawnish, ten or twelve years ago, with a, for that time, enormously powerful newfangled magicshine led light, when a dog, not on lead, obvs, made a flying entrance, stage left, straight for the light, the only thing it noticed. Not exactle pop up, but they can do strange and unexpected appearances out of nowhere. Broken collarbone...
Broken collie-bone?
The dog instinctively changed lane? Or a missing "I"?
In any case, any dog having the capacity to pop up in front of me - whether because it is off the lead or on a ridiculously long lead - makes me take pre-emptive action long before it has a chance to pop up anywhere. "Instinctively" changing lane is not instinct, it's acquired habit. Time to change that habit, whether cycling or driving.
You shouldn't be changing lane without knowing your destination lane is clear enough to do so. if you haven't been monitoring traffic enough to know what's around you, the only correct thing to do is brake to avoid or mitigate an impact.
Yes I missed an I.
The dogs were in a shadow of a bus stop and mixed around people, I don't think I could have ever seen them even if I looked there.
Of course I shouldn't be changing lane without knowing my destination lane is clear. But the time margin was very minimal and I was going at my full flat cruise commuter speed.
Now thinking though, you must be right, I indeed mostly swerve to avoid obstacles. I should start practice braking than swerving for such cases where no other option is available.
Sadly my experience of cyclists using dedicated infra in West London is one where they still ignore signals that are dedicated to cyclists and ignore pedestrians on the crossings, and waiting to cross.
At the same time though there needs to be common sense to attitude on shared infrastructure. As an example where it makes no sense not to wait at lights I will wait, but there always will be instances where it is better both for my safety and traffic flow for me to go through a red light. Prime example is where I cut through an ASDA car park to avoid a major roundabout. I used to stop at the lights, but after an instance of a driver overtaking and cutting across my path to go to the petrol station, and multiple stupid MGIFs as the lights change, i will now go through the red as soon as I can see no more traffic is coming in from the opposite direction.
Edited: to clarify the inclusion of pedestrians waiting to cross and not just just cyclists passing those crossing. - hope that is OK.
We're in a growth / transition phase (hopefully) with cycling. So - perhaps in a generation (very optimistically) if we have "mass cycling" in some places* we'll see similar levels of compliance to rules (or alternatively similar levels of asshattery) as for people driving cars.
The other reason for saying "generation" is that we have no formal means of educating road users. There is no road user training - even the driving test is a once-a-lifetime occurrence.
In fact since cycling is a more "casual" mode you might expect cyclists to be about as "well behaved" as people walking (if they were less worried about cars). I guess that depends on overall assessment of personal danger, people being more motivated to look out for themselves than others.
Of course engineering can help guide people. In your example I'd guess if there was a cycle lane buypassing that red light - even if say you were sometimes held at a cycle red light - you'd take it?
* Say 10% or more of trips being cycled. Obviously this is not the same as peak flows in certain places; says here that in 2015 "bikes now make up around 16 per cent of traffic in Central London, rising to around a quarter during peak hours"! (I think I find the first more astonishing if correct.)
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