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news
Bingo sign (CC BY-SA 3.0 by Peter Rimar on Flickr)Nigel Farage forges new career as anti-cycling bingo caller
Nigel Farage, the career politician who has built a large part of that career on railing against career politicians, has found a new target for his rage – penning an article for the Mail on Sunday which drags out pretty much every tired, old and incorrect cliché brought to bear against cyclists, and then some.
From cyclists not being required to pay “road tax” – something no motorist has done since it was abolished in 1937 – through to calling for bike riders to be licensed (itself, together with mandatory third party liability insurance a UKIP policy in its 2010 general election manifesto), the former MEP’s tirade ticks pretty much every box on the anti-cycling bingo card.
“Cycling used to be an innocent childhood pastime,” but is now “an exploding craze, a macho, high-speed hobby bringing town-centre traffic to a stop and turning the roads near my home into a velodrome,” insists Farage, with country lanes “commandeered by self-righteous platoons of middle-aged men in tight-fitting costumes.”
Central London’s streets (where cyclists, of course, are more likely to be riding for transport or for work rather than as a “hobby”) are compared to those of “Peking or Amsterdam,” with Farage claiming that “When I stop at traffic lights, cyclists surround me like a strange swarm of insects.”
If you had cycling being suitable only for children, people on bikes causing congestion, country lanes being turned into velodromes, comparisons with cities abroad, and dehumanising language on your bingo card, you may well be halfway to completing it.
If you don’t, fear not – there’s plenty of other fallacies about cyclists and cycling in the Mail on Sunday article, all just as easy to refute with just a little research.
“Many completely ignore the rules of the road – that much is well established,” for example, even though research has shown that motorists are more likely to break the law, and with potentially much more harmful consequences.
“When they break the law, they should be prosecuted like the rest of us,” is another one, and yes, it does happen – but stretched police resources are focused on other, higher priority areas such as motorists, who are responsible for the vast majority of deaths or serious injuries on Britain’s roads.
In response to a trial of segregated cycle lanes in Southsea, “Shop owners, already struggling, believe it will kill business dead,” even though studies repeatedly show that people visiting high streets by bike (or on foot for that matter) use local shops more frequently than motorists do, and over time, spend more money there.
“For much of the day these new bike lanes with their endless lines of shiny white posts lie empty while traffic jams block what is left of the roads,” even though cycle lanes lying empty simply reflects that they are very efficient at transporting people, much more so than roads given over to congested motor traffic.
“What about those who, like the disabled, depend on vehicles to get about?” asks Farage, ignoring – or ignorant – of the fact that for many, a bicycle is a mobility aid.
And so it goes on, with an obligatory mention of a “war on motorists” that is “an affront to democracy, introduced without consultation or clarity for purposes which organisations like Transport for London are yet to disclose.”
Ah, yes. We were lacking a conspiracy theory.
Cyclists using cameras to film poor and all to often dangerous drivers are described as “pedalling policemen [who] wear helmet cameras to film their journeys, spying on cars in case their drivers dare to touch a mobile phone while sitting at a red light,” even though many police forces actively encourage road users – whether in the saddle or behind the wheel – to submit such footage.
You get the idea, although Farage does toss in one that we haven’t come across before, when describing the “looks of shock” he gets from cyclists when they see him walking near his home – “the vast majority,” he assures us, “are Remainers.”
“Perhaps this helps to explain my prejudice,” he adds. “I simply don't like them and wish they weren't here.”
Many would argue that Farage is best ignored, and of course it is tempting to do just that, in much the same way that on Friday, many US news networks cut away from his friend President Trump when he once again falsely claimed to have won re-election.
But as we’ve said before when reporting on anti-cyclist claims from the likes of motoring presenter Jeremy Clarkson, or the self-styled Mr Loophole lawyer Nick Freeman, we feel it’s important that they do get challenged on their claims – something that those media outlets given them an influential platform to express their views, which many accept without questioning them seem unable – or unwilling – to do.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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63 comments
There is a nice response to Nigel by Peter Walker in today's Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2020/nov/11/farages-an...
Wow, the 40 mph cyclist ruining your country walk!
I believe you don't have to own a property to apply for planning on it - hence the old lady who filed to build a Tesco on Terry Leahy's mansion... Why don't we just file planning permission to turn his house into a Brexit lorry park with a cycle parking? Living in Scotland, not sure I can due the different planning etc laws...
Nige is not to be under estimated.. he doesn't like cyclists as he is not a cyclist and sees them as a hindrance to his chauffer driven car getting around - he is just speaking for that group of people that see the roads as being primarily for motor vehicles and puts their point of view; just as in a debate, every point he makes needs to be challenged by someone with a similar public profile that he enjoys.
What are you on about? The only person doing that is Farage. He's just trying to direct his leave army to put as much hate on cyclists as possible.
I don't think I've ever heard Chris Boardman say all drivers are right-wing Brexiteers and he's always banging on about helping society, the environment and encouraging more inclusive access to cycling for all.
Ah, 1 post, just spotted - hello Socrati (or boo?).
soctwati is back in their own right, boo may have come back last month in a cameo
Can you be more specific? Your claim of political bias seems a bit vague.
That doesn't look like political bias to me - just some retweeting of people making very straight-forward statements that appear to be quite rational.
Maybe you should keep in mind that reality has a well known left-wing bias?
Are you booboo? Cos he hated Boardman and had the same vague criticisms you are putting forward.
He so obviously is, same syntax, same non-arguments, same attempt to sound as if he's reasonable and just wants everyone to get along...is there a prize?
It is politicised simply due to the fact that it is highly relevant to social policy, transport infrastructure policy, health policy, road safety policy, climate policy.
You seem to suggest that politicians at any level should be completely disinterested - with the above in mind, in all conscience how can they be?
He's a massive tool - best ignored.
It's a good thing he wasn't ignored and you now have Brexit
He is worried about cycle lanes increasing traffic jams - hang on half of Kent is being tarmacked over for freight clearance sites, with journey times likely to hugely increase. He doesn't like a few cyclists on the roads near his house, but is quite happy that lots of residence will now have 100's of HGV's trundling pasts their homes and the once green fields their homes backed onto turned into lorry parks.
VED is obsolete anyway, abolish it, and move the cost onto fuel tax in a revenue neutral way.
1) those that pollute pay, drive further pay more, drive inefficient vehicles pay more.
2) vintage car exemption is not abused to use old bangers as day to day vehicles
3) moving costs onto the incremental costs reduces incentive to use the car as fixed costs ahve already been paid.
4) reduces administration as one tax system is removed.
the tax disc is no longer required as a once a year check that cars have an MOT and insurance, as all that is now on a central database
Taxing fuel even more highly won't help. More cars are electric now than ever before and that is set to increase. Charging drivers by the distance they drive, including higher rates for driving at peak periods and in congested areas, is the way ahead. It's well understood in the traffic sector that this will happen. We can expect a big fuss when it does.
Ah, cyclists: simultaneously slowing everyone down while they whiz about like madmen!
while cyclists are also everywhere in vast swams but then next minute he is saying the cycle paths are empty and there are just traffic jams left in their wake. He obviously cannot make his mind.
Scrodinger's cyclist!
He's just looking for the next thing to f*ck up. I don't think he'll be able to top the last one though, I think his career has peaked and he's on the long, inexorable slide to irrelevance.
"I can’t get a job, there’s a traffic jam - these things are surely someone else’s fault. Immigrants, cyclists those people just over there - it can’t be anything I’m doing.
She made a rape allegation against me - but the good news is I live in a society which will look for ways to make it somehow her fault that I attacked her."
Ahh, populism - create or highlight a problem, link it to some remote cause that removes responsibility from your converts. Appeal to their prejudices, appeal to their laziness, their desire to be “let off”.
Don’t let facts get in the way - no time to process facts, I want to hear what I want to hear. The time horizon doesn’t stretch beyond next weekend - my needs: now, this day.
We also have an in-built need to explain away negative things “ooo, that’s a bad area” - don’t go there alone, don’t go there at night - we set up our own little rules (for others to follow, naturally) to avoid dealing with the issue. Then we can dismiss bad things “what we she doing there at that hour - silly girl”. “That’s a dangerous road” soon becomes “why was he cycling there?”
Link that to bullying - I don’t mean the big kids stealing the little kids’ lunch money at school (memorably horrible if you’ve been subject to it), I mean the creeping insidious stuff that carries on into adult life and can become coercion and control. Our old friend laziness again - too lazy to do things properly, invest in relationships? try the bullying route instead. Use violence: your fists to sort out problems, problem people.
It’s a big topic: I want to highlight one particular part of the bully package: making and enforcing my own rules, for my own convenience and worse still, gratification. A gratifier, usually in a domestic context, will vary the “rules” so they can “punish” more breaches. Hi viz, no, today it's insurance, now registration, now Road Tax - earn your respect, people.
Of course any resemblance is co-incidental - mark out a minority as “the problem”, make them wear yellow, deny them justice, tell them where they can and cannot go, disrupt and eventually destroy their lives.
Then notice something else - when called to account, bullies become the world’s greatest victims: despite being in the dominant position, where responsibility should sit - the “she/he made me do it” / “it was his/her fault” narrative comes to the fore again. Cars will be cars, the rest of us have to make allowances.
A whole system of belief has grown up for drivists - only they are right, only they can solve the traffic problems. Any counter narrative, e.g. from any form of authority is dismissed - experts are “blinkered”, police and councils incompetent and money-grabbing, environmentalists are moon gazers. The most entitled, dangerous and domineering style cyclists as arrogant law-breakers. The polarisation is depressing and dangerous.
Desperate stuff from a desperate man desperate for publicity.
Please stop using this tired response, nobody listens to it. You have more chance of getting through to a motorist by saying that zero emission vehicles (electric cars, bicycles, etc) are exempt from road tax.
I'd sort of agree. A technical argument though perfectly correct is far less persuasive than questioning the speaker of the nonsense in such a way as their argument proving to be absurd.
E.g You propose that cyclists should pay road tax, or VED to be more correct? Yes.
Would you agree that they should be taxed at the same rate as other zero emission vehicles?
Where do you think that money for the local road infrastructure more likely to be used by cyclists comes from? Central gov't or local taxes? Who pays those taxes?
If you propose a taxation system for cycles, how exactly would that work? What are the costs of setting up and maintaining a register of cycle ownership, how would you identify untaxed machines and how would you enforce this on all cycles? Including childrens bikes? Can you reference a single succesful bicycle registration and road taxing scheme anywhere on the planet?
What exactly are the benefits to society you are attempting to achieve? Isn't your proposal more about banning cycling?
If you tax cycles then would this also apply to other road users who are currently exempt from paying VED? Pedestrians, mobility scooters, horsists, people who dress up in period costume and drive vintage cars at the weekend etc.
If access to the public highways is based on paying a road tax then does this mean that those who pay more should be given priority? Would you agree that HGV vehicles are given priority over, to the point of excluding private cars from the busy motorway and A road systems, especially at times of peak congestion?
You made me laught with 'horsists'.
I quite like the angle of the last paragraph.
I once, rather unkindly, destroyed the cyclist road tax argument from a Sister in Law who doesn't have a paying job by pointing out that she personally pays nothing at all for the upkeep of the road system. It was ungracious as she had provided an excellent Christmas lunch, but in my defence I didn't start the disagreement.
If you corrected her misunderstanding in a gracious and friendly way then I see nothing wrong with that. And you surely did her a favour and saved her any future embarrassment.
The idea that drivers pay for the roads with VED is laughable. Fuel duty is a much larger chunk of tax revenue, at about £28 billion vs about £6.5 billion from VED, though let's not mention the revenue drop after tax discs were abolished. Last year the IFS has produced some stats and proposals for motoring taxation at https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/14407
As Carlton Reid has pointed out before, electric cars, disabled drivers, cars built before 1973, road construction vehicles & gritters, 450,000 emergency and health-related vehicles are all exempty from VED.
The unemployed, many (but not all) retired people and students don't pay income tax but that doesn't bar them from using public services. Childless adults are not exempt from contributing towards the cost of schooling other people's children.
Since cyclists don't wear out the road surface or create potholes, don't destroy walls, bridges, signs or barriers, don't crash onto railway lines or into houses and don't kill 1,700 or injure 200,000 people every single year we are saving lives and saving the country a fortune at the same time. We should get a rebate!
The European Commission has previously grossly underestimated the negative external costs of motoring. Negative externalities of all transport are now estimated to cost EU nations €1,000 billion annually, 7% of GDP:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/carltonreid/2019/01/24/motorists-should-pay...
Meanwhile air pollution kills five people every week in Bristol alone:
https://road.cc/content/forum/268761-air-pollution-kills-five-people-bri...
It's so awful that so many people believe Farage's blatant lies over and over again.
Of course the problem is that this is never a conversation. IME "I pay road tax" is basically just a less sweary "f*** you", and nobody who shouts it out of their window at you is asking for a discussion or likely to listen to any of your nuanced arguments, whether it's road tax doesn't exist; zero emissions vehicles are exempt; VED doesn't (totally) fund the roads; we all pay for the roads from general taxation; if VED fully funded the roads you'd have to pay [x] times more; or (my least favourite) I do pay VED, because I also drive.
I also suspect a lot of the "I pay road tax" brigade are equally furious that sponging lefty liberal elites who can afford an expensive electric car don't pay it, so that's not going to be a killer line either.
Or you can sink to their level and ask, since they pay road tax, where their tax disc is. "Are you stupid mate? They were abolished in 2014". Oh really? Well, while we're talking about abolition...
This was worth trawling through this restatement of the arguments. It's superb, can't wait to try it out
"
Or you can sink to their level and ask, since they pay road tax, where their tax disc is. "Are you stupid mate? They were abolished in 2014". Oh really? Well, while we're talking about abolition...."..
[/quote]
Thanks.
The roads by where Farage lives in Single Street are some of the nicest for cycling within the M25 and many cyclists of all abilities enjoy them. He should let his prejudices go and go for a ride sometime.
There's even a Strava segment that is on the stretch of road outside his house, The Racist Spunksack Sprint:
https://strava.app.link/dVNoi8mLgbb
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