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Petrol Station copyright Simon MacMichael .jpgDaily Mail survey on cyclists carried out by fuel price campaign group finds all the things you'd expect it to find
If this website has a pie-in-the-sky wish for 2018, it’s that the Daily Mail’s readership learns to question how the newspaper sources its information. (Similar but crueller wishes may well feature in the comments below this article.)
The Mail has today run a story headlined: “Dangerous cycling should be a crime, say two thirds of drivers amid claims they are treated too harshly.”
It is based on a survey about cyclists and, as ever in that newspaper, it plays on perceptions of fairness.
The survey found that 73 per cent of drivers said cyclists should be subject to similar legal requirements as motorists, and of these just under nine in ten called for a new law for dangerous cycling. (While people can already be prosecuted for dangerous cycling, there has been a suggestion that an offence of causing death by dangerous or careless cycling be introduced since the Charlie Alliston case earlier in the year.)
You can pretty much guess the rest.
Of the drivers who called for tougher legislation for cyclists, over 80 per cent also backed the introduction of compulsory insurance, while 73 per cent of them said cyclists should be required to wear fluorescent clothing.
It’s not entirely clear whether the statistics that follow are percentages of all of those questioned for the survey or percentages of the subset who called for tougher cycling legislation.
Not that it particularly matters. The message is the same, so read it however you want.
Seven in ten said cyclists should have to pass a road proficiency test and wear a helmet; 56 per cent said cyclists should be obliged to have a bicycle equivalent of an MOT; and 52 per cent want cyclists to have to pay road tax.
Almost six in ten drivers said that cycle lanes designed to alleviate congestion and increase safety for cyclists have failed to improve traffic flow, or made the situation worse.
The poll was of more than 10,400 drivers, which is significant. It was conducted by campaign group FairFuelUK, which also seems significant.
Launched in January 2011 to fight for lower fuel duty, FairFuelUK claims to represent “the real concerns of hard working motorists, families, small businesses, commercial drivers and hauliers across the UK.”
However, its emphasis is very much on commercial operations. FairFuelUK is funded by the Freight Transport Association, the Road Haulage Association and the Association of Pallet Networks.
Unconcerned by minor details such as where the funding for roads actually comes from, campaign founder Howard Cox said: “What infuriates the highest taxed motorists in the world is what they see as the lack of fairness apportioned to all road users.
“They believe cyclists should be making some financial contribution to roads and increasing cycle lanes they currently benefit from.
“They also want to see the compulsory use of helmets, cyclists to be road insured, wear fluorescent clothing, pass a road proficiency test and more prosecutions for the increasing episodes of dangerous cycling.”
10 of the most hysterical anti-cycling Daily Mail headlines
The poll also found that 88 per cent of drivers believe that traffic has got worse over the last five years, with almost seven in ten saying that this is because there are more cars on the roads.
Roger Geffen, Cycling UK’s Policy Director, said: “If we want grandparents and grandchildren alike to be able to cycle safely and normally for day-to-day journeys, it makes no sense to impose unnecessary new rules and costs on would-be cyclists, particularly children.
“The top priority must be to create safe, cycle-friendly streets and junctions, while strengthening the enforcement of our existing traffic rules, rather than adding new ones.”
Geffen highlighted the fact that many of the proposals put forward in the FairFuelUK survey are simply unworkable.
“Cyclists can already be prosecuted for dangerous or careless cycling. However, the other proposals in the FairFuel UK survey would be very costly to implement, would provide few if any benefits and would seriously undermine efforts to attract new people to take up cycling, including children and their parents.”
The results of the survey are in stark contrast to Sustrans’ Bike Life poll which showed high levels of public support among UK city dwellers for significantly increased investment in cycling infrastructure.
Alex has written for more cricket publications than the rest of the road.cc team combined. Despite the apparent evidence of this picture, he doesn't especially like cake.
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Get rid of your car. Chances are you don't really need it.
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Sounds like they're planning on the kind of bike lane where you have to wait at a traffic light to cross every entry/exit to the roundabout and it...
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But who's going to lend them their Pinarello?!
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Maybe Simoninspalding can reassure them - being in a Holland is OK....
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Drivers are getting their knickers in a twist over the width of this new cycle path...
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44 comments
Reading the daily mail causes cancer.
I seem to remember a while ago on road.cc reading that the government was planning to change the way roads are funded so that it would actually be a road tax system rather than the vehicle excise duty system we have today. I think this was going to be around 2019. Anyone know if this will actually happen and if so when?
Flat rate in year 2 for new cars of £140 but £0 for electric, so bikes not emitting pollutants would also pay £0 (if it ever came relevant).
Also 'From the 2020-21 financial year income from VED in England will be hypothecated to a new road fund, to contribute towards the costs of the Strategic Road Network (SRN).'
Except that the SRN is only the motorways and some but not all A-roads. So a kind of "some roads" tax. The majority of roads in the uk are still going to be funded by general taxation and the ones specifically funded from ring fenced VED are ones that in most cases cyclists aren't allowed to ride on anyway...
Thanks Hirsute and Brooksby. So I think that means my righteous anger when a driver shouts “what about road tax?” is fine until 2020, at which point if I’m on an A road I need to be a bit more circumspect.
God, it’s complicated.
typical Daily Mail Readers being Daily Mail Readers. Nothing to see here.
If some of these arrogant mouthbreathing neckbeards actually spent a week or two commuting in the city to work or spending at least 1 or 2hrs per day cycling in the city then maybe they might learn a thing or two as well as having more respect for those who choose to cycle rather then drive a cage around polluting the environment while they are at it.
A car is a useful tool though, there is no denying that. Its great for school runs, Its great for picking the other half up for a movie, Its great for taking on the weekly shopping run. but a bicycle is often faster going through the city than a car.
I used to take the tube back and forth from work it would take me 40-45mins. But by cycling I can beat that by almost 15mins on a good day
we can always hope that Daily Mail Readers might learn a thing or two and learn to share the roads but then again, there are those people out there which 'hope' would be utterly wasted.
Please select from the following totally-unbiased and non-leading options, so that we can scientifically determine what percentage of road.cc readers think Daily Mail readers should...
Surely if they want all these rules to 'bring cyclists up to car standards' then all cars must be limited to, mmm, 20mph? In the interest of fairness?
Other things I'd like to level the playing field. I'd like to see speed limiters on all cars to force them to obey speed limits, and I'd like to see seatbelts be banned and all cars to be made out of much thinner metal to give cyclists a fighting chance in a crash, and to make car owners realise that they aren't indestructible and give them something to think about before they commit that stupid overtake that puts them, the cyclist, and the oncoming vehicle in serious danger. I'd also like to see fines for misuse of horns set at £100 and sent automatically upon pushing a horn, then the driver would be able to reclaim the money if they could prove they used the horn correctly.
Either abolish insurance all together or make it third party fire and theft only.
Compulsory, legally required, insurance for motor vehicles is third party only. The law doesn't care if your vehicle bursts into flames or is stolen, as long as it doesn't endanger a totally innocent third party. But it does insist that you have insurance for when you can't be bothered to look and kill someone.
i think the point was to remove fully comp, so drivers could not be reimbursed for the damage caused by their own stupidity.#
Like if you leave your house unlocked and your stuff gets nicked, they won't pay out, or iof you leave the car running on the drive to defrost they won't pay out if someone takes it, BUT if you drive like a total moron and collide with a clearly visible car which was in front of you, the insurance will oay to fix both cars, why don't they take a similar line about expected the insured to take reasonable precautions to prevent a loss?
Precisely this, but take it further to a personal obligation to pay out for third party damage too. I've said it before, but if insurance is optional, I believe that we'd all drive with significantly more awareness of the vulnerabilities of others (theoretically).
Stop being silly.
If when that driver fell asleep and derailed a train had no insurance, then the public including you would have to pay for all the damage he caused as no way could any normal person afford the £millions it cost. Instead the bill was sent to his insurance company who had to pay it. This is why third party insurance is compulsory.
If you run into another car the insurers will decide who is a fault and fix both cars but will increase your insurance premiums, for normally the next 5 years, regardless of whether of who was at fault. (This pisses off people who end up with no fault incidents but it is due to their risk profile changing.) However the person found to be at fault gets the bigger increase which is why people have dash cams.
I completed this survey along with some of the Singletrack forum. I was not approached by the Heil for my comments, looks like some stats cherry picking went on. It's basically a piece concerning the most anti-cyclist half-wit drivers comments.
If I had a wish for road.cc. It would be that as well as flagging anti-cycling stories and providing a chamber in which we can vent. The site would do more to help with combating them.
When I've got the time my usual approach with idiocy such as this in the DM is to go to the offending article and then spend a little time countering and persuading in its comments section.
Sometimes it is quite fun, sometimes it can be difficult. Whatever. I believe I can positively influence more people by respectfully [0] engaging with them on their home ground. In a democracy by definition, if we want to change things we have to persuade those who are either undecided or disagree with us. (how many of those are likely to be here?)
Anyway, back to my point.
Many of the offending anti-cycling articles and their comments are comprised of a well-worn set of cliches. Well-worn or not, responding is both time-consuming and sometimes not as effective as it might be for Joe Normals such as myself.
road.cc employs (usually) eloquent and well researched professional writers. In my ideal world, along with the story, road.cc would provide more information, example replies, advice etc. In effect, road.cc would do more to coordinate and help improve the effectiveness of those of us attempting to fight cycling's corner elsewhere.
[0] FWIW, the best piece of advice I have heard about persuading people was to imagine that I was talking to a Mafia Don [1].
[1] It helps suppresses the counterproductive but surprisingly strong impulse to call the other person an idiot, even as you know you are going to be asking them to do something for you later.
Good of Howard Cox of FairFuelUK to make his mobile & address publicly available. I wonder if he'd like to discuss his retarded comments in more detail?
email: campaign [at] fairfueluk.com
Contact and Media: Howard Cox 07515 421611
FairFuelUK Office, 1 Rammell Mews, Cranbrook, Kent TN17 3BQ. UK
Their agenda is one of power and influence. Increase readership through a couple of popular campaigns, then drip feed the ideas that the power brokers wish us to be governed by.
thats the Daily Mail, which for all the opprobium it attracts is still the UKs top selling newspaper, so they just print stuff they know appeals to their readership, I meant the FairFuel mob, whats in this for them ?
Fair enough, probably supported by the fuel companies who'd gladly see an increase in fuel prices.
There will be some who say this not the time to be unnecessarily offensive. They are the same people who tell me not kick someone when they're down - when they're closer to my feet, and hell I put them there first. Or not to speak ill of the dead, it's not like they can't sue for slander or libel no more.
This is exactly the right time.
Biggest pile of dried up monkey jism since the pile of last year's Daily Mails on Nigel Farage's sofa.
I think you mean monkey dust: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfV3OuN57Bk
Yep! I pay income tax too.
There is a greater percentage of cyclists who are motorists, so they already pay to use the roads when using their polluting vehicles, I am one of those.
The percentage of motorists who also cycle is a lot lower.
What we need is for all the cycling motorists to get together and point out they are already paying to use the roads.
The helmets and fluorescant clothing, nope. My choice. Same as it's the moronic drivers choice to try and text, facebook or whatever whilst driving. Thus rendering the helmet and fluoro clothing pointless.
Also we should really stop reading, or mentioning the Daily Mail in anything. It is the lowest form of journalist who writes (I'm not sure the journalists there can really write but...) for them.
Why doesn't the hateful Mail complain about the millions spent on pedestrians: footbridges, toucan crossings, segregated pavements, zebra crossings, signal controlled crossings . . . . . . They don't pay any 'road tax'
Fair Fuel UK is another of those fake "grass roots" movements that has little to do with making fuel prices fair for the general public and is in reality another way for big corporations and other organisations such as the Road Haulage Associtaion to lobby government...
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/reality-check-with-polly-curtis/201...
quite agree, Im sure their name cropped up before when some MP was rambling incoherently about the same nonsense, sadly the list of MPs they claim support them is too long to remember which one it was.
but so whats their angle on this ? they primarily are focussed on cutting taxes for motorists, and cant seem to work out if they are fans of public transport HS2 etc (cuts congestion), or not (wasting motorists money).
so how does pushing an anti cycling agenda help their cause ? Id accept Im expecting logic to it which there might not be any, but even they cant be daft enough to think if you followed through with their ideas, youd increase congestion, increase wear on the roads, increase pollution and that would lead to higher fuel taxes
90% of DM readers are either small-minded bellends seeking affirmation of their Little Englandisms, or vacuous fuckwits getting their Colleen Rooney cellulite fix.
The other 10% are tourists from articles like this one who, every so often, seek confirmation that such troglodytes still exist.
I made those stats up, but I've as much confidence in the veracity of them as the DM's.
Fundamental flaw in your terminology, you’re assuming that people who purchase the DM have the ability to read.
Just read the article and some of the comments. It has just reinforced my opinion that DM journos (or this one in particular) and readers are arrogant, ignorant, stupid facist b'stards.
The survey shows 40% bemoaning potholes for increased congestion. It also quotes the usual ill informed ramblings asking for "road tax", MOT, helmets etc to be made compulsory to satisfy their own agenda. Beggars belief.
FFS, think about motorised vehicle misdemeanours and get that house in order before starting on self propelled vehicles. DM is a sad excuse for an objective journalist mouthpiece. Showing the images of a snarling Charlie and smiling Kim to fan the flames of hatred is spiteful and unnecessary too.
Cyclists to have mandatory insurance, sure...As long as this applies to all the population.
I could have sworn I paid council tax ,NI , income tax, vat, ipt, excise duties all of which contribute to roads.
I take it pedestrians will be paying 'road tax' as they are always getting new crossings.
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