Fears grow that BBC's cycling documentary 'War on Britain's Roads' will be 'sensationalist and irresponsible'

[[[[[ Note: Justifiably angry bikers scream, shout, and and ask drivers to explain their actions. On the other hand, all the aggressive body-language, threats, and actual violence on the footage comes from drivers. I've seen many of the helmet-cam clips before, in which one shocked motorist reacted apologetically after knocking a cyclist down, offering assistance, home phone-number, insurance details etc.....yes, the driver was a woman.
Idiot boyracer "cyclists", in town, giving us all a bad name---no footage of DRIVERS competing with each other, (although we've all witnessed it ad nauseam) and not one single shot of a car going through a red light---no, only cyclists do that. However, in most clips, the bikies appear more reasonable than the drivers, and most motorists watching the prog will, hopefully, spot that.
My own cycling philosophy says never bang on the side of a vehicle (it's an extension of a driver's house, alledgedly) and never ever show the finger, or V-sign. Nothing is more guaranteed to provoke the alpha-dickhead-male to violence than those two responses...keep it strictly verbal. Ride carefully, all.
P.R.

A couple of things I thought after the programme (which I found very scary and off-putting).

We need a public poster campaign to tell everyone what's what.
'To be safe cyclists should ride well away from the kerb'
'85% of cyclists are car owners'
'Vehicle excise duty does not pay for roads'
(I'll suggest this to CTC)

Also, you should avoid criticising anyone's driving. Try it in the car with your partner and see how it goes down.

If you have a video that should be enough and the police should always take action. That commitment (if we could get it) should also be on posters.

The link to production company was on Twitter last night so I sent this to the producer (no reply yet)...

To ToddAustin [at] leopardfilms.com

Todd,

As someone who cycles and drives in London regularly I found your documentary's view of a 'war' unrecognisable. The usage of the staged alley-cat footage throughout without flagging it as such is inexcusable and inflammatory.

The only person to come away with any credit was one of the two women represented - the mum. The other was dead. How did you choose the other contributors?

Regards

Rob O'Brien

I knew it would wind me up and it did! (my son wanted to watch it)

So, anyone watch it?
I did, and agree with CraigS, can't see that it was of much interest to anyone but drivers and cyclists, and the same old stereotypes were reinforced yet again. Not totally sure what the point was TBH. Sticking Live And Let Live quotes from people involved at the end did very little to distract from the sensationalist content.
Very reasonable thread of thought , Peacenik, that's how I tend to think too, with an occasional bout of shouting if someone's really endangering my life

there goes an hour of my life, never to be reclaimed. thanks BBC

Oh my Gawd. The size of that arse at 53 minutes will give me nightmares.

Re: Clarkson:
I was impressed when I randomly paused in my trawl down the channels to see Clarkson announce that "Only 5% of all countryside road accidents are as a result of speed".
Presumably cars are just as lethal to cyclists whether they're roaring through blind bends at 50mph or simply stationary.
Only one reasonable road-safety measure:
Ban all cars from the countryside, irrespective of their speed. They're lethal even at rest.
For some reason, this WASN'T the conclusion the bellowing buffoons drew.
No.
- It was that all accidents are caused by wildlife.
In the interests of Balance, can't the BBC have a program in which all cyclists and animals blame their high mortality on the roads on cars?
No.
For - That would be "Political correctness gone maaaaad".

Thank you very much for putting this documentary in context.
I can imagine no other way I'd have found out the provenance of the footage you mention.
It's shocking that an ostensivley 'Objective documentary;' should mix fact and fantasy so irresponsibly - adding to the 'War' it claims to merely report on.
Or - maybe that's the game plan?
Does he have a 'follow-up' feature planned, maybe with more scenes from 'Mad Max'?
Ok. I'm being flippant.
Thanks anyhow. Good Public Service Information there.

This article over at Bikebiz suggests the footage has been selected to give provide controversy and give the haters some material.

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/bbc-doc-portrays-dvd-stunt-cycling-foot...

I don't see any value in watching it, what will it teach me? Nothing. I see too much selfish and poor driving already on my way to work.

The title itself is somewhat hyperbolic, no? It evokes some kind of Mad Max post-apocalyptic dystopia.

Even through the mean streets of Moss Side and Rusholme my commute is hardly a war zone. The sawn-off shotgun I sling over my shoulder is actually for the geese (Mancunian wildfowl are no joke).

Ooops wrong programme.

I think Jeremy Clarkson should present the show dressed as Biggles and all cyclists interviewed should be dubbed over with menacing German accents and wear High Viz swastika's.

Has anyone seen this yet? No ...

This article is based on the Guardian piece linked to above, which was written after seeing a preview copy of the documentary. So yes, I can believe it's as awful as claimed. I'm not going to be watching the next Michael Bay film to check whether it deserves its critical pannings, either.

And the source of Mr Brunelle's "haterz" comments: http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/bsnyc-friday-fun-quiz-now-with...

I can't believe the BBC have hired/commissioned Brunelle to make a documentary. He's a bloody menace. The people above commenting that we shouldn't rush to pre-judge the film need to take a look at his back catalogue and get an understanding of where this moron is coming from.

In his own words, "Fuck bike advocacy". This man has no desire to improve the safety of Britain's roads. It's a total disaster that he's being given air time by someone like the BBC.

Cue the Jeremy Vine phone-ins the following day!

Knowing the BBC the program itself will be reasonable but after seeing the advert the other day that certainly goes for the sensationalist tabloid media approach.

Personally that's enough to ensure I don't watch even though I'm generally of the opinion that you should watch it before campaigning against it.

EDIT - Well said Peacenik but I fear it's hard to get that message across in the current media environment (dominated by extremism on both sides).

Whatever this documentary contains, and I don't think it's a good idea to pre-judge anything, it is in our best interests as cyclists who use the roads safely and responsibly, and want to engender better behavior from motorists, particularly those unsympathetic to our cause, to carefully consider our reaction and its possible consequences.

What strikes me, and I don't think is often said, is how little good it does us to say or do anything which can be interpreted as shrill and militant. This behavior plays into the hands of those who wish to paint us as tax-dodging, law-breaking, lycra-clad extremists who should do more not to get in the way of the true owners of the road, and wins little sympathy with most motorists who are reasonable people, and some of whom also cycle on the roads.

The main point I want to make is that I think we'd do better to point out the distinction between the very few people who ride bikes through red lights etc and the majority of the two-wheeled community who simply want to get where they're going as safely as possible. We need to recognise we're a minority and, like all minorities, easily lumped together and stigmatised, and therefore adopt a smarter position which takes as its starting point that some people will deliberately take whatever we say out of context, and instead stick to a few key messages aimed at the majority of reasonable motorists, and which gives as little ammunition to our opponents as possible.

Other points I think we should make more often are that we're vulnerable, squishy, and easily seriously injured or killed in collisions with cars (there could be nasty consequences for you as a motorist if you hit us (probably not, actually, but that's another matter)), are often capable of travelling as fast or faster than cars in an urban environment (don't pull out on us or feel you've got to beat us because we're on a bike), and that we're keen to see everyone, bike users (i.e. dickheads with bikes as well as proper cyclists) and motorists alike behave peacefully, responsibly and safely.

These points may seem bland but their blandness is the crux of my argument. As cyclists our weaponry is puny compared to the driver, and we should acknowledge this by doing all we can to appear as responsible and reasonable as possible, and seek to take the heat out of what none of us with our puny weapons want to become a war on our roads. We can be angry (and I do privately get mad as hell when my life is threatened by an impatient driver) and lobby hard, but let's not do that so much in the media gaze where it's all too easy to be written off as lefty anarchists when we forget we're a minority and, under the current laws and judicial system, have the most to lose.

This is politics, play the percentages & we may yet achieve peace in our time.

Who will actually watch it though? Cyclists and people who already hate cyclists. For the latter it'll reinforce their view that we all deserve to be crushed because it slows their journey, but they're the people passing too close and shouting abuse already. The vast majority of people don't have strong feelings either way and probably won't even be interested in the programme.

Has anyone seen this yet? No ... imaginations are running riot. I'm looking forward to watching this. The program would be pretty boring if all it showed was one average day cycling. Chop out all the average bits and what you have left is sensationalist ...

Seems the concensus is that the poor road cyclist is once again about to be shafted by the media? Or maybe it will do some good; and highlight the dangers a cyclist faces on todays busy roads? I'll watch it before denigrating the programme.

We could on mass withhold our licence fees? Or maybe more realistically a mass complaint to Ofcom? I would have though after the Newsnight debacle the BBC might be treading more carefully at the moment. Do they want to have to dismiss another Director General so soon ;-)) that could start to get really expensive.

So you've sent a complaint to the BBC already.......

It is not just using selected footage, it has been interviewing the cyclists and drivers involved where possible aswell.

Lets just wait till its out before jumping on the bandwagon, the only problem I have with it so far is its name.