“No cars go through a red light – every cyclist does,” claims Nigel Havers

Actor Nigel Havers has claimed that “no cars go through a red light,” while “every cyclist does,” during a discussion with cycling writer Laura Laker hosted by Jeremy Vine on his BBC Radio 2 TV show.

The exchange took place during Vine’s afternoon programme on the station yesterday, with footage subsequently shared on his social media channels by the host.

Absolutely fascinating today @BBCRadio2 — @NigelHaversUK in the studio to complain about the behaviour of cyclists, along with @laura_laker who has written #PotholesAndPavements disagreeing that they offend more than any other road user.
Really worth hearing this exchange — pic.twitter.com/ebUPmDjxUT

— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) May 10, 2024

“All road users break the law in equal amount,” Laker pointed out. “I’m not saying that that’s right.

“We know that roads policing got decimated a decade ago, we lost 20,000 police officers, and so all of road user behaviour has got worse, drivers have become more aggressive, perhaps cyclists have become more aggressive too.”

Interjecting, Havers said: “I don’t break the law, I don’t break the rules” before claiming that “motor cars aren’t going through red lights.”

Havers invited Laker, whose book on the National Cycle Network Potholes & Pavements was published just last week and who is a contributor to road.cc, to join him “at a crossroads where no cars go through a red light, every cyclist does.”

“That’s not true,” Laker countered. “Definitely people break the law in their cars, with mobile phone use, we know that’s illegal and it’s as bad as drink-driving, even driving hands-free.”

“I don’t know what planet you’re on,” said Havers, who is reported to have been fined £500 and banned for driving for 12 months after being convicted of drink-driving in 1991.

“Come  and stand on the crossroads with me and you’ll see every single cyclist go through the red light.”

While it’s true that some cyclists do go through red lights, so too do many motorists, and Laker highlighted that it is the latter who are involved in, on average, five deaths a day on Britain’s roads as well as crashes that leave thousands more people seriously injured.

Undeterred, Havers, who in 2020 called for the removal of the temporary cycle lane briefly installed on Kensington High Street, insisted: “I have not seen a car go through a red light in London in years.”

> 'Scenes of utter havoc': Nigel Havers rants about cycle lanes 'causing gridlock every day' in front of empty Kensington High Street

“I know, but because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” replied Laker.

“So you think cars go through red lights just as much as cyclists?” asked Havers, incredulously.

“It’s not cars, it’s drivers,” clarified Laker, who in 2021 worked alongside Westminster University’s Active Travel Academy in developing guidelines for the language the media should use when reporting on road traffic collisions, which are still all too often deemed to be chance ‘accidents’ or in which vehicles crash without a driver seemingly being present.

“If car drivers are not breaking the law, how come vehicles are killing 1,700 people a year,” asked Vine, whose regularly posts videos of law-breaking drivers to his social media channels.

“Well, I mean …” responded Havers, before pausing, eventually breaking the silence by spluttering the word, “cyclists.”

The issue of cyclists and the law has been a high-profile one in the media this week after a coroner’s inquest into the death of a retired teacher who was struck by a cyclist riding in group in London’s Regent’s Park heard that the rider would face no charges in connection with the crash.

> No charges brought against Regent’s Park cyclist after high-speed crash in which pensioner was killed while crossing road

A Metropolitan Police officer told the inquest into the death of 81-year-old Hilda Griffiths that there was “insufficient evidence for a real prospect of conviction” of the cyclist concerned, Brian Fitzgerald, with the officer also confirming unlike motorists, cyclists are not required to adhere to posted speed limits.

Thankfully, road traffic collisions in which a pedestrian is killed following a crash with a cyclist are very rare, with Cycling UK citing official statistics that reveal there are on average around three such fatalities each year.

And it is the very fact that they happen so rarely that sees such incidents and, in their aftermath, wider cyclist behaviour, become the focus of intense media attention in a way that the vast majority of road traffic fatalities in which a motorist is involved do not.

Often, such media coverage takes the form of newspaper columns from celebrities – one example this weekend being found in the Express, with broadcaster Richard Madely calling for cyclists to be registered, and forced to carry insurance – something the government has rejected time and again.