Best of Times, worst of Times: Safety campaign gets silly

The Times’s campaign for safer cycling got rather silly on its third day.

Finger-wagging articles appeared telling us cycling is so incredibly dangerous, we need to take “body armour and helmets... Lycra and face masks”.

A helpful graphic (top right) detailed what we must buy if we are to avoid a slow, painful death under the wheels of a blameless heavy goods vehicle: £160 helmet, £170 leggings, £100 top, £27 gloves, £26 overshoes, £125 backpack – a total cost of over £600.

The Real Cyclist’s response to this is: tosh, balderdash, tummy-rubbish. We reject your London-salary, aggressive-urban-professional nonsense.

I cycle round York in my normal clothes (total cost £30 from Peacock’s). Backpacks are rubbish for everyday cycling; you want panniers. And the helmet, frankly, will make far less difference to your survival chances than cycling assertively and safely.

We should also, the paper instructs us, avoid all roads and only stick to cycle tracks.

Er, right. Ones like this (right), near the Oval.

Don't be silly; most of them are full of broken glass, go the wrong way, and stop to let traffic past every two minutes; see this and other blogs passim.

Times hacks, why don’t you ask someone who actually knows, such as me? Except I’m not very good and will probably be off cycling somewhere anyway. So better, someone like Carlton Reid (who has contributed some lucid comments on the paper's campaign).

In other Times foolishness, rower James Cracknell wrote a piece full of opinion and devoid of any supporting evidence, saying those who do not wear helmets are being ‘selfish to your family and friends’.

That’ll be the entire population of the Netherlands and Denmark, then.

Here’s an idea: I don’t know anything about rowing, so maybe the Times could do an interview piece with me on what you must do to win Olympic medals.

Blood and Thunder: The Times puts cycling safety firmly at top of agenda

Yesterday's Times caused quite a stir by using its whole front page (right), and substantial amounts of space inside (below right), to launch their campaign to improve cycling safety.

It was prompted by the serious injury sustained by one of the Times journos, Mary Bowers, while cycling. She is still in a coma.

Today's issue has continued coverage of their campaign.

The paper has involved several high-profile cycling names - Nicole Cook, Bradley Wiggins, Victoria Pendleton, Sir Chris Hoy et al - and has issued an eight-point manifesto for action.


The eight points, briefly, are:
1 Mandatory sensors and safety equipment for trucks entering city centres
2 500 most dangerous junctions to be identified and fixed
3 National cycling safety audit to be done
4 2 per cent of Highway Agency budget earmarked for cycle routes
5 Cycle safety to be core part of driving test
6 20mph to be default speed limit in residential areas
7 Business invited to sponsor cycleways, as in the Barclays Cycle Superhighways
8 Every city to appoint a cycle commissioner to push reforms


Some aspects of the Times's proposals are open to debate. I'm not sure about point 2's suggestion of 'Trixi mirrors' (right) as a matter of course, for instance (there's no evidence either way on their effectiveness yet, and we can't afford to splash money on unverified measures).

The idea of London's Cycle Superhighways as some sort of best-practice model is arguable, too.

But the fact that a major newspaper has put cycle safety so firmly on the national agenda is excellent, if overdue, news.

I'll be in more of a joke-cracking mood next post, but this is serious stuff.

However, there was one subbing error that made me smile in the Times's 'Covenant for Cycling', in point 1: "Trucks entering a city centre should be required by law to fit censors"...

It does make you wonder what those naughty truck drivers get up to in their cabs to need such moral scrutiny.

Innocence of kids: thinking bikes cause accidents

A campaign in the City of London was launched recently to remind cyclists to obey traffic signals.

Various signs and posters were designed by two children from a local school - Isla, aged 8, and Lola, aged 9. Apparently this was the idea of one their parents, who is evidently concerned about the Cycling Menace threatening their kids.

We went past one of the signs yesterday, fixed to a traffic signal on Fleet St (right). The charming work of Lola, aged 9, it asks cyclists to stop at red lights.


Now, this is all very well. Except that as recent studies confirmed, it's not cyclists busting lights that causes accidents. It's drivers ignoring the laws. Get that, Mrs Parent? Lola, aged 9, is much more at risk from errant motorists than she is from impatient cycle couriers.

So this version of the sign on the right is more the sort of thing I'd like to see.

Ah, the innocence of adults. Bless their little hearts.