I think a lot of the positive stories that the OP originally suggested are already out there.

For people who bang on about the supposed “danger” of cyclists on pavements, the CTC published stuff years ago (subsequently updated) showing that “In total, motor vehicles (i.e. car, motorbike, bus, van, HGV etc.) were involved in 99.4% of collisions in which a pedestrian died, and 98.5% of collisions in which a pedestrian was seriously injured”
https://www.cyclinguk.org/campaigning/views-and-briefings/pedestrians
I’m sure a lot of people will have seen the graphs showing how many head injuries have nothing to do with cycling, and read the reports detailing the health and social benefits that cycling brings to society.

I’d agree with previous posters that these stories have a low profile, because they are minority interest. Most people are simply not interested in hearing anything positive about cycling, and if you have a newspaper or radio programme to promote, “the menace of cycling” is an easy button to push in order to get people venting their spleen.

So, in a purely hypothetical sense, would a charm offensive on the ground help to counteract some of the bile that the newspapers are encouraging?

I would argue that just riding your bike is a charm offensive. You are making space for other road users, you’re safer for pedestrians and other road users than a driver, you’re not pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, etc.

I’m not sure that media campaigns will change viewpoints. People will just see that as the nanny state wasting their tax money, or dismiss it as the work of “campaigners”. On a couple of occasions, I have challenged work colleagues (perfectly nice people) who trotted out the usual “bloody cyclists” comments. When I suggested what they were saying didn’t actually stack up, they did actually do a bit of double take and back tracked on their original comments. I got the strong impression they had never actually thought through what they were saying, and were just repeating the same tired old comments that so many people come out with. Unfortunately, talking to people one at a time doesn’t really scale up as a good solution to this problem!

However I keep returning to the theme. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how gracious motorists can be when I briefly lay off the pedals and pull over (when I can) to let them past, e.g. a convenient layby, empty junction etc. In the context of my commute the 5 extra seconds this takes me means sweet F.A. and in the context of a 100km weekend jaunt it is usually a nice excuse for a breather.

Probably limited to those of us who don’t have to ride through miles of tailbacks during rush hour 😉

I mean, yes I do that and agree with you but…^^^

Some interesting stuff here. There are clearly a few folk on this thread who are singing exactly the same tune as a lot of battle hardened cycle campaigners, but don’t know it.

When I wrote the article I wasn’t really focused on the deeper motivations for the constant stream of anti-cycling articles. It was more a plea for cyclists to get organised and get off the back foot. It’s an interesting subject though.

Regarding Bez’s conspiracy theory, if you imagine it as a shadowy cabal who meet in smoky rooms to discuss how to crush cycling, it’s a bit far-fetched. However if you see it in terms of common interests, there is definitely something co-ordinated at work. I remember Sustrans’s policy director saying at a talk that cycling is seen as fundamentally anti-growth and economically backward. Which in some respects it is – it’s harder to make money from people who cycle, and there’s not much cash knocking about in the industry overall. If you take a classical definition of GDP, where more car crashes, higher insurance premiums and long-term chronic illnesses can all make your country appear to be financially better off, cycling is completely undesirable.

Add to that the fact that your average local news outlet will have scores of advertisers, ranging from car dealers to supermarkets, for whom anti-motoring content would be a major turn-off. The way that these pieces always get a reaction, while not pissing off the folk who pay the bills, means they will continue until things change radically.

I don’t see a problem with the often-called-for demand by these articles/readers that cyclists that use the road should pass a proficiency test

Just like the majority of adult cyclists I already have. It was called the driving test. Are you really suggesting that it’s fine for me to drive at high speed in a coup!e of tonnes of metal, but i need a different test before i can be trusted with a few kilos of unpowered bike?

The other things that we see in the papers which are “hot topics”—stuff like the Mail’s articles about migrants, or the Express’s articles about the EU, or whatever else—are they also just lazy journalism?

Lazy as in analytics driven to increase traffic instead of old skool researched journalism, as opposed to “can’t be arsed to write” lazy.

Every media outlet has access to things like TGI where they can plug in things like ages/demographic (which they know from site analytics) and then get back attitudinal responses for a big sample set. Write content that aligns with those responses, amplify on social, bingo you have big traffic and big ad revenues.

So I’d say it’s not a conspiracy against cyclists or immigrants or Muslims or whatever, more a policy of (quite cynically) creating content to drive revenue. After all they’re businesses so have to deliver profits or die out. If they know cyclists are a hot topic that makes money, of course they’ll do it!

“Conspiracy” is the wrong word, certainly if we’re talking about one newspaper at a time. There’s no “Daily Express conspiracy” against the EU, it’s just an editorial bias. When they plaster “Get Britain Out Of Europe” over the front page, that’s not a conspiracy. It’s a policy of the paper’s editors and/or owners.

Likewise, when the Mail slaps “Cycle Lane Lunacy: The New Blight Paralysing Britain” on its front page, that’s not a conspiracy, it’s an editorial decision.

The first question that needs to be considered is one of why these papers keep making these decisions; the three most plausible explanations being maintaining/increasing readership, political motives, or longer-term economic motives (including those relating to ad sales). The second and third can sometimes be intertwined.

That can be considered in isolation of any “conspiracy theory” (which is a phrase that makes people think the whole thing is a completely implausible micro-managed operation). If multiple papers choose the same editorial bias for the same reason, that is not a conspiracy, it is simply multiple people making the same rational decision.

Once we’ve pondered those rational decisions, yes, in order to understand why those decisions were made it’s then worth considering the financial interests and business contacts of the people who make those decisions. Which politicians do they frequently speak to; what companies are they shareholders or directors of? Because everyone makes rational decisions based on their own circumstances and the way in which they are influenced by everything and everyone around them.

But the point here is that “pressing people’s buttons” is not the only rational decision which multiple papers can make: the absence of conspiracy does not imply the absence of a common motive, nor does a common rational decision imply conspiracy.

So I’d say it’s not a conspiracy against cyclists or immigrants or Muslims or whatever, more a policy of (quite cynically) creating content to drive revenue. After all they’re businesses so have to deliver profits or die out. If they know cyclists are a hot topic that makes money, of course they’ll do it!

Partly that and partly that people now are incapable of reading in-depth articles with statistics and facts and being swayed by that. Look at the slow but inevitable slide towards clickbait headlines, shouty opinion pieces and sweeping generalisations.

If it can’t be said in 140 characters, if it doesn’t involve a celebrity or two (you won’t BELIEVE what this celeb looks like now!!) and a 12 second snippet of video most people just won’t be interested, they certainly won’t read it, think about it critically, engage with it and then say “well I concur, the economic argument for more cycling is certainly fascinating, I’ll make every effort to ride to work now”.

The media also have a habit of conflating cycling as a sport with cycling as a mode of transport and then bringing in some moron bike racer to espouse his ill-thought views on helmets which can immediately be picked up on by the Daily Wail: Lord Sir Bradley thinks all cyclists should wear helmets!!OMG!!

bringing in some moron bike racer

Chris Boardman you mean?

Further I’m sure this entire thread only caters for those “special” London people no?

I assumed it was a specific dig at Wiggins…

The Rise of The Idiots

If it was all about getting the biggest reaction, a piece titled “Drive a car to work? Then you’re a massive, drooling idiot” would certainly get more rage-clicks than something aimed at an activity which two thirds of the UK’s adult population never, ever do.

If it was all about getting the biggest reaction, a piece titled “Drive a car to work? Then you’re a massive, drooling idiot” would certainly get more rage-clicks than something aimed at an activity which two thirds of the UK’s adult population never, ever do.

Look at the two most influential elements in this diagram:

Because so few people use a bike and not a car, this firmly plants cycling in the ‘unknown’ category. In all of my discussions with peopel who are influenced by these types of headlines – they paradoxically view cyclists as both a plague on the roads and a ‘recent trend’

See also immigrants.

No-one wants to read articles so much where the finger is pointed at them. Minorities are very useful for the manufacturers and purveyors of ‘outrage’ clickbait

I just wish road cyclists wouldn’t wear black clothing, and if they wore something that can be seen then perhaps they wouldn’t need lights on during the day.

I just wish road cyclists wouldn’t wear black clothing, and if they wore something that can be seen then perhaps they wouldn’t need lights on during the day.

Argument for another thread.

Back on topic, I had some good luck diffusing a typical anti-cyclist thread on my local community FB page at the weekend, pointed out that generalising about all cyclists based on the (apparent) dickish actions of one cyclist would be the same as me generalising about all drivers based on that one arsehole in a red Jag passing me with inches to spare at 60mph…

I also posted up the Edinburgh Bicycle Coop ‘Bicycle Bullshit Bingo Card’ which got a few laughs. The thread actually ended up being relatively pro-cyclist (until the admin team closed it down, conspiracy? 8) ).

I just wish road cyclists wouldn’t wear black clothing, and if they wore something that can be seen then perhaps they wouldn’t need lights on during the day.

How long does it take you to argue with a barista about whether or not you’ve been handed an empty cup?

Or do you take milk just so you can see it?