It’s been suggested to me that many of you don’t ever venture into the Bike Forum so may have well have missed the Hey, you! Yes, you! – “Get Britain Cycling” e-petition thread.

If that is you then here is a quick summary:

The cross-parliamentary inquiry has completed and published a report called “Get Britain Cycling”

It sets out 18 entirely sensible and very welcome recommendations, briefly summarised as:

So now what they (and The Times, CTC, British Cycling, Sustrans, road.cc, Hoy, Boardman, and just about anyone to do with cycling in the UK) want us to do is to

SIGN THIS GOVERNMENT PETITION NOW

to force the recommendations to be properly debated in parliament rather than the standard government response.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49196

DO IT. DO IT NOW.

I didn’t read that original thread cos it was bound to be the usual shouty gobby blokes off here boring everyone to death. 😉

Signed. 🙂

Signed 🙂

Splendid – I feel justified. 😀

Shameless bump

50k now – half way

Promote cycling as a safe and normal activity for every one?
Not as long as this kind of **** is happening

GrahamS – well done.

Quite a few of you have signed now, however we need more, many more.

signed, sorry about last post, had just read story and was still fizzing

Done

Done

Done

“Promote cycling as a safe and normal activity for every one?
Not as long as this kind of **** is happening“

Just one counter to that, of course, is this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/20/obesity-crisis-women-nhs-figures

“65% of men are now overweight or obese, compared with 58% in 1993. The figures for women have risen from 49% to 58% in the same period. Adult obesity – defined as having a body mass index (BMI) over 30 – has risen steeply, from 13% of men in 1993 to 24% in 2011 and from 16% to 26% in women. Measurements at primary school show that 9.5% of children arriving in reception class are obese. By the time they leave, 19.2% are obese. Only a third of us manage 30 minutes of physical activity once a week, when we should all be aiming for 150 minutes every week to keep our hearts healthy.”

Well said Bez.

In the long term, sitting on the couch is much much more dangerous than cycling on the road.

Great idea but don’t start pissing about with speed limits and lorrys in towns etc…

Especially for overtaking…… 😀

don’t start pissing about with speed limits and lorrys in towns etc…

Why not?

20 in residential areas seems to work pretty well and I can think of plenty of “rural roads” round here where only total idiots attempt to do 60.

As for HGVs/lorries – they are disproportionately responsible for fatalities in cities, so something needs to be done.

Signed. 50,000 doesn’t seem like a lot

And what do you suggest is done? Make all lorries work through the night?

And what do you suggest is done? Make all lorries work through the night?

I suggest we pass a law banning large construction vehicles, HGVs, etc from busy city streets, at least during rush hours, then leave it up to the haulage companies to find solutions.

Imagine if the situation were reversed and lorries were already banned but were campaigning to have the ban lifted:

“True, our lorries do have huge blindspots. Yes, they are driven to tight deadlines by tired drivers whose livelihood depends on being punctual. Yes, our lorries will be responsible for a large percentage of deaths. But it is important we make money…”

Would you support that campaign?

Why do you highlight construction vehicles? That dizzy woman doing her lippy in the mirror of her 4×4 whilst driving is far more dangerous than a professional driver. It’s a totally unworkable scenario that would increase costs massively just thro paying people to work nights. And before you jump up and down I don’t want to see cyclists in dangerous situations anymore than you.

Wouldn’t necassarily be through the night, avoid rush hours would leave the middle of the day available for inner city deliveries. staff would be available to receive them etc…

But the important thing is the government is shown that there is support and a real demand for things to change.

Why do you highlight construction vehicles? That dizzy woman doing her lippy in the mirror of her 4×4 whilst driving is far more dangerous than a professional driver.

Because HGVs and construction vehicles are disproportionately responsible for fatalities.

They are involved in roughly half of all cyclist deaths in London, but they only make up 5% of the traffic.

If 4×4 had similar stats then I’d be calling for them to be banned as well.

It’s a totally unworkable scenario that would increase costs massively just thro paying people to work nights.

As I said, up to the haulage firms to find solutions but some possibilities might be: transfer goods to smaller vehicles for the final leg of delivery in cities; schedule city deliveries outside rush hours; use improved city-friendly HGV design; fit sensors and blindspot cameras etc

And before you jump up and down I don’t want to see cyclists in dangerous situations anymore than you.

I’m sure you don’t, I don’t think anyone does. So we need to work together to find solutions.

Some of those may involve putting lives ahead of profit.

Other cities manage it.

“Why do you highlight construction vehicles? That dizzy woman doing her lippy in the mirror of her 4×4 whilst driving is far more dangerous than a professional driver.“

Is she “far more dangerous” than a prefessional driver who repeatedly commits tachograph offences and drives more than double the permissible number of daily hours, uses the phone to direct colleagues whilst driving, fails to look in his mirrors, fails to observe a cyclist who is visible through his windscreen, fails to hear the screaming of the cyclist under his wheels and is only alerted by bystanders, and fails to brake his vehicle correctly when getting out of it?

I’m guessing not. And he’s not the only example.

Don’t get me wrong, “doing your lippy” whilst driving is abhorrently dangerous, but it’s pretty disingenuous to suggest that it’s women or 4×4 drivers we need to look out for. (And by “disingenuous” I of course mean “sexist and generalist”, but I’m being polite.)

Professional drivers are in no way some superior form of road user; in fact my experience suggests there’s more of a tendency for professional drivers to use the road with more arrogance and self-entitlement, not to mention all the issues around how some drivers are incentivised in ways that are contrary to safety being a priority.

53,274 signatures. Still got a long way to go!

Weekend Bump – Get It Signed!

Currently at 56,321

[UPDATE]

So… the petition has reached 58,728 signatures and the Department for Transport have issued their initial handwavey response.

As expected it offers lots of platitudes, repeats announcements about existing cycling budgets, and details how they are already striving to ignore every single recommendation in the report and come up with their own instead.

If this is going to get any further then it MUST be debated properly in open parliament where the DfT can’t just sweep it under the carpet.

So if you haven’t signed already…

SIGN NOW!!!

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49196

If not for me, then for Jon Snow:

[video]http://vimeo.com/66393089[/video]

If not for me, then for Jon Snow:

00:38 ‘kiiiiin ell and I thought some of the roads round here were busy, that there london looks bloody awful for riding.

Sorry to harp on, but the signing rates have really tailed off.
It is pretty much stuck at 67,000.

I suspect a lot of people are dismissing this as “just another petition” – but really this is a MASSIVE opportunity with press, cross-party and cross-cycle campaign support.

It’s our Last, Best Hope for Peace. 😀

PLEASE SIGN NOW and encourage others to do likewise.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/49196

ahem, anyone missed this?

signed