Motonormativity, bike hate:-(

I watched a video on GCN last night about the above.

Explains a lot for the shear hate people type in the comments on FB etc. and behaviour on the roads.

Worth a watch.

Stuff I knew already but just as annoying as normal to see it all highlighted together.  I thought the worst part was at the start with people perception of bikes being more of a danger than cars and one person even saying g the cyclists were the cause of the cars being a danger!

Warms the cockles to think those people vox-popped at the start get one vote as well, isnt it?

I’ve never believed that enough change will happen in the UK towards car-culture to make cycling truly safe, but lately I’ve become almost defeatist in thinking that urban roads are pretty much lost to the majority of people on bikes for utilitarian usage.

One of the best things I’ve seen from GCN in some time. It’s normally all infomercial or advertorial. As about, nothing new for people at this end of things and unfortunately, unlikely to ever be seen by people at the other end.

One of the best things I’ve seen from GCN in some time. It’s normally all infomercial or advertorial.

Yeah, borderline controversial for them, maybe it’s a good thing they’ve parted ways with WBD.

But also they are also kind  of late to making this sort of content.

The societal blind spot we’ve acquired WRT cars is now akin to the US attitudes to firearms… And cars ?

Actually, the US firearms analogy isn’t one I’d considered before, but it’s a really good one.

A good bit of content from GCN – and something they should do more of. Cycling is as much about transport, leisure, touring as it is about performance, tech, etc

We need to get away from cycling as only about lycra/ racing, etc And the well know media need to realise it.

The puzzle is how do we change society’s reliance on cars? Driving is a privilege, not a right; people should remember that. Everything is designed around enabling cars. Not only are there far too many cars on the road, there’s far too many huge SUVs often with only one person in them. They really have no business being in towns/ cities……but it’s probably too late to do something. The Japanese had ‘Kei’ cars, we should have done similar years ago.

And I speak as a petrolhead/ motorsport fan, but realise they cause so much angst, danger by selfish people driving them.

This kind of thing needs to be part of the driving test

Cars need speed limiters, compusory black boxes and power limits, to deal with people who see speeding as normal.

It will also deal with dicks like the people in the link below who you have to share the roads with.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw4y84d5p5jo

We need to get away from cycling as only about lycra/ racing, etc And the well know media need to realise it.

That’s probably more of a key point that people realise, half the issue is that the perception of cycling as being about leisure/performance/sport rather than as an active transport option, contributes further to the ‘car brain’ culture.

What do you do if you need to get somewhere further/faster than walking allows? Bicycles just don’t factor in that thought process enough.

Similarly busses end up being avoided simply due to costs/convenience: Froom our house we can get into town by foot, bicycle, bus or car unless you’re in town for the whole day, parking a car and using a little fuel is unfortunately cheaper than the bus if we’re going as as a family (and both our kids already have bus passes), cycling is ruled out by my wife’s absolute terror of the roads (more car culture related issues) and my kids sheer laziness makes walking more than 1/4 mile with them a mare. If it’s just me the car is my last, least favoured choice, more than two people I have to admit we simply default to the car… Which is terrible TBH, but I recognise how we’ve been herded to that frequent decision.

The thing is people view cars especially as a “necessity” and for some they probably are, at least to live the life they have. So every negative attached to their use is unavoidable and therefore acceptable. It’s almost impossible to express how deeply anti cycling feelings run in some people. I come across it every day in normal conversations with friends, they’re completely blind to failings of drivers but happy to pick every fault they see in cyclist’s.
Sadly I don’t see this changing, every cycling positive initiative whether it’s 20mph limits, cycle lanes, cycle awareness programmes they’re all viewed as a direct assault on them. I can’t see it changing ever it’s to ingrained. As above it’s our gun culture ☹☹

It’s a difficult topic to approach because of the very biases it’s confronting and I’d say very few people get it right. That’s a decent effort from GCN, which is good to see, and good on them for taking it on.

The thing is people view cars especially as a “necessity” and for some they probably are…

They are because that’s the way we’ve made them, and we continue to to make it more and more difficult to use any alternative means of transport. It needs addressed.

What would be good to see as a follow up, is an actual working model. There’s one just a stone’s throw from the UK where these problems are thought of pragmatically, and almost everybody, whatever age, has safe means of travel regardless of their chosen transport. The principles around which really need to be brought into our thinking when designing infrastructure before it’s too late.

The thing is people view cars especially as a “necessity” and for some they probably are…
They are because that’s the way we’ve made them, and we continue to to make it more and more difficult to use any alternative means of transport.

Cars are a necessity for rural dwellers if you want any kind of access to modern life. There’s never going to be enough public transport to replace them in those areas. The problem is how you use them and your attitude to other road users.

Private cars have got no business in cities though.

Cars are a necessity for rural dwellers if you want any kind of access to modern life.

Which applies to less than 20% of the population in England. Even there, there are issues with closing public services, schools, etc. There are things that can be improved everywhere outside of the most remote locations.

Lots of positives in London. Planning policy is pushing ‘car free development’ in areas of good public transport infrastructure. Car sharing schemes are part of planning permissions. Pedestrian and cycle focussed public space is actively encouraged and secure cycle parking is a requirement for all new development including areas for cargo bikes.

It’s not universally popular with clients and developers, or even local residents but new residential development since 2015 (?) under the London Plan is heading the right way.

Appreciate that is London, but lots of people live there. I believe other cities are also getting on board. Obviously doesn’t deal with existing housing stock, but this and net zero carbon policies (for all its flaws) mean the narrative is not all one sided.

https://x.com/3YearLetterman/status/1817214739753132394

The amount of abuse you get as a cyclist is unacceptable. If you swapped ‘cyclist’ for race or neuro diverse then the abuse would not be tolerated. But it’s OK it’s a cyclist they are the scum of the earth.

When considering the amount of cyclist hate there is out there, the strange thing then is to see just how popular traffic free routes are.

It’s a shame Boris was such a **** & that seemingly none of his Oxford & Cambridge chums let the cycling buzz of those cities rub off onto their future traffic policies.

The amount of abuse you get as a cyclist is unacceptable. If you swapped ‘cyclist’ for race or neuro diverse then the abuse would not be tolerated

I once talked about the abuse and violence I had experienced while cycling, without saying what I had been doing to attract it. Most people assumed I was gay/trans/black or all three.

The amount of abuse you get as a cyclist is unacceptable. If you swapped ‘cyclist’ for race or neuro diverse then the abuse would not be tolerated

I completely agree with this on the basis that the danger and violence you’re subjected to as somebody who rides a bike is very real, and there are very real and sometimes tragic consequences to attitudes played out towards people on the road.

When considering the amount of cyclist hate there is out there, the strange thing then is to see just how popular traffic free routes are.

Surprisingly all the same attitudes exist in the Netherlands and if you wander onto the road, drivers will quickly let you know you’re unwelcome. The solution is well planned infrastructure that works for everybody, whether it’s lower speed limits, improving pedestrian and cycling infrastructure, or building dedicated routes. Nobody needs to think about cars versus cyclists, we just need to build networks that work for everybody. All the evidence is there to support it.

Obviously to a much less charged extent, but it’s similar to much of the populist finger pointing. Easy, marginalised targets to hang the blame on, instead of addressing the actual issue, which is almost always too nuanced to express in a 280 characters. Politicians lean into it for votes (“stop the boats” – “tax and register bikes” – “remove gender identity from the curriculum” etc). Just more ways to distract from the actual issues or cover hidden agendas. Gets views, sells papers, gets votes.

Realistically, it’s hard to see a way past it. Car dependency is so ingrained in the UK (even worse in North America) that it would take a huge shift to push people to even considering other modes of transport. Classic catch 22: unsafe to cycle – few people cycle – no infra funding etc.

I think there’s always been the anger towards cyclists in one way or another, but social media has definitely exposed us all to comments that might otherwise be kept to themselves. Pretty common to see flippant support for maiming folk on bikes.

Pretty common to see flippant support for maiming folk on bikes.

^This is what scares me …. The vitriol that some people spue out on social media is shocking.

If you threatened someone one like that in any other context the Police will come a knocking :-(.

Simon Richardson for PM.

Realistically, it’s hard to see a way past it. Car dependency is so ingrained in the UK (even worse in North America) that it would take a huge shift to push people to even considering other modes of transport

It is happening though. Just far too slowly. It needs to gain more momentum.

^This is what scares me …. The vitriol that some people spue out on social media is shocking.

Aye, definitely. Social media’s ability to connect village idiots from across the land is staggering. I know it’s just brings the worst out of the keyboard warriors , but still really bothers me.

The one that comes to mind was the stream of bile/support for the driver posted after that infamous video of a bloke pulling a caravan, driving over a cyclist pulling away from a traffic light ?

That’s a great GCN video – thanks for posting

I think the Lycra thing is a distraction, and possibly a “vehicular cyclist” concoction. I think it doesn’t really matters whether cycling is associated with racing or not. I say this because I live in Cambridge and my family use bikes to get around as normal people and many drivers are just shits to cyclists, including child cyclists, even in a place where one third of people use bicycles at least three times a week. My theory is that it’s only a good place to cycle because it has many people (students) who are banned from keeping cars so many off road routes to the centre. I cycled around the outskirts of Hull today and I wish drivers were anywhere near as considerate at home as they were there.

Cars are a necessity for rural dwellers if you want any kind of access to modern life.

Which proves the point somewhat.

The reason the village pub and shops closed is because people jump in their car and drive to the supermarket / other entertainment.

In interesting recent example of this motornormativty was that Range Rover ploughing into a school in Wimbledon. Clearly a terrible accident but the reporting barely mentioned whether it is normal to have a 2.5 ton vehicle in a densely populated urban area.

And also fairly predictable that a vehicle might roll down that hill. It was a new building, why no planning requiring a raised kerb or earth bank to deflect a vehicle?

Cars are a necessity for rural dwellers if you want any kind of access to modern life.

And that, right there, is motornormativity.

Any suggestion, no matter how mild, that maybe we should use cars less, design for / prioritise other modes of transport etc is met with:
Cars are essential for [insert demographic here]
or
You try delivering supplies for a 2 week building job using just a cargo bike!
or
WhAT ab0ut teh Eld3rLy aNd d1sAblEd???!!! You uncaring heartless bastard.

Yes, cars can be a necessity but they’ve become that way due to a succession of policy and lifestyle choices and decisions over the last 100 years. And now, while they may be a necessity to some people, they’ve become a “default way of thinking” for pretty much everyone and it requires some serious “unwinding” of previous policy. It’s been done elsewhere to great success, it just requires some decent political support right from the top. Problem is that the previous Government just spent their time culture warring cyclists.

In interesting recent example of this motornormativty was that Range Rover ploughing into a school in Wimbledon.

And there were no charges brought against the driver either, but the least I would have expected is getting her licence revoked due to undiagnosed medical condition?

I think the Lycra thing is a distraction, and possibly a “vehicular cyclist” concoction.

Someone’s been listening to the war on cars podcast ?

it just requires some decent political support right from the top. Problem is that the previous Government just spent their time culture warring cyclists.

The Tories chose to view the skinny margin they won the Uxbridge by-election by as a disproportionate indicator of how much they could leverage Car-brain. The rhetoric after was very much about how “the other lot want to take your car and/or tax you off the roads“.

But then internally I think Labour struggled not to throw Khan under the bus (figuratively), swallowing the same narrative that ULEZ and by extension anything that places limitations on or contradicts the ‘Car is king’ mantra is ‘Bad for business’ I don’t know how much we can trust them to change that element of British culture. Only if they twig that real active travel policies have positive benefits beyond the obvious and that if they’re trying to nudge an economy back to life, even local active travel infrastructure projects (because it’s not all just bikes) contribute to employment and skills levels too.

As with clean energy good governments spot and promote the opportunities rather than simply try to scare the plebs with unfamiliar ideas and the spectre of change…

I think it’s easy to equate “Car Brain” with RW culture warring mindsets, but I do think it’s more widely socially engrained and universal, the threats and casual attitudes to injuring/killing a specific group, that’s very much the swivel-eyed ‘Braverman’s Brown-shirts Brigade‘ and should maybe have less attention paid. But the general lack of challenge to car use, and defaulting to cars as a mode of transport, that is sadly pretty universal…

In interesting recent example of this motornormativty was that Range Rover ploughing into a school in Wimbledon.

Last weekend, 16 people died in about 6-8 various car crashes, the most prominent of which was this:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c880j1mm2nlo

Not much mention in the press. A few articles but nothing compared to the vitriol and opinion pieces after this case:
https://road.cc/content/news/no-charges-cyclist-after-crash-which-oap-was-killed-308209

Cyclist faced no charges after the incident in Regent’s Park and the same people who dismiss car accidents (especially incidents involving drivers killing cyclists) as “tragic events / thoughts and prayers” were calling for the cyclist to be hung drawn and quartered.

If 16 people had been killed in a train or plane crash or in a succession of incidents on building sites, those industries would be in turmoil right now. Cars? Carry on, it’s just part and parcel of us all getting around by car.

Motornirmivity or whatever it is way too complicated for most people to grasp. Car blindness , or car biased would be more accessible.
The hard of thinking woman who claimed that a number of cars killed Peds because of cyclists is astronomicaly stupid. It’s probably never happened. No mention of car and bike interfaces though.
It’s never going to improve though. Until cars can be re assigned as planet killers and people killers . And not heralded as status symbols , sport , essential items,
Shame really.

I gave up on road riding after the first lockdown, that was a high point that will never come back. I decided the more time I spent on the roads the more inevitable I’d be wiped out by an angry gammon or “powered by fairy dust” with her face in her phone. It’s not the way I want to go out, also knowing they wouldn’t even face any repercussions for their “mistake”.

So since then it’s been mtb and commuting, which fortunately for me can be done 90% off road, and for the on-road bits there’s usually a handy, under-utilised footpath I can hop on to.

We’re never going to get our own way on the roads, they’re for cars and they don’t want us there. So just politely use any available footpath, be respectful to the small number of pedestrians you’re likely to encounter, in the increasingly lawlesss uk this is way down the list of stuff the police will give a stuff about. Maybe if we do it en-masse it might get the point across that we’re not safe anywhere else.

We’re never going to get our own way on the roads, they’re for cars and they don’t want us there.

Erm….

Maybe if we do it en-masse it might get the point across that we’re not safe anywhere else.

It’s really not that unsafe. It’s like you have been brain washed, as per the thread title!

It’s really not that unsafe. It’s like you have been brain washed, as per the thread title!

Sometimes we believe their lies.

I feel the need to contribute this to every such thread, incase anyone external that influences travel policy should happen across it.

I had to go into town yesterday. Options are:

10 mins by car (which I need for my job and is volunarily necessary for my hobbies) including £3.50 to park. add on another few minutes of walking to my destination.

30-40mins by public transport, including 15 minutes of walking. Price unknown but probably around the same as parking.

14 minutes by bike (google estimate, reckon I could beat that). 20mph residential road and bike paths all the way.

50 minutes walking.

Guess which is the only one of the 4 I would NEVER choose.

Unless I buy a brompton and carry it around with me at my destination, there is no way I will be cycling to a town centre or train station and leaving my bike in public. That is my one and only objection to cycling for transportation. The only thing stopping me doing it.

I dont need more segregated routes although the existing ones are welcomed. I dont need cars physically restricted to 20mph. I need to know my bike will be there in working order when i return to it.

Over the past few years – certainly for local travel – I have started asking myself ‘could I bike it instead?’

Unfortunately, all too often, the answer is at best ‘maybe’.

Just thinking about supermarkets here…

It’s fifteen minutes by car to get to my local Aldi. It takes a minute or two less to do it on a bike, which is great! Except there is no provision to actually lock a bike up there. The car park is huge, and rarely full, but zero provision for bikes.

My local sainsburys has decent bike parking, but there isn’t much of it and it’s clearly an afterthought. There is also a shopping precinct which has an array of shops and cafes. What it doesn’t have is anywhere to lock a bike – unless you are a d!ck and lock it on the railings for the pedestrian ramp.

Marks and Spencer is on a retail park. Huge car park and guess what, nowhere to lock a bike. It’s also a horrible place to even get into on a bike, zero provision.

But then we have to look wider at the local area. Despite having a couple of decent cycle routes around, it’s almost actively discouraged from an infrastructure perspective. The only place with a cycle path is a local bypass and then it’s quite a good path – oh wait – it’s a path that would be good if the trees were maintained. Car brain is strong.

The area I live is a small part of the town that was cut off from the central area years ago but (ironically) a new road development. 500 yards from the edge of the housing is a large horse stables. I regularly see people driving that distance.It’s a ten minute walk to the central shops but folks drive down (me included sometimes, because I want a couple of bits from greggs and there is nowhere to lock my bike).

It’s quite depressing really. I had some hope when the local council announced they were including a cycle track as part of some new play equipment. There was space for a small pump track which would have been perfect. What we got was a poor off camber gravel loop which was built by a local contractor with zero experience in building things for bikes.

OK, that turned into a bit of a moan. But when talking to local people about how it could be better it feels like I may was well be speaking in tongues.

Unless I buy a brompton and carry it around with me at my destination, there is no way I will be cycling to a town centre or train station and leaving my bike in public. That is my one and only objection to cycling for transportation. The only thing stopping me doing it.

I dont need more segregated routes although the existing ones are welcomed. I dont need cars physically restricted to 20mph. I need to know my bike will be there in working order when i return to it.

So buy a commuter / pub bike?

I’ve got 2, ones so rubbish I leave it without a lock outside Reading Station.

Not doing a 15 minute journey by bike for those reasons is like saying you won’t drive because the Paggani will get scratched in the multistory.   The solution is to buy a small city car   a utilitarian bike.

So now GCN has preached to the converted, what’s next? Are they going to get a TV programme commissioned? A little debate on a cycling Youtube channel isn’t really going anywhere is it..