We Get What We Pay For

When it comes to cycling as a lifestyle component, Britain leads the way. We lead the way in the most creative use of band-aids to patch a woefully absent establishment attitude towards cycling infrastructure the developed world has ever seen.

Top marks for ingenious public announcements and public policy recommendations, Simon Cowell would bequeath a Hollywood smile and a thumbs up for Britain's performance in talking the talk.

Even when it comes to spending money, there is often a lot of noise made locally that “so and so council spent x amount on cycling” - which makes a great headline for the local paper. But when your rubber hits the tarmac a couple of years later, all that's noticeable is a handful of signs and some faded paint on the ground. - Most commonly an unhelpful “END” communicating in your cycle lane where the money ran out.

In Scotland for example, cycling campaign Spokes acknowledges the poultry scraps that are thrown towards developing the healthy biking lifestyle; around 1% of the transport budget. Pathetic.


BIG IDEAS

OK so there is the National Cycle Network which links cities around the UK and this received a £42.5 million investment, but from whom? The government? No! They must have been too busy tending their moats and flipping their houses. Indeed the funding came from a National Lottery grant – a charity hand out.

Whilst the National Cycle Network is good for touring and holidays, the population centres of the UK are in urban areas. This is where most journeys are made, and where the least infrastructure is dedicated to traffic-free cycling.

“It's kind of cramped in the city” the Town Planners whinge over the dusty cube-farm partitions. “We can't do anything here” echo the mousey cries of obedience.

Bollocks.

Have you BEEN to Europe?


If our representatives can plough billions in to new roads and motorway widening, amongst other major civil engineering projects, then can you IMAGINE the improvements that kind of money would see applied to urban infrastructure benefiting cyclists, pedestrians, home owners and local businesses.

There is a philosophy with road building which acknowledges that increasing infrastructure carrying capacity does not ease congestion, but actually encourages more people to exploit the available infrastructure.

Since the “build it and they will come” phenomenon is a time-proven reality in transport, why not employ this facet of social behaviour to exalt the growth of cycling?


WE CARE

The biggest issue which has retarded the progress of cycling as a desirable lifestyle choice in Broken Britain, is the absence of long term strategic planning which fails to put safe cycleways as a priority of transportation development.

There is a logical explanation for this too; the lobby groups for other modes of transport simply have more money to bribe, I mean donate, to politicians. Modes like road and rail also pull in more tax (extortion through the threat of violence) for the state through the jobs, trade, raw material consumption, industrial logistics, higher purchase costs and higher running costs, all of which generate economic capital for the politicians to control next year.

This is why the simple, honest, healthy mode of bike transportation loses out in funding and investment. But it tells us something profound:

The state doesn't give a toss about you.

They don't want you to be healthy. They don't want you to feel the invigorating cold air exhaled from your active lungs on a crisp autumn morning. They don't want you to have an economical bicycle that runs VAT-free for thousands of miles, requiring elemental maintenance that costs next to nothing.

They want you sat in a traffic jam, sucking in the other bloke's carcinogenic exhaust pipe, chugging down coffee and gobbling doughnuts whilst listening to the mainstream propaganda news broadcast every 15 minutes on the car radio. Sod that.

Hang on! What about those tax-funded adverts about living well, eating less salt and doing 30 minutes of exercise per day? Surely the government DOES care about you? In words, yes, they make a lot of nice sounding noises, and no doubt some Jewish PR company makes a tidy profit off such heath preaching ideals. But these are just words. Where are the actions? Money talks. Meaningful government investment in cycling infrastructure is silent.


WHAT WORKS

So what is the solution? Let's assume the economic pressures continue as they are and nothing much improves for cycling. The government doesn't care about you. They take your taxes and spend it on fuelling morbid bombers for repeated genocidal depleted uranium runs to Iraq / Afghanistan / Libya and back.

However there already exists evidence of a solution that does work. As with the National Cycle Network, charity supersedes government when enough people buy-in to the cause. When we say buy-in, that does mean clear statements of financial action.

Who would chip-in a monthly donation to such a pro-cycling cause?
1) Regular commuters who want to benefit from improvements to their journey.
2) Parents who desire safe, traffic-free cycleways to teach their wobbly sprogs how to ride young.
3) Local businesses who having faced the destruction of out-of-town stores, lost out to pedestrian passing trade, welcome new bikers and their rolling trade.
4) Health organisations who see the rejuvenating aerobic exercise of cycling as a supremely effective and easy to promote solution towards reducing heart attacks, diabetes, cancer and obesity.

Could a national charity like SusTrans carry the torch for such an initiative? No. Not unless they could segregate the donations and spending in to local urban regions. Why? Because if I'm donating to a cause, I want to see the output first hand. If the money goes in to re-painting lines in the Outer Hebrides and I live in London, I'm not going to be too happy.

Observe the interested parties above, they all act in self-interest. Selflessness is an illusion, it doesn't exist. That is fine, perhaps rather than charity we should call it open-source funding.

What do you think?

Average Car Drivers Don't Intend To...

With increasing numbers of commuters cycling on our roads, what needs to change and why?

Stripped to its raw elements, motor vehicles and bicycles in any conceivable altercation, produces only one victim.

Logically, separate travel routes for each mode would, in theory be safer, by reducing relative speed, and inequalities of risk (i.e. if two cyclists crash head on, they both get injured, whereas a bicycle hit by a car, is not equal.)

But that is a highly academic argument, because it could be said that lorries are an unequal threat to cars, so separate them on the roads? It doesn’t stand, because Lories & cars mix fine on the roads. Why is this?

Introducing The Dominant Threat

Is it because the transport mode which poses the greater capacity to endanger others (The Lorry as the “Dominant Threat”) is legislated for and treated with, the additional responsibility which goes hand in hand with driving a vehicle capable of more damage and casualty if not driven correctly. I.e. Lorry driving is treated as a profession, and is regularly monitored (e.g. tachographs, working hours regulations, etc.)

Try a different example where the car is not the dominant threat; Level crossings. The car is the potential victim, and the train is the dominant threat. On which side are all the checks, monitoring, and fail-safes? - The barriers, the warning signs, overseen by the railway staff, are responsible policies on the train side, to expose the potential victims (car drivers) to as minimal risk as possible, from the dominant threat.

They Don't Mean To, But...

Now come back to cycling, and the issue becomes clear – Cyclists share the road with vehicles, primarily cars, which are in this comparison; the dominant threat. What is patently clear from on-road experience, is that drivers (specifically – average, non-advanced-drivers) do not have enough pressures exerted on them, encouraging them to exercise high driving skill (consistently safe driving) at all times.

Average car drivers don’t intend to endanger cyclists, but they do. Average drivers simply have too many options to commit unintentional, dangerous acts. Even a driver’s minor oversight is magnified in outcome, by the weight and speed of the car.

I once saw someone drive her car straight in to the back of a bus. A big-red-takes-up-all-the-road-how-on-earth-can-you-miss-it BUS!!!! Cyclists have car-doors flung in their path, cars overtake and two seconds later turn left across them, the inflicted hazards are daily. Every road-user can most likely recall examples of other’s human fallibility like this. Humans are rubbish.

In that context, could the analogy be made that a population obsessed by cars, is akin to a population obsessed by guns? – Both nouns perform a task, but somehow the fatal reality of the obsession is ignored. Is the veil of glamour, in both cases, enough to cover-up the large negative consequences?

Focus On Whom?

Previously when town planning and road design concerned itself with a) stopping cars hitting cars, and b) stopping cars killing pedestrians, cyclists received only some leftover white paint to tot-up the end of year council budgets. (OK ;-) but you know what I mean…)

With the rising population of bicycles on the road, it increases the role of the average car, as a widespread Dominant Threat to cyclists.

As discussed in the Lorry Vs. Car, and Train Vs. Car examples above, the best way to lower the number of (cyclist) casualties is go after the Dominant Threat, legislate for it and monitor it closely. There needs to be significant pressure constantly on the shoulder of average drivers, to forcefully remind them to drive to a high standard, and not accidentally create victims out of their drive to the shops / school / work.

There is no such thing as an accident – just human error.

For further reading on the last point:

Tony Carter: "In my opinion there is no such thing as an accident, there is 99% of the time; a cause."

Paolo Bacigalupi: "The myth that accidents happen. There are none. There are only gun consequences."

Accident Investigator, Graham Greatrix - Real life consequences - not pretty.

"Stop Before You Die" She Barks...

From the USA's Tallahassee.com in Florida, comes this tête à tête debate in the letters pages.

"Advice to cyclist: Stop before you die" barks some extremist - pessimist - alarmist...

If Joe Barnett really wants to live, I suggest he either relocate his residence closer to his periodontal practice or open an office in Killearn Lakes.

...She threatens.

I mean really, c'mon. She is probably also the proud broadcaster of similar doom-filled advice such as:

• "Stop eating entirely - or you will get food poisoning!"

• "Stay away from the sun - you might self-combust!"

Countered

The voice of common sense majority is articulated by Amy K. Mann:

Things can and eventually will change for the better concerning alternate forms of commuting, "better" being more alternate forms of transportation and fewer cars.

Borrow a bicycle and take a one-hour ride around town. See what it feels like to ride instead of drive. Put yourself in the other person's shoes.

Amy is spot-on when she talks of fewer cars, because everybody knows that the life-blood of vehicles as we endure them at present, is the expiring finite energy resource of Oil.


Open-Mindedness

Amy's title: "Put yourself in the bicyclist's seat" is such truly valuable advice.

Sometimes these kind of arguments; "well YOU try it then" appear rhetorical, because the challenger might be addressing someone they know to be too fat, lazy and small minded to even walk to the bike shop to hire one, (they'd drive... but they can't be bothered! ;-) )

But really, for any road-user adept in open-mindedness, hiring, or borrowing a bicycle to gain a fresh new perspective, (which is true even of perennially familiar roads nearby), is a very worthwhile and commendable challenge to complete.