Over the last few years, I have written pieces on this blog about Europe and Brexit, Ethics and Religion, and even statues of slave traders, but now it is the time to write about a truly controversial and divisive topic… Cycling.
The first reason, or efficient cause, for putting metaphorical pen to paper is a comment piece in the The Daily Telegraph by Tom Welsh:
The tl;dr précis is that Tom used to be opposed to the idea of licensing cyclists but now finds himself more inclined to agree with Lord Winston, who last year called for controls after he had an unpleasant encounter with an unpleasant cyclist. I cannot say whether Welsh’s comment piece is typical of The Telegraph as I rarely read the paper these days (though I very much enjoy Madeline Grant, and the great Christopher Howse is one of the finest writers on any newspaper). Welsh is certainly expressing a very common ‘anti-cyclist’ view, and one which will probably be heard more often if the COVID lockdown really has led to more people cycling.
Then, during my 48 hour Twitter absence over the Wiley thing, this article appeared on Conservative Home:
Judy — a former Tory country councillor — welcomes the increase in cycling because it is so good for “health and fitness, and the environment”, but she also thinks it’s dangerous. Based on a couple of incidents of careless cycling which she personally witnessed (including one which damaged her car), she calls for legislation to ensure that:
Cyclists are — the argument often goes — arrogant, lycra-clad, probably left-wing, maybe even vegan, law-breaking militants who pose a danger to other road users and benefit from a disproportionate level of government investment without paying a penny in ‘road tax’ (sic). To some extent, I agree, and I agree because I am a cyclist myself, so I see cyclists up close, and many of them behave appallingly (although most do not). I’m also a ‘Mamil’ (‘middle-aged man in lycra’), though a certain realism about my fairly lardy physique means that my extremely practical lycra shorts and shirt are worn under other clothing. Lycra, like comfortable cotton underwear, is practical: it need not be visible.
The benefits of cycling hardly need repeating. First, it’s a way of keeping moderately fit. It’s not the most effective way of keeping fit, because the genius of the bicycle is that it converts relatively little effort into a great deal of energy thanks to the magic of gears (N.B. I did A-Level Physics, so I know it’s not really magic), but it’s a very enjoyable way. Cycling is, in fact, the most energy-efficient means of transport yet devised. It allows a cyclist to travel at 10-15 mph using no more energy than that expended by walking (on the flat, at least). A particular benefit of cycling — over walking or running, let alone exercising in a gym — is how easy it is to travel a significant distance in a short time. An hour’s walk limits me to a radius of a couple of miles from home; but I can leave my home near the centre of Newcastle upon Tyne and within 30 minutes be on open roads amongst fields and livestock, picturesque villages and bubbling burns. A ‘long’ ride for me tends to be around the 40 mile mark, and I have never cycled more than 70 miles in a day, but even that is perfectly manageable and I am far from a fitness freak. I also visited friends in The Netherlands by bicycle (and ferry, of course) a number of times.
Second, cycling is extremely cheap and practical. I have a fairly cheap ‘touring’ bike (basically a road bike with a pannier rack) and aside from a little regular maintenance (inner tube repair, a new tyre every few thousand miles, new brake-blocks every thousand or so, and a spot of cleaning and lubrication every few weeks), it’s free transport. The ‘fuel’ is the calories I’ve consumed, there are no parking charges, and no bus fares (though I often travel by bike and train). It also allows me to use bike paths and short cuts.
For a few years, I cycled in London — somewhat before a lot of the current ‘super highway’ infrastructure — and found it to be a very enjoyable experience. I saw a lot of cyclists using main roads trying to jump lights and looking quite angry but could never really understand why. My daily commute (of about 7 miles) took 35 minutes, at any time and in any weather. Public transport never took less than 45 minutes, and often up to 90 minutes. Cycling meant travelling along the Regent’s Canal, through Regent’s and Hyde Parks and along lots of quiet streets. I suppose I could have raged with the cycle couriers along Oxford Street, but why would I? One of the liberating things about cycling is that you can very easily follow routes not open to motor vehicles, avoiding congestion and even traffic lights (by which I mean avoiding lights altogether, not jumping them).
Compared to London, cycling and cycling infrastructure on Tyneside is a Curate’s Egg. There are some great semi-urban cycle paths thanks — I’m sad to say — to Dr Beeching’s cull of railway lines, and utilising former mining ‘Waggonways’. Most routes in and out of central Newcastle are not bad, mainly with on-road cycle paths. In the last couple of years some brand new, high-quality cycle paths have been laid, and very welcome they are too. I’ll follow this blog up with one specifically about infrastructure, but I’ll just make this point for now: sometimes, all that cyclists really want is not a brand new, separate cycle path, but a decent road surface.
I have also cycled in The Netherlands (about 400 miles in two weeks on my last visit) and it was a revelation. After a few days I found the unrelenting flatness of the Low Countries rather dull and began planning routes that would at least involve crossing some bridges to substitute for the hills of Tyneside, but otherwise it is a paradise for cyclists. Compare, for example, the Dutch national cycle-path network:
With the UK national cycle route (NCN) map:
The Dutch weren’t always a cycle-obsessed nation, of course. There was plenty of cycling after the war, just as there was in the UK, but it took protests over horrifying levels of child deaths on the roads in the 1970s to really turn the tide. Massive infrastructure investment and legislative support since means that there are now more bicycles than people in The Netherlands. In towns, most people get around by bike. Suburban commuters (say, from Almere and Amstelveen for Amsterdam) might come into the city by bike, but from further afield people tend to cycle to their nearest railway station and travel on by train, as this vast subterranean 12,500 space bike park in Utrecht attests:
In The Netherlands, one sees plenty of people cycling, but not many ‘cyclists’ (viz. people in lycra on road bikes), so it’s worth learning from the Dutch because in UK we surely want to encourage ‘ordinary’ people to cycle. The lycra-clad aficionados on their carbon-fibre bikes, with their energy gels and Strava® subscriptions are not the target audience. Neither are hot-headed cycle-couriers in London. They are all already on two wheels.
We should be encouraging those who commute up to, say, 10 miles to work, as well as those taking short journeys to the shops or to meet friends, kids travelling to school and people who want to improve their health by cycling for fitness and pleasure. If we listen to people like Tom Welsh and Judy Terry (see above), then we will fail to do this. The attraction of cycling is that it is (a) cheap and (b) has a low barrier to entry. All you need is (a) a bike and (b) the ability to ride it. The enthusiasts for government intervention want to introduce many more barriers to entry — licences, bike ‘MOTs’, tests, insurance, etc. — all of which will result in fewer, not more, people getting on their bikes. By all means support these measures if you believe in them, but do not pretend that you want to increase cycling, because all the evidence shows that they will have the opposite effect.
There is a significant difference between driving a motor vehicle and riding a bicycle, and that is the amount of damage that you might do in the event of an accident (or ‘incident’). It is true that cyclists can cause accidents and even kill pedestrians. Between 2005 and 2018, some 548 pedestrians were killed on the pavement (8.6% of total pedestrian deaths). Of these, 6 involved a bicycle — 1%. No one, then, is denying that cyclists can be lethal to pedestrians, but in considering the proposed “solutions”, let’s remember that 99% of pavement pedestrian deaths were caused by motorists who are already legally required to be licensed, have an MOT, insurance, etc.
This exposes the salient point; namely that every driver operates a huge piece of machinery that is almost 9,000% more lethal than a bicycle. When a cyclist has an accident, the most likely victim is the cyclist himself or herself. Plenty of motorists die in traffic incidents, but in an ‘incident’ involving a pedestrian or a cyclist, who is likely to come off worse? The person in a big metal box, or the person on foot or on a bike?
I would have some sympathy with a policy of compulsory licences for cyclists if Tom Welsh or Judy Terry could point to one country or territory in the world where it works, or has worked. Switzerland had the CHF-5-10 ‘Velo Vignette’ (bike sticker) ‘licence’ system, but abolished it in 2010 when they realised the scheme cost far more to administer than it raised. eBay is full of bike licence badges from failed schemes all over the world, all discontinued for the same reason dog licences were discontinued in the UK, viz. administration of the schemes, such as the bicycle licensing by-law in Toronto (created in 1935, ditched in 1957 and suggested but rejected in 1984, 1992 and 1996), always costs way more than the income. The last government in Europe to insist upon cycle licensing (and licence plates) was some time ago:
Where bike licensing schemes do exist (for example in Milwaukee, where registration costs $0) it tends to be an anti-theft or pro-insurance measure. I have insurance for my bicycle which costs £5.50 per month. For that sum I get: new-for-old replacement theft and vandalism cover, £5m personal liability, £20,000 personal accident cover, 90 days cover worldwide, and breakdown cover. The reasons why I take out this insurance are obvious — a bicycle is easy to steal and in any road traffic incident, I am far more likely to come off worse.
What about Judy’s demand that bicycles have a “roadworthiness test”? Motor vehicles have such a test (the MOT) annually, but it does not mean that every vehicle is roadworthy at any given time. Once again, a bicycle that it not roadworthy poses the biggest threat to its rider, whereas a motor vehicle that is not roadworthy poses a threat to everyone on the road, to a potentially fatal degree. Bicycles which do not have “two braking systems”, a rear reflector, or lights at night are already illegal.
Then there is the matter of helmets and the wearing of hi-viz clothing. Most cyclists in the UK wear helmets already, and there is no evidence to suggest hi-viz clothing makes any difference at all.
There’s a very simple calculation at work here. Cyclists who ride recklessly risk, for the most part, only their own life and limb. Hit a car; risk death. Hit a pedestrian; risk serious injury and/or a big legal claim. Cyclists are vulnerable and need to pay attention: self-preservation polices itself. Cyclists who don’t pay attention end up injured or dead and Darwin wins.
We should all be encouraging walking and cycling. It is low cost, good for physical and mental health, and the most ‘carbon neutral’ form of transport after Shanks’s Pony. People who want to license and tax cycles/cyclists will not only dissuade people from cycling but are engaging in the worst kind of “legislation and regulation solves everything” politics. The problem with this approach is that, logically, you end up with a speed limit of 0 mph. We should be concentrating upon making life better — and cycling easier — not making the statute book heavier.
Ad meliora 