In an interview published in the Daily Mail this morning, transport secretary Grant Shapps proposed changing road laws so cyclists have to abide by the same speed limits as cars. It is hard to imagine what was going through his head when this idea was formulated - it certainly doesn’t seem to have come from a man who is well-informed about the state of active travel in this country, much less one whose entire job is improving it.
The issues with such a plan are numerous, expensive, and obvious - how can cyclists know how fast they are going? How does he propose we monitor this? How then, even once a speeding cyclist has been picked up, do you go about identifying them? But perhaps as parliament is on its long summer recess and we are in the midst of a leadership battle, Shapps is hoping to appear to be doing something . It’s a pity his efforts are concentrated in completely the wrong direction.
I am a cyclist in Manchester. I am also a driver in Manchester. Each time I travel on Great Ancoats Street, one of these feels substantially riskier and more challenging than the other - I’ll let you guess which (hint: it’s the one that is better for the environment, my personal health and free of charge). The number of truly ‘dangerous’ cyclists I come across is minimal - yet I see dangerous and irresponsible driving nearly every time I am on the road, whether cycling or driving. In the Mail article, Shapps truly shows how little he knows about his job by suggesting that cyclists can, and I quote, “easily exceed” speed limits of 20mph. I’d like to see him try.
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Let’s look at this logically. Take for instance a road where the speed limit is 20mph. Government data shows that in 2020, 87% of cars exceeded the speed limit on these roads. Few cyclists will even get up to that speed, with the estimated average on a bike being between 10 and 14 mph. So why is Shapps proposing we spend taxpayer money on monitoring and punishing speeding cyclists, when only 13% of drivers are obeying speed limits at a speed most cyclists won’t even reach? The mind boggles.
It’s also worth considering the potential damage inflicted by a driver and a bicycle when something does go wrong. A cyclist weighing 90kg and travelling at a faster than average 20mph would still inflict far less damage than even a small car weighing around 1,200kg. Bikes are simply not anywhere near as dangerous as cars - the fact that we are considering treating them as such is absurd. No government in the world is looking at licensing or insurance for cyclists for good reason.
."The number of truly ‘dangerous’ cyclists I come across is minimal - yet I see dangerous and irresponsible driving nearly every time"
One of the most common arguments I hear against cyclists is that they don’t pay ‘road tax’. This is frustrating for several reasons, but mostly because ‘road tax’ doesn’t actually exist, and the vast majority of roads that cyclists will be using (broadly any road that isn’t a motorway) is maintained by the local authority, and therefore funded by council tax - which most cyclists will pay.
What most refer to as ‘road tax’ is Vehicle Excise Duty, an annual tax that car owners pay that is determined by the emissions their vehicle gives off, and how big the vehicle’s engine is. It goes without saying that bikes don’t have engines and give off no emissions (hence their green credentials).
It’s difficult to see any evidence that supports the idea that Shapps’ proposals would make the country’s roads safer and more pleasant places to be. If anything, we need to be encouraging people to cycle - imposing broadly pointless and misinformed penalties on cyclists will do the exact opposite.
In a country where cars dominate, decent cycle lanes are far and few between, and we lag far behind many other European countries in our approach to sustainable and active travel, Shapps’ proposals threaten to push us even further behind on our quest for safer and better travel for all.
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