When the AA, the UK’s largest motoring organisation, published a Cyclist’s Highway Code on Monday, I thought it seemed like a bizarre but effective way to wind up passionate cyclists such as myself.
I already don’t like the official Highway Code for telling me I “should” wear a helmet and fluorescent clothing to ride around in daylight when studies have concluded neither will make cycling safer for me or the community in which I cycle.
And I couldn’t get my head around why the government would let a motoring organisation write what is subtitled “essential rules of the road” for cyclists, especially as the transport minister Andrew Jones recently said they had no plans to publish a “cycling-specific excerpt of the Highway Code.”
But then I read a copy of the book and it made more sense.
The title and news media headlines such as the Evening Standard’s “Highway Code for cyclists published for first time” are misleading as the AA have not written up any new rules. They’ve merely reprinted the cycling section of the latest Highway Code, which you can read for free here.
And to those dry and dull rules they’ve added some good basic information for cycling novices such as how to change a puncture, how to combat saddle soreness and advice on essential bike kit. The effect is part-Haynes Guide, part-bike shop catalogue, albeit one that doesn’t mention any brands, and with a lot of traffic rules thrown in.
The best section is on Bikeability, which takes parents and their children through exactly what they’ll need to pass their training. When my kids are older I’ll definitely consult the section but aside from that I didn’t learn much. But then it clearly isn’t aimed at experienced bike riders – it is for new cyclists and parents of new cyclists.
Still as the story spread on social media, cyclists, lots of whom perhaps hadn’t read the book, were getting angry, with Gizmodo’s “AA patronises the nation with little special Highway Code for cyclists” headline resonating for many.
I watched Carlton Reid, the executive editor of BikeBiz, who wrote the foreword for the AA’s Cyclist’s Highway Code, patiently defend the book on Twitter , praising its focus on Bikeability. In the comments on one story, he was even referred to as Donald Trump.
I asked him why he thought so many cyclists were hostile to the book. He said:
There’s a certain cadre of cyclists that attack anything that isn’t new, hard infrastructure being built. They attack things like Bikeability training for kids; all soft measures are shot down. Protected segregated cycle lanes are of course a good idea but to vehemently oppose cycle training for kids with such a passion and to attack the AA for trying to get more people on bikes beggars belief.
Reid tells me the AA is one of the better motoring organisations when it comes to cyclists and that its president, Edmund King, rides a bike, as do his kids. Iasked King why the AA had produced the book.
“The AA has been involved with cycling since we started in 1905. Our first patrols used bikes and we still use bike patrols at Wimbledon and Glastonbury. We recently ran the ‘Think Bikes’ campaign where you have a tiny sticker on your wing mirror to remind you to think about bikes,” he said, adding the new book was partly inspired by a near-miss he had with a cyclist at a junction. “Completely my fault and it was fine but it makes you think.”
He’s keen to stress the AA is not “preaching to cyclists” and he is: “the first person to say drivers need to respect cyclists and give them more room. I was on my bike yesterday and in my car today. It doesn’t have to be us and them, there’s a massive crossover – 21% of our members cycle regularly.” And 80% of cyclists hold a driving license, according to the Department for Transport.
I too am bored of the tribalism in cycling and wish we could move beyond the toxic relationships between cyclists and cars drivers as I think it makes the roads less safe and pleasant for all of us to cycle along.
Is this new cyclist’s iteration of the Highway Code legally binding? As with the original the rules that use ‘must’ or ‘must not’ are legislation whereas rules which use ‘should’ and other softer terms aren’t, though crucially they can be used in court under the Road Traffic Act to establish liability.
That’s why the helmet and fluro clothing sections are so pernicious, as Roger Geffen, campaigns and policy director of Cycling UK, tells me: “If a cyclist gets hit and suffers a head injury, but they weren’t wearing a helmet or high vis clothing, the driver’s insurance company will exploit that to make them less liable. They are prejudicial rules with no good evidence-based research to support them.”
It’s one of four things Cycling UK would like changed in the official Highway Code. He says the others are:
Those driving faster, heavier machines, such as cars or lorries, should have a greater duty of care to more vulnerable users, such as pedestrians and cyclists. As is the case in other European countries, where the driver is legally presumed to be at fault. Cyclists should have legal priority at junctions, again as they do in Denmark and the Netherlands. Junctions are where three quarters of cyclist injuries happen. And finally there is minimum passing distances, for which there is currently a petition online with over 19,000 signatures. The law presently says: ‘Drivers should give plenty of room’. We think the Highway Code should recommend a passing distance of 1.50m up to 30mph and 2m at speeds above that, with greater distances advised for rainy or icy weather.
He says an advisory Highway Code amendment would be more effective than a legislation change as the distance would be hard to measure in practical terms and “Mr Loophole-style lawyers who get their clients off speed camera offences would constantly challenge the evidence regarding passing distances, which would be hard to prove beyond reasonable doubt.”
If cyclists want to get angry about the Highway Code, Geffen suggests the original version is a better place to start.
He says the AA publication has been:
spun by the media, entirely predictably of course as ‘a motoring organisation telling miscreant cyclists what to do’. But the AA has a genuinely good track record of wanting to support cycling and opposing the media stereotypes of cyclists and drivers being at constant war with each other. Calling it a Cyclist’s Highway Code was perhaps a bit cheeky but the AA just have a book to sell.
And judging by their current Amazon ranking as the third most popular cycling book, that’s going well so far.
