The Independent reports that the Tory clowns at the Home Office and the idiots at the Met are planning a Chinese approach to protest control. Game on. The LCC should tell Johnson: “Hire a team of Dutch engineers to make the Cycle Super Highways safe by June, or Cavendish and team-mates will need to jump over barricades”. And if the Met dares to use pepper-spray, like Freedom fries eating Yanks have been doing this week-end, the Cav will probably stay home. So please LCC, don’t [...]
The map above comes via RoadPeace. Green squares denote cyclists killed last decade. A few observations about EC1, detailed above: 1. Cycle fatalities occur on major roads at junctions, 2. Women sadly overwhelm men in this grim statistics. There is something fundamentally wrong and nasty if a sector of the population, who generally are more law-abiding and less assertive on the road, constitute the large proportion of victims. Sunday is World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, a RoadPeace initiative.
Watch Boris Johnson say: “It is not about infrastructure; it is about teaching cyclists to watch out for HGVs”: Johnson has recently also stated: “Though I have to tell you …sometimes I just go round Elephant & Castle because it’s fine. If you keep your wits about you, Elephant & Castle is perfectly negotiable. I want people to feel confident. The cycle superhighways are about building confidence.” It is unclear how you build confidence by forcing someone to cycle next to an Essex-man on a [...]
. The video behind the ‘Like Riding a Bike’ campaign, by Dominic Latham-Koenig The ugly Babboe at the start is balanced by the charming family on a Christiania towards the end (4:32).
The Cycling Lawyer is invited by the Metropolitan Police Cycle Task Force, to accompany an officer in his call of duty; the report is quite disturbing; here are some excerpts: First it is the customary visit of a lorry cockpit: Introductions made, I stepped up into the driver’s seat of a Keltbray lorry. In the passenger seat was another police officer who had experience (as it transpires, does Michael) of driving HGVs. Another officer pushed my own bicycle into various positions around the nearside and [...]
It is not just about cycle lanes, argues convincingly Matthew Wright in the Guardian. It is about recognising that in the right environment, cycling is often the most convenient form of urban transport; and that a range of policies are essential to ensure that the environment is right. Wright underlines two key policy targets: reducing urban speed limits and introducing Strict Liability. The article is a balanced and constructive critique of the London Cycling Campaign’s Going Dutch campaign: LCC’s emphasis on “London’s main roads” is [...]
“Any bankster earning a bonus greater than £500k must do at least two days unpaid work at City Hall. The bonus will be paid only if Monocle rates London as one of the five most livable cities”. The financial industry has the most cosmopolitan workforce. London’s tragedy is that this eclectic mixture of bright minds from all over the world are not asked to run the city. If the top UBS bankers were also in charge of London Transport, if the top traders from ABN [...]
Newsnight and the Guardian have been reporting on an undercover Police operation to disrupt the Reclaim the Streets movement in the 90′s, the precursor of Critical Mass. I remember fondly the occupation of the Shepherd Bush motorway on a summer day in 1996, a big party with sand pits, tents, music, and no cars. Unbeknown to most, one of the organisers was actually a policeman who had infiltrated the movement. A few months later, the undercover cop, Jim Boyling aka Sutton, participated in an action [...]
Road Safety Minister Mike Penning is spending £700,000 of our money to remind children that cars are dangerous. He is probably concerned that what he calls “accidents” slow down the flow of motorised traffic. He is not only an idiot but a vulgar spinner. He says: “Britain’s roads are among the safest in the world”. That is correct only if he thinks Britain is a Thirld World (or East European) country. As the chart above shows (source), Britain is just average in Western Europe for [...]
A trio of helmeted politicians and a trio of ordinary Londoners on a Trio (from our shop). After 12.10.11, London will change; as a commenter in Mark’s report says: I was there, the first time in 49 years that I have ever attended anything like a protest. This was also my first visit to rush-hour London for many years, and I was blown away by the sheer number of cyclists on the streets. Never mind the protest ride, cyclists are EVERYWHERE! Photo credit: Mark (top), [...]
Well done London Cycling Campaign. Here is a well researched and well packaged proposal of how a Londoners friendly Blackfriars would look like. This WILL be London in a few years; so Boris, why not make it sooner rather than later? P.S. Yes, that is our Christiania in the picture.
