BBC and a show called 'War on Britain's Roads'

glasgowdan

[STRIKE]There has been uproar in the cycling community relating to a show by the BBC that's being shown tonight. Granted, the majority of voices have not seen it yet, but if the reports from previews are to be believed, the BBC is doing cycling a dangerous (possibly lethal for some) injustice through their bad and biased reporting. There is a small group of extreme anti-cyclists among motorists, some even bragging about deliberately hitting cyclists on forums. [/STRIKE]

Turned out not too bad!

http://www.bikebiz.com//news/read/bbc-doc-portrays-dvd-stunt-cycling-footage-as-standard-behaviour/014036

Let's not forget, we are ALL people. Not drivers/cyclists/pedestrians. Just mums, dads, sons and daughters travelling from place to place to work and play.

rugbyleague

Remember its more dangerous going to the bathroom than riding a bike!

alanrowell

rugbyleague wrote: »

Remember its more dangerous going to the bathroom than riding a bike!

Depends if you let the air clear first or not

Yorkie1

I switched over after about 10 minutes. It started out being clips from a headcam of a cyclist who appeared to ride at about 25mph, and kept getting cut up by drivers - and would swear at them causing road rage type incidents.

It may have improved after I switched over, but I foresaw it being one long cyclist vs motorist programme and I didn't fancy watching an hour of that.

Did anyone last the whole programme?

davidlizard

Yorkie1 wrote: »

I switched over after about 10 minutes. It started out being clips from a headcam of a cyclist who appeared to ride at about 25mph, and kept getting cut up by drivers - and would swear at them causing road rage type incidents.

It may have improved after I switched over, but I foresaw it being one long cyclist vs motorist programme and I didn't fancy watching an hour of that.

Did anyone last the whole programme?

I switched over after the football had finished so was well into the latter bits of the programme. It seemed to be clips from some disgruntled cyclists headcam who was getting cut up and losing his rag. I too decided it was one long cyclist/motorist programme so went and did the washing up.

Jeff_Bridges_hair

I saw some of it and they did have some footage from Drivers and what cyclists get up too - whilst cameras were in the cabs of lorries so they did try to show both sides.

The good thing was that they showed the police on bikes and the fact that they do pull over cyclists who break the laws themselves and showed footage of them running red lights and so on.

Then I got bored and made me tea

skivenov

Very thought provoking towards the end. The older cabbie certainly talked a lot of sense.

I think it missed two key points for me though those being be aware when you're in someone's blind spot on a bike, and as a motorist, leave cyclists enough space to fall off.

It did make me think about how poorly designed cycle tracks are though, they imply to a motorist that a cyclist should be happy to have the width of the cycle lane.

Errata

As someone who cycled for donkey's years, some of it in London, I wanted to give most of the bikers a good slap. Have hand signals become deeply unfashionable? Is wearing headphones mandatory? Do any of them have the foggiest idea about exactly where they should be on the road?

kerby_crawler

Out of all the people in the programme, I was most impressed by the truck driver, who showed a high degree of professionalism.

His bits of the footage illustrated very nicely the fact that, given a conscientious driver, making proper use of mirrors, it is very hard to lose awareness of nearby road users. Quite correctly, he noticed and made allowance for the failure of nearby cyclists to make themselves aware of his presence.

Most of the 'issues' in the programme were set up as much by bad attitudes as by bad behaviour - even P.C. PedalPlod of the Metropolitan Police was not entirely without 'attitude'.

Cyclists have headcams but no number plates. Some motorists treat cyclists as 'fair game', but hey they probably treat other motorists in a similar way. Bring on the day when we are all required by law to record our own behaviour on a daily basis, and offer it up on YouTube for public opinion.

thelawnet

Errata wrote: »

As someone who cycled for donkey's years, some of it in London, I wanted to give most of the bikers a good slap.

i think that was what people were complaining about. The show appears designed to inflame people against cyclists.

kerby_crawler

thelawnet wrote: »

The show appears designed to inflame people against cyclists

Most media presentations do indeed appear to set out to promote one particular argument against all others (Panorama, for example). But this programme seemed to me to simply point out the futility of putting cyclists and motorists together in the same space.

The problem for cyclists is that they are unprotected against physical harm, but they don't seem to be able to up their game. The Scottish guy who was nearly run down by the articulated tanker just couldn't believe that the tanker driver might not have noticed him. To me, that is simply poor anticipation on the part of the cyclist.