Cycling Culture Wars go Stateside, #223

Plus - scale of pavement parking laid bare

This week, we’re taking a peek across the Pond, where the culture wars are spilling into cycling and road safety. Meanwhile, the scale of England’s pavement parking crisis has been laid bare by the BBC. Plus - there’s positive progress in the battle for facts around e-bikes, and a small win for accessibility.

BIG STORIES FOR CYCLING ADVOCACY

MOST COUNCILS ENCOURAGE PAVEMENT PARKING. Pavement parking is being ‘encouraged’ by half of local councils, according to research by the BBC. Just over half of 164 local authorities who responded to a Freedom of Information request confirmed they installed parking spaces on pavements. In part, the situation has been driven by ever larger vehicles, and more and more car ownership. While the government gave local authorities new powers this year to tackle pavement, each local authority will need to act in their area. Birmingham councillor Harris Khaliq pointed out councils are still awaiting guidance on using the new powers.

POLICE END ‘BOGUS’ E-BIKE SPEED TEST. It’s welcome news that West Midlands Police (WMP) promises to use different methods of testing e-bikes, and to drop charges against a rider whose road legal Tern HSD was seized and destroyed by the force. WMP admitted it got it wrong in April, when it tested the Tern by lifting the rear wheel and cranking the pedals - leading to excessively high speed readings. The force is offering full compensation to the owners, promising to learn its lessons. In London, the Met Police has deployed ‘rolling road’ type equipment to test illegal e-bikes, seizing a ‘record number’ in an operation last week. While forces don’t necessarily need high-tech equipment, hopefully good practice will start to spread, and soon.

WHAT IS A LEGAL VS ILLEGAL E-BIKE. Do you know someone who’s concerned about e-bike fires, or who read the rather misleading stories about £110m ‘e-bike collision’ payouts - both things actually attributable to e-motorbikes and sub-standard illegal products? You could do worse than to share this video with them. In it, YouTuber Evan Erdinger explains why fires and dangerous rider behaviour are being wrongly attributed to e-bikes, when they actually relate to illegal products. He also underlines how the UK is currently failing to effectively police the issue.

WE CAN (ALMOST) ALL AGREE ON SAFE STREETS. The world has voted to nearly halve road deaths by 2030. That is, aside from one major hold out: the USA. At a UN general assembly meeting US representative Dan Negrea complained the motion was both a symbolic gesture, and one linked with ‘top-down environmental restrictions on freedom and mobility’. It’s like the 15-minute city conspiracy theory on a macro scale. Still, this stance is consistent with the current administration’s position on road safety and, as Forbes journalist Christine Ro suggests, the UN Declaration is a crucial step forward - if the world’s nations invest in solutions.

US’ CYCLING CULTURE WAR. It follows that the US Department of Transportation (DOT) is not keen on cycling, entangling it with another of the administration’s pet peeves. Since Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy pledged to end support for “DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) bike lanes” two weeks ago, federal staff have apparently been asked to find, and in some cases take down, website references to bikes and bike lanes. A cranky DOT quote pointed out 80% of Americans use cars to get to work, adding a focus on cars is “a common sense approach despite the Left’s belief that everyone should ride a bike to their shoebox-sized apartment to eat crickets to achieve a phony climate agenda.” Tin hats all round.

HERE’S ME TALKING UK CULTURE WARS TO US PODCAST. I was pleased to speak with Doug Gordon from The War on Cars podcast - it’s currently their Patreon bonus episode (do support their good work) and will be on general release later this year. A preview is available on their website. We discussed the #BikeIsBest campaign, UK culture works and my time as Cycling and Walking Commissioner in the West Midlands.

OTHER HEADLINES

BREAKING DOWN BARRIERS. Access barriers are often installed with good intentions - to prevent antisocial use of traffic-free spaces by people with off-road motorbikes, say. However, they end up excluding legitimate users, sometimes those who most benefit from those traffic-free spaces. That means those using non-standard cycles, some of them people with disabilities who can’t lift or manoeuvre their cycles through awkward spaces. In Cardiff, south Wales, a long-running battle to remove such barriers has finally succeeded, opening up a riverside path to a more diverse set of users. Small change, big impact.

INTERESTING GRAPH OF THE WEEK: Cycling UK has produced a short video clip of what went wrong when West Midlands Police officers mistakenly seized a legal e-bike, believing it to be an illegal vehicle. Source:

ACTIVE TRAVEL WORD OF THE WEEK:

Cyclists’ Defence Fund. The Cyclists’ Defence Fund turns 25 this year. Cycling UK’s legal support body, CDF has been stood down from the West Midlands E-bike case, following a police apology, but it’s done plenty of valuable work in its quarter century, including landmark cases like this, and is worth knowing about.

Until next time,

Adam Tranter

CEO, Fusion & Founder, #BikeIsBest

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