Do we need 'a car is a weapon' type infommercial advertising campaign?

[GrasB]

It occurs to me that there are a lot of drivers who don't seem to be aware that as far as vulnerable road users are concerned a car is a weapon when driven in an aggressive or obstructive manner. They also don't understand that a close has a similar effect on the other road user as waving a baseball bat in their face etc. For this reason I was wondering is it time for a series of infommercials which put the message across. Discuss.

 

[Boris Bajic]

I think that there is a strong case for something along these lines. I'm not troubled by close passes often, but most cyclists I know find them deeply horrid.

Not a hectoring lecture, but something along the lines of other recent campaigns on road safety.

Many, many times I've been reminded by a passenger while doing 40 in a 30 of the campaign with the child getting walloped.

Something that could have that impact without appearing to preach would be excellent. That's where my positive input stops, as I have no idea how it would be achieved.

 

[theclaud]

Man, many times I've been reminded by a passenger while doing 40 in a 30 of the campaign with the child getting walloped..

And how many times is it going to take before you stop doing it?

 

[Boris Bajic]

And how many times is it going to take before you stop doing it?

I was sent on a speed-related driver re-education course about 18 months ago and have pretty much wiped it off my repetoire. I'm not proud of having done it.

I still frequently exceed the limit on NSL roads. I know few drivers who do not, but I know many who claim that they do not.

I now do Thirty in a Thirty and almost instantly get a tail behind me of drivers caught behind this 'dithering slowpoke'.

Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, but not at my windscreen please...

 

[dellzeqq]

I'm not sure that we aren't barking up the wrong tree here. My belief, reinforced by the experience of leading 36 cyclists to John O'Groats, is that there are cultural shifts going on, but these are patchworked and intermittent. To take an obvious example - ten years ago London's taxi drivers were just horrendous. Despite the wild antagonism expressed in their news-sheets, the change in their behaviour would put St. Paul's conversion in the shade. Still and all young men and women driving hatchbacks in London remain a problem. Southwest London is better than southeast. Taken as a whole, the culture in London is far, far removed from the culture thirty years ago. Whatever the failings of the LCC's present campaigns, thirty years of their chipping away at borough and city level has had an effect, and having reached what I believe is a critical mass on the main roads means that effect isn't going to go away.

Moving north - almost all the traffic we encountered between London and Edinburgh was respectful - far more so than in previous years. We had problems in and north of Edinburgh, and these intensified on the A9, which is criticised by Scottish politicians of all stripes for not being fast enough.

As far as I can tell it starts from the top. Ken changed London's streets for the better, and, in doing so, changed the culture, not because he was keen on cycling, but because he has always been keen on streets. By contrast Scottish politicos have their tongues nine inches up the rancid exhaust pipe of the car lobby. I don't think that posters do much more than articulate a culture that is framed by politics, and when the politics is lacking, you're ever so slightly screwed. I think that there are large slices of the UK where the politics is entirely lacking.

 

[dellzeqq]

I was sent on a speed-related driver re-education course about 18 months ago and have pretty much wiped it off my repetoire. I'm not proud of having done it.

I still frequently exceed the limit on NSL roads. I know few drivers who do not, but I know many who claim that they do not.

I now do Thirty in a Thirty and almost instantly get a tail behind me of drivers caught behind this 'dithering slowpoke'.

Let she who is without sin cast the first stone, but not at my windscreen please...

TC is entirely without sin - at least in this respect.

 

[GrasB]

I'm not sure that we aren't barking up the wrong tree here. My belief, reinforced by the experience...

Possibly I am but just making some people aware of the way these things are perceived by other road users may make a difference to a number of people. My general feeling is the majority of drivers aren't actively bad drivers, they are however clueless & as such aren't aware of how things are perceived outside their metal cage. I mean I was in a car that got close to being squashed by a lorry because of their road position. It had never occurred to them that if they couldn't see the lorry driver the lorry driver probably couldn't see them.

 

[dellzeqq]

I take your point. It wasn't a criticism, but, rather, an observation.

To go back a bit - maybe my post wasn't as well laid out as it might be. It's really that I think culture bears on different groups in different ways. In London, as you may know, we have a particular problem with construction traffic, a problem that is being addressed in a way by the LCC. Having said that....there's no gainsaying that the consideration shown by drivers to cyclists has soared upward in the last thirty years, which, if I'm any judge, hasn't happened in other parts of the UK - I referred to Scotland, but I might equally have mentioned Berkshire.

So my point is that a general campaign, however well thought out, relies on political will, and, equally, may be too general. TfL are currently running a campaign targetted at youngsters who cross roads while on their mobiles. LCC has recently targeted Addison Lee. My thought is that the 'car as weapon' thing is simultaneously addressing the vast majority of drivers who would not conceive of their car as being a weapon, and, equally, the small minority who rather like the idea. It might be that it would help in the way the drink-driving campaigns inspired a cultural shift, but my thought is that it wouldn't connect sufficiently with the majority - and have no beneficial effect on the minority. You'd be better off shooting Clarkson (in a purely hypothetical way, of course) and crushing a few X5s, which would be both pleasurable and immediately instructive, in that it would, in a simple way, ask people to distinguish themselves from Clarkson and the X5istes.

 

[GrumpyGregry]

Moving north - almost all the traffic we encountered between London and Edinburgh was respectful - far more so than in previous years. We had problems in and north of Edinburgh, and these intensified on the A9, which is criticised by Scottish politicians of all stripes for not being fast enough.

As far as I can tell it starts from the top. Ken changed London's streets for the better, and, in doing so, changed the culture, not because he was keen on cycling, but because he has always been keen on streets. By contrast Scottish politicos have their tongues nine inches up the rancid exhaust pipe of the car lobby. I don't think that posters do much more than articulate a culture that is framed by politics, and when the politics is lacking, you're ever so slightly screwed. I think that there are large slices of the UK where the politics is entirely lacking.

Fug 'em, I say, fug 'em all. Most particularly on 'the road of death' north of Inverness. With a length of plastic hose. Up the bottom.

 

[dellzeqq]

the SNP has been complaining about drivers having to go down to 40mph on the two lane sections. Which is all of a piece with their pathetic reaction to nitwits going out in the snow and stranding themselves on the M8.

 

[GrasB]

I take your point. It wasn't a criticism, but, rather, an observation.

Which is why I 'liked' your post

 

[theclaud]

Which is why I 'liked' your post

There's no need to spoil him, you know...

 

[mcshroom]

I agree with your general point Dellzeqq I think there were a few places on the way north that weren't quite as respectful. The section from the Doncaster/Worksop boundary to the North of Donny was pretty poor for close passes, especially that silly road with all the pinch points along it (the bit where the driver stopped in the middle of the road to have a go at TC - at least I think it was you TC).

Round the North West of Scotland and on the Hebredies, where the roads are generally smaller, the traffic was respectful to the point of me being slightly embarassed by the reluctance of them to pass me. The locals had a very different mindset up there though. Amazingly laid back about things

 

[GrumpyGregry]

I can't see Donny being at the forefront of English cycling culture any time soon.

 

[theclaud]

I agree with your general point Dellzeqq I think there were a few places on the way north that weren't quite as respectful. The section from the Doncaster/Worksop boundary to the North of Donny was pretty poor for close passes, especially that silly road with all the pinch points along it (the bit where the driver stopped in the middle of the road to have a go at TC - at least I think it was you TC).

It was. He obviously hadn't clocked the car-as-weapon thing, because (not being terribly agile or imposing) he hadn't realised that he'd be a lot less scary when he got out of the car. I hovered a second then dodged around him, and Alan put him back in his box by saying "What are you going to do? Take all of us on?" I admit to keeping a slightly nervous eye on him as he passed me after that, but essentially it was impotent frustration rather than murderous intent. More alarming by far was the one only slightly further on who deliberately swerved at Simon - I thought for a second it was a hit. Far and away the nastiest moment of the ride. Not that vengeance is my thing, but Y722 JPT has it coming.