UPDATE: Following this posting - and coverage on blogs, news sites and forums - I was inundated with pre-orders for the iPayRoadTax.com jersey. It will now be produced in partnership with Foska.com, story here.
Alongside the ‘all cyclists blow through red lights’* canard from motorists there’s the classic ‘we pay road tax, cyclists don’t.’ This is an objection voiced the world over. This morning on Twitter, said:
“I pay road tax/VED for the car I rarely drive. Should I wear a copy of the tax disk on my jersey?”
I replied, telling him that’s a great idea, and others agreed. I then went on a bike ride. On the road to Dunston - Damascus being too far for a hill-climb quickie – I had a light-bulb moment: jerseys with tax discs printed on them.
And arm-warmers, so cyclists thrown the ‘we pay road tax’ argument can counter by simply pointing to an upper-arm. It’s sure easier than getting a tattoo.
When I got back from the ride I registered iPayRoadTax.com and iPayRoadTax.co.uk. I commissioned Luke Scheybeler to produce the fake tax disc above. This will be used on the jerseys and arm-warmers. For product updates, follow .
The fonts and colours for the jersey and arm-warmers aren’t set in stone. Others on Twitter suggested headset spacers and topcaps, too. Oy, could do loads of things. Like mugs, badges, t-shirts? Or how about, ahem, a tax-disc holder for your car, emblazoned with bicycle symbols?
When I twittered the fact I’d registered a domain-name and who would like some arm-warmers and jerseys, the response from Twitterdom was immediate. Within seconds I got firm orders. Really. Seconds. Amazing. From inspiration to product idea to mock-up to orders within minutes. Who says Twitter is a waste of time and thence money? I may have just created a micro-business thanks to picking up on a 140-character message (or I may be wasting my time and money).
If you’d like to express interest in items from the forthcoming I Pay Road Tax collection, have a look at this.
* Just cyclists blow through red lights, huh? Two wrongs don’t make a right but there are plenty of online examples of motorists doing things they shouldn’t. Here’s four drivers in one go busting through a red light in Manchester:
NB Road tax was abolished in the UK in 1936. Since then we have paid ‘Vehicle Excise Duty’ and, as every fule knows (except the majority of motorists, it seems), this does not pay for the upkeep of roads. This comes out of general taxation. Cyclists are tax-payers…And, of course, the majority of adult cyclists also own cars so pay VED, too. It’s just that many cyclists prefer not to use their cars for every blummin’ short journey.
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Nov 11, 2009
Bunch of my fave clicky-flicky mags & books
I use Issuu.com to store and display the Bike to Work Book samplers (and will use it to store the full book when it’s ready, which is getting closer) and am loving this new feature: personalised bookshelves. Top work.
And there’s even an RSS feed for seeing when the list gets updated.
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Check the calendar. It’s NOT April 1st. The comments below from a former roads minister in Australia defy belief.
Carl Scully - now, thankfully, out of Government so out of harm’s way - was roads minister in New South Wales from 1996 to 2005. In a frank, forthright - and frightening - article in the motoring section of The Age newspaper he has become an overnight sensation. Are his views on cycling shared by other high-ups around the world? Is this how many policy makers, who say they want to promote cycling, really feel about it?
Amazingly, Scully puts it print what many ‘vehicular cyclists’ have long feared: that building cycle lanes isn’t for benefit of cyclists, it’s an excuse to get cyclists off the road (perhaps all roads), out of the way of cars, which could then be allowed to travel faster.
Scully also flags his ignorance by introducing the old chestnut about cyclists “not paying for roads,” probably the most used and abused anti-cyclist argument there is, and which, of course, is false because roads are paid for out of general taxation, and cyclists pay tax.
Despite a massive increase in funding, policy and delivery, the bicycle lobby groups remained at best sceptical, and at worst disappointingly hostile.
Perhaps this was because I made it quite clear that I believed riding a bike on a road was profoundly unsafe and that where I could I would shift them to off road cycle ways.
No one would suggest it is safe for pedestrians to be on the roadway, so why should it be any different if a pedestrian gets on a bike?
While individuals do take all sorts of risk voluntarily every day, either by necessity, or for the thrill of it, the road is quite a different environment.
The claim put to me often by cycling lobby groups, “that bicycles are non-motorised vehicular transport and have as much right to be on the road as any other vehicle”, was a claim I rejected firmly every time.
In rejecting the “we have a right to be on the road” mentality of cyclists and their lobby groups, I also took a measured and balanced policy position on how best to separate bicycles and vehicles from our roads over time.
Shifting cyclists off our roads or even banning them was neither fair nor entirely possible without providing off-road alternatives. I made a decision that all future major road infrastructure would be built with off-road cycle ways.
Without infrastructure alternative for cyclists, it may be necessary to regulate the manner and time in which they may use our roads.
But, the lone cyclist travelling in the middle of a vehicle lane at morning or evening peak hours is not only unsafe for the cyclist, but is often quite unsafe for motorists as they weave around them.
I would be happy to see a ban during morning and evening peak times. Time-of-day cycling would ensure that our roads during peak periods are for the sole use of vehicles and not for the use of cyclists.
Cyclists are unlikely to be happy being regulated to time-of-day cycling or to footpaths and off-road facilities.
But, before rejecting this option out of hand, they should consider not only how unsafe it is to be sharing the roadway with vehicles, but also acknowledge that it is motorists who pay fuel levies, tolls, registration and licence fees, as well as the huge cost of buying and running a motor vehicle.
Apart from a negligible amount of GST on their equipment, cyclists pay nothing towards the cost of the roads they wish to use and rely on motorists to fund most of the cost of cycling infrastructure.
Being more aware of this may make more cyclists a little more sensitive to the needs of the motoring public.
Avoiding Godwin’s Law
Scully won’t know this, but his views on getting cyclists off the roads has a long and inglorious history. Cycle campaigner John Franklin has a great online history of the cycle path; he shows that cycle path construction has often been financed - and certainly promoted - by the auto lobby.
Scully would no doubt be proud of such initiatives. He might be less enamoured of the other great promoters of compulsory use of cycle paths: the Nazi party. According to Godwin’s Law, to cite Nazis in a web story is tantamount to losing the debate but there’s a genuine reason for citing them in this case.
Franklin bases part of his history of cycle paths on ‘From Cycling Lanes to Compulsory Bike Path: Bicycle Path Construction in Germany, 1897 - 1940, Volker Briese, The 5th International Cycle History Conference, Cambridge, 1994.’
1920: Quote from first Dutch Roads Congress: “After all, the construction of bicycle paths along the larger roads relieves traffic along these roads of an extremely bothersome element: the cyclist.”
1920s: Mass construction of cycle tracks in Germany. Motive: to remove disturbances in the fast flow of motor vehicles caused by cyclists. Propaganda cited paths as pro-cyclist, and first use made of ’safety’ argument to get cyclists to use them. Many arguments between police and cyclists, the latter prefering to use the newly tarmaced roads.
1926:Cycle tracks made compulsory for cyclists in Germany.
1934: New German legal instruments to address “the problem of disciplining cyclists” who did not use cycle tracks. Bicycle associations outlawed by Nazi regime.
WWII: Use of cycle tracks made compulsory in Netherlands, under Nazi occupation.
From 1624 to 1664, New York was known as New Amsterdam. Take a look at the video below for a glimpse of how the modern New York could - given the will and the cash - become as bicycle-friendly as old Amsterdam:
This is an inspiring film on so many levels. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ shots show what’s possible and how even an auto-centric city can be - partially - transformed when urban politicians and city planners wish it so.
Streetfilms reports that the ‘Budnick Bikeway’ has boosted the number of cyclists using the Manhattan Bridge bridge from 800 to more than 2,600 each day. And no more need for bravery medals.
Edmund King, 50, is President of the Automobile Association. He was formerly the executive director of the RAC Foundation. Earlier in his career he worked in the Californian motor industry and was a campaigns coordinator for the British Road Federation. He’s a regular in the media, wheeled out to put the motorists’ case on such topics as the proposal to reduce the national speed limit on single carriageway rural roads from 60mph to 50mph. To some cycle campaigners - who only know him from his TV interviews or his motoring columns in The Guardian - he’s the devil in a car, mate.
In fact, King is an urban cyclist and a weekend warrior. He rides a Brompton (”I never drive in London”) and a £2800 full-suspension Whyte E-120XT trail bike (”cycling is my main hobby.)” King is more in tune with CTC president and Channel 4 anchor Jon Snow (”we see each other on our bikes from time to time”) than motormouth Jeremy Clarkson. There’s some serious sibling cycling going on, too: King’s brother is a cycle campaigner on Tyneside.
When he was at the RAC Foundation, King introduced RAC members to the concept of “mobility, not just motoring”, spearheading a ’smart travel’ campaign by selling RAC-branded bicycles. These were re-badged Moulton APBs, produced by Pashley. “We sold a few,” said King, ” but it was more to make a statement than make money.”
This AA President is no petrolhead? He told me: “The car isn’t always the best means of getting to your destination.” Next time you see him interviewed on the TV news, crane your neck. Can you see his Brompton?
Were you weaned on two wheels?
“My earliest bicycle memories are racing bikes down the garden as a child in Norwich, with four sisters and four brothers. We use to race our trikes.
“At age 9, a close neighbour was Colin Chapman, founder of Lotus sports cars. He sold my mum my first two wheeler. It was a pink Raleigh girls’ bike. I painted it black and called it a ‘Lotus’.
“We had so much freedom. We’d cycle four miles to a local mill, and go swimming.
“I next had a bike at university, in Newcastle on Tyne. It was a Univega MTB bought at Hardisty Cycles [now Edinburgh Bicycle in Byker]. In fact, I bought two. I bought one for my girlfriend at the time. I thought if I bought her a bike it would snare her into the things I liked. She’s now my wife.”
What bikes do you own?
“When I started living in London, I had a mountain bike but was using it for off-road cycling out in the countryside. When I started working on mobility issues for the RAC Foundation, I got a Brompton and started riding it from Islington to central London.
“I cycle when I can, and certainly every weekend. I rode a Marin Alpine Trail for about twelve years. I recently treated myself to a Whyte E-120XT. It’s truly awesome. I thought it was worth investing in because cycling is my main hobby.
“My three children [8, 6, and 5] are all now on two wheels and absolutely love it.”
Is it ‘them and us’ out there, cars v bikes?
“We have to get past the ‘them and us’ mentality. Cycle campaigners often do themselves no favours in this respect. And motorists can be just as bad. Let’s not forget, people aren’t welded to their cars 24 hours a day. Motorists have to get out and walk places too. It’s not two tribes at war. Out of their cars and off their bikes, these are the same kind of people. We need better behaviour all round. Motorists see cyclists running red lights. Cyclists see motorists cutting them up.
“We need to widen the social acceptance of bikes. We have to get away from this cultural thinking that says “I’ve made it, I need a car.” It’ not like that in the Netherlands. Look, I’m the president of the AA, I never use a car in London. Never. Some people are surprised by that, thinking I’d use a car all the time. No, I use the transport which is relevant for the journey. Sometimes it’s a bike; sometimes it’s a train; sometimes it’s a car; sometimes it’s walking.
“We should be getting people to think about common sense mobility, not one form of transport to the exclusion of all others.”
“We’re not yet like Holland, owning lots of cars but still getting everywhere in town by bike. We need to changes things culturally but I think this is happening, slowly.
“The majority of cyclists have cars. The majority of motorists have cycles at home, even if they don’t always use them.
“It’s all about changing attitudes at a young age, getting more people to cycle at a young age, but also improving the facilities for cycling. My local train station at St Albans has recently improved its cycle parking facilities substantially. There’s now CCTV, double the space for bikes, and they’re all under cover. Cycle spaces now fill up every day when, before, the cycle parking was under-used because it was so grotty.
“We also need better facilities in some of our towns and cities. And existing cycle routes could be better designed. Cycling needs to be incorporated at the planning stage of developments. Ridiculous cycle facilities, like 10 yards of route, are the result when cycling is added in an afterthought.
“Getting rid of cars isn’t the only answer: look at Oxford Street; cars aren’t allowed but it’s not a pleasant place to cycle. There are lots of buses and taxis, and pedestrians not looking where they’re going.
“A lot of people are put off cycling by actual or perceived danger. A lot of parents won’t let their children cycle, even teenagers. But fourteen, fifteen, sixteen is a critical age. By the age of 17 they’ve got a provisional licence and won’t ever cycle.”
With eco and health issues, will cars start taking a back seat to bikes?
“The renaissance of cycling is definitely happening. My local bike shop, Addiktion Cycles in St Albans, tells me their business is better than ever. In the first quarter of the year, their sales were up substantially. It’s not leisure cycles; it’s urban bikes, folding bikes.
“Over next 100 years I can’t see the car disappearing. But our car use will change. New technology and other pressures will change our travel habits. Journey planning could be much more important in the future. The AA journey planner is the biggest online journey planner in Europe. Perhaps information could be added to show when a journey is quicker by bike?
“As a society we will need to get much smarter about the way we travel. Some companies put people into cars for a meeting 100 miles away. That’s ridiculous. At the AA we’re very good at teleconferencing: we dial-in, we don’t always drive-in.
“I never drive in London. I’ve not once paid the congestion charge in London. I take the train, I ride my bike.”
This piece was first published in Cycling Plus magazine.
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Ah, the wonders of the internets. On his blog page, Reuters correspondent Erik Kirschbaum mentioned a 1979 movie called ‘Americathon’. I’d never heard of it but it sounded interesting because it featured an America that had run out of gas, forcing people to either jog or bike to get around.
I searched on YouTube and, true to form, found a trailer for the movie:
According to a number of film websites, Americathon is a 1979 comedy with bit-parts for Elvis Costello, Jay Leno, and Meat Loaf.
As well as featuring the radical concept of urban movement using musclepower alone, Americathon raised the issue of a bankrupt America. The ‘thon’ in the title is a reference to a national telethon, run by the president, to generate some cash.
Although there are some wild misses in the movie (such as Jews and Arabs forming a Middle Eastern bloc) there’s some prescient stuff, such as China embracing capitalism and becoming a global economic superpower; the collapse of the Soviet Union; an America with a devalued dollar and heavily in debt to foreign lenders; and the UK - re-named as Limeyland- relying heavily on tourism for income.
‘Americathon’ also featured an obscure Beach Boys track, ‘It’s a beautiful day’.
Amazingly, the lyrics to this song include:
The freeways there are jammed with all kind of folks on their bikes
With fastball surfers, their all doin’ their lefts and their rights
Roller skating, joggin’, or a fancy bike
You can get around most anyway you really like
….
The freeways are jammed now
The cars have disappeared from the scene
Cause’ gone to work or to play
They use a whole ‘nother kind of machine
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I love these new socks from SockGuy. Both pairs are controversial. The Share The Road logo is seemingly benign: of course, cars and bicycles should share the road. But some motorists think such signs mean cyclists should ’share’ the road by getting out of the way.
It would be great to think you could scare such drivers by pointing to your ‘Police’ socks but, of course, in just about every jurisdiction on the planet.
Wearing the word ‘Polite’ is perhaps the next best thing. Years and years ago a small clothing company produced a cycling jacket emblazoned with ‘polite’. When written in big, bold white capital letters on a black background the word made motorists do a double take. I’ve searched in vain for the originator of this idea so I produced a sweatshirt version:
I sent one to Dr Ian Walker, a and British competitor in the World Wife Carrying Championships. He’s the academic from the University of Bath who used sensors and a video camera to measure how close cars passed him when cycling.
“At the kinds of speeds and distances that cyclists are overtaken on our city streets, reducing the gap between cyclist and vehicle can have life-threatening safety implications,” said Dr Walker in 2006.
Dr Walker famously donned a blonde Brian May wig to see if drivers give women (or hippie?) cyclists extra room when passing. Apparently, they do.
Dr Walker’s ‘polite’ sweatshirt may also gain him a couple of inches, if you get my drift. He said:
“As we now have good evidence that drivers are sensitive to a cyclist’s appearance and adjust their overtaking based on what they see, there’s every reason to believe [the POLITE printing] could work to offer a safety advantage. However, I’d be very interested to hear what the police think of it! I could imagine them worrying about a backlash, whereby drivers become wise to cyclists wearing these and so effectively become ‘blind’ to police officers?”
Incidentally, the front of the ‘polite’ sweatshirt has a ‘one less car’ logo on the front:
If you like the sweatshirts, they are available on the UK and US Spreadshirt.com sites for £22.90 or $32.90.
Below, for your clicking pleasure, is HOME, a 1.5 hour movie about Planet Earth. It’s eye-candy, but it’s also eye-opening, even though you already know all the Al Gore/climate change stats.
HOME is bad for cars, Las Vegas, Dubai, Israel, cows. Good for greenies and fans of HD gyroscope cameras. Forget about the ragtrade sponsor, that’s how the movie is going to go viral: it’s free.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand, GoodPlanet Foundation President and photographer of ‘Earth From the Air’, produced the movie and he says:
“We are living in exceptional times. Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth’s climate.
“The stakes are high for us and our children. Everyone should take part in the effort, and HOME has been conceived to take a message of mobilization out to every human being.
“For this purpose, HOME needs to be free. A patron, the PPR Group, made this possible. EuropaCorp, the distributor, also pledged not to make any profit because HOME is a non-profit film.”
HOME can also be found on . If you want the movie on your iPod, iPhone or other players which can spew out MP4’s, subscribe to the Quickrelease.tv podcast on iTunes.
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Jun 09, 2009
Tube strikes are fantastic!
Fantastic for the bike trade, that is. Loads of people will be digging out their old bikes today, and patching up defects via their local neighbourhood bike shop.
Tube strikes aren’t so good for existing bike commuters because, overnight, the streets are awash with wobbly newcomers. But for organisations like the London Cycling Campaign, a 48-hour tube strike will have more of a lasting impact than any number of Bike Weeks.
Kudos to Koy Thomson and his LCC team: they’ve been fast and clever to produce a timely, useful Bike the Strike website. And, of course, I loved producing a Bike to Work special for LCC’s Biketube.org.uk. It’s a 52-page flickable PDF on Issuu.com and is already getting loads of views, adding to the nearly 100,000 views on the main sampler on Issuu.com.
I’m now thinking of taking the train down to London to witness tomorrow morning’s ‘rush hour’.
I’m a sucker for old books on cycling. And the faded tome above is a real corker. It’s an American book on ‘how to bicycle’ from 1892, by L. F. Korns.
Almost the whole book is quotable but here are just a few choice extracts:
“A ride at moonlight is a nerve tonic that beats all the phosphorous compounds that Esculapius ever dreamed of.”
“As a means of locotmotion, it is the fastest of road steeds, is always ready for use, and never consumes grain.”
“To the business man who is shut up in an office or store most of the day, it is a God-send. It gives him the exercise he so much needs and which he would not get in any other way.”
“As a means of pleasure, cycling stands in the foremost rank, but in common with all the great pleasures, it may easily stand in the foremost in abuse. The desire to ride at an unreasonably high speed may become morbid…The ever lasting scorcher, bent like a hoop, and with sunken cheeks, ought to be quite sufficient warning against this abuse.”
“Cycling fills the remotest cells of the lungs with outdoor air. The pores are opened and the dead secretions are thrown off. It aids the peristaltic movement of the bowels…”
Here, the esteemed author, provides are some medical opinions:
Dr. K. K. Doty of New York said:
“Cyclers see considerable more of this beautiful world than any other class of citizens. A good bicycle, well applied, will cure most ills this flesh is heir to.”
J. A. Chase, a doctor from Pawtucket, surmised that bicycling would lead to fewer patients:
“I fear that the universal adoption of cycling would be bad for the doctors.”
Men of the cloth were bicycle advocates, too, reports Mr Korns. The Reverend W.J Petrie of Chicago said:
“I expect to see the day when not to ride a wheel will be a mark of a defective education, and people will say to such a person, ‘Why, where have you been brought up?’”
Rev. Maltie of Baltimore loved the airy freedom of cycling:
“If I were not a man, I would like to be a bird. As I am a man, I do the next best thing, and ride a bicycle.”
Clearly, I’m going to have to update my ‘Quote:Unquote’ article on cycling. This book, and 59 other flickable publications, such as the ‘Bike the Strike’ Bike to Work Book, can be found on Issuu.com’s Bicycling Group.
