Pedal Power

Issue 156
January 2022

B-BUDDIES CIC

A Community Interest Company B-BUDDIES CIC has been established at Beaumanor Hall in Woodhouse as a not-for-profit organisation focusing on community projects promoting cycling.

The main aim of the Company will be to provide cycle training and maintenance (including training in the latter). In addition it will be promoting a bicycle recycling scheme, inner tube and tyre recycling stations, Cycle Hubs offering free bike fixes, bicycle registration and encouraging the refill option for lots of bicycle care products.

In the Loughborough area B-BUDDIES are working in partnership with Cycling UK, as part of its Big Bike Revival initiative, to encourage people to cycle by fixing bicycles, teaching skills and leading bike rides.

The current programme includes -

Free Bike Fix at Loughborough Leisure Centre
11am on Saturdays 22nd & 29th January and 5th February.

Free Bicycle Maintenance Classes at Beaumanor Hall
Wednesday 2nd February 6pm – 9pm (ladies only)
Tuesday 15th February 2pm – 5pm
Thursday 17th and Tuesday 22nd February 6-30pm – 9pm

Free Learn to Ride and Cycle Skills Session at Beaumanor Hall
Tuesday 1st March 5pm – 6pm and 6pm – 7pm
Tuesday 8th March 5pm – 6pm and 6pm – 7pm

More information about B-BUDDIES can be found at www.b-buddies.com

Need to promote Highway Code changes

New changes to the Highway Code should be introduced at the end of January, but there is concern that not enough has been done to communicate the changes to UK road users.

The latest revision of the Highway Code is not being communicated through official channels. While the Highway Code should change for the better, these changes will be of limited benefit if most road users are not aware of them.

Following an extensive consultation on how to improve the safety of pedestrians, cyclists and horse riders (vulnerable road users) the changes were laid as a Statutory Instrument in Parliament on 1st December 2021.

The Highway Code update will include a new hierarchy of road user. For the first time in Britain the law will recognise that those who pose the greatest risk on our roads to others have a higher level of responsibility. This means someone cycling will have greater responsibility to look out for people walking, while someone driving would have greater responsibility to look out for people cycling, walking or riding a horse.

Other key amendments in the new Highway Code include:

• clearer guidance for drivers overtaking people cycling to give at least 1.5m;
• guidance on how drivers and passenger can prevent ‘car-dooring’ cyclists by using the Dutch Reach;
• Simplification on rules related to non-signalised junctions to prevent “left-hook” collisions, bringing Britain in line with similar laws on the European continent.

Unless the public is educated about the changes there is the potential for conflict that comes from a lack of awareness of the Highway Code. This could put vulnerable road users at unnecessary risk.

A shift to cycling needed

Based on an article from www.euractiv.com

Worldwide, transportation is responsible for 24% of direct CO2 emissions from fuel combustion. Road vehicles account for nearly three-quarters of transport CO2 emissions, and these numbers are not decreasing.

In recent years, a lot of hope, money and lobbying efforts have been placed in the electrification of vehicles as the key to reducing carbon emissions from transport. This is no doubt important, but it can only be part of the solution.

Even if all new cars and trucks were electric now, it would still take decades to replace the world’s fossil fuel fleet. And the electrification of vehicles will not help solve other endemic societal problems in our cities such as traffic congestion, the unfair distribution of urban space and the systemic lack of physical activity.

COP26 laid bare just how much the electrification of motorised vehicles has been dominating the public discourse on transport emission reductions. The draft Transport Declaration was entirely focused on the electrification of vehicles until pressure from activists and a coalition of NGOs, plus a last-minute intervention by the European Commission, achieved the inclusion of this sentence:

“We recognise that alongside the shift to zero emission vehicles, a sustainable future for road transport will require wider system transformation, including support for active travel, public and shared transport.”

There is no conceivable way to achieve the world’s and the European Green Deal’s ambitious and urgent climate goals without a shift to significantly more cycling in our cities and towns. Cycling for daily mobility is one of the best solutions we already have to reduce transport emissions, combat climate change and ensure our planet is habitable for generations to come.

More cycling makes a big difference. Research shows that cyclists have 84% lower daily CO2 emissions than non-cyclists. Switching from a car to a bicycle can save 150g of CO2 per kilometre.

E-cargo bikes cut carbon emissions by 90% compared with diesel vans. Cycling or walking instead of taking the car once a week can reduce a person’s carbon footprint by about half a tonne of CO2 over a year. With most car trips today being less than five kilometres, the potential for cycling to replace such trips and mitigate climate change is enormous.

Tackling Road Injustice

Based on an article at www.cyclinguk.org

Seven years after promising to review road traffic offences and penalties, the Government has confirmed that it is "scoping out" a call for evidence on parts of the Road Traffic Act. In other words, it is no longer just "considering" carrying out the review of road traffic offences and penalties that it promised in 2014 - it is now actively working on it.

This change follows three debates in Parliament relating to road traffic offences and penalties. A Lords debate on 'Road Justice' on 8 November was followed on 15 November by two parliamentary petition debates (‘Tougher sentences for hit and run drivers who cause death' and 'Ryan's Law: Widen definition of 'death by dangerous driving''), both of which had been launched by the bereaved families of young men who had been killed by 'hit-and-run' drivers.

Key concerns that were raised included:

• The lack of clarification and consistency on the definitions and sentences for 'careless and dangerous' driving offences;
• The legal system's over-reliance on custodial sentences for these and other offences, and its under-use of driving bans - addressing this might well lead to jurors and others being more likely to apply the definitions of 'careless' and 'dangerous' driving correctly;
• The absurd ease with which convicted drivers are regularly able to evade driving bans by claiming that this would cause 'exceptional hardship'; 
• Inadequate penalties for ‘hit-and-run' offences where a driver doesn't just scratch someone else's parked car, but potentially leaves a victim to die in the road;
• Equally inadequate penalties for 'car-dooring' offences where these cause serious or fatal injury.

One positive outcome of the debates was in ministerial responses which indicated an openness to consider strengthening the maximum penalty for 'hit-and-run' offences where the driver or rider knew (or reasonably ought to have known) that they had been in a collision that resulted (or could have resulted) in serious or fatal injuries.

All too often, it seems that drivers involved in hit-and-run offences are trying to avoid being caught because they were driving while uninsured, unlicensed, disqualified, drunk or on drugs. However the upshot is that they leave their victims to die in the road when, in some cases, their lives might have been saved if the driver had called the emergency services straight away.

Any use of hand-held mobile phones while driving to become illegal

Based on an article at www.cyclinguk.org

The Department for Transport has announced a clamp down on motorists who use hand-held phones while at the wheel. It will be illegal to use a hand-held mobile phone while driving under virtually any circumstance.

It is already illegal to text or make a phone call (other than in an emergency) using a hand-held device while driving. Next year, laws will go further to ban drivers from using their phones to take photos or videos, scroll through playlists or play games. This will mean anyone caught using their hand-held device while driving will face a £200 fixed penalty notice and 6 points on their licence. These laws will be for England, Wales and Scotland.