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MCC News, Issue 44, Feb-March 2007
MCC member gonged for services to the history and sport of cycling
I just heard that Derek Roberts, age 90, bicycle historian, author of Cycling History: Myths and Queries (1991), founder member of the Veteran Cycle Club, and MCC member in Mitcham was awarded an MBE in the New Year honours for services to the history and sport of cycling.
Roberts is a founder member and honorary secretary/treasurer of the Fellowship of Cycling Old-Timers. He is also an honorary member of the Cycle Engineers' Institute. Many of his papers are lodged in the national cycling archives at Warwick University.
Roberts has been competing in cycling events since he was 13 and has worked to publicise cycling and its history throughout his life. He is also an honorary member of the Cycle Engineers' Institute, and frequently writes in to the letters page of LCC magazine London Cyclist.
Roberts said, “I'm very pleased. I spent my life publicising the sport and its history and I regard the honour more as a tribute to cycling than an award for me personally. I hope this might create more interest in the sport.”
Richard Evans
A Signal Failure: the declining art of the Car Indicator
Pause for five minutes at any Merton kerbside, and a sad question of 21st century street life prompts itself. Why do more & more motorists appear to be shunning the humble direction indicator?
A full eight Sections of the Highway Code, from numbers 85 to 92, are devoted to signals & signalling. As the opening words of the chapter pointedly state: “Signals warn and inform other road users...of your intended actions” But “warning” and “informing” appear to be slipping down the list of road-using courtesies.
Here's a sliver of first-hand evidence, from a quiet January morning, at the T-junction out of Queens Road into Haydons Road. 59% of motorists who turned left failed to indicate their intention (A small sample, admittedly; only 22 left-turning drivers were observed in total). Signalling non-compliance when moving off from the kerb is harder to measure; my perception is that fewer and fewer bother to indicate. A narrow squeak for me this month, riding past a bus on Ludgate Hill, had me worried. Public service vehicles are normally fairly scrupulous, and that leads me to fear this narrow escape may be a heavier than expected straw in the wind.
Drivers not indicating their intentions affect even the most experienced of cyclists. A friend of mine is happy to be back in SW19, after a spell commuting by bike to central London. Now in only his late 20s, Paul has turned his back on the city streets where earlier he rode professionally as a cycle courier. “It's good to be back in the 'burbs: I'd forgotten how shocking the standard of driving up in town is getting,” he said.
It's not solely new or inexperienced drivers who are at fault. This writer recently made the mistake of challenging an elderly non-signalling driver in Wimbledon, as he passed. As reward for my temerity, a mouthful of Anglo-Saxon burned my ears and those of passing mums & children. So I've since adopted the less confrontational tactic when riding, of thrusting a finger dramatically out at the unlit indicator of an offending motorist. What other strategy do you employ?
In fairness, there's no use denying that cyclists do have a shocking reputation for not signalling, and in too many instances the reputation is justified. The Highway Code applies to cyclists as much as it does to other & all users of Britain's roads. But we all know which – a car or a bike - does more direct damage. The Dept of Transport's maximum penalty for careless cycling can be a £1,000 fine, and for dangerous cycling £2,500. For “inconsiderate driving, the maximum fine is £2,500, plus between 3 and 9 penalty points...
Do safety features make drivers more selfish? Is the safe, steel womb of a car, increasingly stuffed with air bags, crumple-zones & survivability gizmos, muffling motorists' perceptions of the damage that an unsignalled action might inflict? Or is it increasingly true that people are already more selfish, less courteous and less socially aware, before they step into a car? In other words, is failure to signal just a symptom, not a cause, of the decline of on-road courtesy?
There's one exception, of course, to motorists' “winkerphobia” - flashing hazard-warning indicators. Section 96 of the Highway Code says these are chiefly intended to mean “I am temporarily obstructing traffic” Yet many drivers appear to use hazard lights to mean “I've stopped on this triple yellow line to pick up the shopping/post a letter/check the map, and won't stop my “flying saucer” impression until 13 seconds after my car is actually moving again”.
Professional drivers don't seem to be any better or worse in this feature than others. The exception of course, are self-employed cabbies. It is a truth universally acknowledged that all cabbies are cuddly, warm-hearted, humorous and wise!
What do other readers think? The opinions from driving instructors, magistrates, police officers are particularly welcome. Mail to alban.thurston@dsl.pipex.com Your contribution may be published in a forthcoming issue of the MCC Newsletter.
Alban Thurston
Best Community Cycling Initiative for 2006 award goes to PHC!
On November 2006, I had a call from Tom Bogdanowicz, Campaigns and Development Manager, from the London Cycling Campaign (LCC), to tell me that Pollards Hill Cyclists (PHC) & the Love Yr Bike events had been short-listed for the LCC annual awards. That information was strictly confidential. On that evening, I went along to their AGM and was thrilled to discover that we had won the Best Community Cycling Initiative for 2006!
Tom tells me the competition was very strong this year with over 30 quality entries. I submitted a self-nomination for the Love Yr Bike event at Commonside in February and Jill had lobbied Richard Evans from Merton Cycling Campaign to nominate me and PHC. The judges chose to roll these nominations into one and our certificate reads 'Mark Dawson & Pollards Hill Cyclists' and it's for PHC & Love Yr Bike. Jenny Jones from the London Assembly presented the certificate in front of a packed room at City Hall near Tower Bridge.
It's a shame Suzanne wasn't around as Love Yr Bike was her idea although we worked on it together. But hopefully you'll all share in the limelight as every person on the PHC list is part of the reason why we've been so successful. I think I'll take the certificate to Commonside / New Horizons and see if they will display it there.
Mark Dawson,
Pollards Hill Cyclists Co-ordinator