The War on Britain's Roads (BBC Documentary / tabloid tv)

Again with the copying fakenger culture.

Have the BBC cottoned on yet?

Fakenger stuff only gets exposure on the high brow shit like Countryfile.

The programme did score highly though in not featuring Buffalo Bill, almost unheard of in badly made documentaries or ill-informed articles.

Roger that.Bill will be disappoint.

I think it's really important that where appropriate we thank, praise and/or offer our support to the families of crash victims. I always think how much I'd want my own mum to be shown this care and consideration.

I am in fairly regular contact with another inspiring parent, Allister Carey, who recently sent me this news piece about his latest fundraiser for The Eleanor Foundation. Such a great guy.

[The Eleanor Foundation was created in the memory of 22 year old Ellie who tragically was killed by a left turning lorry on Tower Bridge Road in London in December 2011. She has so often been in my (and I'm sure many others') thoughts this past year.]

all credit to Gaz where due he admitted he overcooked it and doesnt dwell in that situation again...shame it cant be said for much of the tosspots out there

The programme's not even trending on the twitter. Apparently everyone else was watching football or Inbetweeners USA. The latter probably invoked strong feelings of 'us' and 'them', leaving everyone thinking Americans are all cunts. Present company excepted, of course.

Glad so many people have seen what a legend Cynthia is. RoadPeace is a great organisation.

voice of reason from bald glasses guy

Was that Charlie?

What's with all the hating on Gareth? Guy admits where he's wrong, and having followed his youtube videos he's stated he doesn't confront drivers any more and hasn't done in over a year.

Funny they didn't show any of these videos he does: http://www.youtube.com/user/sillycyclists

The taxi driver he had the altercation with that they interviewed looked a prize plum though - "i'd already overtaken him, why'd he hit my taxi?" err, if you HAD already overtaken him then he wouldn't have been able to ... oh, never mind.

(full disclosure, I have met the guy and he's a good bloke)

What's with all the hating on Gareth? Guy admits where he's wrong, and having followed his youtube videos he's stated he doesn't confront drivers any more and hasn't done in over a year.

Funny they didn't show any of these videos he does: http://www.youtube.com/user/sillycyclists

The taxi driver he had the altercation with that they interviewed looked a prize plum though - "i'd already overtaken him, why'd he hit my taxi?" err, if you HAD already overtaken him then he wouldn't have been able to ... oh, never mind.

(full disclosure, I have met the guy and he's a good bloke)

The guy on the bike had plenty of room,any decent rider could see that,he had a camera and probably had a youtube opportunity.Which is his shtick.

Could not believe the guy on the footpath who hit the ped.... at that speed where was the anticipation of hazard, where was the ring on the bell (oops, sorry.... toot on the whistle... memo to self...)?! I regularly ride (yup a fixie), on a similar shared-use path, 'cos the roundabout I avoid by doing so nearly claimed my life twice- but whatever speed you just have to expect the joggers / dog walkers to be ear-phoned up / unattentive or just capricious....

Thought Gareth didn't come out too well, the old cabbie was a right 'un, PC Alleycat must be on Edgar, Droid dude needs to find something else to put the passion into, and WTF was that alleycat shit? I already knew Cynthia's story- having two grown daughters I can only imagine the pain of her loss and admire her ability to drag something positive from what must have been a deep dark place- left me moist-eyed....

I don't think the angle at which they're filming Gareth helps him much.

Indeed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1y41At_m9o

The guy on the bike had plenty of room,any decent rider could see that,he had a camera and probably had a youtube opportunity.Which is his shtick.

I'm not sure how under two feet could ever be considered 'plenty of room'.

Ease up on Gaz. He seems to have had some kind of mental break and started talking to himself online, possibly due to the stress of this programme.

Wankers will be wankers it seems, while in principle their choice of vehicle is rather irrelevant.

I suppose Cynthia and her story and the work she's involved in provided a glimpse of hope, but from a moral and editorial point of view, I felt that the programme was more divisive than unifying and failed to address the theoretical possibility of a constructive solution to the problem. Then again, "war" sells more tickets than "peace" any day, so here we go again, get ready for round two.

Ding! Ding!

Surely there's room for all of us, even in London, pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike...

Blimey. Lots of discussion. Do I watch it later?

I had seen most of the footage before; I spent a lot of time watching YouTube and reading this forum before returning to active cycling again, and I wanted to know what I was getting myself back into.

Pretty much as I expected a 'them & us' presentation. I was disappointed that so much of the footage revolved around many of the drivers complaining that the cyclists weren't riding in the kerb (presumably where cyclists belong?), without explaining why for so many reasons that is often the last place to be riding. Without that explanation, I think a trick has been missed for motorists to see it from our point of view as road users.

Associated with that is how driving and the road networks have evolved. When I started riding on the roads in the late 1970s the state of the roads - potholes, poor repairs etc were very poor and I've really seen very little improvement, if any, in 30+ years. Cars however, have become increasingly more comfortable, easier to drive and with these advances you would have hoped this would have given more time to paying attention to what is going on outside of the vehicle. If anything, it appears to have simply released the driver to do something else as well, and most cars now seem to be an extension of their homes or offices. Added to which in this cold snap, very few motorists - near my area at any rate - seem to think that defrosting the car consists only of creating a letterbox field of view through the windscreen. So now they've not only doing something else, they can't see you either!

There also seems to be an increasing minority of people in all aspects of daily life who can cause an argument in an empty room. If you happen to have infringed their perceived personal space or caused some minor slight, they seem to go straight off the deep end and turn the insignificant to a major incident.

I'm really not sure how much further this programme gets us. My concern is that some viewers weighing up if swapping commuting from public transport to cycling is a sensible choice for them, may decide to stay on the train. What it doesn't show as it is such dull viewing, is that it is perfectly possible to have hundreds of miles commuting with nothing remarkable happening at all.

Dick move on the BBC's part. It's already been said but this 'documentary' was shite.

+1 to everybody supporting Cynthia though.

Cyclists:
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE"]The
People's Front - YouTube[/ame]

On Radio 4 now

Don't you understand? Cycling is OVER you cretins.
Gone, done, OUT.

Commuters: you self righteous little buffoons, get on the train, that's what it's for. Or are you worried there'll be nobody to feel superior to? Get a grip, you're a graphic designer not Zdenek Stybar.

Leisure cyclists: Leave those Halfords specials in the garage where they live the other 364 days a year, nobody needs your incredulous excursions into London's pressured parks. Stay indoors, get a bargain bucket and let the kids play X-box ffs.

'Racing' cyclists: You're not Wiggins, you're not Hoy. In fact you bear a closer resemblance to Hoy's dad. Replica tour kit makes you look like a 4 year old child in a Batman suit without any of the humour or endearment. Relax, sell the turbo trainer you never use, have a couple of beers, a round of golf, there that's much better for your dicky heart isn't it?

Couriers: Are there still losers doing this? It's all computers these days, companies don't want your vile effluvia in their reception. Stop trying to look like hipsters, you can't afford it. Get back into army surplus and MTBs with slicks or you know where the dole office is.

So-called 'professionals', yes cycle 'trainers', 'coaches' yeah yeah, whatever. Most of you can't even ride a fucking bike and you spend all your time saying what a wonderful job you're doing for other people. Bullshit you're doing it to feed your own planet-sized ego. Your time has come, go back under whatever middle-management stone you crawled out from, or do something really useful, like sweep the streets.

Hope this helps

you missed tourists

I'm really not sure how much further this programme gets us. My concern is that some viewers weighing up if swapping commuting from public transport to cycling is a sensible choice for them, may decide to stay on the train.

This was one of my concerns too. Even talking to my wife this morning about it she mentioned the same.

What it doesn't show as it is such dull viewing, is that it is perfectly possible to have hundreds of miles commuting with nothing remarkable happening at all.

This exactly. Again I could probably count on 1 hand how many incidents I have in a year. That's around 3,000 commuting miles. Granted I don't cycle in London all that much.

--

I do believe we are looking at peak car use in cities, what amazed me is the stats in the program saying the average speed of a car in the city is now down to 11mph. Why on earth anyone would use a car is beyond me.

I'd rather walk to work than drive at rush hour.

Where did you get the 11mph figure from? That sounds high for rush hour.

Average speed of a motorised vehicles in Central London is 7mph, whether the average for a cyclists is 14mph.

11mph is high, unless he's referring to a different city/town.

That's what it said on the doc last night. Unless it didn't mean rush hour.