Cyclists in eight cities across England will benefit from a £7m Government investment in projects designed to create more cycle-friendly areas.
The funding, announced by transport minister Jesse Norman on 17 February, forms part of the DfT’s Cycle Safety Review – launched in September 2017 to ‘ensure that our roads are as safe as possible for all who use them’.
The ‘Cycle City Ambition’ cities are: Bristol, Leeds, Cambridge, Birmingham, Norwich, Manchester, Newcastle and Oxford – all of which have received previous Government support to help them ‘lead the way in promoting cycling’.
The cities will now be given the chance to bid for an additional £6.5m to trial new schemes which improve safety.
The remaining £500k will be used to support Cycling UK’s Big Bike Revival project which is helping to get more people cycling safely and confidently across the country.
Jesse Norman said: “Everyone should be able to take advantage of the huge health and environmental benefits of cycling.
“While Britain has some of the safest roads in the world, we want to encourage more people to take up cycling.
“This funding, as part of our overall cycling and walking strategy, will help local councils to make their roads safer for everyone.”
5.5% of vehicles uninsured is too many.
By the way, what %age of cyclists choose to take out insurance? Just because it is not compulsory, doesn’t mean its not advisable.
Ditto mobility scooter owners…
Pat, Wales
+3
Aubrey is quite right. The solution is simple. Every car should have an insurance disc displayed with a Q code. This can be checked by any phone with a reader. In the event of an accident, insurers’ details are instantly available. More to the point, traffic wardens, or whatever they are called these days, can random scan vehicles to see if the insurance is valid. If not, it gets lifted there and then. More to the point, this would work anywhere. Supermarket car parks, on the estates, anywhere. Right now, everybody relies on ANPR and of course a police car free to deal with an uninsured driver, which given the reductions in numbers, is unlikely.
This same system could be extended to MoT and tax discs. All of the discs could be printed out, so that would solve the cost of anti fraud discs, which are very expensive, because it would be impossible to forge the Q code. Anybody trying it would come back to a blank response. Bye bye car. It really can be that simple. It will also never happen. Government does not care about road casualties. Providing we have fewer than anywhere else, ministers are happy. This ignores the fact that our injury accidents are halfway up the table, which should give cause for thought. The reason is the excellence of the ambulance service and paramedics who start treatment upon arrival.
Kevan Chippindall-Higgin, Southsea
--1
Holland is often held up as a cycling Utopia. Well, it isn’t. Holland has the highest number of cycle injuries and deaths in the EU and they are as daft on 2 wheels as they are here.
Even cyclists with driving licences pay no attention whatsoever to their vulnerability and then wonder why they get squashed. Kids on mopeds are just as bad, except they are on a speed mission.
Yes, I totally support education, but that velvet glove must conceal the iron fist of enforcement. When out on patrol with the Police in Portsmouth, I spotted a cyclist with no lights and had to have a real go at the officers to even stop and dish out a mild scolding. She should have been given a ticket for an unroadworthy cycle. However, had she made a fuss, that would have involved arresting her, getting a van to collect the cycle and spending several hours doing paperwork on a Saturday night. No wonder they were reluctant to even scold her in case it escalated and they were forced into an arrest.
Kevan Chippindall-Higgin, Southsea
--1
Any investment in cycling infrastructure should be welcomed even if it is very low when distributed through the regions. If I may pick up on the issue of cyclists and law breaking. I don’t know where the figure of ‘over a million offences comes from’ However what I would say is that until we have adequate education and enforcement we will not change the culture of those that ride in such a way. I will finish though with information provided by Churchill and that is:
Estimated Uninsured Vehicles Greater London – 215,970 – 5.5% of vehicles
Now that really is a huge elephant in any room.
Aubrey Cooper, Bradford
+6
Two things. The number of cyclists injured annually on our roads are going up and up, which it didn’t need a fortune teller to see that they would and they will continue to rise year on year. Perhaps when the numbers reach that magic 10% of usage will there be a plateauing of killed and injured. I doubt that it will be going down.
Final say is that if the £7 million could be spent on a day’s training [6 to 8 hours] for motorcyclists at £50.00 per head we could train some 140.000 young and inexperienced riders. When you realise that the IAM train between 5 and 6000 per year that’s an awful lot of training that could be going on.
If the monies was made available.
Bob Craven, Lancs
--3
The elephant in the room is the extent of cyclists riding on the footway and through pedestrian signals here in London. Almost certainly over a million offences a day, more that the rest of all the other crimes in a day.
Richard Walker, London
--7
Hard to believe that less than £1m for each of these cities is going to make a radical difference to anyone. As long as we manage cycle funding like this, we’ll have proof the Government doesn’t have any real strategy to actually increase cycling, despite the evidence staring them in the face ..
Tim Lennon, London
+17
Please let me have some £7 million in order to train motorcyclists on basic maintenance for safety and also some training in defensive riding techniques. I believe that I asked the same question a few years ago. Funny how history repeats itself.
Thinking about it, there was extremely little or no safety or training promotions about motorcycling in 2016/17 and certainly no great effort to give any subsidised training with the IAM or any other other training bodies. Maybe the government funding, or should I say subsidy, is being used elsewhere, or could it be that as I now understand it motorcycling is no longer considered as a part of the UK sustainable transport system. Therefore it doesn’t or won’t exist in the future.
Bob Craven, lancs
--8