In defence of Andrew Mitchell

OK, so the guy has a short fuse, is a millionaire Tory MP, a former investment banker, a snob, and has an exaggerated sense of his own importance. But if we set these minor character flaws to one side (hey, who's perfect?) let’s consider the one thing which has not been discussed in the acres of coverage which have resulted from this storm in a teacup, namely the cycling aspect.

Friends said he had been allowed to cycle out of the main gate on three occasions that day. 

Mr Mitchell said in a statement: “I attempted to leave Downing Street via the main gate, something I have been allowed to do many times before. 

“I was told that I was not allowed to leave that way. 

Why not? The glib explanation was “security”. I don’t believe that for a moment. My guess is that either the same set of cops got fed up with opening two gates for a solitary cyclist, or a new shift from the diplomatic protection squad took over and decided they weren’t going to bother.

As a cyclist Mr Mitchell quite reasonably didn't want to be subject to the equivalent of a CYCLISTS DISMOUNT sign by police officers, who wanted him to dismount and go through this side gate.

 

He wanted to go through the main gate, as he had done without incident previously.

The excuse used to prevent Mr Mitchell going out through the gates – security – was the same feeble excuse wheeled out for the Met’s draconian response to London’s July Critical Mass – an occasion when cyclophobic police officers jeered "Just see them as speed bumps" and "pay your taxes". 

We now know that the Met has charged 16 cyclists and taken no action against 166 of those arrested: 

‘The whole sorry affair seems to have been a case of an over-zealous police reaction to the general paranoia around the build-up to the Olympic Games. ‘We consider there are potential civil claims for compensation against the police following the mistreatment of our clients and will be taking this further.’ 

Not that the Met could give a toss. It regularly dispenses vast sums of money for unlawful arrests and a range of other malpractice by its well-protected employees. The Met is car-centric and cyclophobic in its policing priorities. Its initial investigation of this incident said everything you need to know about how seriously the Met takes crime against cyclists, and there's more illumination on this cycling discussion thread. The Met remains a sleazy, dysfunctional and unprofessional force which is long overdue for a good sorting out. The whining of the Police Federation (which is milking this affair for all it's worth in revenge for the Winsor review) is laughable and hypocritical. If the police are upset by rudeness and boorish behaviour they need look no further than their own ranks. 

Mr Mitchell may perhaps have also have been stressed by the conditions for cycling in and around Whitehall. And that’s where my qualified sympathy runs out. It’s Conservative politicians who are largely responsible for the atrocious conditions in Parliament Square, a five-lane motor hell. 

On Whitehall, which used to be an agreeably wide road to cycle on, there’s some new footway widening (below) which forces cyclists into the same lane as buses. Bonkers, and completely unnecessary.

It would be perfectly possible to ‘go Dutch’ on Whitehall and around Parliament Square, although ideally both should be pedestrianised (with cycling access) and with vehicle access severely restricted.

Today in Walthamstow

The Metropolitan Police took a very tough line with London’s July Critical Mass cycle ride: Police believed the demonstration "had the potential to cause serious disruption" 

The Met was far more relaxed about the EDL march through Walthamstow today:

POLICE have told the Guardian they have no intelligence to suggest that a controversial march by the far right English Defence League (EDL) this weekend will be violent or disrupt the community. 

I feel sure local residents won’t have felt a bit disrupted. It enabled some of them to develop their three-point-turn skills, as shown in this beautifully choreographed display of the sort which could be witnessed on all four ‘A’ roads leading up to the Bell Corner today. These two photographs show Chingford Road, southbound.

Church Hill was gridlocked and it was taking drivers over twenty minutes to travel a very short distance. On the plus side this was the first time this 20 mph zone has seen one hundred per cent compliance with the speed limit!

It also forms part of the cycling friendly London Cycle Network – yes, it does look inviting, does it not?

Forest Road sealed off eastbound at the junction with Bromley Road.

Forest Road sealed off westbound at the gates of the Town Hall:

The Met uses only the finest contractors for their temporary fencing. It takes real skill to park in an off-road cycle path like this.

It appears that some of the anti-EDL protesters were ‘kettled’ on Hoe Street.

Stella Creasy MP tweeted that she’d seen a white dove flying over Walthamstow today.

All I saw in the sky was this:

It seems there was some disruption after all.

Update here.

I do hope someone is going to ask how much all this cost (here’s a possible clue).

The Olympic cycling legacy: it's crap

 (Above) Exciting new infrastructure in the Lea Valley close to the Olympic Park.




 In a nutshell, this is what the Olympics amounted to as far as ordinary cycling is concerned.


 1. The pre-Olympics cycling pledges were broken and the Greenways were never built

 

(Above) The map shows three proposed Olympic Greenways in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. One already existed in the form of the Lea Valley towpath, which was of course subsequently closed to cyclists and pedestrians at the point where it reached the Olympic Park. The other two, which also incorporated some existing routes, were not built.

(Below) The start of one section of a proposed Olympic Greenway which was never constructed, linking the Green Man roundabout with Snaresbrook Road.

2. The opening night of the Olympics saw the greatest mass arrest of cyclists in British history by a police force which is institutionally anti-cyclist and which has long incubated petrolhead police. 
 

Copyright The Press Association




3. With symbolism at its most bleak and brutal a young London commuter cyclist was crushed to death beside the Olympic Park on the sixth day of the Olympics, killed by an official Games vehicle transporting corporate journalists 

This appears to have been a classic instance of a left-turning heavy vehicle colliding with a cyclist who was going straight ahead. The fatality occurred at a site which the London Cycling Campaign over an eight year period had been warning was dangerous for cyclists.

What’s more
 
I have established that “advance stop lines” – the cyclists’ only boxes at traffic lights – were removed from the junction at the intersection of Eastway, Ruckholt Road and the A12 west-bound slip road to give priority to Olympics VIP buses and cars 10 days before the fatal crash.

 

4. Some sports cyclists won medals, including individuals who have no ethical objections to being sponsored by BP or BMW. And another sports cyclist famously shared his thoughts on cycling safety. 

(One cycling blogger asked their local council for a breakdown of expenditure on infrastructure for everyday cycling and expenditure on sports cycling; the answer is interesting.)

5. The Mayor of London announced RideLondon: 

Capitalising on the popularity of Britain's two-wheel Olympic triumphs, an annual festival of cycling is to be held in London – including a mass road race to rival the marathon. 

Hugh Brasher, race director for the London marathon and part of the team organising RideLondon, said he believed it would become as big a fixture as the running equivalent, and could continue to inspire cycling after the Olympics. He said he hoped it would "encourage people to get fit, cycle and start commuting into London by bike".

Well it might do. But we know that once you have “encouraged” people to try cycling a phenomenon called “churn” occurs. The majority do not enjoy the experience and give up.

 although many people have taken up cycling in the past decade, a similar number have stopped cycling. 

Sometimes even hardened and experienced vehicular cyclists give up:

Sad to say I have all but given up commuting into London now. It can hardly be described as a pleasant experience and there is no meaningful support from the police. 

But not everyone feels like this.

Trott said she felt safe cycling in London, but added that more cycle lanes should be created. 

Yeah, right. This brilliant cycle lane in Leyton, which runs close to the eastern perimeter of the Olympic Park, is just the thing to get the masses cycling, no?

And all you cheery optimists who cling to the fervent hope that Boris will one day implement his ‘Go Dutch’ commitment, do please pay close attention to this remark:

Johnson said that substantial sums were being spent to make the streets safer for cyclists but said he did not want to "bully" motorists by changing roads, and that there had to be compromises made. 

I was going to say more about RideLondon but the Vole has already said it



(Below) Recommended cycling route to the Olympics, along National Cycle Network route 1, at a point where you can see the Olympic Park. Photographed two days ago.

Cycling protest – central London Wednesday 13 July

SOHO SQUARE
Gather 6.30pm, Ride off at 7pm
Wednesday 13th July 2011

We’re acting because:
- Clean air in the city would prevent about 4,300 premature deaths each year.
- Breathing London’s air reduces the life expectancy of those who die prematurely from it by 11 years on average.
- Air pollution from our busiest roads exacerbates asthma and may cause it.
- Deaths and illnesses from air pollution in the capital cost up to £2bn a year.

Air pollution in London is the worst in the UK and among the worst in Europe, with fatal consequences. But we can do something about it. Climate Rush are organising a cycle flashmob.

It’s Carlisle critical mass!

Scenes from a medieval society still in thrall to car dependency and totally hostile to cycling:

Around 25 cyclists travelled in protest around the city last night to hit out against a lack of cycle lanes and intolerant drivers.

The cyclists came together to travel through the city centre in one big ‘vehicle’ and say they hope to repeat the trip on the first Tuesday of every month.

‘I don't think I will be going on another London critical mass for a while’

I don't think I will be going on another London critical mass for a while. I wonder if more people are getting turned off, since for a warm June evening the turnout wasn't huge.

Edinburgh police attack Critical Mass

First, some context. Scotland is a country where a motorist who ran down and killed a child cyclist was treated with every sympathy and allowed to drive away from the scene. And where the police who arrived on the scene where a cycling champion was run down by a van driver made no attempt to see if the driver had been using a mobile phone at the time of the collision. That’s how prejudiced and rotten Scottish traffic policing is.

In Edinburgh the police are aggressively hostile to mass cycling. Nudity is not permitted on the Naked Bike Ride on the grounds that the public must be protected from This Kind Of Thing:

While mass naked bike rides are set to be held across the world on Saturday, in Edinburgh the participants have been told they must preserve their modesty.

It comes after run-ins in previous years with Lothian and Borders Police, including in 2004 when officers threatened to arrest anyone who stripped off for "outraging public decency".

On Friday’s Edinburgh Critical Mass:

A police car swung in front of the cyclists on the wrong side of the road, forced the mass to stop and picked out the sound system rider for no apparent reason. As no offence was being committed, the riders found it hard to see why their details should be given over. After some arguing, and an increasingly frustrated cop who realised that he had no grounds for demanding the riders details, backup quickly arrived, with three more cop cars and three vans.

The arrested rider was eventually released later last night with four charges - cycling without due care and attention, obstruction of the highway with a bicycle and trailer, failure to provide details when required and resisting arrest.

The full story here.

But though the Scottish police are aggressively car supremacist in their anti-cycling policing, it’s all a matter of degree. London’s police are not really any better:

Andreas the London Cyclist writes

It seems a little unfair that community support officers are able to hand out fixed penalty notices to cyclists but not to drivers.

But that’s not a coincidence. This kind of discrimination is structured. Take a look at the community feedback questionnaires which the PCSOs go round giving people. There’s a helpful list of problems for you to tick, with ‘Antisocial behaviour by youths’ at the top and ‘Cycling on the pavement’ not far behind. Excluded from the list are any crimes or anti-social behaviour by motorists. There is no box for ‘speeding drivers’ or ‘drivers parking on the pavement’ or ‘people driving while using mobile phones’.

While resources are being increased for punishing hundreds of cyclists who have committed victimless crimes, the Met continues to reduce its road traffic policing, with fewer and fewer speeding drivers and red-light-jumping motorists punished. This is a policing policy written in the blood of pedestrians and cyclists, who are most vulnerable to violent, reckless and aggressive road users:

Calculated per police force, the highest number of [road] deaths last year was in the Metropolitan Police area, with 182 people killed.

The most lawless and violent members of British society (i.e. drivers) know they have little to fear from the British police, who have never regarded driver crime as ‘real’ crime. Most driver crime goes undetected and unpunished. Road traffic policing has never been regarded as a very important part of policing (unlike, say, ‘vehicle crime’ – Britain’s senior police officers are obsessed by theft of or from vehicles, which as we know from the black cab rapist case is treated by some police commanders as a higher priority than rape).

While senior police officers have traditionally resisted the use of camera technology to catch motoring crime, they show no such restraint when it comes to spying on ordinary members of the public who have committed no crimes but who dare to participate in peaceful protest.

The quintessential uselessness and authoritarian instincts of British policing are revealed yet again by this case, in which

In July 2005, they were stopped by police under the Terrorism Act after driving into the east London to help a family member move house. They later discovered police had placed a marker against their car registration on the database, triggering an alert – "of interest to public order unit, Sussex police" – each time they drove beneath an automatic number plate reading camera.

In recent days I’ve seen PCSOs wandering around Walthamstow putting up these notices (below), which are not only a complete waste of money and a statement of the bleedin’ obvious, but also a symptom of policing which is obsessed with the relatively trivial problem of 'car crime' while indifferent to motoring crime.

The police are no friends of cycling.

‘Share the road’ (with stretch limos)

David Love, Mercedes-Benz-driving London Cycling Campaign Vice-Trustee, asserts that

segregation would be great but in London at least there's no room and no money so it's not going to happen.

As can be seen here in Endsleigh Place WC1 in that impoverished part of London known as ‘Bloomsbury’. Here the road is only wide enough to accommodate parking bays for much-needed vehicles like that black stretch limo. And there simply isn’t a penny to spare on extravagances like cycle stands, which is why cyclists have to make do with street furniture.

‘No brains Love’ is also the man behind ‘Share the Road’:

I started the Share the Road campaign in the UK which now enjoys broad support amongst London’s transport community. Our message is that cyclists and motorists are often the same people just doing different things, and that they should respect each other’s right to use the road.

Sadly, not everyone respects the right of stretch limos to make their essential journeys around central London. Here are shocking scenes of cyclists who find it amusing to delay a stretch limo in order to accommodate safe cycling. If you recognise anyone here as a member of the London Cycling campaign, please contact head office so that they can be excommunicated.

Black cab drivers and Critical Mass

Traffic deliberately brought to a standstill with

delays near the Strand and roads leading to and from Waterloo Bridge.

The hour-long protest had a knock-on effect on traffic

No, not Critical Mass but black cab drivers.

"We are sorry that we have to block the streets to make our voices heard, but we feel we have no other option."

Which is something everyone who goes on Critical Mass needs to memorise, so that they can say it sweetly to the belligerent driver in the black cab who is angrily trying to force his way through all the cyclists.

In reality Critical Mass, unlike the demonstrating black cab drivers, doesn’t deliberately set out to block streets. It sets out to reclaim the streets for a safe cycle ride. What invariably happens is that black cab drivers refuse to wait and let the ride go by and aggressively try to force their way through the dense mass of cyclists.

You would think after all these years cabbies would have learned their lesson. If you wait patiently and let the cyclists go past they will soon have gone and everything will return to normal. But if you blow your horn and aggressively force your vehicle in among the cyclists, they’ll stop. And then no one will be going anywhere.

Black cab drivers are a pampered minority whose relevance to moving people around central London is very questionable. As a cycling blogger once observed

Taxis carry just 0.6% of all commuters in central London. Yet taxis are allowed to take up a huge and disproportionate amount of the road space, including being given access to the bus lanes. Why is this?

It’s a good question. The black cab lobby exercises an influence out of all proportion to its significance to personal mobility in London.

In reality black cab drivers are a lavishly pampered minority, whose influence on transport is negative not positive. They are allocated road space for parking which would be much better devoted to cycling infrastructure on the Dutch model. They are permitted to use bus lanes, whereas minicabs aren’t – a wholly irrational distinction, and one designed to benefit the well-heeled user of the London black cab. Bus lanes should be for buses, and taxi cab parking bays should be for cyclists. And no taxi should be treated preferentially; using a car for mobility in places like the West End and the City is fundamentally absurd and irrational and should be regarded as such.

Few people really need to use black cabs. Taxis will always be needed in special circumstances, for the genuinely frail or to transport large items, and there’s nothing wrong with wanting to use taxis late at night. But most taxi use isn’t like that.

Why are black cabs permitted to infest streets like Oxford Street and Regent Street? They choke the West End with their presence. Yet central London is quite a small place, easily traversed by bicycle, foot, bus or tube. For one or two people to travel around central London in a large, polluting one-ton bubble of metal is an absurd indulgence. Black cabs are largely a luxury form of transport for the affluent and those on expense account lifestyles. As we know, BBC management is stuffed with freeloaders who disdain to use public transport or cycle, and a subsidised taxi-centric lifestyle impacts on programming. Walking and cycling just aren’t important to those who see London from their private glass bubble on wheels.

Black cab drivers have a curious sense of entitlement. They don’t like minicabs, they don’t like pedicabs, and they don’t like cyclists. Yet the driving standard of many black cab drivers leaves a lot to be desired. They are notorious for their aggressive attitudes to cyclists, and I have yet to meet a London cyclist who hasn’t complained of being cut up by a black cab driver. Cabbies drive into Advanced Stop Lines with impunity, knowing that the police regard them with indulgence.

I’ve never forgotten the small critical mass I went on in East London when an enraged black cab driver smashed up a cyclist’s bike. The police arrived in the form of two shaven headed thuggish looking individuals, who laughed and joked with the cabbie, and treated the victim with an aggressive hostility that matched that of his attacker. The false cosy image of the black cab driver and the prejudices of the underachieving and largely unaccountable Metropolitan Police came together all too clearly in the case of the black cab rapist.

The aggression and bellicosity of black cab drivers is startling, and can be witnessed on any Critical Mass. I had quite a sentimental, rose-coloured image of cab drivers as salt of the earth types until I went on my first CM and saw a cabbie with his hand dangling out of his window. He slowly unfurled it and furtively released a fistful of drawing pins onto the road. That’s how much some cabbies hate cyclists.

On another occasion I was standing on the pavement on Tottenham Court Road observing the usual robust exchange of views between a cabby and CM when he decided to get past by swerving onto the pavement. I declined to move, as pavements are for pedestrians and I see no reason why a black cab should be driven on all four wheels along a pavement simply to get round CM. The driver screeched to a halt, sprang out, and ran at me with his fist raised, howling obscenities. I therefore scarpered, since it wasn’t worth getting a mouthful of broken teeth simply to assert my rights as a pedestrian. But experiences like these do sort of colour your views of cabbies.

If London is ever to be civilised and turned into a city where cycling and walking are taken seriously instead of being marginalised, the numbers of taxis needs to be drastically cut, and road space currently lavished on taxi parking needs to be reclaimed for segregated cycle lanes. And when the London Cycling Campaign finally wakes up and gets the message that segregated Dutch-style infrastructure is the only thing that will transform London into a mass cycling city, you can be quite certain that the black cab lobby will be at the forefront of opposition to the restructuring of London’s streets.

(Below) A sequence of events. This black cab driver aggressively forced his way into last month's Critical Mass on Aldwych. He got as far as the law courts on the Strand before he was forced to a halt by the mass of cyclists. He then sat in his cab blowing his horn continuously for ten minutes or more, with a demented expression on his bespectacled face (second pic). It didn't do him any good as more and more cyclists arrived and everyone paused to discuss the meaning of life. Had he been patient and waited he would have got wherever he was going much quicker. (Curiously, his cab is advertising TV reception on a SatNav, which sounds an insane idea which will surely lead to yet more inattentive drivers and road carnage.)

WF09YMC and other traffic criminals caught on camera!

Last Friday evening at about 8.10 pm, on Gracechurch Street in the City of London. The driver of WF09 YMC enters the Advanced Stop Line for cyclists while the traffic light is at red. He also obstructs the cycle lane access to the ASL from the inside traffic lane. He’s also driving with one hand while engrossed in a conversation on a mobile phone – so engrossed he doesn’t even notice me taking his photograph.



























Ten minutes later on Threadneedle Street I snap the driver of this blue 4X4 who is steering while using a mobile phone held in his right hand. I don’t manage to get the number.


























Ten minutes later on Cheapside. A City of London policeman pounces on a dangerous traffic offender, arrests him, and makes him wait in handcuffs at the roadside while a van comes to take him away. (below)






















Apparently the prisoner was one of a number of cyclist who were in the way of motor vehicles, and for a cyclist to hold up traffic is quite rightly regarded as a very serious offence indeed. But then you only have to look at the prisoner to see he has criminal written all over him, right down to that T-shirt which is some sort of celebration of cycling and has bicycles provocatively pictured on the front.

It is the hallmark of an advanced society that a cyclist who has delayed traffic is arrested, handcuffed, and taken away in a van, whereas a driver who has run down and killed a child cyclist is quite rightly permitted to drive off so as not to inconvenience her or delay the flow of motor vehicles.

Last photo borrowed from this site, which comments:

the arrest really was just an uppity cop throwing his weight around. he'd asked the cyclist to move, and then hardly giving him a chance went on to say "right, you're under arrest".
all because of one cop's over-blown sense of pride. ridiculous. the cyclist was supposedly arrested for causing an obstruction and for obstructing a police officer. the obstruction charge was rubbish as he was part of a huge traffic jam and had nowhere really to go. the obstructing a police officer was just nonsense.

Hollywood cops attack Critical Mass

A critical mass against BP turned violent when police threw people from their bikes arresting random people and destroying private property. The one guy was grabbed from his bike and pushed to the ground for not having a back light. Another was plucked so hard from his bicycle that his clothes ripped from him.

One cyclist stopped to video the Hollywood power hungry police kicking a guy, when he asked the cops "what was that for" they came and arrested him as well. The Los Angeles police have a long history of being power hungry cyclist haters, this one takes the cake.

Critical Mass, from Waterloo to Hackney by night

We're off! Leaving Waterloo. There were over 600 cyclists on the ride, which is good for a cold dark night in March. Among them I spotted Jenny Jones of the Greater London Assembly and Roger Geffen of the CTC. There are other reports of the ride which I don't need to duplicate, which you can read here.

Before the ride a woman of about thirty came up to me and asked what was going on. I told her about Critical Mass and explained the purpose of this particular ride. She said she had a close female friend who was a cyclist who would be interested in this kind of event. She said that she herself was too frightened to cycle in London, adding that she lived in Reading and was also too scared to cycle there. It's the traffic, you see...

(Below) Spot the penny farthing...

(Below) This is where Professor David Vilaseca died.































(Below) Magnificent recumbent. This is Des Kay, who made Critical Mass possible, and who I have encountered on a previous mass cycle ride.



























(Below) On to the second fatality site, not far away. Hey, that's a pretty cool trike...


























(Below) The crossroads where medical student Muhammad Ahmed met an 18 ton lorry from the Shard building site. It's utterly grotesque that lorries are allowed on streets as narrow as this, or that cyclists should be expected to share road space with them. En route to London Bridge we stopped off at the Shard site to make our presence known to the night shift.




















(Below) London Bridge by night. That's Southwark Cathedral on the right.























(Below) Entering the City from London Bridge.


























(Below) Gridlock at the interchange by The Monument. The woman in the foreground seems to be enjoying her Friday night out. Crikey, yes, Critical Mass is fun. Most of the time... Behind her is one of those "waving my bike in the air" types. I don't engage in this kind of wild behaviour myself, but I'm told it's very good for the arm muscles.
























(Below) Oh dear. Trouble. This lorry driver turned into the A10 from a side street and was enraged to find the road filled with cyclists. He and his mate sprang out of the cab and became abusive and confrontational. They were so angry I thought someone was going to get punched. Apart from the driver's problems with anger management and his attitude to cyclists there's something else. If you look carefully you'll see that in turning the corner the driver has one wheel on the pavement. He's a very bad driver.























(Below) After a few minutes of aggressive behaviour by the driver and his mate, they climbed back into the lorry. This woman bravely tried to calm the driver down by explaining the purpose of the ride. I didn't stay to see the outcome of negotiations but continued with the front section of the ride. By the way it was a rental lorry, not one belonging to an identifiable commercial firm.



























(Below) "Magic roundabout", coming up to Victoria Park in Hackney.

























(Below) Passing Victoria Park.
























(Below) Where the ride ended, at the Hackney roundabout where musician and charity worker Shivon Watson died.