Marlboroughgate: who knew what, when? Nothing -now.

We are still to hear back from Cllr "let the cyclists walk" Dobson, but one of his colleagues has posted a comment on our previous article on the Marlborough Bike Rack Debacle, here repeated in full.

Before reading it, please go and sign the wiltshire council petition asking for the cycle parking to go ahead. The more people making their feelings known, the higher the chance there is of a decent outcome.

16 June 2013 15:33

Ok the following views are a pure and personal thoughts of my own and in no way reflect the view of Marlborough Town Council(MTC).

Hi everyone this is Justin Cook responding to your invite to air my view on the cycle racks in Marlborough.

The first any of the new council members heard about the proposed cycle racks were in the first full town council meeting of the new sitting. In this presentation made my Transition Marlborough(TM)it was asked if we could vote through the cycle racks installation in that very same meeting.

Handover of power can always be awkward. More subtly, cancelling anything of the previous government's/council's plans -especially something opposed by either a large group of people or a noisy press- is a low cost means of gaining popularity. You can be seen to reward your loyal supporters, while saving money. Because it is simply cancelling work, it doesn't need anything in terms of planning, so delivers political benefits fast.

It was also agreed by all parties that the particular style of cycle rack could be installed either before or after the re-surfacing work had been carried out on Marlborough High St. This is an important point as there would be no harm in any way to the item if I as a new councillor took some additional time to carry out more research on the item and indeed ask the other parish members in the community their views on the demand for the cycle racks.

Other parish members are clearly not a viable source of information here, not with Cllr Dobson saying the cyclists should walk, and Councillor Margaret Rose, complaining of "the danger to motorists from cyclists backing out of cycle hoops at the side of the road". These are clearly people whose opinions on the matter: cyclists are the other; something to fear. This is the classic cyclists-as-outgroup theory.

I also personally asked my FB site for their views as local Marlborough people in helping me come to an informed and correct decision.

It is also worth noting that Marlborough already has two set's of cycle racks at either end of the High St. I have been keenly checking these racks three times a day (my office is in High St) and have found there to be very little use if any made of them. This in itself does not sway me as i think if we had some well placed cycle racks people would use them and indeed you only have to see the volume of cyclist's we have coming through the High St at weekends to see how this would be used.

Exactly. There are many cyclists in wiltshire at weekends -a revenue stream for places like the tea rooms, if only they were made to feel welcome in the region. That's even without considering the opportunities for people who live in the area to cycle in.

The next important point is the location of said cycle racks.
The initial feeling from TM was that outside the Polly Tea Rooms would be a good idea but there was also advice given from some full time cyclists that having the cycle racks in a high footfall area increased the risks of theft and vandalism.

given a choice between "visible cycle racks where lots of people walk past" and "obscure parking where nobody can see your bicycle get stolen", someone went for the "out of sight" option? Unusual.

There was also the suggestion from WCC that we give up two free parking bays on the the sides of the High St. This i am afraid does not work for the majority as the side bays are the only free parking people have to pop into post office, pick up cleaning etc etc.

Here we come to the crux of the issue. The bike bays were to be on the two sides of the high street -the short-stay parking area. This is clearly unacceptable for "the majority",

This is vital for ongoing economic ease of business in the town and will be protected by me personally in any role that works.

Again, the economic case which seems somewhat weak. It would be good to have some hard data on how much revenue per parking bay the local shops earn. Having bays at a high occupancy rate doesn't guarantee income for the area.

The fact that the shops weren't opposed to the proposals shows that they seem to recognise the value in expanding the capacity of the street to accept more customers -yet the council seems unable to.

Again, it comes back to this outgroup concept. There is the majority -implicitly those those who drive- and the minority -the cyclists - and they are disjoint sets. The idea that someone who has a car may actually opt to cycle in to the high street doesn't occur. Instead it's "the cyclists", categorising people by the transport options they make on specific journeys.

I felt strongly that WCC should give up two paid parking spaces in the middle for the racks to make it fair for everyone. It is worth noting that a particular councillor from MTC is indeed engaging with WCC to this end on behalf of TM and the cyclists.

This isn't necessarily a bad idea. It is better than the "let them walk, they are fit" message. Some requirements here would, obviously, be:

• Secure parking for bicycles, not the "wheel benders" that provide no security guarantees at all
• Enough space to actually support parent + child journeys. That means the ability to safely park a bike + trailer. If the layout does not support that, there's a message there, "families are meant to drive".
• Safe crossing from the bike racks to the shops. 

And of course, a serious attempt by the council to deliver this in a timely manner. This summer is lost already.

My personal experience with business and money is that good research and preperation is key to making good ongoing business decisions that make sense over the long term. What makes my blood boil is quick emotional decision making not based on good research and decision making. Then the inevitable happen's and we need to re visit the item and spend more money upgrading or moving such item. This is a big waste of everyone's money and a waste of time.

That's valid, as long as it isn't just an excuse to make some short-term populist decisions at the expense of the long-term quality of life of the area.

One particular thing to flag up here is that if money is going to be spent improving signage to the existing low quality bike racks -that will destroy the whole "don't waste money on decisions that need to be revisited" argument.

So again i am not against the cycle racks but wanted more time to think it through and come to a good decision for all.

I just want to make sure that the cycle racks go in the best possible place for cyclist's and car users equally as it's not just the cyclist's that have a say in this.

Did the cyclists get a say in where the car parking went? When? What about the pedestrians? So please, drop this "balanced" story, it isn't defensible.

Also i must say that the emotional rhetoric that has been thrown round this is really blurring the lines of good debate and i for one will NOT be rushed into any money expenditure decision by anyone period. I have no problem spending budgets set out for the town but will not be rushed into making decisions based on a emotional volume.

We look forward to the delivery of some well placed, high quality cycle parking, and will visit the region when it arises.

For anyone from Marlborough reading this, thinking "What why should we care what an underground cycling group near Bristol say", we know which of our colleagues in the military-industrial sprawl of the North Fringe live near Marlborough, Calne and Swindon. They don't just expect parking near their post office, they expect a traffic free route from their rural homesteads to work, and end up stuck on the A4174 instead. The lifestyle and transport choices those people have made have a direct impact on the quality of life on residents and colleagues who actually live close their workplaces. These are people demanding millions of pounds spent on new motorway junctions, a widened ring road and new bypasses -which is why arranging for some modal shift for their transport choices matters so much for S  Gloucs.

We don't expect them to cycle to work from Wiltshire to the N Fringe -though if they work in Bath or Swindon, that may be possible. What we would like is them to take the train instead, though as we've seen, First GW don't like bicycles parked at their stations; Swindon is no better. The combination of folding+train -that works.

To close, then:

1. If you live in town, contact your parish councillor and make your opinions on the matter known.
2. If you cycle through the area from time to time -and currently feel unwelcome, sign the petition
3. We shall keep an eye on Marlborough. As part of the commuter catchment area, they come within our remit.

As for the councillors of Marlborough Town: you need to recognise that your actions are visible on a national scale. So far some of your statements "danger to motorists" and "cyclists are fit enough to walk from other side of the high street" have made you sources of ridicule. Please don't dig yourself deeper into a hole. Try to come up with a plan that doesn't just help the existing cyclsits, but encourages people who live in the town to try getting to the high street and back by bicycle and foot, rather than driving there and expecting to find an empty parking space.

Cllr Stewart Dobson, Marlborough "drivers need parking near the shops as they are unfit; cyclists can walk"

Marlborough, over in Wiltshire, is on the easternmost fringe of the S Gloucs commute ring; people do drive all the way from there to the offices on the A4174. They are the ones who have to get to work by 8am, who stay until after 7, who whine about congestion on the M4 near bath.

They are also, perhaps, the people too unfit to walk a short distance to the shops.

This has to be the conclusion to an ill-fated proposal to add bike racks outside some shops in Marlborough -at the expense of a parking space.

The plan was voted down, due to the fact it would take away two free parking spots.

The most ridiculous rationalisation for this has to come from Cllr Stuart Dobson, Marlborough East.

"It is so important, especially in these present financial times, that we do all we can for residents,"

subtext: nobody who voted for me rides a bicycle. People who do cycle are non residents -yet bring no revenue to the shops.

"There are an awful lot of people who are not disabled enough to qualify for a parking badge and therefore a disabled space, but nevertheless they are not terrible mobile.

subtext: we need to feel sorry for the people -the residents- who have to park right in front of the shops, because it is for their health. Even if they don't have disabled badges, they can't walk.

"Cyclists by and large are very active people," he added.  "So I can’t see a problem with them walking from one end of the High Street to the other whereas we would be penalising people who are far from active."

subtext: it is acceptable to penalise those people who cycle. They are not residents/voters after all.

This is possibly the most retrograde piece of thinking there is. Unless he has been misquoted, think about what it means

1. We should reward the people who drive into the town by providing parking directly outside their destination.
2. We should penalise those people who cycle in to town by making them park elsewhere and then walk to their destination -so increasing their journey time and inconvenience.

Yes, it is couched in terms of "my residents aren't healthy enough to walk far" and "those cyclists, they are all fit and healthy and can walk a few minutes to get to the shops", but that makes clear the fundamental problem that the NHS has to tackle

By encouraging people to drive everywhere, we have created a nation of obese, unfit and unhealthy people.

Rather than care about the health of his residents, Cllr Dobson is implying that health problems are not lifestyle-related, that they are some random acts of chance. Those people who drive, they only do so because they are unfit. If they were fit and healthy, they'd be cycling instead. Except of course in this time of austerity we need to provide the parking spaces because those fit and healthy people don't bring any money into the city.

This is completely missing the point about Britain's growing obesity crisis: it is driven by a lifestyle that involves no physical activity at all.


Rather than reward these people by providing a parking space directly outside the chemist, they should be ever so subtly trying to get them to do a hint of activity, even it if it is walking five to ten metres from the car to the chemists. That's all. There's lots of car parking nearby -it's only cycle parking that is absent.

According to the government, 61% of adults are obese, 30% of children. This is why the government wants to encourage everyone "to eat and drink more healthily" and "be more active". The policy in Marlborough is going completely against the NHS recommendations, where even adults aged 65+ are encouraged to take part in moderate physical activity for at least two hours a week.

The other thing worth picking apart is the entire economic argument. Two parking bays, 30 minutes free parking. If every visitor used their full 30 minutes, you'd only have 16 visitors per bay in an 8 hour working day. Let's be generous and assume that there's a minimum dwell of ten minutes, but after the ten minutes the visitor can leave at any time in the remaining twenty minutes -with a uniform distribution. That would give an average parking time of 20 minutes. You could say then that there'd be a whole 24 visitors/bay/day, but that assumes that there is no period when the bays are ever empty, which is unrealistic. let's assume 0-10 minutes with again, a uniform arrival time, leaving another average of 5 minutes (a poission distribution of random events would be more appropriate, but it's not that different). The outcome is ~19 visitors/bay/day, or ~40 a day. You could argue about the numbers, but the big one: how long people stay, could be optimistic -as we are assuming that nobody stays above 30 minutes, the nominal legal limit. If someone with a disabled badge were to park there -as they can- they could say for two hours, cutting the daily capacity of that by down by about four vehicles -four customers for the high street.

Now imagine each bay has four sheffield stands. A parking capacity of eight. Being pessimistic and assuming a continuous occupancy of only 50%, you would still get 4x the customers per bay from parked bicycles than you would from parked cars. Even if each cyclist bought half as much as someone driving in -a completely spurious figure- the shops revenue from converting a car bay to a cycle parking bay could double.

the whole economic argument is bogus.

There we have it then. Someone who says "in these present financial times" we should actually reduce the potential customer parking capacity of the high street, and that we should penalise those people who have adopted a lifestyle that make them healthier than those who haven't.

This is worse than being stuck in the 1970s. It is coming up with the most irrational form of thinking you can -which essentially comes down to "we don't want people on bicycles shopping in our town".

@BBCNorfolk: encouraging hate for the sake of ratings

Transport taxes are not hypothecated. The main tax that is hypothecated is "the television tax"; the money everyone with a TV pays irrespective of whether or not they watch BBC TV. Or listen to BBC Norfolk. Something this article will return to at is end.

On Tuesday, BBC Norfolk dedicated their three hour talk show to, nominally, "should cyclists pay road tax".

Why? Over the weekend a cyclist got hit by a driver coming round the corner too fast -and ending up on the wrong side of the road. The driver didn't stop; she drove off and was only identified because she boasted about it on Twitter, saying they don't pay road tax.

That could have been an opportunity for a news channel to get the region to look at itself, to consider that driving off after injuring another person is no longer unusual. To consider how "road rage" has gone from being something that happened in the US, to something that happens every day somewhere in the county. To consider that the driving test may not be preparing the next generation of drivers to drive safely in the current generation of cars. To ask why the punishments for any act of dangerous driving is usually a gentle slap on the wrist.

That didn't happen. Instead, the way they treated the incident of a hit an run assault on a cyclist by having a three hour phone in on whether cyclists should be on the road at all.

They may gloss that over, to say they were "encouraging the debate" -but if you listened to any of that show, it was primarily an opportunity for cyclist-haters to come out of their caves, to phone in complaining about cyclists not using the paths to the side -and so endangering the drivers. To phone in complaining about a cyclist wobbling all over the road "whey they tapped their horn behind them". The radio show accepted these calls without ridiculing the caller "how many drivers were killed by cyclists last year". Without ridiculing the "all over the road" hater with "why did you sound your horn just because you were behind someone with the right to be there?". No. The station -our tax funded station- delegated all defence of the situation to the few people dialling in to make that defence.

Carlton Reid got to make a response, which he did, politely, on the topic of road tax. Yet even he didn't raise the fundamental issue with the program: why was the BBC reacting to a hit and run, not by looking at the issue of dangerous drivers, but instead effectively asking: should the cyclist have been there?

That is what they were asking, and they let the locals dial in to make the case that no, they shouldn't.

Imagine an immigrant had been victim in the hit and run. Would the channel have a broadcast "should immigrants be allowed on the road?". No, because they'd recognise that even though immigration is a core UKIP theme, to devolve it to a "should they be on the road" topic would be morally wrong.

Imagine a child had been the victim in the hit and run. Would the channel have had a three hour talk show "is it the children's own fault for being out there?". No. Because the victim blaming would have been blatantly obvious.

Yet here we have a channel where they were looking round for a local theme to keep the phone lines busy, and came up with "lets start a discussion about whether cyclists should be on the road".

Did anyone put their hand up in the planning for this and say "to do this two days after someone justified running over one as 'they shouldn't be there' is morally wrong". Did someone say "we are stirring up hate?". Well, they may have -but it didn't stop the show going ahead.

And now whoever measures the ratings will be feeling smug, "this was popular", and planning a rerun later this year.

If the radio station had chosen to make the theme anything stirring up hate against immigrants, the disabled, travellers, or similar, they'd be rightfully part of a national scandal, how a local channel was encouraging on-air abuse of a minority group. Not so for anything picking on cyclists. It is considered socially acceptable.

If the taxpayer-funded BBC radio and TV channels can do this, what hope do we have for the rest of the country. The BBC is legitimising the actions of those people who do "punishment passes" at "arrogant cyclists" who have the arrogance to hold up drivers who "have paid road tax". They are defending those people who lean out the window of their cars and should at the cyclists "you don't pay road tax" whenever their driving is criticised.

Why does the BBC consider doing this to be acceptable?

To close then, here is a suggestion for BBC Norfolk to cover one morning:
TV License fees: are they worth the money?

Bells for the bicycles of westminster

Westminster's pro-car policies poison the heart of London; the heart of political Britain.

By encouraging residents to own cars and drive, they increase congestion in and around the borough. By seemingly actively trying to suppress cycling, they again have knock-on effects in the adjacent boroughs and across the river.

Their cycling policy has now, apparently, been updated to support the TfL plans. All that seems to have happened there is some praise for it in the introduction and explanations in the body of the report explaining why segregation is impossible in Westminster. Perhaps the document was nearly finished when the TfL plans came out -the council knew they had to acknowledge it, and did so in a way that completely dismissed the vision.

Indeed, some of the statements "no need for 20mph zones S the average speed is below that" seems classic old-school TfL, something cut and paste from a Blackfriars bridge report. That 20 mph limit shows the core issue with the Westminster plan: they don't actually want to do anything. It's not that they want to encourage cycling but can't think how -the usual- it is like they see cyclists coming into their borough and want them to stop it. Keeping the speed limits at 30 are the symbol here: a council unable to accept that there is a place for cycling in the city.

The other example is the "free bells for cyclists" idea. This is a worse piece of bollocks than even the hi viz that S Gloucs council likes to give out: hi viz may make you visible to the HGV driver, and, provided they don't mistake you for some street furniture they can drive over, may keep you out of the KSI statistics. A bell? That may help you avoid hitting a tourist that steps out without looking, but it doesn't protect you from anything that endangers you.

If there is one key conclusion from the tone of the report, independent of the sheer awful ideas, it is that it shows that Westminster council view cycling as "for others". There's no attempt to identify with the cyclists, just portray them as a group that fails to show respect for motorists. If anyone who cycled had written the report they'd know that taxis and buses usually show resentment to anyone on a bicycle in the shared lanes. They'd know that regardless of average speeds, if ever an empty stretch opens up in one of the one-way rat-runs someone will be sprinting down at 40 mph -and when you are cycling on the "quiet routes" the risk of someone cutting in from a side street at speed is always there. Then they'd get into the topic of bike parking, the inadequate supply of Boris bikes at Paddington station, and the way every square has been turned into a gyratory system which needs aggressive cycling through to get round every corner safely.

There's none of that. Instead you get a planned cycling percentage below other parts of the same city -on a deadline so far away that they can always say "we are on track", because it will take 15 years to show they weren't. 

If the London cycle campaigners get a chance to meet with the councillors -ask them if they cycle round Westminster. When they confess to not doing so, put them on the spot and ask why not?

Asking the question will probably show their Eric Pickles "rubber trouser" prejudice, which is something that needs to be drawn out. But it may force them to admit that they don't cycle in the borough because it is a shit place to ride a bike. Which would lead to the next question: are any of these proposals going to do anything at all to change that? Because they aren't, the council clearly hates people who cycle, and they need to come out as cycle-haters rather than pretending they are really trying to help cycling in Westminster by giving out free bells. 

Betrayed by a Legal System

A key point of the APCG report on cycling was a legal system that protects the vulnerable. It is clear this week that we do not.

Earlier in the week, Martin Porter discussed why a videoed road rage assault wasn't something the CPS could be bothered to prosecute -even though the prosecutions from the riots showed it was perfectly possible if they wanted to.

There's a key difference between rioters and drivers who assault cyclists: rioters threaten the very stability of society, whereas drivers are pillars of society, and it is cyclists who are abnormal.

One thing Martin Porter missed was that if that Birmingham driver had, instead of getting out of his van to start a fight, had just "clipped" the cyclist, even if the CPS had tried to prosecute the driver, the "a momentary lapse in concentration" defence would have got him off.

We've seen in Bristol judges letting off speeding drivers who cause injuries using the phrase "you didn't intend to hurt someone" as the reason to not punish them. We've seen in London that killing someone by dooring them or driving them over in an HGV not something to penalise.

Today's scottish punishment "you can kill someone and the victim gets blamed" shows how fucked justice is. The driver didn't even have to try the "sun in my eyes" gambit, make up some medical condition and get let off -because in the UK you are not only allowed to drive until you kill someone, you can keep driving afterwards.

In the US, there's evidence of racial bias in Judges, though little seems to be done about that, or juries.

In Northern Ireland, Diplock Courts attempted to address juror bias in acquitting/convicting suspected terrorists. The Diplock report blamed juror intimidation, which no doubt was ubuquitous, but there was also "the danger of perverse acquittals". Having three judges rather than a jury of peers was considered fairer.

This year we've seen many perverse acquittals, and this time a sheriff who gave a driver a mild slap on the wrist -though perhaps if the community service consists of 300 hours of cycling up and down the A9 he may not only appreciate things differently, but he may experience a death penalty administered by someone who could use the "momentary lapse of concentration" gambit.

The Times cyclesafe campaign has been one of the key drivers for visible change in England, triggered by the near death of Mary Bowers, again a case where the outcome could only be described as perverse.

This needs to be fixed. Obviously the petition calling on parliament to act is something everyone should sign, but it is not enough. Every needs to get out there and demand better treatment.

For everyone in Scotland who wants to cycle and live, Pedal on Parliament, is where they need to be in May 19.

But let's go one better. Let's have people from England go up there too, to show how much everyone in the country thinks that this week the Scottish legal system has betrayed us all.

Parking Priorities at Bristol Parkway

the sign says "Cycle Lockers for Long Term Users", and adds a phone number for a key.
What a great idea -you could cycle to the station, do a day trip to London, pick up a Boris bike and then head home, knowing your bike will still be there. A way to travel across the city without creating congestion.

only the lockers aren't there.
 
They were there, then they got removed so First Great Western, holders of the train franchise (and a sister company of First Bus), could add some extra premium parking. That didn't come about, but nor did the plans to reinstitute the lockers somewhere else.
 
Lots and lots of car parking. The RAC Foundation are claiming that parking is the main revenue stream for railways. Presumably they are complaining about how much it costs -certainly those charges aren't suppressing demand -the car park is full on this weekday.
 
A more sophisticated claim would be "FGW not only charges a lot for parking, it does nothing to enable or encourage you to come by any other means. That means FirstBus buses are never co-ordinated with the trains, and they take away the secure parking

What's left? A row of wheelbenders right in front of the station. Full to capacity, despite their notorious insecurity. These aren't leftovers from the 1980s either -this revamped station building is probably less than a decade old.
 
Alongside this new station building: a two-level bike park that works if your bike is light and you are strong. Dutch style bikes? not a fucking chance, even for a fit adult male.
   
If you want a dutch-style cycling revolution, you have to provide destinations as well as routes. First Great Western absolutely fail to do this at Parkway. They do at Templemeads -it's problem is popularity, but they don't at Paddington, but they go out of their way to make parking a bike at Bristol Parkway insecure and hard, even to the extent of removing the only good bike lockers they had in order to get mor car parking in.

S Gloucs can't get the blame here -but it's interesting to consider what influence they have over the station. Can they require them to add more -decent- bike parks, to replace the wheelbenders with rows of sheffield racks, to return the secure racks, and to turn some of the car bays into bike bays.

Because forcing FGW to do it is the only way it is going to happen.

What kind of role models are these?

There's a series on BBC3 right now, something like "fucking dangerous new drivers", or similar, though they don't actually question why these teenagers think driving is so important.

The first week, one of the fucking dangerous new drivers was described as being from Bristol, but she wasn't. She was from Thornbury, S. Gloucs. She'd had to sell her first car after earning a few thousand pounds worth of parking fines, and now she was being considered for a second one.

During that week's filming, she was seen: texting while driving. Screaming in rage at some vehicle in front for not being aggressive enough at a junction for her liking. Driving on the motorway while waving her hands around signing. Enough in a single week's filming to have earned her a license disqualification. The only reason she "won" is that the other subject -some idiot who could be shown as proof that university acceptance criteria is too low- had to be stopped by the camera crew themselves from driving home from a club while twice the legal limit.

Hopefully they aren't representative of the majority of their age group, but if you wonder where the cycle haters on twitter come from (and no doubt many more on facebook), these fuckwits give you a clue.

So why do they drive? For the fat-arsed Thornbury resident, its obvious: its a dormitory town where you either stay in the town or get out via the A38 or M5. There is a bus service, but it is getting progressively worse. Most people who work -presumably in Gloucs, Bristol or the Bristol North Fringe- will be driving. If you area teenager, unless you can fit your life around the dire bus service, a car gets you out of the dormitory and into the city. Though if you can run up a few thousand pounds of parking tickets, you need to think more about where to park -and whether your journeys are economic.

The program did cover some of their journeys -one of them was to a Range Rover dealer near to Thornbury. The idiot said how she admired Katie Price and wanted a range rover too, sitting in one and dreaming of being famous and driving round in a black range rover with tinted windows.

Which comes  to the title of the post "What kind of role models are these?".

Today the Former Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding has been banned from driving for six months. According to the BBC, "she was pulled over in her Range Rover on 4 April after swerving into the path of a cycling policeman on Charing Cross Road in central London."

Pretty unlucky there: if it had been anyone other than a policeman there'd be a video on youtube and another futile complaint to Roadsfe. It's notable that this is the second time this week that something appears to have happened after a cycling policeman was nearly hit -which shows how important it is that they do, and, given how few do, how common near-misses really are.

Because this former celebrity had totted enough points, she was banned from driving for six months. Her lawyer, trying to weasel her out of this, argued that his client had "suffered more than a normal person because of the media attention her arrest had attracted".

See that? trying to get someone out of a driving ban "because they weren't a normal person"? At least this time the judge declared that to him she was normal -another dangerous driver- and there'd be no exemption. But it shows the arrogance of the elite -and sets the example for everyone else.

• Chris Huhne: tries to get out of a ban by getting his wife to say it was her. This must be ubiquitous -all Chris did was show that MPs were prepared to do it too. Caught on the phone a few months later and banned anyway.
• Katie Price, role model for the Thornbury road rager. Gets off on a 12 month ban on December 3rd, "we don't read our own post" and "the white ranger rover isn't the one I use" Spotted texting on the M25, in her pink range-rover December 23rd.
• Carlos Tevez, banned in January for speeding, "didn't understand the letters". Arrested for breaching the ban in March in a Porsche Cayenne, excuse "I only live down the road, two minutes."
• This week, Sarah Harding, penalised for having the misfortune to nearly hit a cycling policeman, rather than nearly hit any other cyclist.

What you can see is the general belief amongst the rich, famous and powerful that they are exempt from little thinks like speeding, driving bans, laws against texting. And when they do get caught, their lawyers will try everything they can to get them out of any punishment, including saying they don't deserve a ban because the press coverage means they suffered more than a normal person.

These are the role models for the majority of the country's teenagers (excluding Chris Huhne, who is just a selfish wanker). People who drive high end cars, drive dangerously and then think they exempt from what little enforcement and justice there is in road safety today.

This shows a cultural problem. The Netherlands and Denmark have their cycling royalty. Instead we get royalty, footballers and celebrities who all drive round in range rovers -while the "normal people", including the aspiration fuckwits of Thornbury and elsewhere, aspire to the same lifestyle. They too want a ranger rover -and in the meantime, they can at least drive round texting and speeding.