Western Morning News (Saturday)
‘Persecution of cyclists must stop’ – campaigner
AN Exeter-based cycling campaigner, Caspar Hughes, has slammed the idea that bicycles should have number plates, following news that potential new government laws could also include a mandatory requirement for cyclists to have road insurance in the UK. He believes that the government is acting in response to a media “culture war against cyclists”.
“What legitimises people to be anticyclist? It’s healthy, it doesn’t cause any damage and no pollution. It’s the press, isn’t it?” he said. Caspar acknowledges that some cyclists “act like d***s” but argues that the same is true in “any walk of life”. The way he puts it: “I’d rather have an idiot on a bike than an idiot in a car, any day of the week.”
Someone is killed or seriously injured by a car every 22 minutes, according to road charity Brake. “We’re not talking about how driving kills and maims daily, we’re not talking about how to decarbonise transport, we’re talking about what they [the press] want. And what they want is an attack on one of the very things that can help us decarbonise the largest emitting and polluting sector in the UK,” the campaigner says.
Casper added that he believes the chance of Transport Secretary Grant Shapps actually enacting a law “is unlikely, due to the additional pressures of administration required to police such laws...
“But the media is pushing for this so hard, they might create the political will for such a move, especially as [Boris] Johnson was very pro-cycling and now he’s gone. The cost of administrating the insurance for people cycling will be enormous.”
Mr Hughes, who is also regularly involved in direct action with climate action group Extinction Rebellion, feels the government has its priorities in the wrong place.
“Laws that mean people cycling have to have number plates, insurance, and speeding laws will create barriers to people cycling. The idea that, at a time when we are being engulfed by the climate and ecological crises, our country is literally falling into the sea and burning, our leaders are deciding to make the choice of cycling more difficult shows how utterly incapable they are at dealing with the most pressing issues of our time.”