Tories want number plates and speed limits for cycles

[ScumOfTheRoad]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/aug/16/registration-plates-and-insurance-for-cyclists-on-table-in-review-of-road-laws

Forgive me if this is being debated elsewhere. Just raw meat being tossed to rabid Tory gammons.

By the way, I may be one of the few people to actually have a cycle number plate. Living in Switzerland you get a yearly 'plaque' from the post office, which includes third pary insurance if I'm not wrong. I am old enough to have had a proper little metal plate.

[rogerzilla]

The Daily Heil isn't allowed to have a go at the blacks or the Jews any more, so they need another group to hate.

[Syd]

The start of a very slippery slope.

As bicycles do not come with speedometers I have to wonder how a cyclist is to know what speed they are travelling at unless they fit a third party extra.

As for running red lights, I see as many cars running lights, as I do cyclists, on my commute. Better identification doesn’t stop cars doing it as the risk of getting caught is low.

[De Sisti]

How would the Department for Transport work out insurance rates? Would it be on the brand of bike, number of gears , area it's registered to?

As bikes change ownership all too often this idea/plan/proposal will never get off the ground

[Jurek]

How would the Department for Transport work out insurance rates? Would it be on the brand of bike, number of gears , area it's registered to?

As bikes change ownership all too often this idea/plan/proposal will never get off the ground

My bold.
This.

[Jaded]

How would the Department for Transport work out insurance rates? Would it be on the brand of bike, number of gears , area it's registered to?

As bikes change ownership all too often this idea/plan/proposal will never get off the ground

Bar codes tattooed on every likely cyclist?

[Jurek]

How would the Department for Transport work out insurance rates? Would it be on the brand of bike, number of gears , area it's registered to?

As bikes change ownership all too often this idea/plan/proposal will never get off the ground

Bar codes tattooed on every likely cyclist?

Why stop at cyclists?
Bar code the lot.
At birth.
On the back of the neck.
Job done.
Anyone who doesn't have a neck (Sandy Toksvig etc) - sparq code on the forehead.

[Captain Nemo]

Would it be the machine or the rider that is registered and displays the number?

What about those of us unfortunate to own a dozen or more machines?

Would both riders on a tandem have to be registered?

Where would the line be drawn as to what has to be registered - next door's five yearold who rides her pink Barbie bike down the road to the park or just those in lycra?

Easier just to microchip everybody at birth. Perhaps those stories about chips in teh Plague vaccine were correct

[Peat]

Bread and Circuses to distract from the economic crater we are descending into.

[Pingu]

Hopefully it's silly season culture war bollocks and will soon be forgotten about.

[Mr Larrington]

I for one look forward to SORNing and re-registering a different bike every couple of days until their Babbage-Engine needs therapy

[Duckfoot1606]

Why stop at cyclists, apply this brilliant idea to all road users, including horse riders, runners and pedestrians?

Not that the presence of number plates, insurance etc etc on motor vehicles prevents hundreds of thousands of traffic offences each year

Actually, I’m all in favour of paying to use the roads and would happily pay £5 per vehicle kg as long as motor vehicles do the same
A

[Mr Larrington]

Once upon a time Von Broad and I found ourselves held up in mid-audax by a flock of sheep.  I trust that in future any sheep moving on the public highway will have proof of registration, insewerants and, where appropriate, a valid MOT certificate.

(Goes off to contemplate what grounds there might be for a sheep to fail its MOT).

[Pingu]

(Goes off to contemplate what grounds there might be for a sheep to fail its MOT).

Hoof tread depth?

[Wowbagger]

Once upon a time Von Broad and I found ourselves held up in mid-audax by a flock of sheep.  I trust that in future any sheep moving on the public highway will have proof of registration, insewerants and, where appropriate, a valid MOT certificate.

(Goes off to contemplate what grounds there might be for a sheep to fail its MOT).

Mrs. Wow and I were involved in assisting in the rounding up a gaggle of farmyard geese once whilst tandemming in the West Country. The farmer thanked us and admired the tandem's effectiveness as a goose-proof barrier.

[Sergeant Pluck]

It's another example of the Tories using a very well honed distraction technique in league with their pet media outlets. Stir up division, divert attention. We only had this licence thing a few months ago.

The problem with this particular distraction is that it has the potential to increase on-road aggression towards cyclists.

[Canardly]

10.1% inflation today. Strange that.

[Tim Hall]

Can you imagine an extended Shapps family gathering?

An imagined matriarch speaks (I'm thinking something along the lines of Peggy Wooley, off of The Archers)

"Andre Shapps, what's the best thing you've done?"
"Well I'm quite proud of my time with Big Audio Dynamite"
"Cousin Mick, what about you?"
"I was in The Clash. And then formed Big Audio Dynamite"
"And young Grant, what about you?"
"I put forward an unworkable and barely thought out proposal to counter the scourge of killer cyclists"

"You da man!"   

[mrcharly-YHT]

Note that this idea came from Grant Shapps. Or Michael Green. Or Corinne Stockheath. Or Sebastian Fox.

Must be quite difficult, being Grant. Even more difficult for any police officer or security guard who asks for his ID "which ID is sir using today?".

[PaulF]

Note that this idea came from Grant Shapps. Or Michael Green. Or Corinne Stockheath. Or Sebastian Fox.

Must be quite difficult, being Grant. Even more difficult for any police officer or security guard who asks for his ID "which ID is sir using today?".

There's a theory that Grant Shapps is in the cabinet so that Nadine Dorries doesn't look so bad

[Basil]

Surely, this comes up as regularly as the 'invention' of indicators for bicycles.

[De Sisti]

The topic was discussed on radio 5 live's heated debate this morning.


I'm sure there would have been the usual hysteria, egged on by the presenter.

[IanDG]

Why he said it (according to The Independent)

[Sergeant Pluck]

What does that say please? It is paywalled.

[IanDG]

What does that say please? It is paywalled.

Aah, sorry, I must have registered (I don't pay them)?

Grant Shapps has raised some eyebrows by saying cyclists should be forced to wear number-plates, get mandatory insurance, and follow new speed limits.

The Transport Secretary's proposals, briefed to the Daily Mail in the middle of a Tory leadership contest, are as deliberately incendiary as they are impractical.

Quite simply, this is not going to happen – and Shapps knows it. No need to take my word on this: the transport secretary's own department looked at the question as recently as November 2018.

In its report the Department for Transport concluded: "The Government has no plans to introduce a registration and licensing regime for cyclists because the costs and complexity of introducing such a system would significantly outweigh the benefits".

The review found the safety case for such a system was not strong because "bicycles involved in collisions on the highway are far less likely to cause serious injury to other road users", and "cycling has clear benefits" for wider society, which a registration and licensing system would "significantly reduce" by deterring.

One particularly strange thing about Shapps' intervention is that this government has been indisputably the best administration in living memory when it comes to supporting cycling – and Shapps himself has overseen this process.

His department has provided unprecedented funding for new safe infrastructure, and it has set out high quality standards for how that cash can be spent. The government has modernised the Highway Code to protect people cycling on roads and set up Active Travel England to institutionalise its approach after it leaves office.

None of this is natural territory for a Conservative government, and it is apparently being driven directly from Downing Street. Boris Johnson himself, who reasonably regards improvements to cycling as one his positive legacies as Mayor of London, is supportive, while his special advisor Andrew Gilligan deals with the details.

So why is Grant Shapps coming out with these ideas, and why now? Unless you've been living under a rock you may have noticed that the Conservative party is going through a leadership election, and the country will have a new prime minister next month. It will also have a new Cabinet.

Shapps' interventions, briefed to the Daily Mail, appear to be an attempt to make sure he is not seen as too closely tied to this legacy – or to at least show that he is happy to distance himself from if required of him by his incoming boss.

It isn’t clear what Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak’s view on all this is, but the government's positive approach to cycling has not been universally popular with other Tories. Advisor Andrew Gilligan has sometimes been the target of negative briefing in the Conservative-supporting press and grumbling by Tory MPs.

The approach has also put central government at odds with petrol-head Conservative councils everywhere from Kensington and Chelsea to the Tory shires. Perhaps even more strangely, it has created a situation where Labour-run local authorities are often the most enthusiastic supporters and implementers of government policy.

This cross-party working is great from the point of view of anyone who wants to get around town safely on a bike, but it is also politically difficult to sustain and may or may not be something that continues when Boris Johnson leaves No.10 next month.

Thus Grant Shapps, with both eyes on his own political future, is throwing a little bit of anti-cycling meat out for the Tory press before the new prime minister comes in. It is a pitch to keep his job, essentially.

The drafting of Daily Mail article hints that employment on the transport secretary's mind – noting that "Mr Shapps may no longer be transport secretary in the new prime minister’s Cabinet" but that he hopes his successor "will be urged to press ahead with the review".

It seems very unlikely to me that Shapps's proposals will ever actually come to fruition, for the reasons spelled out by his department a couple of years ago, and the fact that even he probably doesn't believe they're a good idea. Though I suppose stranger, dumber things have happened.