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news
Brian Cooke (image:TfL)Transport for London board member slammed for not understanding road funding
Transport for London (TfL) board member Brian Cooke has come under fire from cycling campaigners after tweeting that cyclists should be registered and licensed and contribute "virtually nothing" toward paying for the roads.
Mark Sutton at BikeBiz has the full blow-by-blow which started with Cooke responding to Hounslow Cycling's report of a bus that had hit a cyclist. Cooke tweeted: "more reasons for compulsory registration and insurance for all cyclists".
When he was called on this, and learned that councillors had called for this road to be subject to a 20mph limit, Cooke demanded "what evidence says 20mph would help?"
He was offered plenty of evidence and his tweets became increasingly agitated as he was accused of being anti-cycling. Among other things, he called Twitter user JustMandyH a "rude lying cow."
In another exchange, over road funding, he claimed that only motorists paid towards roads, and said: "Cyclists as cyclists pay virtually nothing toward road funding."
Roads are funded from general taxation, of course. The 'Road Fund' set up to directly pay for roads, was abolished in 1937, and only ever paid for a fraction of the costs of roads.
Cooke claimed that the posting saying the bus had been driven into a cyclist was "entirely speculation without evidence".
Here's the tweet with pic of bike under wheels of bus:
Bus driven into bike outside Feltham police station. Councillors have said this road should be 20mph. pic.twitter.com/4XE1dHX9dQ
— Hounslow Cycling (@HounslowCycling) January 7, 2015
The previous week Cooke was involved in a spat with racer Tom Staniford, whom he called a "liar" and threatened to sue for "deformation."
Cooke has subsequently deleted his Twitter account.
John has been writing about bikes and cycling for over 30 years since discovering that people were mug enough to pay him for it rather than expecting him to do an honest day's work.
He was heavily involved in the mountain bike boom of the late 1980s as a racer, team manager and race promoter, and that led to writing for Mountain Biking UK magazine shortly after its inception. He got the gig by phoning up the editor and telling him the magazine was rubbish and he could do better. Rather than telling him to get lost, MBUK editor Tym Manley called John’s bluff and the rest is history.
Since then he has worked on MTB Pro magazine and was editor of Maximum Mountain Bike and Australian Mountain Bike magazines, before switching to the web in 2000 to work for CyclingNews.com. Along with road.cc founder Tony Farrelly, John was on the launch team for BikeRadar.com and subsequently became editor in chief of Future Publishing’s group of cycling magazines and websites, including Cycling Plus, MBUK, What Mountain Bike and Procycling.
John has also written for Cyclist magazine, edited the BikeMagic website and was founding editor of TotalWomensCycling.com before handing over to someone far more representative of the site's main audience.
He joined road.cc in 2013. He lives in Cambridge where the lack of hills is more than made up for by the headwinds.
Latest Comments
- David9694 3 hours 20 min ago
I hope you're all checking your insurance policies, helmets, test certificates and road tax, it's the 2024 round-up...
- check12 5 hours 1 min ago
200 people out of a close by population of how many? Just build it and stop being a wuss
- Spangly Shiny 6 hours 34 min ago
To paraphrase Field of Dreams, "Build it right and they will come: and use it!"
- Rendel Harris 8 hours 55 min ago
And a Happy Christmas to you, road.cc staff!
- Rendel Harris 9 hours 43 min ago
The odds of not being able to find a single pedestrian - just one, note, "any pedestrian" - in an area containing more than about ten of them who...
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They don't make them like they used to
- LongitudeLatitude 13 hours 19 min ago
Thanks for using my picture of chocolate in your opening picture. The original can be found here, chocolate! | LongitudeLatitude | Flickr.
- lesterama 13 hours 46 min ago
Fair comments. I'll put my hands up and say I got the wrong end of the stick with this one. ¡Feliz navidad! Here's a pic for the season of goodwill.
- Mike Holmes 13 hours 51 min ago
A trip down memory lane (or street) for me - Harry Quinn's bike shop was at the top of our Street and I used to spend time staring at the bikes and...
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41 comments
To put the maintenance question into perspective : I saw some DfT research a long time ago that damage to the roads goes up by the 4th power of the axle weight. So even going from a 100kg bike and rider to a 1.5ton car means 50,600 times as much damage. A 40t HGV, lots more. So in terms of road maintenance, its insignificant.
And of course the infrastructure currently in place wasn't put there to provide for the needs of bikes, but for motor vehicles.
So if its not infrastructure investment, and its not maintenance, what exactly should a cyclist be paying back for ????
This whole cost argument is total bollocks.
He not only is ignorant of the way that roads are funded, he is also incapable of politely debating with people he does not agree with and does not know some basic transport figures (85% of cyclists have a road ready motor vehicle, source CTC survey I think).
In other words he is completely incompetent for his position - Oh a normal politician....
Except....oh, what's the point?
I too am trying to think of a witty retort, but cant
Fat Knob Head
This idea of paying virtually nothing really is an interesting one.
I have two cars and numerous bikes.
When people see me riding my bike they make an assumption that I'm not paying my fair share towards the upkeep of the roads. This, of course, is bollocks.
The one vehicle I have is a large 4x4 ( I know, and I apologise to the cyclists out there....... Oh hang on...) and pay in excess of 250GBP in VED becasue is got a chunking huge diesel engine, which is fair enough.
My other car is a company vehicle and is changed with such frequency that it is never older than a year old. The VED on this vehicle is 0.00GBP ( the same as a bike).
Somehow it is more acceptable for me to drive my 0.00GBP VED vehicle than it is to ride my bike.
These people who claim that I, when I'm riding my bike, contribute less than then.
How the hell are these people who claim that they know how much my VED I'm paying know?
And why am I accepted on the roads when I drive a 0.00GBP VED vehicle but not a 0.00GBP VED bike?
These people who claim that I, as a cyclist, don't contribute really are a bit thick, aren't they?
So can anyone reveal what taxes cyclists as cyclists do pay? We all pay general taxes but drivers pay £50,000,000,000 a year driving taxes on top of that. Do cyclists as cyclists? No.
So why are cyclists so sensitive about the truth?
Trying to think of a rational, intelligent retort......but the fat, ignorant ruddy faced twat doesn't deserve any use of my brain cells.
I like "cyclists as cyclists pay nothing..." He can't even write! Is it any wonder we are cynical when we have politicians like him?
He's not a politician.
So being a board member of TfL is not to do with politics? And his role, where does the salary come from? What would you call him?
I'd call him Brian.
Seriously though, not everyone involved in politics is a politician. Plenty of people on Boards like the TfL's are activists, industry reps, trade unionists etc. The "all politicians are lying bastards" thing is lazy enough, but applying it to the likes of Mr Cooke is just inaccurate.
Ah well, at least his son is trying to do something about doping
Reading this stuff, I'm reminded of the arguments against female quotas on boards - that we are better off "picking the best candidate for the job".
Fat b'@stard(can be confirmed with his parents wedding certificate.. or he is a hatchling) who is so disconnected from reality in the back of his chauffeur driven car.. don't know why but he does remind me of Jabba the Hutt
Maybe Boris as chair of London Transport should be aware about the ignorance of some of its board members and might explain to them
how roads are funded in this country? I for one sent an email with an extract of this article to
mayor [at] london.gov.uk
I pay for the roads through council tax. My bill is accompanied by a breakdown of where the money is spent. I also do not get to ride on Motorways. Motorways cost £30M a mile to build.
With all these arguments about roads, I find it annoying that the emphasis is always put on the construction costs (or, occasionally, the maintenance costs) of them. And then that is compared with the mythical 'road tax'.
When these people live in a house they don't own, are they outraged that their rent exceeds the maintenance cost of the property?
Roads take up land, land that could be used either for people to get about by means other than private cars, or even for something else entirely (an especially valid issue when those roads are mostly used as free storage space for cars).
Land has a rental value/opportunity cost, that, at least in urban areas, exceeds the cost of maintaining the roads that sit on it.
So even if VED were 'road tax' and not just compensation for the pollution and other harm done by driving, it still wouldn't anywhere near cover that cost.
(of course cyclists don't pay that rental cost either, but the point is the money the motorists _do_ pay is insignificant compared to it, so we are actually all in the same boat - well not a boat because that wouldn't really work on the road at all...er...)
I am sad. I don't know the man at all but he looks like a walking heart attack.
I'm guessing that he doesn't do that much walking!
The board of TfL is has been overdue a bit of public scrutiny for sometime. It doesn't contain anyone directly representing cycling as a mode of transport, when as of now that's a quarter of road traffic in central London.
It does however contain not one, but two representatives for the taxi trade, as the minicabs and hackney carriage drivers are as hostile toward each other as they are militant in defending their own self interest in transport policy.
He was happy to stuff his fat at a Tour de France lunch recently
He posted a picture on his Twitter account of the London finish line. However, upon closer inspection, it was posted from Russia! Was he there at all?!
I don't know, he looks pretty deformed to me already. Maybe he should try cycling?
As A V Lowe points out, this idiot was previously sacked from his post as Chair of London Travelwatch after he endorsed Boris for Mayor.
It's worth pointing out that Cooke is *not* an elected politician. Nor are other members of the Board. However, TfL do have a Code of Conduct for their Board members. I suspect that Cook's behaviour falls well short...
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/corporate-governa...
Final point:- getting into a twitter argument with Tom isn't exactly difficult...
Heh, that's true enough.
I sense the impending end of a gravy train for one poli
Unfortunately, the proverbial 'gravy train' also comes with lumps at the end. Usually in the case of termination following disgraceful conduct by a government employee, this lump is the cash type.
Fat Tory knows nothing about how the roads are paid for but is responsible for transport policy, What Shocker !
His tweet said 'try learning to read and note what I actually said, not what you made up you rude lying cow'
I know, I retweeted it as a back up copy when he he deleted it.
And no, she did not insult him first, merely stated she thought it was shocking that someone in his position did not know how roads were funded.
So what did he actually say then? As its reported here, he said that "Cyclists as cyclists pay virtually nothing toward road funding." Did he mean that he knows cyclists as citizens do pay towards road funding through taxation and rates, its just that they don't contribute specifically as cyclists in the way that motorists do as motorists, through VED? If so, this is different from just simply 'not understanding how roads are funded'. Its an opinion that if you use a bike you should pay at least something more towards roads than the basic taxes everyone pays.
This is still a rubbish, nonsensical opinion, of course, still based on ignorance. The VAT on bikes would cover any extra contribution to roads for the life of the bike. Plus cyclists do not need any of the expensive road features that motor vehicles use, such as motorways, complex junctions etc. Bikes would be fine with a three metre wide simply surfaced track, not even any roundabouts kerbs etc. Then there are such things as far less damage and wear to roads caused by bikes, positive impact on congestion, pollution, safety and the huge costs of vehicle accidents - all this means that cyclists should be paid for using bikes instead of cars on roads. Cycling non-driving taxpayers are in fact subsidising roads and subsidising motorists, and should if anything be rebated for this rather than charged more.
Someone should point out to him that motor vehicles pay VED for the right to use publicly funded and owned roads. VED is a contribution towards the cost of the damage and pollution caused by vehicles. VED does not pay for the roads in the first place.
By the way, nothing can excuse this man's extreme rudeness to this woman, even he thinks she did get it a bit wrong. Someone with so little self control and so much aggression does not belong in public office.
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