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DfT Think poster - Hang Back.jpgChris Boardman: DfT Hang Back video makes "entertainment out of death"
Chris Boardman says a controversial Department for Transport (DfT) road safety film released earlier this week shifts responsibility away from the person doing harm, and that parts of it appear “to seek to make entertainment out of death.” He has also called for Therapeutic Use Exemptions (TUEs) to be made public to prevent their abuse.
The former world and Olympic champion, now policy advisor British Cycling, said earlier this week that the DfT’s Think! campaign which warned cyclists to ‘Hang back’ from lorries, was “woefully misguided.”
Speaking to road.cc yesterday, he expanded on the reasons he believes the video, branded as “victim blaming” by Cycling UK and other cycling campaigners, missed the point.
“Whichever way you want to look at it, it just doesn’t reflect the facts,” he said.
One way the campaign could have been pitched, said Boardman, would have been instead of focusing on the cyclist, to address issues such as lorry design which restricts the ability of drivers to see vulnerable road users.
“You’ve got to empathise with the lorry driver a lot of the time, they can’t see 30 per cent of the road in front of them,” he explained.
“If you said, ‘This vehicle’s not right, we’re changing it, in the meantime help them out’, I’d be fine with that. Remember that they’re handicapped here, help them out.
Another issue of contention for Boardman, whose mother Carol was killed in a collision with a car while cycling in North Wales in July, was that the DfT’s video “didn’t speak to the person who’s doing the damage.”
The video opens with a montage that Boardman believes “was seeking to make entertainment out of death, things not to get between adding that “it showed how we’ve missed the point.”
Talking about some of the scenes in that montage, he said: “The child with the piñata stick, the responsibility is the child’s, not somebody to not jump in the way of the stick.
“The person with the meat cleaver and the piece of meat, the responsibility is with the person with the meat cleaver.
“The responsibility’s with the person dropping the piano, and here we’re saying, ‘You shouldn’t get in the way of a piano when it’s falling’.
“All of the film, even the ‘jokey’ bits, should be focused at the person doing the damage,” Boardman insisted.
“The person in charge of being able to do the damage is the one the message should be focused at,” he added.
Boardman also spoke to road.cc about the controversy surrounding the use of Therapeutic Use Exemptions by riders including 2012 Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins, whose TUE certificates were published earlier this month by the Fancy Bears hacking group.
While Wiggins and Team Sky principal Sir Dave Brailsford have insisted they were used to treat a medical condition – the rider’s grass and pollen allergies – rather than seek a competitive edge, others, including Chris Froome, have expressed concern the system is open to abuse.
Boardman believes that making all TUEs public would go a long way towards addressing the problem.
“I think what it’s raised and it’s still not being asked about properly, is if you can have something that is legal and yet everyone feels is immoral, then your rules aren’t right,” he said.
“In the short term, the simplest way to deal with it is to make all TUEs public.
“Whenever you want to apply for a Therapeutic Use Exemption, then it’s public.
“And even if you can’t do that legally, you go around all the teams and ask them if they’re okay with making TUEs public, and then make a list of all the people who say ‘no’ and that will get them to agree.
“So it’s totally fixable. Because all this is about money, Sponsors want good publicity, if you take away that good publicity from the team, there’s no reason for them to sponsor, there’s no incentive to use TUEs.”
He went on: “So that’s step one, and the second one is, if a doctor is signing off medication that’s used as one-offs, then why the hell were they signing that off?
“You have a grey area in the system that’s been there for a long time, and if people feel that it shouldn’t be there, why isn’t the world governing body closing it down?”
While the TUEs granted to athletes named in the Fancy Bears leaks were were issued within the rules, there is widespread concern about the ethics of their use.
“I don’t feel qualified to judge Bradley Wiggins,” said Boardman, “but the fact that you’re in this position where if somebody’s done something you say, ‘there you go’ …
“Nobody’s saying it’s outside the rules, but it’s still a massive thing, that’s the problem.
“We don’t need to be there, and this sport of all sports doesn’t need it right now.
“So make them all public and tighten it up,” he added.
“If people are really sick, should they be racing?”
Chris Boardman was talking with Laura Laker
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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18 comments
So, it's OK for a wagon driver to absent mindedly turn left at the last minute without correctly indicating, to not see the cyclist, and to be an all round incompetant.
But, the cyclist is expected to be highly skilled and on top of their game at all times to avoid being killed by the retarded ape?
Good luck with the leap from that ivory tower.
The Lorry is clearly overtaking the cyclist, why else would he be so far over to the right hand side of the road? It appears that in filming this fictitious incident they have probably found it difficult to have a cyclist undertaking a slowing vehicle without going straight past it, so they get the lorry to overtake the cyclist, moving over to the right to do so then turning left. So in trying to portray a situation which they want to warn cyclists about they have actually recreated the more realistic case of a large vehicle overtaking and then just cutting in on the cyclist on the inside. It's hardly surprising that the more realistic situation is the one that is actually the easiest to recreate on film, then leaving it to the wordsmiths to describe the less common case where the victim is at fault.
why does everyone today look for someone else to blame, motorcyclists are the same about car drivers who pull out on them at junctions. Yes it is the car drivers fault but when you see the hazard SLOW DOWN. Yes I know it's a pain and you have right of way, but you are a long time dead.
I see too may cyclists and motorcyclists who keep going because they have right of way. I have to get around a busy roundabout which comes off the motorway. Any car charging up to the give way lines will see me slowing down to almost a stop if I think they are going to pull out in front of me. So I give way to vehicles and curse them when I lose speed, but I get home.
Good lord but you're right: we should give up on priority or right of way. Just let might is right take over, so the most aggressive or most massive one wins. While we're at it, scrap all those pesky speed limits: it's not like anyone obeys them anyway. If what you've written is what you really believe - it doesn't matter whether we're in the right, just let the other guy go first (aka "Let the Wookiee win") - then we should probably just give up, because we're never going to win.
But why don't you follow this logic consistently and just give up cycling entirely? Just walk instead. Then you'd be even safer from bad drivers and their mistakes.
Better yet, never go outside.
Or is it that you draw a line somewhere as to how much restrictions and inconvenience you are prepared to endure to try and allow for others' potential incompetence/malevolence?
If so, why do you not accept that others do the same?
The video is just awful. It is worse than Boardman says.
The real news stories about the real people who have been killed by the action (and inaction) of hauliers, transport managers and lorry manufacturers) will have already reached the people who might be at risk. They have already devastated families. Shouting "Think!" is an insult to victims and to public intelligence. Perversely it suggests thought by showing a series of grotesque, emotion-searing images. Together, those pictures provoke fear and subconscious blame-shifting. These are not helpful emotions. The emotion I feel as I write this and which I felt as I analysed the video second by second is anger.
The cross-cutting dramatisation, the music and the accelerating pace are utterly out of place in a message about safety and taking care. The video implies (in that fevered, mindless context) that our cultural ignorance about the risks of cycling are real and should be acted on by everyone except those responsible for managing the lorries. It should also be noted that no practical advice is given - the victim in the video is doing nothing wrong or out of the ordinary.
Vulnerable road users in the UK do not need alien video footage from US grotesques to know that things can go wrong. They know what can happen. Well-informed professionals know what should be done and they don't need snuff movies to get them working. They need policy makers and paymasters to give them the resources.
What we need and what we should absolutely be shouting for is zero tolerance of avoidable danger from lorries, junctions, hauliers, payment systems, vehicle manufacturers and all others concerned.
Sensible and accessible provision of training and guidance (for those who are likely to benefit) are great things but in the real world people learn when they want to know. Neither adults nor children become compliant learners when some crazed maniac is shouting at them about death and destruction and waving pictures of smashed up cars.
Hard hitting? No. Just fact-free, stupid and (probably) contributing to problems rather than solving any.
What's nonescence?
And yes, I'm afraid the level at which I'm prepared to engage you is Grammar Nazi.
Fed up with Boardman talking nonescence about safety. What ever happened to anticipation and common sense? Do I think this truck 'might' turn left? Not sure? Then don't pass on the inside. Can I guarantee the driver has seen me? No? Then don't pass on the inside. If the consensus is that bus and truck drivers are retarded apes with no idea where the indicator is then why risk passing on the left?
If a truck overtakes pull back so I'm not in the potential crush zone if he then turns left!
Instead he uses the phrase "Victim blaming" or where we abandon all common sense and roadcraft and leave it up the retarded ape.
Feck that!
And if the truck starts to pass you, doesn't get past and turns left into you? Should we all hit the brakes whenever a large vehicle is overtaking?
The video is not clear on who is passing who, but I would say I have never seen a cyclist Mo d up the inside of a vehicle that is moving at the speed shown in yhe video, only crawling or stationary traffic. I see almost daily drivers who must get in front of the cyclist pull alongside before realising they can't actually get past.
Another problem with the video is it does not reflect reality. In the video the lorry is indicating and the cyclist comes up the inside approaching the junction. In reality the lorry would be overtaking the cyclist coming up to the junction and not indicating. Another example of trying to transfer the blame to the victim
Tony you've hit the nail on the head. I had this happen to me. Approaching a roundabout with a narrow entrance a lorry overtook me and curved left with the road, I hit the brakes as I could see I was going to be crushed. Thankfully I made the right decision. The driver should have hung back. I wonder how many horrific accidents have been inflicted on cyclists like this. Had the lorry crushed me, it is not difficult to imagine the driver would claim that the cyclist undertook him as there were no other witnesses on the road.
Some cyclists do make stupid decisions though. I had a cyclist undertake me just after the light turned green, I was at the front of the queue with my indicators on to turn left and was distracted by a pedestrian crossing in front of me after the light had gone green. When the pedestrian had passed I set off and nearly hit the undertaking cyclist.
Exactly the point - taking the position that it's always the lorry drivers fault is stupid and dangerous. "Victim blaming" equals finger pointing BS. It's politically motivated obfuscation. 30+ years of cycling means i've seen and experienced rank stupidly from all road users. The basic message of that video is sound. Some people need to grow up.
Exactly the point - taking the position that it's always the lorry drivers fault is stupid and dangerous. "Victim blaming" equals finger pointing BS. It's politically motivated obfuscation. 30+ years of cycling means i've seen and experienced rank stupidly from all road users. The basic message of that video is sound. Some people need to grow up.
Clearly it's not always the driver's fault. It quite often is, but even this is uninteresting. The real solution lies in designing roads and vehicles so as to minimise the consequences of the stupid actions, not in demanding perfection from anyone.
I was kind of shocked at that presentation. I think he is right about the equation that it makes. It really doesn't make the right impact.
Actually the pinata one is not the responsibility of the culd because 1) they're a child 2) they're blindfolded 3) everyone present knows what's going on. On everything else he is spot on
I presume that you didn't notice that in the video the child doing the piñata was not blindfolded, and the others present were also children. I think the onus is on the child to whack the piñata and not any of the children around her.