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news
Big Ben © Simon MacMichaelGovernment confirms it has “no plans” to make cyclists wear identification numbers as it rejects ‘Mr Loophole’ petition
The Government has confirmed it has “no plans” to force cyclists to wear identification, among other things, as it had been urged to do by a petition published on the government’s website in June this year by solicitor Nick Freeman, known as ‘Mr Loophole’ for his securing acquittals of drivers accused of motoring offences, often on a technicality.
After six months, during which time the Manchester-based lawyer had made numerous appearances in local and national print and broadcast media, the petition last week scraped over the 10,000-signature threshold above which point the government is obliged to provide a response with less than a day to go.
> Mr Loophole’s cyclist ID petition “gathers momentum” says BBC – except it closed last week
In the response to the petition, published today, the Department for Transport made clear that, so far as cyclists are concerned, there are no plans for them to be regulated in the way Freeman has urged, saying:
The Government has no plans to introduce any such requirements for cyclists. The current trials of rental e-scooters will inform future policy on them.
The Government considers that the costs of a formal registration system for cycle ownership would outweigh the benefits. The safety case for such a system is not as strong as that for drivers since, by contrast with motorised vehicles, cycles involved in collisions on the highway are highly unlikely to cause serious injury to other road users.
The response, which you can read in full at the end of this article, also outlined the benefits of cycling, the fact that there is no requirement to use cycle lanes, and also highlighted that many cyclists also hold driving licences.
Freeman’s petition had also called for e-scooter riders to be licensed, and the Government pointed out that only public hire e-scooters currently being trialled in parts of the country and which require ID to be provided are legal for use on the public highway.
In the petition, posted under the heading, Introduce new requirements for cyclists/e-scooters: visible ID, licences, etc, Freeman had written:
The Government should require cyclists and e-scooter riders display visible ID, require that cycle lanes be used where available, and introduce a licensing and penalty point system for all cyclists and licensing system for escooter riders.
Roads are now shared with more cyclists and e-scooters than ever. Yet cyclists and e-scooter riders aren`t currently held accountable in same way as drivers.
Cycle lanes can be safer yet are often not-used. A licence scheme and penalty points system should ensure responsible cycling and e-scooter use.
As we have pointed out before, the response was not unexpected. As we pointed out back in June shortly after the petition had been launched, Lord Berkeley, patron of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Cycling & Walking, posed a written question to the government in the House of Lords on the issues it raised.
In a written question, he asked the government “what assessment they have made of the possible (1) advantages, and (2) disadvantages, of introducing a licensing system for cyclists.”
Responding to the Labour peer, Baroness Vere of Norbiton, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, said: “The government considered this matter carefully as part of the cycling and walking safety review in 2018, and has no plans to introduce such a system.
“Cycling brings many benefits, particularly in terms of health and the environment, and the government is keen to encourage rather than restrict it.
“Cyclists must respect the rules of the road as set out in The Highway Code and enforcement of cycling offences is a matter for the police.
“The introduction of a licensing system would be likely to deter many people from cycling and the costs and complexity of introducing and administering such a system, would be likely to outweigh any road safety or other benefits,” she added.
While Freeman’s petition did just make it across the threshold at which the Government was obliged to provide a response, at 10,498 signatures it had barely a tenth of the 100,000 needed for it to be considered for Parliamentary debate by the Backbench Business Committee.
Here is the Government’s response in full:
The Government has no plans to introduce any such requirements for cyclists. The current trials of rental e-scooters will inform future policy on them.
The Government considers that the costs of a formal registration system for cycle ownership would outweigh the benefits. The safety case for such a system is not as strong as that for drivers since, by contrast with motorised vehicles, cycles involved in collisions on the highway are highly unlikely to cause serious injury to other road users.
Cycling provides clear benefits, both for those cycling (particularly in terms of health) and for wider society (tackling congestion, reducing CO2 emissions and improved air quality). The introduction of a licensing system would significantly reduce these benefits, especially over the short term. Over the long term, it would deny children and young adults from enjoying the mobility and health benefits cycling brings until they were old enough to pass a formal test.
The introduction of a system of licensing would also be likely to lead to a reduction in the number of people cycling. This would be at odds with the Prime Minister’s plans to boost walking and cycling. The Prime Minister’s Cycling and Walking Plan (Gear Change) can be viewed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cycling-and-walking-plan-for-england.
Furthermore, the National Travel Survey indicates that a very high proportion of people who cycle regularly also hold a driving licence. The absence of a licensing system does not prevent a cyclist from being liable for their actions. The police and ultimately the courts, can take into account all the circumstances of an incident and judge accordingly.
Cycle lanes, where provided, offer people cycling an alternative to cycling in the main carriageway, but it is not compulsory to use them and the Government has no plans to change this. The majority of people cycling generally use cycle lanes, but there are times when it may be more appropriate for them to use the main carriageway, such as when they are overtaking slower people cycling or avoiding obstructions on the cycle lane, or where it offers a faster, more direct route.
The Government has announced ambitious plans for walking and cycling, and has committed an unprecedented £2 billion of funding for active travel over 5 years which includes the roll-out of segregated cycle lanes in towns and cities and offering cycle training to everyone who wants to undertake it, whether free or at a nominal charge. This investment coupled with the recently announced changes to The Highway Code will deliver increased safety for the most vulnerable road users and ensure a more mutually respectful and considerate culture of safe and effective road use that benefits all users.
The Government is currently running trials of rental e-scooters to assess their safety and the impacts they have on the road and to inform the development of future policy. 31 trial areas are currently operating across England.
Trial e-scooters are limited to 15.5 mph and are exempted from vehicle registration and licensing requirements. E-scooters must not be used on pavements. Those taking part in the trials need a full or provisional driving licence, meaning that the minimum age of those using the scooters should be 16 years old. Cycle helmets are strongly recommended but are not mandatory. All trial e-scooters must meet minimum construction standards and have a minimum of third-party insurance provided by the e-scooter operator.
Guidance on the rules for trials has been published at: www.gov.uk/guidance/e-scooter-trials-guidance-for-users.
Outside of the rental trials, e-scooters are still subject to the Road Traffic Act 1988 and are defined as a type of motor vehicle. Users of e-scooters will need to have insurance, driving licences, number plates and helmets, and the vehicles will need to meet the relevant construction requirements. The law was not drafted with e-scooters in mind, so users of e-scooters will find it a challenge to comply. Guidance on this can be found at: www.gov.uk/government/publications/powered-transporters/information-sheet-guidance-on-powered-transporters.
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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36 comments
I live in the EU and where I am everyone aged 12 and higher is obliged to carry government ID at all times and to show it to any officer that's authorised to check whenever they ask. No reason needs to be given for checking. (putting things into perspective: I'm 48 and have had ID checks maybe 3 times in my life).
So: in the UK: say you're riding a bike and are involved in a crash or you're outside and there's an incident. How do you prove that you are who you say you are and not a name pulled out of a hat living at a ficticious address?
If you need to prove who you are, then you can use a passport or driving license. Most places will also accept other photo ID or even a bank/credit card with your name on it.
Giving a false name to the police is easy enough and I imagine getting a false ID is similarly easy enough in those countries that use them.
There's significant privacy issues with mandatory ID schemes and personally, I have no wish for any government servant to be able to access a national ID database and trawl it for data as the potential for abuse is high.
From a quick search, it appears that mandatory IDs do virtually nothing to lower crime whilst also having significant drawbacks. I'd be quite wary of having them introduced to the UK when some police forces are known to be institutionally racist.
Exactly: compulsory ID carriage is pointless without compulsory powers for the police to demand to see said ID which effectively means the reintroduction of SUS laws.
Well, it's a different perspective. But what's a driving license other than a government ID? And I wouldn't fancy carrying my passport a all times.
Getting a false ID here is doable I guess but getting one that will pass more than a very cursory check is virtually impossible. For one thing, the chip on the cards contains an encrypted hash of fingerprint data. I understand the privacy concerns to some extent but I can tell you confidently that it's not possible to 'trawl' the ID database. I don't work with the police but in another law enforcement capacity that gives me access and it's just not set up in a way that allows fishing expeditions. For starters, you need to input a reason for a consultation and those are checked occasionally. It's a firing offense to look up someone without a valid reason and unless you're a street cop on patrol stuff like 'ID check' or 'suspicious behaviour' are not valid reasons. A racist official can find any number of reasons to harrass people, they don't need to do ID checks for that. It's not the id that's the issue, it's racism.
A couple of important differences are that driving licenses are voluntary (assuming you don't drive) and you do not have to carry it with you. If you're driving, then the police can issue a "producer" which means that you have to present a valid driving license to a police station within a certain period of time (a week?). If you're walking/cycling/skating then no official can demand that you produce a driving license or passport (airports being an exception) so it is a fundamental freedom.
The common complaints against IDs are scope creep (e.g. adding extraneous information to the database and demading ID use in more locations/circumstances), cost of administration, privacy issues and that they are unnecessary (we haven't needed them in the last 50 years, so what's changed?).
As far as "firing offences" for misuse of computer databases - I do not have much faith in oversight of police or politicians as there are always ways in which it can be abused. Also, I personally believe that our government is incompetent in I.T. matters (c.f. the NHS branded non-NHS covid app) and as an I.T. worker, I have very little faith in declarations that a database is impossible to trawl - there's always going to be a side channel attack or back door.
Giving an official the right to stop anyone and demand ID without having to provide a justification is clearly going to facilitate racist harrassment if the official is that way inclined, as the SUS laws in the UK quite clearly demonstrated. Of course if we could guarantee that all officials would be free of racism that would remove a very significant objection to compulsory ID, but that will, sadly, never be possible.
Carrying compulsory ID is one thing (which has already been thoroughly debated and rejected in the UK) - Freeman and his fanboys want cyclists to wear tabards with a registration number on, an entirely different matter.
In terms of compulsory carriage of ID, I've spent a lot of time in Europe including six years of my childhood, and like you I've only been asked for ID twice, once in Paris and once in Valencia. However, some black Parisians I've known were continually being stopped and checked (and this is not just them complaining, seen it happen), it's something that can be open to abuse.
I'd like it if all cars had number plates.
You'd think that was a given. But increasingly I see high-end cars sporting no front plate at all, with the rear plate so dark as to be unreadable.
Catching them would be trivially easy, so by the fact that these cars continue to circulate, in increasing numbers, it's obvious that the offence is overlooked. Thus emboldening those drivers still at level one - obscured plates front and rear - to go the full monty.
Someone needs to start a petition to Govt...
And the BBC clearly proving their anti-cycling bias, publishing an article about the petition 'gaining ground' instead of publishing the more informative and public interest response from the Government just a few days later. They would have known what that response was likely to be because the same question was asked earlier in the year. The only thing missing from the Gov response was 'now fuck off and stop wasting our precious time responding to your pathetic petitions, you sad twat'. I have written a complaint to the BBC about their obvious bias, I think everyone should.
I thought the BBC is considered left leaning politically? in Australia, lefty luvvies are all for cycle lanes and are generally pro all things cycling.
Only by the right; most of the left consider it right-leaning. Neither side seems able to grasp the fact that if they both think it's biased against them it's probably doing a reasonable job of occupying the middle ground.
From: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/bbc/ it's judged to be centre-left
everything's relative I suppose....
The briefest check of that source finds:
'The Poynter Institute notes, "Media Bias/Fact Check is a widely cited source for news stories and even studies about misinformation, despite the fact that its method is in no way scientific." In 2018, the Columbia Journalism Review described Media Bias/Fact Check as an amateur attempt at categorizing media bias and Van Zandt as an "armchair media analyst".'
Any better analyses of their bias?
Desperately poor 'logic' on your part.
Must do MUCH better.
.
I thought Boris Johnson was getting all public-spendy recently too? Maybe BBC misinformation! Also I'm not quite sure why you imply the Beeb are fellow travellers of Starmer and Sadiq but then identify stories they ran which could be judged to be critical of them. Enough rhetorical critique however:
Generally agree with the "anti-cycling". Probably only eburtthebike is close to the real reason. I imagine it's a mix of lack of cycling by management and following the popular opinion / focus.
But by avoiding the Beeb it sounds like you missed some noteable stories. Did you miss the one with Chris Grayling dooring someone? What about Boris Johnson apparently being driven some distance for a cycle ride? On the positive side they do occasionally run some positive things and they're normally echoed here - couple of examples:
Cycling plumber - trigger warning - ebike.
How to start cycling to work - make a genuine purposeful journey AND have fun!
Nick Freeman, you are the epitome of 'ankles'....lower than a 'see you next Tuesday'.
I dare say we'll hear more from this scumbag at some point but for now, a win for common sense!
The response we all knew was coming, because the government has said it before (and recently) - a petition that barely made the threshold was hardly going to change their minds. Freeman could have saved himself a lot of trouble by simply writing to the government and getting the same response. But at least he can't complain that he hasn't had a full, well reasoned and we'll argued response.
Some chump (can't recall the name just now) said on here the other day that "now all eyes turn to the government's response". Well now you've got it, even your own party thinks you're time and resource wasting idiots. Happy Christmas, losers and haters!
In a shock move somewhere over a rainbow the BBC have posted a full page news story covering the Governments reply in a positive manner. Explaining the benefits of cycling asking for more segregated infrastructure and drivers to follow the highway code to allow many more people who have genuine concerns over road safety to ride safely.
Stupidly, I went searching for the article until I realised you may have employed irony. I should have known better as I just received my complaint response from the BBC about their horrible clickbait article blaming London congestion on bike-lanes.
Of course, their response has taken a couple of weeks, so their amendments won't be seen by hardly anyone now.
Missed the string hint "somewhere over the rainbow" and then finished with a double negative. I'm sure you meant it will be seen by hardly anyone
Yep, and you got me. Who are you, Grammarly?
I love a grammer pedant.. keeps one on ones tippy toes.
I see what you did there. I see it.
I had the same reply, and I'm most definitely not satisfied and will be taking the complaint further, as it doesn't address several points, notably why they lied in the headline and why the note they've added doesn't include the original headline and an admission that it was fiction.
You've inspired me to complain about their complaint response:
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