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news
Nick Freeman Mr Loophole talkRadio Mike Graham (talkRadio)Expect carnage and more danger...Mr Loophole rants about Highway Code changes to talkRadio's Mike Graham
Nick Freeman, often know by his Mr Loophole nickname, made an appearance on Mike Graham's talkRadio show this morning to slam the new Highway Code changes, and warned of "carnage" on Britain's roads.
Freeman, who regularly makes headlines for getting celebrities off driving charges, was highly critical of the changes which come into effect on Saturday 29th January, particularly the Hierarchy of Road Users.
Under this, road users most at risk in the event of a collision are at the top of the hierarchy and should receive priority over road users that are less vulnerable. Pedestrians are at the top of the hierarchy, followed by cyclists.
Speaking on 'The Independent Republic of Mike Graham', Freeman predicted "carnage" and warned "our roads are going to be much more angry and much more dangerous."
"It's well-intentioned but ill-conceived," he said. "The whole point of this is to increase safety. We're all in favour of trying to make our roads safer. Safety doesn't equal priority. I fear it is going to be carnage. Particularly for the most vulnerable people.
"Pedestrians and cyclists have this sense of entitlement, and they're now going to have the force of the Highway Code behind it, which will only increase this sense of entitlement. It seems to lack common sense. Wouldn't it be more sensible to say to those who are most vulnerable 'you have to share this responsibility as well?'"
> Press misrepresents Highway Code changes – just days before they come into force
Under the changes cyclists have a responsibility to reduce danger to pedestrians in the same way the less vulnerable driver has a responsibility to both.
On the issue of road positioning, Freeman was characteristically outspoken, saying the advice for cyclists to ride in 'primary position' (in the centre of the lane) in certain situations "would not end well".
The Code will tell riders to adopt primary position on quiet roads (but to move over when road users approach from behind), in slower moving traffic, and approaching junctions where overtaking is dangerous.
Freeman said this would "infuriate motorists, increase frustration and lead to many incidents because motorists are not going to want to sit behind a cyclist. You can see how this is going to unfold, and it's not going to unfold well.
"I think what the government needs to do is let everybody use common sense, and that tends to work because most people have common sense.
"What they're trying to do is control us, take that away, by putting these rules in place it is going to have the reverse effect. One wonders who is advising the government. Who are the people saying this is a good idea?
"There needs to be a balanced, sensible approach which works for everybody not just for a tiny minority, that's what we've got here. Cyclists need to play their part. I saw a picture of Chris Boardman cycling the other day. He wasn't wearing a helmet or a hi-vis jacket. It doesn't send out the right message."
Freeman went on to echo a sentiment expressed by the AA's head of roads policy Jack Cousens over the weekend, warning the lack of publicity, and polls showing many road users are unaware of proposed changes is worrying.
"The other very alarming thing is that nobody knows about it," Freeman explained. "It's coming in on Saturday but the polls suggest a significant amount of motorists don't even know there is going to be a change, and of those, some are saying 'we're not even going to look, we don't care', which isn't healthy as motorists obviously need to be educated."
The discussion also included criticism of the Code's guidance on cycle lanes, with host Graham asking "if cyclists are now being told they don't have to use cycle lanes what was the point of butchering the road system to put all those cycle lanes in at a significant cost to the taxpayer?"
Freeman replied: "They never had to use them anyway. They're spending hundreds of millions of pounds on cycle lanes but it was never a mandatory requirement that they use them. So what is the point? Either have them and say they're there for a reason or let's not bother at all."
With the lawyer off the call, Graham ended the segment with a rant of his own, calling the changes "absolute and utter madness".
"I'm not going to mince my words here this is not to do with cyclists vs drivers or pedestrians vs cyclists, this is to do with road safety for everyone. And what these measures say to me is that there will be a lot more accidents, a lot more injuries, a lot more deaths on the road, and that is not really a very good idea, is it?"
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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94 comments
Communist.
In the light of the point by road-safety expert Rod Liddle (is this right?) should this not be "Maoist"?
That as well. They're all thesame. Probably likes avocados too....
Really?? Give your head a wobble..... I'm after safer roads....
Ha! a guardian reader. I knew it!
I trust you're joking. However, in case you're not, can I refer you to the pieces about the Highway Code in the Torygraph and the Daily Nazi this morning, in contrast to the comments by the Guardian on the same?
I never joke. and how dare you impugn the names of those quality organs? I have a good mind to write the Times!
Out of interest, what exactly is "the right message" that Chris Boardman isnt sending out (by riding in normal clothes sans helmet)?
That he's a lycrist infiltrator? (If only they were clearly marked in some way...) If you think about that it might help you get into the mind of the objectors.
Respect?
Why is it not surprising that Nick Freeman doesdn't appear to know that the use of lights on a bike at night is goverened by the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations (RVLR) and not just advised under the HC
"I think what the government needs to do is let everybody use common sense, and that tends to work because most people have common sense."
That'll be why we have so many road laws, because common sense is neither common nor sense. If drivers had common sense we wouldn't need speed limits, parking restrictions, or any driving laws at all.
Is this equivalent of the DM covered by Ofcom? I'm tired of complaining to the BBC, so it might be fun to do it to something even worse.
BBC Breakfast did quite a good job of covering the rule changes this morning (it's still available on iPlayer, but only until tomorrow at 9:15am). Starts at 1h:15m:30s:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m0013w52/breakfast-24012022
...apart from the fact that they focussed on the cyclist/driver interactions too much, and completely bypassed the fact that the main theme of the changes is the overall hierarchy of road users - thereby ignoring the other 5 categories.
As I've said before, this should not be left to multiple, random, third party interpretations, but a single, definitive, national, information campaign - from the government
I didn't get that from it, they seemed to cover most of the categories (I think motorcycles were missed) and discussed the hierachy quite a bit.
I'm sure there will be a national information campaign when the rules get voted through. It's not that massive a change after all, it's not like we're switching the side of the road we drive on.
Well, they were better than most other sources, but it's the varied, unofficial coverage that really bothers me.
There is no real change, because we don't have Parliament-made traffic law, or judge-made traffic law- we have police-made traffic law. There's no sign that the police will change their do-nothing policy over close passing (with the honourable exceptions of those areas which perform genuine close-pass operations), which is why we are looking not too far into the future for NMotD 1000. When police forces won't tell you what they did about well-proven offences, it means they did as little as possible which means nothing, words of advice or the joke online driving course. It's going to stay that way, in Lancashire at least.
"And what these measures say to me is that there will be a lot more accidents, a lot more injuries, a lot more deaths on the road, and that is not really a very good idea, is it?"
I look forward to this clear statement being thrown back in it's face when the stats show otherwise.
Its almost tea time.... lets not feed him eh.
There's one thing that puzzles me, does the resident troll masturbate while writing those posts, or only while reading the responses?
He's not the face of the changes. It's a document set before Parliament by the Secretary of state for Transport.
Chris Boardman has also made it abundantly clear what he thinks about any requirement to wear a helmet, as have British Cycling and CyclingUK. Chris Boardman has also taken guidance from experts in transport organisations such as TfGM, and Brian Deegan. He is so far ahead of the shower of uselessness you refer to that I'm not even going to mentione their names. Even if they said anything remotely accurate it would be of the 'stopped clock' timetelling value, shrouded as it is in the clutter of nonsense. They have nothing of value to tell us.
It really is depressing that sensible and nuanced changes to the Highway Code have been hijacked by some to sow division.
These changes would "infuriate motorists, increase frustration and lead to many incidents because motorists are not going to want to sit behind a cyclist." And yet claims cyclists are the ones behaving with a sense of entitlement in this equation (usually by just being there).
MGIF is the sense of entitlement here.
This is because so many people have tiny brains which are incapable of distinguishing between "acting entitled" and "being entitled"
Nick thinks someone in the public eye not wearing hi-viz or helmet is sending the wrong message. Is keeping dangerous drivers on the road by getting them off charges using loopholes the right message then?
Mike Graham thinks you can grow concrete.
The End.
If you can't grow concrete then where do houses come from smarty pants.
Well, when a mummy and a daddy house love each other very much...
"Pedestrians.....have a sense of entitlement"
So that includes every motorist when they get out of their car.
Funny old worldview where "not wanting to be killed or maimed" is a sense of entitlement. They can argue all they like about cyclists but, as even our resident moronic troll has acknowledged, pedestrians are at the bottom/top of the hierarchy (depending on which way you look at it), the fact that even they (or we, as you correctly point out we are all pedestrians without our vehicles) are regarded as being entitled for asking for priority over motor vehicles tells you everything you need to know about the way these people's minds are really working.
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