Grant Shapps: Cyclists should have number plates, be insured and subject to speed limits

Mostly unenforcable and impractical.  This is purely a bluster piece for the readership of the red tops.  Trying to save his job under a new leader.

Option 1: He's throwing rats to the zombies who post in the DM comments section. Civil Servants will tactfully point that it's a bit rubbish in value for money terms, will require lots of legislation and an increase in the Civil Service headcount when they're trying to reduce it by 91,000, also burn and replace all the EU legislation, asking is this really the best use of Departmental resources in the current situation, and it'll quietly get shelved once Psycho Clown replaces Rubbish Clown.

Option 2: and I'm not ruling this out. He might actually be serious. Psycho Clown let's Useless Poodle off the leash to try to attack cyclists and cycling. Next steps.

* Widespread disobedience, assuming it makes it through against rising groundswell of popular opinion, the House of Lords and if secondary legislation is used to shoehorn it through, judicial review.

* A shedload of public protest, say, at or around the venue of the the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on 2-5 October. Involving lots of cyclists. Possibly elsewhere as well. Heck, everywhere.

* Getting politically active. Maybe not for any particular party, just to get the cold creepy hands of the Conservative Party off the levers of power. I've also got issues with the other parties – starting with Starmer’s hair – but the other parties aren't coming after my bikes. Tactical voting and vote-swapping. Providing support to local political organisations and campaigning.

This story is just one of many distraction techniques incompetent Governments use to get people talking about something other than the important issues that they seem incapable of dealing with.

It works of course, just like when they talk about blue passports, pint glasses, Peppa pig, blame the French, bridge over the Irish sea, blame the migrants, etc, etc, the list is endless of the complete and utter nonsense they have spouted over the years.

The Tories have announced plans to axe up to 91,000 civil servants over three years, so who exactly will be administering all this legislation?

Who will enforce any changes? Under the Tories, 21,000 police officers have been axed from England and wales alone.

It is all nonsense and will not happen, merley announced to distract and pander to the Daily Mail morons.

As a positive from this sorry story, I don't think I have ever seen Cycling UK publicising that most home insurance policies provide 3rd Party Cover for riding bikes.

Time for an email.

I recall that Reg Harris was fined for exceeding a 30 MPH speed limit in the 50's. I  would be surprised if the law that made that possible has been rescinded, and feel sure it would apply also to 20 MPH limits.

Equally,  I would have thought that antisocial cycling is covered by existing legislation. I don't see any cyclist number plates in the Netherlands. 

Grant Shapp's (Michael Greene's) proposals are OTT. What next, licences for skiing, rock climbing? Running!!!

I have wondered how the generally step-forward changes to the Highway Code made it past Shapps, given that he has been MoT since 2019.

Phase 1: Blame everything on foreigners.

Phase 2: Blame internal minorities, like cyclists.

It has been clear that this was the playbook since 2016.

Ah, registration plates on bikes - how I've missed this discussion (not!). 
I am a road cyclist who was seriously injured last year when I was mown down by a (non-speeding) car driven by blind pensioner.  I also happen to be a Police Officer so I thought I'd give my twopenneth opinion here.  (If you hate the police just scroll past and save the abuse for Twitter and Facebook thank you).  
In order for the government to understand the subject it's important to look at WHO cycles:

 There are leisure cyclists like me, typical mamil's who ride for fitness and a hobby and who drive to work every day.
There are commuter cyclists, dodging the often dangerous traffic in cities. 
There's the tracksuit brigade who ride bikes two sizes too small. 
Then there are children. 
 

I could stereotype all of the above really, but I'm guessing most leisure cyclists and commuters will have some form of insurance. I do, but a lot of people won't or can't afford it. 
 

from my experience the people most likely to get hit on a bike are the adults riding in cities and towns. The most likely cyclists to HIT someone else or cause an RTC are the tracksuit brigade followed by children as these people either mostly ride on the pavement or at night with dark clothing or both. 
so we introduce number plates, compulsory insurance and speedometers. If you bring in a penalty for bikes speeding, it follows in law that a person must be able to know what speed they are doing in the first place. 
where will the speedometer go? Who will calibrate it? How will it be seen in the dark? How will it be powered ? 
take our tracksuited hooded friends - if they can't or won't pay for bike lights or take any form of safety precautions who is going to force them to do that and more?

The running of red lights can be any cyclist but is much more likely to be a commuter followed by a leisure cyclist. The fact they may have insurance is fairly irrelevant unless ot goes on to cause an RTC  

Then we come to children. Kids love bikes. How on earth are we going to insure children, their bikes and ensure they follow the laws of the road when they by definition aren't mature enough to commit crime until the age of 10, and can't do most things legally until the age of 18  ?

it's just another knee-jerk, words for votes, I'm with you too sort of moment. I just wish politicians had the guts to say it's too difficult so we're not doing it, and we'll do cycling proficiency at school again like we used to in the 70's  

Reported today, an elderly man stabbed to death driving his mobility scooter in West London...don't Tories have anything more serious to deal with? Has Grant Shapps ever had an IQ test?

Bring back hanging!

How have we got to this? I can remember back to when MPs at least had to be a step above your idiot boss (or seemed that way) in the intellect standings and used to resign from time to time. Now we have utter trash level people on all sides of government, doling out trash level proposals. This is clearly just petty personal views being attempted to be passed into legislation or something more sinister. 

The last thing cycling needs is more failed government layers of control. It's one of the few freedoms left in this soon to rationed and monitored world. 

Once they've come for the cyclists then they'll come for the pedestrians. 

Politicians are required to reveal all sources of income and benefits to reassure us that they are not rigged. Of course they do. It's about time that all newspapers and journalists also had to reveal their sources of income and benefits, given the influence over how the public think and vote. None of us will be surprised to learn that the motor and oil industry provide the most significant bungs to these toilet rolls but it will be useful to know just how much a particular company (say VW) fund the Mail when they purport to support green energy etc. I would choose not to buy anything from any company that's keeping the Mail going, it's not readership subscriptions that's for sure.  

I assume the zero tolerance approach to speeding and red light jumping for cars is going to come into effect at the same time? After all, they already have registration plates so it should be easy, and if speeding is something they really want to tackle then black box technology has been available for cars for ages, it could be implemented for everyone who drives.

Let's say this all came in and I racked up 12 points.

Could I

a) claim hardship

b) be disqualified

c) just take the wife's bike

d) anyone's bike

e) just nick another plate

f) get a cloned plate

Mindful that this release is most likely the chap playing to the masses and putting a case forward for continuing in his current position, could this actually be a massive home goal for Shapps?

These proposals will get significant support from the masses, however the reality is that the implementation of such legislation is impractical to say the least. It realistically can't be done without huge public spending, and digging into it, the returns would be negligable. So it won't happen... again.

The reasons why are well publicised and Shapps even refers to some of these himself, so what is the point of putting all this back out into the public domain? 

The last thing the government want is to be seen to be unable to take action on such popular legislation... will the potential egg on the face make Shapps more or less employable? I say less.

Typical distraction tactics by the government.
But surely if they wanted to look like they were cracking down on dangerous cyclists they could pledge to enforce all the ilegal electric bikes on the streets at the moment? 
Not sure what other readers think, but better enforcement of suped up electric bikes that the riders don't have to pedal whilst going uphill would surely appease the masses but also make things actually safer? 

If this ludicrous idea is driven through (see what I did there). Then every individual who cycles or owns a bicycle should refuse to register their bikes or apply for a licence. As these are traffic offences then a day in court is required rather than a FPN because we can't decriminalise these particular offences. 

The whole justice system will then collapse under the strain of processing 20 million plus people and our esteemed Mr Shapps will be frantically back pedalling to the point of speeding (did it again) in order to bin his rush of air. 

I believe that cyclist should have insurance, I got mine with British Cycling, it's only £44 a year, also I think cyclist should wear a helmet and lights and should adhere to the road and it's safety etc but license plates are a stupid idea!!!

One of the tabloids today has another Shapps story:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/fabulous/19553048/school-run-self-driving-cars/

Quote:

Ministers want to allow cars, coaches and lorries with self-driving features to be sold in Britain within months — and used on motorways from 2025.

They will then consult on introducing them to all roads.

Quote:

Ministers are dishing out £100million to fund research on how to make it as safe as possible and help industry prepare.

Scientists are keen to learn how the new tech will cope in rain and snow and interact with other cars, people and cyclists.