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news
BBC Radio 4 logo“What drives you mad about cyclists?” Radio 4 presenter criticised for “irresponsible” questions during Highway Code segment
A BBC Radio 4 presenter has been criticised for asking what some have described as “irresponsible” and “poorly judged” questions about cyclists during a segment on the recent revisions to the Highway Code.
On Saturday’s edition of the Today programme, the long-running news and current affairs show, Mishal Husain interviewed Kevin Fong, a doctor and television presenter, and racing driver and motoring journalist Rebecca Jackson about last week’s updates to the Highway Code, which have been the subject of widespread – and often divisive – press coverage.
While both guests generally demonstrated the balance and nuance often lacking in the mainstream media’s coverage of the changes, Husain generated some online controversy by twice asking Jackson: “What annoys you about cyclists?”
These questions prompted a social media backlash, with users taking to Twitter to claim that Husain was encouraging “dangerous driving behaviour” by “trying to push the cycling hate button”.
> Daily Mail publishes "error-strewn" Richard Littlejohn column attacking cyclists
The presenter began the interview by asking Fong if he had noticed any differences on the road since the Highway Code had been implemented and if he had “encountered instances on a daily basis that are dangerous or at the very least irritating and insensitive”.
Fong replied that the principle behind the changes – that the most vulnerable road users should be protected by the least vulnerable – makes sense and that the roads are dangerous for those “who don’t know what they’re doing, so everyone has a responsibility to ensure the safety of cyclists and other road users.”
However, when racing driver Jackson pointed out that her family – like many across the country – cycle as well as drive, Husain asked her: “Be honest, what is it that annoys you, irritates you, drives you mad with cyclists on the road? There must be some.”
“The only thing I do find a little bit irritating is when it’s four-abreast on a country road,” Jackson replied. “It’s great fun to cycle next to your friends and it’s great to have a chat with them.
“The problem is, that really does irritate road users and motorists quite a bit,” she laughed.
“Well, that’s largely out in the countryside,” Husain said. “Though you do see it quite a bit in cities as well, usually at the weekend, often groups of men I have to say.”
> BBC corrects Nick Robinson’s comment that “you cannot use your car” in a low traffic neighbourhood
Trying to maintain his focus on the Highway Code itself, Fong emphasised that the new measures would help protect cyclists and pedestrians, and that improved and safer infrastructure, as well as behavioural change on the roads, was essential to achieving that goal.
Despite the commendable balance of the two guests, Husain continued her line of questioning, asking Jackson: “Apart from the four-abreast, what also drives you mad when you’re driving?”
Jackson, to her credit, once again tried to dodge the question and emphasised that “it is our duty as road users, whether we are a cyclist or a motorist – clearly the hierarchy is important to keep everybody safe – it’s our duty to look out for each other and be kind to each other.”
> Press misrepresents Highway Code changes – just days before they come into force
The segment was heavily criticised online, with Kirsty Lewin taking to Twitter to remind the BBC that “cyclists are killed on our roads” and called on the Today programme to “do better”.
You could have done an equally positive story on cycling this morning in your segment on the #Highwaycode on #R4Today - but instead you blew it and encouraged further aggressive driving towards cyclists. Cyclists are killed on our roads. #DoBetter https://t.co/OdEuSlY4sf
— Kirsty Lewin (@KirstyLewin) February 5, 2022
Another user wrote: “Your item on the Highway Code was poorly judged. The changes explicitly try to improve the dangerous driving that leads to shocking statistics for deaths and injury. It’s vital drivers understand how improved behaviour can change that.
“Trivialising the issue with giggly answers to the twice-repeated question “what annoys you about cyclists?” is adding to the idea that those riding bikes deserve to be bullied or disregarded by those driving high powered vehicles weighing several tonnes.”
“In the interest of ‘balance’ did the presenter also ask a cyclist ‘what annoys you about motorists?’ (‘the fact that some of them appear to want to kill me’ would be one possible answer)”, wrote Jon Sparks. “Or was it just a really stupid and irresponsible question?”
Kay Wagland argued that the segment highlighted the “clear assumption that cyclists are annoying. It didn't ask a cyclist what annoys them about car driving. The Highway Code’s hierarchy of responsibility and vulnerability of highway users is key. Cyclists are at much higher risk and don't damage our streets & climate.”
Another user pointed out the media’s tendency to “pile on to one of the solutions to excessive, unjust and unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. Imagine how powerful it could be if BBC Radio 4 had asked, ‘what do you like best about cyclists?’”
Responding to a tweet which claimed she was “trying to push the cycling hate button”, Husain replied: "No! I am a cyclist."
The updates to the Highway Code, which came into effect last weekend, have filled many column inches over the last month, with a number of news outlets running controversial articles with headlines such as ‘The day cyclists took over the roads’ and 'Bike lane Britain... the Great Leap Backwards'.
Last week, Cycling UK called for a long-term public awareness campaign from the government to help produce a “mindset shift” on British roads and to counteract misleading and divisive reports in the media. The charity says it will take years to fully enforce the revisions to the Highway Code and change “entrenched driving behaviour”.
After obtaining a PhD, lecturing, and hosting a history podcast at Queen’s University Belfast, Ryan joined road.cc in December 2021 and since then has kept the site’s readers and listeners informed and enthralled (well at least occasionally) on news, the live blog, and the road.cc Podcast. After boarding a wrong bus at the world championships and ruining a good pair of jeans at the cyclocross, he now serves as road.cc’s senior news writer. Before his foray into cycling journalism, he wallowed in the equally pitiless world of academia, where he wrote a book about Victorian politics and droned on about cycling and bikes to classes of bored students (while taking every chance he could get to talk about cycling in print or on the radio). He can be found riding his bike very slowly around the narrow, scenic country lanes of Co. Down.
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82 comments
Should be rightly proud of? I agree, but the BBC has lost it's way. The DG of the BBC warned last week that services would suffer as a result of the fee freeze. How about they pay their big headed presenters a bit less? Half a million for the annoying Laura Kuenssberg? Really? Over a million for the doubly annoying super leftie Zoe Ball, who hasn't a hope of being anywhere as good as the late great Terry Wogan. Google BBC pay and see how many reporters are on the half a million mark. It's obscene, and easy for them to pay ridiculous sums when they are handed huge sums of cash each year. No, let them become pay per view, and earn their money.
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Is there anything else in your life where you are forced to pay - on pain of imprisonment - for something that you don't consume, don't want, don't agree with?
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No. thought not.
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Take a look at your next payslip. But sit down, it might come as a shock.....
Like Council Tax to various layers of local bureaucracy?
This aspect of the BBC is really annoying. Defunding it won't improve that, rather lose the chance of any improvement as it then chases ratings even more than it does now. We'll also lose the staggering amount of content which is invaluable precisely because it's only possible with a publicly funded model.
BBC is facking annoying. The only thing I can think of that would be more annoying is not having it
Defund the 'news' department then and keep the rest.
Public funding hasn't kept the BBC unbiased, if anything it's just subsidised the car industry's PR department.
I used to be proud of the BBC but since that fabricated piece that blamed cyclists for making London the most congested city (rather than the fact it was the biggest post-lockdown city), and the fact it waited weeks to quietly half-correct the article, I can't see the difference between it and any other of the mouth-foaming outrage porn tabloids.
I complained about that story. After weeks and weeks I received a reply. As expected they wouldn't admit they were wrong. This is their response.
Thank you for getting in touch about our article about the campaign by celebrity solicitor Nick Freeman (nicknamed Mr Loophole) for a crackdown on nuisance cycling.
Some readers asked why we had covered his petition as a news story. They also questioned the headline and felt the article was biased against cyclists.
We do not cover every petition however we felt this one was newsworthy and topical. Having reached 10,000 signatures, it would require a government response. We quoted Nick Freeman as being motivated by a desire to “improve safety and create harmonious shared road space”. Although we did not include comments from cyclists in this particular article, we do regularly cover issues such as the dangers faced by cyclists, cycling’s popularity during lockdown and public debate over cycle schemes. So cyclists’ views are regularly reflected on the news website.
Some readers questioned the accuracy of the headline “Mr Loophole: Petition for cycling crackdown gathers momentum” and asked why it was couched in the present tense given that the petition had closed. In fact, we often use the present tense in headlines to demonstrate immediacy and this is normal journalistic practice. The article was about not just the petition but the campaign behind it. The phrase “gathers momentum” could therefore be taken as having wider relevance.
We are sorry if some readers did not appreciate how we covered this story. As a service to readers, we have added an update to our article linking to the government’s subsequent response to the petition which spells out the rationale for rejecting the petition’s proposals.
Thank you again for contacting us to make your views known. All feedback from readers is appreciated and shared with senior editors so that they are aware of audience concerns.
Kind regards,
BBC Complaints Team
We won't get a choice about what gets privatised and what gets kept. We would lose it all, sold off for a song to Tory donors (by one method or another) - we've seen this pattern before, and we seem to fall for it every time.
Let's see how the standard of news fairs then....
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Just like they've done with the Localised Sickness Monopoly (that's NHS to you), yeah?
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Oh, hang on ....
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Thanks for the input FB. I must confess, I'm finding t difficult to work out whether this is sarcasm, or indeed work out your point at all...
The BBC is a dinosaur and needs to be either scrapped or defunded. I understand your argument about them producing some quality programmes, but nowadays the barrier to producing tv/video is a lot lower. Seems to me that the BBC is simply another "jobs for the boys" organisation and I'd much rather not be paying for it when there's lots of truly independent creators that I'd rather fund.
They seem to be riding their reputation as being impartial to push agendas. Why should I be forced to pay money to give Farage a platform and treat cyclists as a scourge?
(Also, Doctor Who has gone downhill)
When did the BBC produce a cracking comedy programme? Thay can't any more because they are so Right On and lefty, they are incapable of producing anything funny any more. Comedy is about pushing the boundaries, they are too scared to do that now in case they offend anyone.
Fawlty Towers, Only Fools And Horses, The Young Ones, Bottom etc, they would not get made today.
Even Frankie Boyle has gone all woke now!
"Super lefty"
"Right on"
"Woke"
"Can't offend anyone any more"
Go on, call somebody a "snowflake", then we'll have the complete Piers-Morgan-lazy-right-wing-manufactured-outrage Bingo card 🙄
Also amusing is the claim that the listed programmes would not get made now as the BBC is 'super lefty'. Fawlty Towers aside, they were written by the super lefties he's whining about.
The beeb's not without sin or issue for me but I've never understood how it can simultaneously be the establishment and a den of lefties of the chattering classes / fount of anarcho-communist propaganda. Unless this was a cunning plan by the rulers to flush out then divert these types into a place where they're both harmless and easily monitored?
I guess we've that to thank for coralling subversives such as Gyles Brandreth, Monty Don etc.
You can't get much further left than Alexei Sayle in The Young Ones
You can't get much further left than Alexei Sayle in The Young Ones
I recommend Alexei Sayle's excellent Imaginary Sandwich Bar series on BBC Sounds. That's good modern humour on the BBC!
Definitely recommended.
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As opposed to the lazy woky-lefty-libby-rightonie-antiBrexity stuff from the likes of you?
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Neither would we want them to be. They were of their time and not of a great deal of relevance now, no matter how much old farts like you and me look at them with affection - does your Granny always tell you that the old ones are the best? Fleabag could certainly not have been made then , unless that's too woke and lefty for you. Perhaps the woke and leftyness is testing your boundaries, and it's uncomfortable...
The reason those things were good is cos they, were new, shocking, iconoclastic.
Things change, who knew.....
I disagree. The breadth of the BBC and the services it provides are far wider than the main flagship consumables. Its reach is also far beyond these shores.
Yes it could be scrapped or defunded. Not really sure how our lives will be better, but I think we will lose many of the things we value without even realising it, and the world will be a poorer place.
Neither will it solve the crap reporting on the environment or cycling - it may possibly make it worse
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