A spectacularly ill-advised tweet from a young driver, describing knocking a cyclist off his bike, has led to a police investigation and widespread social media outrage.

A Norwich woman, whose name is ‘Emma Way’ on Twitter, tweeted: “Definitely knocked a cyclist off his bike earlier – I have right of way he doesn’t even pay road tax #bloodycyclists”.

But the driver received a nasty shock after receiving a tweet from Norwich Police, advising her to hand herself in.

Her message was retweeted hundreds of times, with many pointing out that, in fact, road tax does not exist.

and get to the last sentence of the article: huffpo, 21.05.13.

other captures by posting on social media: yahoo, 22.05.13.

bikeit:

[ A rare long-text post, below’s an article that appeared in the British magazine The Spectator in 1896. It’s an interesting slice of history, societal change (and resistance to it in conservative circles), and even then, a concern about the “filter bubble”]

BICYCLING will, we believe, within a few years produce social effects of some importance.

The notion that it is a “mere fashion” or “craze,” like the skating on little wheels which some years ago led to an investment of scores of thousands of pounds in a speculation that proved absolutely futile, is, we are convinced, a pure delusion. The bicycle has greatly added to human power, and will no more be given up by those who have once learned to use it than horse-riding will be given up or travelling by railway. The number of those who cycle increases day by day, as the objections raised by prejudice or custom disappear, none of those who acquire the art show the slightest disposition to give up the practice, and the probability is that in a very short time it will become far more popular than riding or swimming, or even walking for amusement ever has been.

Read More

*read in british accent*

Transport for London has commissioned independent transport research group TRL to trial ‘Dutch roundabouts’ and eye-level signals, ahead of a ‘potential roll out as soon as 2014’.

At TRL’s large scale facility in Berkshire, press were yesterday given access to trials, which are set to continue through to July, as experts analyse the various junction designs, road markings and driver/cyclist interaction on each.

…

Cycling Commissioner Andrew Gilligan, who arrived by bike, was among those touring TRL yesterday and he told the BBC: “We’ve got a cycling budget of £913m over ten years and it includes £100m to refit junctions. I’m really looking forward to seeing this [roundabout] on the road. I think it’s going to be fantastic for cyclists.”

bikebiz, 30.04.13.

IS THIS EVER GONNA HAPPEN IN AMERICA

The Combe Down Tunnel is a key section of the Two Tunnels Greenway, a four-mile stretch of disused railway between Bath and the village of Midford in Somerset. It forms part of a longer cycling loop that takes in other striking engineering accomplishments, including the already reopened but shorter Devonshire Tunnel, the Dundas Aqueduct and Tucking Mill Viaduct…

The launch date marks 50 years since the Beeching report condemned thousand of miles of UK railway to dereliction. To date, Sustrans claim they have resurrected 1,500 miles of disused lines as cycle and pedestrian paths around the country.

To celebrate the tunnel’s opening on 6 April there will be a festival at Bloomfield Road Open Space. From 12.30-4pm there will be a 13-mile family bike ride on the loop through the Combe Down and Devonshire tunnels, and along the Tucking Mill Viaduct and Dundas Aqueduct. Sustrans will be taking donations of £5 from individuals and £10 from families.

bikeradar, 25.03.13

…In other words, lawlessness and unpleasantness are presumed to be the exclusive preserve of bicycle-riding, who ‘almost uniformly’ break the law. The fact that these traits probably exist amongst the population of bicycle riders in equal proportion to motorists — indeed anyone else — is ignored.

The  Telegraph has also covered the story prominently. This is quite extraordinary for a paper that has not covered a single other pedestrian injury this year. 

Let’s put this in perspective. If we consult the accident statistics for last year, we will find that nearly 20,000 pedestrians were hit by cars in 2011, of which nearly 4,000 suffered serious injuries. Doubtless a good proportion of those injuries resulted from incidents in which the motorist may have been entirely blameless, but it is reasonable to suppose that there were at least several thousand serious pedestrian injuries last year caused by motorists. The same will be true for this year..

aseasyasridingabike, 06.07.12: man bites dog.