Lorries, potholes, and the campaign to smear cycling
Posted: 18 Apr 2017, 11:39am
I have just had an interesting debate on a local Facebook page relating to a low costs street repair in town. Cycling was not involved at all, yet I thought it worth sharing to provide a neat trick to beat the anti-cycling lobby at it's own game.
I pointed out that the damage to local streets is largely caused by lorries. To back this up I linked to research from the Campaign for Better Transport which reported on calculations demonstrating that lorries caused 138,000 times the damage to carriageways as private cars. Needless to say the reaction was quite spectacular - with several involved in the industry willing to take the bait and produce all sorts of straw man arguments, but nobody was willing to challenge this figure of damage being 138,00 that from a small car. Having found this data I calculated that a motorist would have to drive to work for over 12 lifetimes to damage the street as much as the passing of one 44 tonne wagon. I then started to highlight that the car users are paying for the damage to road surfaces caused by lorries, and also for the road works to strengthen the highway from which they as car users will not benefit.
The reason I mention this anecdote is that there appears to be a concerted and, it must be said, successful effort to create animosity between bicycle users and other road users. The attempts to discredit cycleways as causing net pollution is the latest front in this campaign. Rather than simply react to these allegations - and always fight on the back foot - shouldn't we find wedges of our own with which to split the motor lobby?
The disproportionate damage caused by lorries to the public highways is the ammunition us bicycle advocates need. All motorists are aware of the poor condition of the public highways but are not perhaps aware of the role played by heavy lorries in causing carriageway deterioration. If we co-ordinated better with other environmental groups to pre-emptively frame lorries as the reason for poor highway condition and congestion we could spike the motoring lobbies attempts to shift this blame onto the cyclist!
I'd love to hear what seasoned campaigners think!
I pointed out that the damage to local streets is largely caused by lorries. To back this up I linked to research from the Campaign for Better Transport which reported on calculations demonstrating that lorries caused 138,000 times the damage to carriageways as private cars. Needless to say the reaction was quite spectacular - with several involved in the industry willing to take the bait and produce all sorts of straw man arguments, but nobody was willing to challenge this figure of damage being 138,00 that from a small car. Having found this data I calculated that a motorist would have to drive to work for over 12 lifetimes to damage the street as much as the passing of one 44 tonne wagon. I then started to highlight that the car users are paying for the damage to road surfaces caused by lorries, and also for the road works to strengthen the highway from which they as car users will not benefit.
The reason I mention this anecdote is that there appears to be a concerted and, it must be said, successful effort to create animosity between bicycle users and other road users. The attempts to discredit cycleways as causing net pollution is the latest front in this campaign. Rather than simply react to these allegations - and always fight on the back foot - shouldn't we find wedges of our own with which to split the motor lobby?
The disproportionate damage caused by lorries to the public highways is the ammunition us bicycle advocates need. All motorists are aware of the poor condition of the public highways but are not perhaps aware of the role played by heavy lorries in causing carriageway deterioration. If we co-ordinated better with other environmental groups to pre-emptively frame lorries as the reason for poor highway condition and congestion we could spike the motoring lobbies attempts to shift this blame onto the cyclist!
I'd love to hear what seasoned campaigners think!
Shouldn't that satisfy the "you don't pay road tax people"?