Have a quick look at the clip below. What do you see?
A group of families and residents, including lots of children, enjoying riding their bikes safely on their local roads, and having a good time with their friends and neighbours outside?
What a wonderful community ride on the safe streets of Streatham Wells.
Meeting neighbours and new friends for the first time.
This would have been impossible a month ago. pic.twitter.com/o5enFxMk54
— Liveable Streatham Wells (@LiveableWells) November 19, 2023
Well, not if you’re an anti-LTN activist, you don’t. You just see a bunch of “insensitive” and “entitled” people, apparently. Yep, even those smug, arrogant kids (‘the cheek of them, riding their bikes without fear of being hit by a distracted driver. The yoof of today, eh?’).
Yes, that’s right. This video of the community group ride – posted over the weekend by the Liveable Streatham Wells group, which campaigned for the introduction of a Low Traffic Neighbourhood in the London ward, a trail of which was launched by Lambeth Council at the end of October – has attracted the ire of motorists, fuming at the sight of families on bikes.
According to the council, the new traffic restrictions within the Streatham Wells LTN will “turn traffic clogged roads into spaces where people can meet and socialise” and “lead to a significant improvement in road safety, air quality, and will allow more space for people to enjoy their neighbourhoods without worrying about traffic jams and exhaust fumes.”
> “Going back is not realistic”: Councillor stresses “need to change” as Oxford LTNs made permanent – but angry residents say “we can’t get on bikes”
However, the visible workings of that policy – the sight of lots of children and their parents riding bikes – have prompted more than a few angry comments on social media.
“This must rank as one of the most insensitive videos ever posted,” the anti-LTN group Social Environmental Justice wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“As this small group wave merrily to the cameras no thought given to the residents taking the overspill traffic, the shift worker stressed out as the bus is late, the carer or the plumber bogged down in traffic.”
Meanwhile, former Lambeth Conservative councillor Tim Briggs – who, it was revealed in 2016, failed to declare that he was the owner of a “tenant eviction specialist” firm which boasted that it had a “near 100 percent record” in repossessing homes for landlords – described the organisers of the group bike ride of having an “astonishing sense of entitlement at the expense of others”.
Others, meanwhile, relied upon the good old tropes of cycling bingo, such as the classic ‘Sure it’s easy to ride your bike when it’s lovely and sunny in, errrr, the middle of November’:
How often will people be cycling with your weather?
The average yearly rainfall in Streatham Wells is approximately 650 mm. As for the number of days with temperatures below 10 degrees Celsius, on average, Streatham Wells experiences around 75 days per year where the temperature…— Barry Sharp (@BarryESharp) November 20, 2023
While Liz said that she was “concerned to see cyclists as a community group not abiding by the rules of the road in this video”, and ‘jc’ described the cyclists – yes, even the children – as a “weird cult, all going nowhere in particular”.
> “Extreme, undemocratic, and dangerous”: Council scraps majority of low traffic neighbourhoods – despite “overwhelming” public support for cycling and walking schemes
Needless to say, the frothing response was ridiculed by cyclists far and wide.
“That this wonderful video (of children enjoying a cycle ride on a safe, low-traffic road) is the content that riles anti-LTNers says everything about their campaign. Well done, Liveable Streatham Wells, you’ve already won the argument.”
“Honestly, what kind of society do we live in that people would criticise children cycling? An utter disgrace,” a London-based 20mph speed limit campaigner added.
Meanwhile, the organisers of the group responded to Social Environmental Justice’s tweet by simply labelling it “embarrassing”.
While cycling lawyer Rory McCarron posted a video of an entirely different community activity – a demonstration organised by those opposed to the Streatham Wells LTN – showing one of the campaigners driving and using their horn… while holding a mobile phone in their hand.
Below is a anti-LTN Streatham Wells video…of someone driving, using their horn and holding their unlocked mobile phone in one hand. This confirms why some motorist simply cannot be trusted to “share the road”, especially near vulnerable road users. pic.twitter.com/pFUEID70aI
— Rory McCarron (@CyclingLawLDN) November 20, 2023
What was that about “entitlement”?
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