The one thing we can say, with a collective sigh of relief, was that it wasn’t as awful as The War on Britain’s Roads.

When the news came that BBC Breakfast was planning a week of items connected to cycling, my thoughts returned to that abysmal BBC1 “documentary” from two years ago, a programme which, among many sins, passed off six-year-old commercially-shot film of couriers paid to race each other through London as everyday footage of cyclists.



So hysterical and wilfully misleading was The War on Britain’s Roads, one of the few recent times that non-sport cycling has featured on the BBC’s flagship channel, it prompted the co-chair of the all-party cycling group to call it “irresponsible” and “garbage”. An achievement of sorts.



So, you can maybe understand why I had my worries on learning BBC Breakfast was planning to cover, among other issues, relative trivialities like road rage (again) and cyclists wearing headphones. Surely they couldn’t do it twice?

The good news is no. Or at least not entirely. Having finally watched all the segments (which took a while, as Breakfast isn’t on iPlayer for rights reasons) the conclusion is mixed.



A few aspects were admirable, some were merely odd, others lamentable. But it’s nonetheless an interesting case study for two reasons. Firstly, because it shows how almost all the mainstream media still often misses the big issues with cycling. Secondly, the reaction of viewers demonstrates why these things matter.

First let’s deal with the nonsense.

Last Wednesday’s offering was about cycling and headphones, led by a BBC-commissioned poll which revealed nine out of 10 people think wearing them on a bike should be outlawed.

Now, I’m personally not a huge fan of the practice, but neither do I think it’s helpful for car drivers to blast music so loudly they can’t hear anything else, something which, oddly, Breakfast didn’t flag as a safety problem. But on the list of potential perils to cyclists, wearing headphones is probably not even in the top 50.

When, last year, the Metropolitan police began “advising” cyclists against using headphones as part of a safety crackdown, I asked the head of the Met’s traffic unit, Detective Chief Superintendent Glyn Jones, if he knew of a single serious incident involving a cyclist where headphone use had been determined as a factor. He didn’t.

A gossamer-thin sheen of supposed scientific credibility was half-heartedly draped over the item through a ridiculous lab test in which a BBC presenter cycled on a stationary bike while embarrassed-looking Brunel university boffins assaulted him with loud pop music and asked him to assess his own level of concentration. The result? Listening to music apparently distracts you by “about 10%”. I’ll offer a statistic in return: that test was about 85% bollocks.



The day before the ostensible focus had been road rage, allowing the programme to show footage of a poor cyclist being punched by a puce-faced van driver, the sort of TV-friendly incident which, oddly enough, has never once happened to me or anyone else I know.

Meanwhile on Friday, part of the segment element included high-tech safety gizmos such as the Blaze laser light and the inflatable helmet. All perfectly admirable, in their way, but of minuscule importance when set against the big issues like infrastructure.

Yet it wasn’t all bad. Speaking of infrastructure, this was covered on two days: firstly in an interview with the saintly and all-knowing Chris Boardman, even if much of the subsequent public reaction was loud tutting as he’d dared to venture on to Manchester’s streets without a helmet.

Then, three days later, there was a mini-feature from New York, where Michael Bloomberg’s transport guru, Janette Sadik-Khan, explained why the city had installed a network of bike lanes (the same segment included a live report from Bristol with the reporter standing, slightly unhelpfully, in the middle of a set of cycle lanes at rush hour).

Even some of the bad bits had good bits, as it were. Aside from Boardman, there was input from British Cycling, CTC and Sustrans, as well as Andrew Gilligan. Some of the vox popped cyclists made good points, like the man who demanded stricter measures against dangerous driving, concluding with the vivid if baffling phrase: “No ifs, no buts, no coconuts.”

So why get worked up? TV is TV. They can’t just have earnest discussions about kerb heights and bus stop by-passes. Maybe the viewers do need to see someone ride deliberately into a lamp post to test their inflatable helmet, or a small boy career his bike into a fence because the BBC decided to set up a Bikeability session on the absurdly shiny paving outside Media City in Salford, in the pouring rain. The latter was accidental, I should add, and the boy was fine.

I’d argue that there’s two reasons: context and reaction.

Take context. The very first item, on Monday, led with the statistic that, per mile travelled, a Briton is 16 times more likely to be killed or injured on a bike than in a car. It’s a worrying statistic, but it’s not the only statistic. If all you do is drive, and you never walk or cycle, your health faces considerably worse odds.

Last year, 109 cyclists died on Britain’s roads. It is appalling, and far too high. But according to Public Health England, almost 85,000 people die every year in England and Wales due to illnesses associated with inactivity. This wasn’t mentioned.

Now reaction. The BBC Breakfast Facebook page is a depressing place at the best of times, but the reader comments about the cycling week were largely awful, and in part inspired by the choice of subject. For example, this was the “top” - ie most recommended – comment under the item about headphones:

They want to be taught to obey red lights first.

There you have it. More encouragement, were it needed, for attitudes that give cyclists the blanket label of reckless, half-socialised law-breakers. I’ve long believed such stereotypes makes some drivers more aggressive and dangerous towards cyclists. A new Australian study suggests I might be correct.

The editor of BBC Breakfast, Adam Bullimore, kindly answered some questions via email about the cycle week. To finish, here’s what he had to say: