Friday, 21 June 2019
A Cycling UK complaint about an inaccurate national news headline suggesting cyclists had killed more people than motorists in the Netherlands has been dismissed by the press watchdog because it says the article was not aimed at a UK audience.
The charity made its complaint to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) after the headline: “Cyclists kill more people in Holland for the first time in the bicycle-loving country’s history” appeared on the MailOnline website on 2 May.
Unfortunately, the headline bore no relation to the article which was actually reporting new figures showing that for the first time more cyclists were killed on the roads in the Netherlands than motorists.
Several days later, and after a flurry of complaints, the headline was updated and corrected, but not until many thousands of people would have seen it, according to Duncan Dollimore, Head of Campaigns at Cycling UK.
He complained to IPSO that the headline “feeds the totally misleading narrative that cyclists are a danger on the road.”
