Author name: Steven Edwards

Isabella Kaminski
A legal challenge has been launched against a road scheme that opponents say clashes with climate goals.

Changes aimed at improving car journeys between Milton Keynes and Cambridge by upgrading junctions and building a 10-mile dual carriageway on the A428 between Black Cat and Caxton Gibbet were approved in the summer. The scheme, estimated to cost £810m-£950m, is listed in the government’s growth plan for accelerated delivery.

“All roads increase traffic, noise, air pollution and carbon emissions and make no sense in the current climate and ecological emergencies,” said the group’s director Chris Todd. “Rishi Sunak has firmly committed to net zero, and this is his chance to put that commitment into action.”

Spending money on new roads would swallow billions of public funds for very little return, Todd argues. “lso, building new roads in the long term makes things worse, with any congestion relief often short-lived and offset by increases in congestion on the wider road network.”

William Mata
London cyclists are worried “dehumanising” language directed at them on social media could be transferred into aggression on roads.
British Cycling has said the issue is particularly bad in the capital and the south east where there are proportionally more people on a bike.
Nick Chamberlain, policy manager of British Cycling, said: “Cyclists are worried that abuse online is going to be converted to dangerous [behaviour] on the road either verbally, or tragically physically where people have used a vehicle as a weapon.
“It is just generally dehumanising language. Things have not got better. The abuse is still there. The language is as unpleasant now as it was ten years ago.”

Steven Morris
Setting the default speed limit at 20mph in residential roads in Wales will save £100m in the first year alone as deaths and injuries are reduced, according to research.
The move, a first for a UK nation, will save more than 100 lives over a decade, the research claims, though a second study has found many people are concerned the limit will be very difficult to enforce and do not believe drivers will respect it.
The Labour-led government is introducing the 20mph speed limit scheme for many roads in residential and built-up areas across Wales in September 2023.

In 1381, a mob sacked university buildings and burned books in the town square, shouting: “Away with the learning of clerks!” More recently, battle lines have been drawn over plans to build homes on green belt land and attempts to ban wild swimming in the river Cam.

Now, tensions between town and gown are rising again in Cambridge. This time, it’s over proposals to introduce a £5 congestion charge on weekday car journeys to the city, with a protest march to Parker’s Piece common planned for 27 November.
People who live in the city centre and mainly cycle or walk, such as students and Cambridge dons, stand to benefit greatly from the scheme. Others, such as workers and families who have to drive everyday, are facing charges of up to £1,300 a year per car.

David McGregor, aged 48 and from Crossgates near Dunfermline, was ordered to undertake 200 hours’ unpaid work to be carried out within the next 12 months.
In a sentencing hearing at Glasgow High Court, he was also banned from driving for two years, reports the Daily Record.
He had earlier been convicted at trial at Dundee High Court of causing the death through careless driving of cyclist William Crawford, aged 54.
Mr Crawford died in hospital two days after McGregor crashed into him on the A913 Cupar to Newburgh road on the morning of 26 September 2019.

The cyclist involved in a video that went viral on social media this week, in which the driver of an SUV drove straight at him at a junction in north west London, crushing his bike, has explained to road.cc the background of the incident – and why he decided to accept a Community Resolution, rather than pressing charges for assault.
The shocking incident happened last Sunday at the junction of Kilburn High Road and Brondesbury Villas, with footage shared to social media from two different angles, both clips beginning when the cyclist was already on the phone to the police and standing in front of the vehicle.