Amelia Hill Sat 22 May 2021
Ed Miliband only mastered the art of riding a bicycle aged 50 – and was put off using an adult tricycle because he was worried about the paparazzi, he reveals in a new book serialised in the Guardian on Saturday.
Admitting he had always been a “very, very nervous [bicycle] rider” as a child, the now 51-year-old hired an electric bike while on holiday in France and “had an epiphany”. “This”, he said, “was the eureka moment”.

Now, I have covered LTNs many times in this blog and so this week I thought it might be interesting to talk about the five principles. I am a fan of the details, but a little step back to look at principles is always a good idea as it helps us understand how things fit together. This post is essentially the long-hand version of the slides I used in my talk.

The five principles crop up in all sorts of UK cycling planning and design policy and guidance – even in the most dire of the genre! It is no surprise that they pop up in the new English design guidance, LTN1/20 Cycle Infrastructure Design, and they are covered in some detail in Chapter 4. It’s also worth stating that in fact they equally apply to planning and designing for walking. The reason for this is that these principles major on the human experience of self-propelled travel.

The true measure of the seriousness of the planetary crisis is not destruction but discontinuity.
My most succinct working definition of a “discontinuity” is a watershed moment, one where past experience loses its value as a guide to decision-making about the future. It’s a critical concept, so I’m going to do my best in this week’s email to quickly explain what it means to me, and why it may be useful to you.
The planetary crisis is what I call the interlocking, complex, accelerating changes our actions are bringing on in the natural world. Climate change is the largest problem within this crisis, but it is interconnected with ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss, topsoil loss and water shortages, threats to food systems, changes in ocean chemistry, the release of rivers of toxic chemicals into the biosphere, invasive species and so on. We can talk about them as separate challenges, but in reality they are all one crisis. And it is getting worse, fast.

“We will watch the London trial with interest, but we do not permit – and we have no plans to permit – the use of e-scooters in the parks,” she added.

The victim, from Pulborough, was cycling along Church Street, West Chiltington, with his father and another rider when the local resident, 76 year old Keith Vernon, who lives in the village, struck him from behind.
The child was thrown over his bike’s handlebars and onto the road, with Vernon continuing to drive over him despite shouts from the two other cyclists as well as members of the public for him to stop.
He then reversed over the boy, destroying his cycle helmet.. before driving away.
Police officers went to the address of the registered keeper of the Renault Twingo car involved in the crash and found it unattended, with the driver – subsequently identified ads Vernon – having mounted a kerb and with the bike still wedged underneath the vehicle.

Thousands of “ironing board” seats will be removed from trains after travellers complained of aching backsides.

The DfT admitted yesterday that recent new trains had “compromised on passenger comfort” by installing hard seats.
It said that replacement cycles on trains would be brought forward to address concerns. The seats will be given extra padding or replaced. New design standards will also ensure that train carriages built in the future are “more comfortable than their predecessors”.

After the recent acquittal of climate activists by a crown court jury, it’s clear public sentiment is on their side
In the face of resistance by juries, surely there is a strong case to halt all the pending trials of Extinction Rebellion activists? With nearly a thousand trials still waiting to be heard in the courts, six members of the group were recently acquitted at Southwark crown court in XR’s second trial by a jury.