Wed 18 Nov 2020

Firm will also hire hundreds of new staff as it prepares for switch away from petrol cars
The coronavirus pandemic has boosted demand for e-scooters and e-bikes as well as traditional cycles. Photograph: Guy Bell/Rex/Shutterstock
Halfords is training 1,500 extra technicians to work on electric vehicles, bikes and scooters as it prepares for the switch away from petrol cars.
The cycles-to-vehicle servicing group said it expected to hire hundreds of new staff and to retrain existing employees so that it would have 100 more electric car technicians next year, bringing the total to 470, and 1,400 extra electric bike and scooter technicians in addition to the 400 now in place.

New data and analysis released by DEKRA Accident Research, covering 12,000 cyclists and e-Scooter users across Europe has found London to have Europe’s highest helmet use.

Covering Amsterdam, Berlin, Copenhagen, Ljubljana, London, Paris, Vienna, Warsaw and Zagreb, the research sought to understand the relationship between cycle use rates, safe infrastructure and helmet use.
One thing was immediately obvious, said the researchers: “When you look at the number of accidents as a ratio of distance traveled, the Netherlands is the second safest country after Denmark in which to ride a bicycle,” says DEKRA accident researcher Luigi Ancona. “Our figures clearly suggest a link between a bicycle-friendly infrastructure, the subjective feeling of safety and the rate of helmet-wearing.”

Carlton ReidMon 16 Nov 2020
Acorn Road, Newcastle upon Tyne

When Newcastle city council planned to reduce motorist access to Acorn Road in the leafy suburb of Jesmond back in 2014, hardware store owner Steve Robson helped to raise a petition against the £350,000 scheme, organised meetings to oppose the plans and told a local newspaper that the proposed changes would be “devastating”.
The changes went ahead. And to date, Acorn Road has not been devastated. Far from it. Robson’s hardware shop – trading from the same small premises since 1912 – is doing so well that last month it expanded into an adjacent shop, doubling its floor space.

The Transport Research Laboratory has joined the chorus of organisations stating that

safe cycling and walking infrastructure is “needed” if social distancing is to work in the UK.

I used to be in a gang. There were 10 of us and we hung out in the street with bikes and footballs. Most days the doorbell would go and it’d be one of our number asking, “Is Chris playing out?” I’d hurriedly pull my shoes on and run out to do what eight-year-olds do.

Hadfield Avenue is where I learned to ride a bike, where I proudly removed the stabilisers before hurtling off with the others to the next road, and then the next. The whole neighbourhood was our playground. It was a perfectly normal thing to do on a British street in the 1970s.
Today, the majority of parents must deny their children this first, simple freedom because the space outside our homes is no longer safe. Instead, we pop the kids in the car and drive them around to protect them from other people in cars. That’s how we lost our street playgrounds, without even realising what was happening.

Tranche 1 was for temporary Covid related measures, whilst today’s tranche 2 is for longer-term projects that provide safe spaces for people to walk, cycle and wheel.

Speaking on behalf of the Walking and Cycling Alliance, Mary Creagh, CEO, Living Streets said:
“Everyone should feel safe to walk, cycle, wheel or scoot on our streets, but that is not the case in too many towns and cities. Across the country, there is a silent majority in favour of more people-friendly streets, but all too often their voices are drowned out by a vocal minority.
“It’s vital more people start walking and cycling for local journeys, to reduce congestion, improve air quality and tackle the twin epidemics of loneliness and obesity.
“We hope this report will support councillors to build back better after the pandemic.”

Professor Jem Bendell

Thanks to Hollywood, we have all seen stories of near apocalyptic futures, where people descend into violence and depravity. We have also seen sensationalist, even racist, TV news reporting on looting after natural disasters. It seems the mass media is not always a good channel for hearing about the solidarity and cooperation that emerges between so many of us in times of crisis. It takes authors like Rutger Bregman to remind us of the better sides of human nature. Or Rebecca Solnit to show how human solidarity has always been a powerful resource during crises. Unfortunately, such views don’t get as much airtime when it comes to dis1cussing the possibility for societal disruption and collapse.
Which is what I do. Because hundreds of scientists and scholars have been warning us that we face “global systemic collapse” due to the pressures we are putting on the planet.