You don’t have to spend too much time walking or cycling in Britain to realise the hierarchy on British roads is at the expense of vulnerable road users. Research due to be published later this year will show that cargo bike riders are afforded more room by drivers owing to the primary road position adopted by their riders.
The news will come as welcome news to a new breed of cargo trikes that fool drivers into thinking they are cars. With typical Italian design flair

Milan-based bicycle builders Agnelli style the front of their cargo trike to look like classic cars like the original Fiat 500 and Citroen 2CV.
The cargo box of the 2CV trike sits on old-fashioned leaf suspension and carries leather satchels and an umbrella on its side.

Ealing Council won a crucial vote at an extraordinary meeting on Tuesday evening which could have resulted in suspension of the borough’s implementation of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs).
The leader of the Labour-controlled council also survived a motion of no confidence brought by the opposition Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups, both of which are opposed to LTNs, reports MyLondon.
Despite such schemes, which are aimed at curbing rat-running drivers while maintaining access for people who live on the residential roads concerned, a national survey has also found that most people are in favour of such initiatives.
Opponents of LTNs in a number of boroughs have repeatedly targeted planters and bollards used to block off streets, moving and even vandalising them, with a number of attacks for example in Ealing’s Northfields LTN.

A study into road safety behaviours surrounding the overtaking tendencies of motorists has concluded that a wider berth is given to cyclists seen to be carrying a child.
Dubbed The impact of a child bike seat and trailer on the objective overtaking behaviour of motorized vehicles passing cyclists the research sought to understand what effect on passing motorist the carriage of a child had on passing distance.
Compiling data from 19 cycling journeys on a single road with variables including time of day, type of child seat or trailer, infrastructure provision and traffic density, the findings were very clear, with a mean lateral clearance over ten centimetres larger where a child was present. The mean lateral overtake distance with a child was 128.8cm, versus 117.3cm without.

Stefano ValentinoWed 21 Oct 2020 07.00 BST
The health costs of air pollution from roads are higher in London than any other city in Europe, a study has found.
Two other urban areas in the UK, Manchester and the West Midlands, have the 15th and 19th highest costs respectively among the 432 European cities analysed.
The research puts a figure on the social costs of car emissions at local level at an unprecedented number of sites across 30 countries – the EU27 plus the UK, Norway and Switzerland.
The costs measure the overall erosion of public welfare, defined as living a long and healthy life in a clean environment. The research quantifies the monetary value of premature death, hospital treatment, lost working days and other health costs caused by particulate matter, ozone and nitrogen dioxide. Indoor air pollution was not taken into account.

Advertisements for new ride hailing app Bolt are now present in many of London’s tube stations, but increasingly it’s the firm’s electric scooter hire that customers are seeking for short journeys.
Research by the firm, whose electric scooter hire arm is not yet in the UK, has found that 50.4% of the 1,800 customers surveyed would choose an electric scooter over a private-hire vehicle for journeys ranging up to five miles in distance.

Agence France-PresseLast modified on Tue 20 Oct 2020 21.22 BST
A young woman has been arrested in central Iran for “insulting the Islamic hijab”, state media said on Tuesday, after a video appeared to show her cycling without a veil.
“A person who had recently violated norms and insulted the Islamic veil in this region has been arrested,” Mojataba Raei, the governor of Najafabad, told the IRNA news agency.

Peter WalkerLast modified on Wed 21 Oct 2020

MPs are to hear evidence on road safety from a campaign group that dismisses warnings about global heating and wants higher speed limits and fewer cycle lanes, prompting alarm from environmental and active travel organisations.
The Commons transport committee will take oral evidence on Wednesday from the Alliance of British Drivers (ABD), which says it represents mainstream views but accepts its membership is “tiny” as a proportion of drivers.
The ABD’s formal position is that human-created global heating is a myth, and that many concerns about the health impact of vehicle pollution represent “scaremongering”.
ABD’s policies include raising all speed limits to 85% of actual average speeds and abolishing urban 20mph zones. It believes that cycling and walking are “not a credible transport policy”.
In May, the ABD’s official Twitter feed argued that the UN and other groups “have been captured by One World Global Marxist sympathisers, whose gradual aim is to gradually pauperise and depopulate the west and the developing world”.