Check out ‘Think ahead, think Streets Ahead‘, an awareness raising video from Guide Dogs made by young NCS graduates in King’s Lynn. NCS describes itself as ‘a way for 15 to 17 year olds living in England and Northern Ireland to make extraordinary friendships, learn the skills they don’t teach you in class and create unforgettable memories.’ Well done and thank you, a great job. Do please keep at it!
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Motorism as an ‘addiction to or practice of motoring‘. I, along with other sustainable transport activists prefer the definition first proposed in 2010 on the Green Bristol Blog, which defines it as ‘a deep rooted prejudice in favour of motorised traffic at the expense even of the safety, let alone the convenience, of those that dare to travel on foot or bicycle‘. As it happens I wrote an article on what I called ‘institutional motoristism’ in July 2012. The ‘As easy as riding a bike’ blog echoed the theme in a piece on the subject in March 2013. There is also an ‘Anti-motorism’ Facebook group which describes itself as ‘a resource for those interested in recovering from the addiction to the automobile. There are alternatives‘. This Cambridge blog has also picked up the theme.
I suggest that it might be worth exploring if it is appropriate to think of motorism as another ‘ism’ like racism, classism, sexism etc, possibly with institutional, and internalised elements.
So.. what is motorism here in the UK?
Where an average of 25% of vehicles, rising to 60% in dense urban areas, are left on the highway over-night even though there is ‘no legal right for anyone to park on a public road or outside their property‘.
Where motorists vigorously defend their right to park on the highway for free. By way of example, Philip Green responded to a proposal from Westminster Council who dared to suggest charging for parking in the borough saying ‘people who come to London know they have got to find a place to park. Charging people on a Sunday is just outrageous behaviour‘.
Where motorists are allowed park on pavements if ‘they have to’, even if this results in pedestrians having little on no space to walk and even if it is illegal. Are there parallels with the way that black people ‘had to move’ to make enough space for white people to sit down on the buses in Montgommery? (black people had to stay behind a movable ‘whites only’ sign which was moved back at busy to make enough space for any white people to sit). See ‘I did not want to be mistreated’.
Where respected broadcasters fail to even recognise that pedestrians exist, as with the BBC’s documentary, ‘ending all fatalities from car crashes‘, which was in fact only about ending deaths of vehicle occupants. It was previewed on their website in an article that talked of a ‘motoring miracle’ with ‘fatal smashes eliminated’. Unfortunately, it failed to mention non-car occupants, fatalities of non-car occupants, anything to make it safer for non-car occupants or indeed even that pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists exist at all.
Where vehicles with ‘dire’ rating for pedestrian safety are still allowed to be sold and driven in urban areas. The Range Rover, Jaguar X-type and Vauxhall Frontera all scored only 6% for pedestrian safety back in 2002, but are still being sold and used. Even the AA, RAC and DfT say the situation is unacceptable.
Where motorists routinely drive past children at speeds where they would almost certainly kill or permanently maim a child who unexpectedly step off the pavement confidence in the knowledge that they would not be held liable unless it was proven in court that they were. Strict Liability would reverse the burden of proof, and in the case of the death of a child the motorist would always be held liable. See ‘Danger from the strangers behind the wheel‘ from the New Statesman.
Where 44% of motorists believe that they ‘own’ the road outside their house.
Where major retail companies roll out a new home-delivery services that require their drivers to break the law dozens of times a day. Tesco for one assured me on the phone that they expect all their drivers to obey all laws while in their employment, but then totally ignore all my evidence that their staff are routinely driving on the pavement virtually every time they make a delivery. They clearly need help!
Where the police refuse to use laws that could easily be used to discourage pavement parking saying that it is not in the public interest to do so.
Where the police have a policy of allowing vehicles to travel very significantly higher that the speed limit without risk of prosecution (+10% + 2mph), meaning that motorists can confidently do 35mph in a 30 limit and 46mph in a 40 limit.
Where the police have explained to parliament that they ‘don’t enforce 20 mph speed limits‘.
Where commercial vehicles are fitted with mandatory speed limiters, but cars are not. However.. I have just noticed that the EU is evidently now proposing that just such speed limiters should be fitted to cars. Needless to say our Transport Minister ‘erupted’ when the proposals landed on his desk and he has told his officials to block the move!
Where school-child are expected to walk along the side of rural roads with no pavements, where speed limits are set at 60 mph.
Where a father is threatened with arrest for driving behind his son who wants to walk to school along such a road, rather than insist that motorists drive in a legal and safe manner. See ‘Archie wants to walk to school’.
Where the police tell parents that a children’s a jumper used as a goal-post is an causing an obstruction in the road, but then ignore vehicles parked on the pavement in the same road.
Where councils act to remove items such as rocks, DIY bollards used by residents to stop drivers parking on verges outside their houses on the grounds that it is an ‘offence to place unlawful items on the public highway‘, but ignore the fact that on the same page the same council explains that motorists have no legal right to park vehicles anywhere on the highway in the first place!
Where a law to ban pavement parking received Royal Assent in 1974, was not enabled for 37 years, before being dumped!
Where road-works signs, used to inform motorists of diversions or obstructions, are left across the pavement where they obstruct pedestrians and no one even seems to notice the irony.
Where a blind man is arrested and locking-up for threatening to let down the car-tyres of some of the vehicles in desperation, having failed to get the local police to deal with the vehicles which regularly obstruct the pavement.
Where a bicycle parked on an unusable pavement outside a London hotel is treated as a ‘health and safety risk’ but three Range Rovers, also up on the pavement, outside the same hotel are not!
Where motorists intimidate or threaten violence towards those employed to enforce the law. See ‘Parents stone traffic wardens‘ for an extreme example of this.
Where motorists consider it to be a mandatory courtesy towards other motorists to park with two wheels up on the pavement, without any consideration of the inconvenience this causes the pedestrians, even when there would be no inconvenience to other motorists if they parked on the road.
Where motorists are genuinely amazed and affronted if someone challenges them for driving onto or parking on the pavement, but then feel that it is completely acceptable for them complain about cyclists riding on the pavement.
Where motorists intimidate pedestrians who dare to attempt to walk in the road to get past parked cars blocking the pavement.
Where enough motorists will respond rudely, abusively, or violently to any pedestrian who challenges any aspect of motorism.
Where policy-makers confuse the terms ‘traffic’ and ‘cars’ implying that all road-users are motorists.
Where motorists believe that they have more rights to road-space that other road users because ‘they pay road-tax’ (they don’t, its called Vehicle excise duty or vehicle tax, road-tax disappeared in 1937).
Where drivers drive along pavements to pass other traffic rather than wait for a gap on roads where parking makes it impossible for vehicles to pass each other on the carriageway.
Where governments proposes to ban councils from using CCTV technology to enforce parking regulations, insisting that regulations should only use expensive, and less effective patrols.
Where motorists use the speed or size of their vehicles to intimidate other road users.
Where pedestrians are a risk of charged with criminal damage should they scratch or damage a vehicle parked up on the pavement while trying to get past, not that it stops many pedestrians doing just that it seems.
Where pedestrians passively accept all of the above as being either totally normal and something that is unchallengeable.
Any more? Do please make suggestions in the comments section and I will add them.
(or should it be ‘institutional motorism’ – see update at the bottom of this post)
Coming home recently I have notice police cars parked in illegal and/or antisocial ways on a number of occasions. In this first incident they had parked a marked police-car with two wheels up on the pavement on a double yellow line and probably within less than 10 meters from a junction. So was it a big emergency? Ok, not an emergency at all, just a routine traffic speed patrol. I politely asked them if they could re-park legally which they were fine about it, but why don’t they do it as a matter of course?
Police car up on pavement on double yellow within 10 meters of a junction
OK, so it is not an emergency, just a routing speed patrol
And then there was the time a few weeks back when I noticed this police car parked with its bonnet slicking out blocking the entire pavement. OK, so it might have been an emergency, but actually when to looked at the back of the vehicle there was loads of space into which the driver could have reversed.
Badly parked police car blocks pavement
Plenty of room for the driver to have reversed into the bay properly
Why does this matter, I hear many motorists thinking? It matters because it shows that there is a culture in the police that pedestrians and the pavements they rely on are less important than motorists and their needs for convenient places to park. One could possibly call it ‘institutional motoristism’ and then look at how society has dealt with other ‘isms’, such as racism and sexism (and homophobia)? All of these other ‘isms’ were endemic in both the police and also society but needed to be dug out of the police force before the wider societal issues could be addressed effectively.
Institutional motoristism (or possibly just ‘motorism’) has a more nasty side when the police side with aggressive motorists who threaten or assault pedestrians or cyclists. Check out ‘The Cycling Lawyer‘ blog for a cyclist/barrister’s view on the bias in favour of motorists as demonstrated by both the police and the judiciary.
A comment has just be left below noting that Chris Hutt, the late author of the ‘Green Bristol Blog’ proposed the term ‘institutional motorism’ back in 2010 which he defined as being ‘a deep rooted prejudice in favour of motorised traffic at the expense even of the safety, let alone the convenience, of those that dare to travel on foot or bicycle‘. That is certainly what I was referring to and is easier to say that motoristism! Neither have quite the same root as racism or sexism – to follow those it would have to be ‘transport-modeism’ which doesn’t really work or ‘modeism’ which doesn’t mean anything useful at all. As such motorism seems to be the one to use.
What is encouraging is that the term seems to be picking up gentle traction. ‘At War With the Motorist’ used the term in July 2011 saying “In the 1950s the future was the car and road transport, and for five decades TfL could get away with their assumptions and their institutional motorism. The times are a changin’. We need to show TfL that they can’t get away with this in 2011“. Apparently they picked up the term from ‘People’s Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire’ in their ‘Institutionalised Motorism near UWE‘ post from July 2011. The term is also turning up in comments on blogs around the web.
Pedestrian Liberation 