What are @ASA_UK going to do now?

Most adjudications by the ASA trickle out to little or no notice; relevant only to the complainant, the advertiser and their competitors.

The "cyclist riding 50cm away from kerb" judgement is a different story.

The ASA have taken it upon themselves to override a (regional) government safety organisation and define for themselves what constitutes safe cycling.

This is not some "postage fees on free offer not disclosed" judgement: it has placed the ASA directly into the argument about whether and how people should cycle round a city -and so, into the argument about what our cities should look like.

Will it be a Dutch/Danish city, where children can cycle to school safely, where congestion is low, pollution reduced, and deaths by car reduced?

Or will it be the worst parts of -say- London, amplified: speeding cars sounding their horn at cyclists "in the way", police pulling over cyclists for not having helmets or hi-viz -and all the while, pedestrian deaths from RTCs increasing, ignored by society.

The ASA must be discovering what they've done today.

Emails will be spinning round, saying "what to do?"

Which is a good question. What can they do?

1. Immediate U-turn. Fixes the problem, but looks embarrassing.
2. Stand by the decision. Either they believe it, or they don't want to lose face.
3. Review the decision. Quietens down the argument. They then have two options in future: reverse it or repeat it. Either way, maybe they will hope the anger will have died down.
4. Await an appeal -possibly with some discreet hints they'd be welcome. The appeal would have to come from Cycling Scotland itself.

If they don't announce action #1 today, what can the cycling campaigners do?

Provoke the ASA into reversing their decision or repeating it -with every repetition having them dig deeper and deeper into the hole they have already started to dig.

And how to do this? 

By complaining ourselves about road safety campaigns by TfL, DfT that show anyone on a bicycle more than 50 cm away from the kerb. 

Ignore helmets, ignore hi-viz: complaining there may just make things worse. But positioning on the road -something with Highway Code guidelines? That is something to highlight and repeat, so every time they repeat their bollocks, they get more bad press.

Then see what they do

ASA: Britain's newest and most inept road safety organisation

The much derided niceway code turns out to have had one  good outcome: It has put the ASA's opinions clearly on the table -and the opinion is "bicycles are not for Britain's roads"

This is the organisation that regularly dismisses all road tax complaints with a stock "not our fucking problem" reply:

Thank you for your recent complaint about a press ad by Toyota (GB) Plc for the Lexus CT.  I understand you object to the use of the term “Road Tax”.

We have assessed the ad and your complaint but consider that there are insufficient grounds for ASA intervention on this occasion.  Whilst we acknowledge that the correct term is indeed “Vehicle Excise Duty”, more commonly used phrases such as “Road Tax” are often used by advertisers to convey a message in a way that will be understood by the widest audience.  The requirements of the CAP Code are such that the ASA draws a distinction between technical inaccuracies and claims which are likely to mislead consumers to their detriment.  In this case we consider it unlikely that the use of a common term for this type of tax will mislead consumers to their detriment by influencing their transactional decisions in relation to the advertiser’s products and we will therefore not be taking further action on this occasion.  Please note that the ASA does not pass the details of complaints to advertisers if we consider that no action is required.  You would need to contact them directly with your concerns.

Yet the moment someone shows a picture of a woman cycling happily on a road, a car safely overtaking, then



This is the one they objected to? (img lifted from As Easy As Riding A Bike)

The one showing car drivers how to overtake a cyclist safely? The one whose whole point was to repeat the bit of the highway code showing how to pass safely?

The cyclist placement issue shows that ASA simply don't understand bicycles,  and resent the very idea of being held up by one for a miniscule moment of time. That's what their complaint is really about: the car being held up. The "they had to overtake" story is some kind of post-rationalisation -the cyclist is endangering others by the very act of being on the road.

The ASA is now defining road safety policy instead of the DfT. Badly

But look what the little bunnies have gone an done in the process: they have opened up the gate to complaints about any car advert:

we concluded the ad was socially irresponsible and likely to condone or encourage behaviour prejudicial to health and safety

Think about that. Think about the fact that the majority of deaths in city streets were caused by cars and lorries. Think about the fact that driving is considered directly bad to the health of the driver -due to their failure to exercise. Think about the fact that the pollution caused by the cars causes the  indirect death of many.

By adding social responsibility and health and safety to their policy with regard to vehicle-related adverts, the ASA have just opened the gate to a complaint about any advert that shows a car being driven in an urban environment.

The F-type Jaguar advert linked off As Easy as Riding a Bike's post on the topic, Is an example. There is a car being driven at speed along the Cannes seafront, while people look alongside. This shows dangerous driving near pedestrians.

1. The ASA can't argue that it was safe as the road was closed -because the niceway code was filmed on a closed road too (clearly)
2. There are pedestrians nearby -so condoning or encouraging behaviour prejudicial to health and safety.

It is now time for every cyclist -or anyone else- pissed off with the ASA ruling to pick a car advert and complain about it, using the very wording of the judgement against the ASA

Nicewaycode : wake up, time to die.

Introducing a new law for the Internet

Hembrow's Law: whoever cites Franklin in a debate about cycling loses.

This week the losers citing Franklin are @nicewaycode trying to defend their bus ad:

Cyclecraft author John Franklin is strongly in favour of overtakes on the right unless the nearside lane is free of traffic in a multiple lane situation. 

(from @EdinburghTom)

The correct riposte to anyone who cites Franklin is: so fucking what?

Franklin criticises dedicated cycling infrastructure and claims that having it makes the Dutch lazy. Yet the fact they have that  infrastructure means that they can get to and from their destinations alive, irrespective of age or skill. By denouncing infrastructure and advocating taking the lane, Franklin has got the UK into a situation where about one cyclist a week is dying, yet all the Scottish government is prepared to is divert some of the tiny amount of money dedicated to cycling into an advertising campaign that says, essentially, "do not use what shit pieces of paint we've put in so as to claim that we are cycling friendly -as that  will only kill you"

(photo: Nicewaycode GB)

They have a point: the red-paint routes are shit. The showcase South Causeway cycle route is shit. What is proposed in Leith Walk is an even bigger pile of poo as they are actually spending money on road redesign there -but still producing something shit where there is space for it.

The nicewaycode people are just victim-blaming cyclists for even imagining that the shitness provided across Scotland for them is safe to use.

That "don't go up the left" advert is reflecting what campaigners like pedal on parliament are saying: what we've been given today is shite. The other sign, "maybe", means "maybe if you are fit and brave you could cycle in the traffic"

Which summarises the problem of cycling in Scotland. Except the niceway code fuckwits are just repeating a fact to cyclists, cyclist who, unless this is the first 15 minutes of a bike ride in Britain they will know: cyclists are not welcome.

These bus signs are the cycling equivalent of the Home Office "immigrants go home" racist vans. Here they are instead sticking buses in the bus lanes that cyclists are forced to use as they are the least unsafe par of a road, with a sign on the buses saying "cyclists: fuck off to the Netherlands". 

Why are they doing this? Because the MSP with responsibility for cycling doesn't seem able or willing to make cycling a safe transport option in the country, and he lives in the imaginary Franklin Land where he, Franklin and the nicewaycode team can pretend that cyclists will live if they take the centre of a lane, don't run lights, and instead pretend that they are a horse.

Keith Brown, MSP has passed the poisoned chalice to the niceway code agency, with a brief "stop the cyclists running red lights and maybe wankers with a history of killing cyclists won't kill another one then get a light slap on the wrist as a penalty" 

Those naive fools took the bait -and so are getting vilified and ridiculed for producing what will go down in history as the "what not to do" example for any road safety campaign;  an example whose YouTube videos will be watched and laughed at by media studies students in future courses on the effective use of social media.

Here is the message of the cycling front to the niceway code: stop it before you make things even worse.

Go back to the minister and say "we are spending cycling money telling cyclists to not use the shit you build for them". Say "cyclists ride on pavements as you have provided nowhere else safe for them -and an advert isn't going to change that". 

Finally, say "stopping now will save cycle fund money which can actually be used to make cycling in Scotland safer for pedestrians."

Because if you don't: you will just dig a deeper hole for yourself and your paymasters. The more bollocks you put out, the more of a reaction you will get from the cycling campaigners. Eventually those organisations naive enough to sign up: CTC, Sustrans, will drop put -and the publicity from that will mean Keith's spin doctor will be on the phone to you swearing  like Malcom Tucker, blaming you for the press disaster.

Stop now and tell the politicians that Franklin's approach is exactly what left Scotland in the condition it is in: a nation where most sit in traffic jams on their way to coronary heat disease  sounding their horn whenever one of the few cyclist does what Franklin says and gets in their fucking way.

We complained: will you?

Our last complaint to the ASA was dismissed, though if you search for ASA and road tax, the organisations habit of dismissing such complaints is starting to make the organisation itself look as independent as News International's internal hacking investigations.

We were shown another advertisement, this time in Sport Magazine; a Fiat advert, "Avoid Road Tax without being arrested". Another complaint. This time, we'd like everyone else to complain too. We know that single complaints do get ignored. What is unknown is how many people does it take to complain before the ASA recognise that this is a problem that won't go away, pass the news up to the advertisers, and have them change their prose.

Here is the text of the complaint

The article says "Avoid Road Tax without being arrested". As road tax was abolished in the 1930s, it is clearly confusing Vehicle Excise Duty -a car tax- with some hypothetical and hypothecated fee that gives motor vehicles the right to use roads, and which does not confer rights onto any other users, such as cyclists. 

Furthermore, if it did mistakenly refer to VED, that's not an arrestable offence.
This article is repeating in its headline a myth: that paying for VED gives motor vehicle owners exclusive rights to the road.

You will no doubt reply with some dismissive stock "we don't expect the readers to be that stupid" reply, but be aware of two details

1. Some of the readers are that stupid, and are now appearing on video assaulting cyclists for being on the road without paying road tax.
2. Every time the ASA dismisses these complaints, it makes the ASA look weaker -it makes you look as effective as a voluntary regulatory body as the press complains commission. 

Please recognise that road tax does not exist, that such advertisements repeat myths that do have dangerous consequences in this country, and that your inability or unwillingness to address this issue is detrimental to your own organisation.

Remember -if you don't complain, things won't change.

A reply from the ASA: fuck off.

The team has been exploring the issue of complaining to the ASA that the concept "road tax" is not only non-existent, it helps encourage the belief (as seen in evening post/daily mail comments, Top Gear and video harassment of cyclists), that people on bicycles have no right to be on the road

The complaint was about an advert for a hybrid lexus that was "exempt from Road Tax":

In the advertisement the phrase "road tax" is used to mean "zero-rated Vehicle Excise Duty". While using the term "road tax" may be viewed as a simplification of the truth, those of us who cycle round the UK are continually harassed -in the press and the streets, due to our failure "to pay road tax" -in the belief that we do not do so and hence have no rights to the road.

Car advertisements provide an opportunity to actually educate the customer, rather than re-inforce mistaken beliefs which many motorists -and perhaps the copywrighter- appears to hold, and so reduce conflict between people cycling and driving.

Given that your organisation recently forbade a car advertisement showing adults cycling without a helmet before 21:00 as it may give children a bad impression, it seems only fair that car advertisements that give drivers a bad impression -that we cyclists do not pay for the country's roads- get frowned upon.

The reply

YOUR COMPLAINT ABOUT LEXUS UK AD

Thank you for contacting the ASA.

We have assessed the ad and your complaint but consider that there are insufficient grounds for ASA intervention on this occasion. Our role as an organisation is to help ensure that advertising is legal, decent, honest and truthful. We can intervene if an ad that has been broadcast appears likely to be in breach of the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising by, for example, being likely to cause serious or widespread offence, being materially misleading or risking causing significant harm.

While I appreciate your point, the ASA has no influence over the creative decisions taken by advertisers (or the agencies that work on their behalf) to use a particular character, situation or theme in their ad campaigns. As long as the content of an ad does not breach our Code, it is really up to the advertisers what they want to put in them. In this case, although we acknowledge that the correct term is “Vehicle Excise Duty”, more commonly used phrases such as “Road Tax” are often used by advertisers to convey a message in a way that will be understood by the widest audience. We also note that this ad makes no direct or implied comments about cyclists or their right to use public roads. I further note that you have made reference to a previous scheduling restriction we required for an ad which showed potentially unsafe cycling practices which could result in harm to children. In that case, we were concerned about the potentially harmful effect of glamorising cycling without a helmet to children. We do not have similarly pressing concerns in relation to this particular ad. We consider that this ad is unlikely to mislead consumers to their detriment or promote a view that only motorists pay for road building and maintenance. For these reasons we will not be taking any further action on this occasion.

I realise this outcome may disappoint you, however we will continue to monitor the public response to this ad.

A shorter summary is: "fuck off"

There is one subtle extra point, that hint that  the more people who complain, the more likely they are to react. Yet the ASA blocked the showing before 21:00 of advert that included adults cycling without a helmet after only a single complaint.

Let's summarise then

1. Single complaint about adults on bicycles: immediate reaction.
2. Single complaint about use of "road tax" term: fuck off.

Perhaps if more people were to complain they may react better. Or equally importantly -the more people who complain, the harder it is for them to defend their hypocrisy.