SMMT and the UK Government: Don't mention #dieselgate, buy a low tar car

SMMT and the UK Government: Don't mention #dieselgate

The SMMT has a new video up, claiming the EURO6 diesel is reducing pollution, and that new cars are cleaner.


What does this video ignore?

It ignores dieselgate, repeating the utterly discredited claim that EURO6 cars are better than before.

NOx Pollution in our cities is not getting any better. No doubt manufacturers will say "cities must address traffic flow" —but that's just a way of telling cities that congestion is their fault.

While it highlights the "real world" tests, it conveniently omits how the manufactures have pushed for "tolerances" on the test, so that they can keep driving cars that would otherwise fail the tests

It ignores that Paris is closing its roads to cars on alternate days, because pollution there is so bad *and their government recognising and acting on the problem*.

It highlights that "with Diesel, CO2 emissions are down", while failing to cover the consequence, "with Diesel, NOx emissions are now an unacknowledged public health crisis"

The reason for VW cheating was to save 300 Euros/car. That's all.

VW Audi Group chose to poison people across Europe and the US to save £200 per vehicle. That shows how little manufacturers value the lives of their customers and their families. Because if the claims that in-car NOx is worse than people away from the road, it's actually their own customers who are dying. If dieselgate spans more companies, car companies will have shown that same cynical willingness to kill their customers as the tobacco companies.

And what do they do? They produce videos claiming that their "low tar" cars are not poisonous, that their "filters" work, ignoring "passive diesel smoking". And they fill the press and TV with adverts implying that driving is a status symbol. This is of course, exactly like the tobacco adverts of fifty years ago.




For anyone reading a paper this weekend, look out for the car adverts,

Adverts highlighting how the new models are less polluting than the old ones


Adverts targeting women


Adverts associating cars with sports
Adverts associating SUVs with extreme outdoor activities
Adverts in front of national landmarks

Nowadays we'd look at those adverts and laugh at the naivety of the adverts and their audience, but we still expect and accept papers and magazines full of glossy adverts for products which are, en masse, killing thousands of people a year.

Accompanying the fantasies of the SMMT comes the silence from central government. Even if Cameron gave a fuck —which he doesn't— the EU negotiations would have forced him to do whatever was needed to keep Angela Merkel happy. Now that's done, is he going to suddenly roll out some emergency anti-NOx measures? Not a fucking chance. The environmental legislation that is forcing the government to act comes from Europe, its exactly the kind of "red tape from Brussels" that the Brexiters will be railing against.

Instead the SMMT, the UK government, the main London mayoral candidates are all quietly pretending Dieselgate was a minor US detail, that there is nothing to worry about.

If there's one thing which will break this calm its a pollution crisis which can't be blamed on the saharan desert or pollution from the EU. If that situation arises, pro-city activists need to be ready to draw awareness to the issue. Hold a protest outside a VW showroom, get hold of any form of mobile pollution sensor and start visibly testing cars in parliament square.

This summer: demand air fit to breathe

Car manufacturers: swapping one myth for another

Business Week, April 2014: "Convertible Car Sales Have Plunged as Image of Fun and Freedom Dims".

Those photos and 30-second adverts showing a happy couple driving their open-top car along though an empty county lane, or a gritty bond-esque man  gear changing aggressively as he forces his sports car through alpine roads? Dead. The customers have realised this is bollocks -as much as those banking adverts that show a friendly bank manager at a local branch greeting you, the customer. Banks have been shown to lie about the products they sell, from mortgage types to insurance, while the fact that the "dream of the open road" turns out be "the myth of the open road" is obvious to all.

There's fuck all romantic about sitting in a motorway flyover with nothing but three lanes of traffic jam ahead of you -which is why the M4 junctions 1-3, Bristol M32 or Spaghetti Junction never show up in adverts. Cars are no longer status symbols, they are things to sit in while you suffer in traffic jams.

As the BW article says," in the U.S. and Europe, the biggest convertible markets, are opting for more pragmatic vehicles as the automobile wanes as a symbol of social status. "

VW dropping the EOS, Peugot abandoning their open-top yous/. The only people who haven't realised that the dream is dead are the Daily Mail article writers -and even there the usual haters in the comments lay into the story as being bollocks.

This is leaves the car vendors with a problem: how to sell cars. And what better than another dream? What better than admitting that your drive will be stuck in a traffic jam -but saying with our urban SUV, the fact that you spend 2 hours a day and £80 a week stuck in traffic won't matter.

As this Audi Q3 advert claims

Calm, Serene, Don't you just love rush hour
There's no such thing as a bad journey in the Audi Q3. With its elevated driving position, DAB digital radio and Audi Music Interface, you're always happy behind the wheel. Even whilst queuing behind a long line of traffic.

This is absolute bollocks and someone should complain to the ASA about it.

Because we know what people driving Audi Q-series SUVs end up doing: driving into shops while trying to run cyclists over.

Where is the "happy behind the wheel" there? Where is the "Calm?" Where is the "serene?"

To close the advert, the copy editors say "The Audi Q3. A great place to be"

More accurate would be "The Audi Q3. Just as shit for driving around a UK city as any other car -but a better place to be than the on a bicycle just in front of the Audi"

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

The school run: Fiat telling the dads to get an SUV

in 1970s, the NL had their "stop the Kindermoord" campaign.

In 2013, what does the UK get? Fiat trying to sell a micro-SUV on the fiat 500 chassis, advocating "city brake control" traction control on their cars "so you can get home safely"

Think about that. The main contribution Fiat thinks can be done for child safety is to make it easier to drive you children to school and back on snowy days.

The main thing Fiat say that you, the father, can do for your children is drive them to school and back in a shiny new car. That your children will be so excited by tinted windows and alloy wheels that they will be pleased to see you. And that your status amongst school parents ('daddy cool' and 'rock up to the gates').

There's a message here: whatever car you are picking the kids up today is boring and unsafe, your children will think you are uncool, and all the other parents will look down on you.

There's another implicit message, one they probably didn't even think of: that you never, ever, walk or cycle your children to school. Instead you "rock up to the gates" -legally or not. That if your old car, without city braking and traction control isn't safe -just think how even less safe it would be if you walked with them to school -or even let them walk on their own.

What the can be done about fighting the millions that get spent in marketing SUVs like this for the school run? Even if papers occasionally write pro-everyday-cycling articles, colour pages are dedicated in every edition saying "drive your kids to school" and "get a new SUV or your own kids will look down on you"

School engagement would be ideal: imposing a walk-zone round the entrance so you cant "rock up to the gates", but instead have to drop the kids off 500 yards away and walk them in.

1. It eliminates that final stretch of double and illegally parked dropoff cars which make walking and cycling more hazardous.
2. With a wider parking zone round the school, the parents aren't so likely to park dangerously there either
3. It cuts back on the whole status game. You aren't showing off your toy to the other parents, just walking in with the kids
4. It equalises the status game with anyone walking their kids in
5. It encourages you to walk. With better safety, no status gains and 500m to walk, if you are in the 1-2 mile catchment area, why not walk the whole way.
6. It rewards cycling because you  can now do the entire journey faster, even at family 8-12 mph speeds

That would be ideal. Unrealistic? Maybe, but it happens sometimes in France. And if some UK schools adopt, then it sets an example for others.

The other tactic: create the social norms that walking and cycling to school is the way to do it. Niceway-style "cycle them to school so your ponies grow up to be healthy horses" isn't going to cut it, but if there a MAMIL group growing up at the school, pull them in: get them to do dropoff by bike before the morning ride, -even if that ride is just the commute. Make it social event with the kids going in with their friends. Maybe persuade the school to do more to reward the kids than give them stickers on a card in walk-to-school week.

Shaping these social norms is going to take some dedication by multiple parents -but it could be the only way to fight back against companies like Fiat selling a lie that a dad needs an urban SUV with traction control to do the school run

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.

Urban SUVs -are they really that fucking useless?

Here's an advert from the weekend's guardian, a paper that is meant to be "forward thinking". It's for some kind or urban SUV

"Be the envy of the School run"

Is that all they can fucking say about it? It means "your five year old car that still works perfectly and is on its second set of tyres doesn't look like an urban SUV so you should get rid of it and lease something more expensive so that people can look at you on the school run and say "cool", although by the end of the lease we'll have changed car styles to make this thing look out of date and you will want to do the same thing again"

This shows how the car industry is running out of things to say about cars -or reasons to justify replacement. This is why they are getting heavily into autonomic vehicles -there's nothing left to be done in engines, but integrating computers gives them a lifespan of a laptop.

What's really depressing is

1. It assumes that everyone does the school run by car. Want to be the envy of the school run? Cycle there. 
2. It assumes that how new your car looks is the definition of status in modern, suburbanite society.
3. It assumes you'd get rid of a perfectly functional car in order to display this status symbol on the school run.

The scary thing: it may actually work.

If the advertising team know their customers, they will know that their customers really do want to show off which car they drive their precious offspring to school in. They may also know that the demographics of guardian readers means they are the target audience.

Whichever fuckwit came up with this probably drove home across london in their c-zone busting urban SUV feeling so fucking smug with themselves.

If you look at the money spent on car advertising, a single weekend's spend probably comes out to more than the entire annual "marketing bicycle" budget for the councils and government. They do the little leaflets saying "why not walk your kids to school", but every paper has half-page adverts saying "you need a newer car for the school run"

Indeed,the annual advertising budget probably comes to much more than the actual infrastructure investment on cycling. Someone -Carton Reid?- could research that, as it would make a good story. 

Car advertisments are the propagada arm of Imperial Car, as they repeat the same lie: get a new car and you will be happy. This is why pushing back at bollocks they say is important.

We are at war with 'Imperial Car'

We live in the empire of the car: they are in charge. And behind the car: the car industries. They must feel threatened. What headlines do they fear

• "closed to traffic" -devalues the car
• "congestion charges" -increases cost of use
• "traffic jams expected" -destroys value of car
• "EU pollution limits" -shows cost of motoring
• "Car crash kills family of five" -shows cost of motoring and doesn't reduce the blame like "cyclist dies in road accident -not wearing helmet".
• "Oil prices to rise"
• "Fuel duties to increase"

These threaten their livelihood -a livelihood that depends on people not just buying a new car every few years, but paying a premium over "car that gets you there" for "car as visible display of status". They have to show value in owning a car, and reinforce that cars are not merely something everyone needs -but something to show of one's status in modern society.

The People's Cycling front hereby declares war on Imperial Car makes a list of threats to these invaders  of our city!

• Direct cost of motoring. Congestion and Parking fees connect drivers directly with the costs; fuel less so but still tangibly. Electric motoring with quarterly bills would be even better.
• Opposition to the societal costs of motoring. Death of cyclists and pedestrians, pollution in cities, the destruction of our city centres, death of the high-street. Anything that forces cars to slow down destroys its selling point "speed", restricting access kills its key function "gets you there fast".
• Congestion. So fucking ironic: cars create their own downfall in congestion and parking problems, problems that parking fees and congestion charges are used to mitigate.
• Demographics. Cars lived off the baby boom, consumerism and the movement to the suburbs -places where every adult needs a car. Falling populations in western countries and a return to the city cores threatens this.
• Cultural shifts. Cars go out of fashion. Not status symbols, no more than a bus is. The big risk here is that the (shrinking) youth prefer to be online with their friends over phones than stuck in traffic jams.

We the People's Cycling Front of South Gloucestershire shall fight the invaders! We shall look at all these issues in turn and show how the Empire of the Car is threatened -and what are they doing to fight back.

Before then, look at how they are denying the truth. Here's Audi's "ugly ducking" video



Look at the old footage -villages you can walk around in. People. It would be nice to walk round there, to go to local shops.

Consider what Audi want to sell their customers. A countryside empty of people, animals and bicycles. The car is portrayed as driverless, as it speeds down empty roads -roads that never get seen outside car adverts. Inside the car, in the blue glow of the audi interiors (VW/Audi Group like their blue dashboards), the driver -a man, obviously- warms his oversized buttocks on the heated leather seats. He speaks to his wife on the iPhone via the speaker system, tell her and the family not to wait up as a financial crisis has occurred and he is essential to society because he has to fix it. Then he phones up his (french, naturally) mistress, says the satnav says he'll be there in six minutes, so get the champagne out the fringe and the kimono on.

That is what Audi are selling. Status -and a world that doesn't fucking exist. Yet they promise it, they say "buy our overpriced toy and you can have it". You can't, it's bollocks. Not even your own wife wants to bed you, your kids are bored with your work stories, your colleagues think you are a wanker who can't stop talking about cars, even though carbon road bikes are bling toy of the month. Even you worry about the fact that you aren't getting enough exercise -as is your doctor.

Buying a new Audi will not fix the problems in your life -it will just make you poorer. And it will make society itself poorer, which is where the rest of us have to give a fuck.

Over the next month or two, expect more coverage on these threats -and how to use them.

For now, consider this: the amount of money spent on cycling -all of it- is a fraction of the money spent on car advertising alone. One fucking US Superbowl advert costs $3.5M, enough to put in a decent segregated cycle path in a city where neither TfL or S Gloucs traffic planning department had any influence. Who was prepared to spend that much money? General Motors, in an advert showing how buying a car was the right thing for all patriotic Americans.

In all those adverts -not a single fucking bicycle. Even the pedestrians know their place and keep out of the way of cars. This is where the real motorist training budget goes -not on bluewash from the DfT, but on Imperial Car propaganda saying your life would be better if all the bicycles got out of the fucking way.

What the Fuck is an Urban SUV?

The car manufacturers love to wave their green credentials, their electric toys, then demand more money from the governments "to go electric", more concessions, more subsidies. The politicans love to get in the regional papers visiting car factories round the country: Northumberland, Liverpool, Swindon, Oxford, and make hose same promises "the car industry will bring economic recovery to the country", "electric cars are the future".

Bollocks.

Buy a newspaper. Look at the adverts. See any selling electric cars? Not likely. What you are likely to see are adverts for "Urban SUVs". Not eco-friendly electric. Not saving the planet. But what the car manufacturers want you to buy.

What the fuck is an urban SUV?

First, there were 4x4s, Landrovers, jeeps. Functional for farmers, the higher end Range Rovers for the landed gentry. Pickups for the builders. Then people started buying them for the image, and the car industry was happy to sell them. They discovered the new market didn't need four weel drive, so calling them 4x4s or 4WDs wasn't right. They invented a new term: SUV. Sport Utility Vehicle.

Then they sold them for sport, for utility. Pictures of snowboarders driving in the snow with snowboards on top. Rock climbers in the wildeness. Pickup drivers "haulin'". Image things. If you do those things, you need an SUV. And if you had an SUV, you lived an active, sporting live. Never mind the fact that snowboarding and rock climbing are lifestyles -and the people who live that lifestyle can't afford SUVs. They live in camper vans in ski resort car parks in winter; campsites in summer. If they do have a job in a town, there'll be a fiesta or astra full of climbing gear. Lifestyle snowboarders, climbers and other "extreme sport" people are just the image for SUVs, not the customer. The customer is someone with money who would rather have a life more interesting than what they have -and the SUV helps pretend that they do.

Nowadays: the SUV is a family vehicle, it's sold on safety for the kids. The marketing dept. loves a few days of snow or summer floods, so the TV can show landrovers coming to the rescue of people who "only" had hatchbacks -they'll buy ad space in the papers to say "this is what you need".

Though the price of buying an SUV - a lot-, the cost of fuel -a lot- and the servicing charges -way more than a hatchback- means that there's a limit to how many "real" SUVs they can sell.

And so we have something new: "The Urban SUV". This is not an SUV for the mountains, it is one for the town.

Think about this: a vehicle with no more luggage capacity than a normal car, worse fuel economy (aerodynamics), worse handling (higher centre of gravity), worse use in town (the width needed to compensate for that SUV means they need to be wider), is now being sold as a vehicle for use in the cities.

That's where the car manufacturers money is really going. Not into electrics, but into overweight, overpriced alternatives to "practical cars".

How do they sell them?

They scare people.

Look at all the adverts. They portray the city as an edgy place ("graffiti"), dark and anonymous, and something that you need an armoured car to get through safely;

• Toyota Urban Cruiser: Tough. Selling a car driving round a city at night "scary", nobody around "danger", but you are safe in your SUV.
• Ford Kuga This one is still sold on the outdoor bollocks, but look at the bike shot. Shit bikes, shit suspension, floating rear triangle design. No luggage rack. These are not useful bikes in a city -and they are shit offroad too. Same as the SUV itself.
• Nissan Quashqai. This is the worst example. "The ultimate urban car", the quashquai is "The king of the urban jungle". Marketing: Graffiti. The rough inner cities that you drive through on your way to the suburbs, doors locked, hoping you don't make eye contact with the locals. Tinted windows help there.

These overpriced vehicles are sold by scaring you that cities are dangerous places where you need tough SUV-like cars. That may help convince people who "still" drive round in hatchbacks, estate cars and the like that they need something tougher for use in a dangerous city.

The danger in a city is not the graffiti. It is not unexpected snowstorms coming in off the cotswolds and covering emerson's green in 18" of power snow. It is not car-jacking criminals loitering at the perennial traffic block by parkway station. What is the danger in the city?

It is selfish wankers driving urban SUVs who think they have more right to the road than people on bicycles and pedestrians. It is those drivers on the school run, bully bicycles out the way, going past them with millimetres to spare, turning back to look at their kids on the handheld games consoles and saying "look how dangerous it is out there -I am glad I am driving you to school". It is people in Urban SUVs who believe they are safe in one, start getting complacent, making phone calls, and run over someone "they came out of nowhere".

Yet nowhere in the adverts do Nissan, Toyota, Ford or anyone else come out and state the truth: the danger to the drivers of urban SUVs are other drivers of Urban SUVs.

For cyclists, Urban SUVs make things worse

• They ruin visibility for everyone. You can't see over them -and vehicles past them can't see you.
• they're wider, so are harder to squeeze past
• the raised seating makes people harder at judging their position, which means they pass you worse, or hold back and then pass you baldly at the wrong point.
• if you really think your car is "tougher", you drive more aggressively -to bicycles, pedestrians and other cars.
• in snow and ice the drivers get overconfident as they discover that their "all terrain" vehicle needs winter tyres to stop.
• they cost more than standard cars -making people think they have even more right to the road than cyclists who don't pay road tax
• They reinforce that car-as-status-symbol bollocks. If you have an "urban SUV", you are more than just another persion. 

Even without the SUVs on the streets, the whole "you need an urban SUV to survive an edgy city" marketing is an enemy. It's designed to scare people into armouring themselves and then driving through the rough parts of town at speed.

Contrast that with the cycling chic story: cities are nice places for people to cycle round.

You can only have a cycle-chic environment in a city without Urban SUVs. they are our enemy.