Another day in Westminster, another ill-thought-out idea for legislation targeting cyclists from one of its sitting MPs. On Monday, it was the turn of Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis, who in a debate on the Labour government’s Crime and Policing Bill proposed that every bike be fitted with a mandatory bell.
It wasn't the first time.
Back in 2018, the member for New Forest East first called for mandatory bells, saying his constituents were being put at risk because cyclists “couldn’t be bothered to fit a bell”.
All new bikes in the UK are required by law to be sold with one attached, but they're usually removed by the buyer – legally – because of the dubious quality and aesthetics.
Back then, the government – Lewis' own party – said it had no plans to make bike bells compulsory because it would be difficult to enforce, and we suspect he’d get a similar answer in 2025 with Labour in power.
In 2022, Labour MP Fleur Anderson’s more tactful enquiry into the same subject was met by Conservative Trudy Harrison, then a minister at the Department for Transport, concluding that what the Highway Code said on the matter – a recommendation of a bell and a call to be considerate to other vulnerable road users – was sufficient.
Perhaps the answer is two bells.
A small, discreet bell on one side of your handlebar, to gently warn pedestrians, horse riders and other cyclists that you’re coming up behind, clearly isn’t sufficient when alerting a driver cocooned in several tons of sheet metal, deafened by an over-powered stereo, of your presence.
Maybe the answer is to take a leaf out of Ned Boulting’s book. Ned wrote in Cycling Plus magazine back in 2019 of having taped onto his handlebar a comedy horn found at home after his small, ineffectual bell had broken.
But, back to the serious point I’m trying to make. You can file mandatory bells with compulsory insurance, helmets and registration plates: noise-making policy ideas that ultimately don't survive contact with reality. It’s ‘nanny state’ policy, often thought up by the same people who continually decry the so-called nanny state.
Such ideas are born out of the determination that all users of the road are equal. That if cyclists wish to use the road, they should do so under the same restrictions as motorists, plainly ignoring just how unequal the power balance is. As bikes get ever-lighter (as do those riding them, the more they pedal), vehicles (and their occupants, the more they drive them) are getting heavier.
The mistake the Sir Julians of this world make is to take what might be a reasonable idea in the right hands and make it sound like a crackdown on cyclists.
I have a bell for my carbon racer – a nifty design from Canyon that plugs into the end of my handlebar. With the sort of cycling that I do, riding without my helmet is as odd and alien as forgoing bib shorts. I’ve also had bike insurance for many years through my Cycling UK membership (note to self – need to renew).
As has been seen in Australia, where opponents of its mandatory helmet law say it doesn’t improve health at population level, making any or all of this mandatory will likely ensure fewer people ride a bike, whether by accident or design.
In an ageing population with a healthcare system in such a dire state, that’s not quite the result Britain needs.
