The blog

Ministry of Transport started one so why doesn’t Britain have a Dutch-style bike path network?

by carltonreid / on January 28, 2013 /

If the Second World War hadn’t intervened, Britain might now have a dense network of Dutch-style segregated bike paths. Or, at least, such a segregated network was the ardent desire of motoring organisations, leading police officers, the Ministry of Transport, […]

There’s a national blanket ban on cycling on the pavement but none for parking a car on the pavement

by carltonreid / on January 11, 2013 /

Ludicrous, really. There’s a blanket national ban on cycling on the pavement (and has been since 1888) but there’s a confusing mish-mash of conflicting laws which means there’s no equivalent national blanket ban on parking a car on the pavement. […]

Quirky 1835 law means bicycles can’t be ridden on pavements but police tend not to nab cars which park on pavements

by carltonreid / on December 12, 2012 /

It’s ironic, but the law that states cyclists shouldn’t ride on pavements is the same law that could be used to prevent motorists from parking on pavements. Which is the greater social ill? If you believe vitriolic letters in local […]

Parking private property on the street is a modern malaise (and not done in Japan)

by carltonreid / on November 30, 2012 /

In last week’s Sunday Times, the newspaper’s ‘motormouth’ correspondent Mike Rutherford wrote: “Parking is now officially, in my book at least, one of the undisputed rip-offs of the decade.” He claims he will no longer pay for “heinously expensive spaces” […]

Mayor of New York says roads are not for cars. And cyclists and pedestrians are “more important” than motorists

by carltonreid / on October 27, 2012 /

Back in July, Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, cut the ribbon on a new 20mph ‘slow zone’ in New York and said: “Our roads are not here for automobiles. Our roads are here for people to get around.” […]

Beak wants bike ban on many A-roads

by carltonreid / on October 03, 2012 /

Judge Simon Tonking of Stafford Crown Court has today written to The Times urging for cyclists to be banned from riding on many A-roads.  Sounds sensible, doesn’t it? What kind of crazy bicycle riders want to ride on quasi-motorways? (Er, […]

NYC mayor: “Our roads are not here for automobiles.”

by carltonreid / on July 11, 2012 /

Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York City, yesterday cut the ribbon on a new 20mph ‘slow zone’, one of thirteen to be in place in the city by the end of next year. Tellingly, he said: “Our roads are not […]

Knight believes the roads are for motorists alone

by carltonreid / on July 08, 2012 /

In three short paragraphs this hitherto unknown Sunday Times reader displays arrogance, ignorance, and historical inaccuracy. But George Knight’s views are mainstream beliefs. Many, if not most, motorists have a similar outlook on what should be on the roads, who […]

A rural traffic jam, car dependence and a motoring superiority complex

by carltonreid / on July 02, 2012 /

The remote College valley in Northumberland National Park famously restricts car use: the valley’s two asphalt roads are privately owned and those who wish to get about by motorised means have to apply for day permits, at £10 a car. […]

Drive fast to your tomb

by carltonreid / on May 11, 2012 /

Assassins who fret over telescopic rifle sights or the latest undetectable poisons would be better to run down their prey with a car. Kill with a gun, expect jail-time; kill with a car and more times than not you’ll walk […]

"How cyclists were the first to push for good roads & became the pioneers of motoring." ROADS WERE NOT BUILT FOR CARS is a print, Kindle, iPad and free e-book about roads history.

The coming of the railways in the 1830s killed off the stage-coach trade; almost all rural roads reverted to low-level local use. Cyclists were the first group in a generation to use roads and were the first to push for high-quality sealed surfaces and were the first to lobby for national funding and leadership for roads. They were also the first promoters of motoring; the first motoring journalists had first been cycling journalists; and there was a transfer of technology from cycling to motoring without which cars as we know them wouldn't exist! Nearly seventy car marques – including Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC – had bicycling beginnings.

'Roads Were Not Built for Cars' is a history book, focussing on a time when cyclists had political clout, in Britain and especially in America. The book researches the Roads Improvement Association - a lobbying group created by the Cyclists' Touring Club in 1886 - and the Good Roads movement organised by the League of American Wheelmen in the same period.

The book was published in a Kickstarter limited-edition in September 2014. Island Press of Washington, D.C. published a revised second-edition in April 2015.

Thanks to research grants and advertising support, text-only PDF chapters from the book are slowly being made available for free to read online. The free distribution model is being used in order to get the book seen by as many eyes as possible. The paid-for publications are richly illustrated; the free versions have had the pix stripped out and replaced with adverts.

To get notification of the paid-for and free publications subscribe to the (infrequent) email newsletter. See below or in the sidebars.

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MOTORISTS' FRONT OF JUDEA: Apart from the pneumatic tyre, ball bearings, differential gears, roads, motoring, car ads, and aviation, what have the cyclists ever done for us?

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