Thread by @rooevans

"Don’t look ahead" - A Twitter production inspired by a film of a similar name - #dontLookAhead - in support of #ActiveTravel and the recent #HighwayCode confusion. Thread 🧵

Active Travel student Sarah makes an astonishing discovery that confirms the stories and R&D that Rachel, Peter etc. have been more accurate than The Highways Safety exec would care to admit.

The roads are dangerous because people are not able to see past the end of their bonnets.

Cars are convenience, easy and reliable. The people are captivated. Weekly competitions are held to see who can get the most done in the fewest steps.

Take the stairs, nah. The lift wins. Go out for lunch, nah. UberEats can drop the lunch by drone within five minutes of placing the order. Just enough time to ablute using the under desk personal hygiene gadget.

Sarah manages to meet the The country’s Active Travel Czar. Chris agrees, she’s right. It’s so obvious it adds massive power behind his message.

They take the message to the Minister for Transport. Grant agrees that something needs to be done, and then nothing.

Challenged on inaction, Grant responds. “We’ve assigned £2billion to the cycling and walking programme.” That’s 3% of our proposed spend between 2015 and 2021.

“Less than 1% of the population use bikes as transport. Where’s the underspend?”

“You’ve got to understand. We aren’t going to build a bridge across the river here because no-one is trying to swim across.”

“Nobody even likes swimming, it’s something you do for fun and recreation. If you think about it, it’s just a drain on the economy.”

Not to be deterred, Sarah finds Adam and together they highlight some of the advantages of choosing active travel over sedentary travel.

The madness of driving to the shop for milk when you could walk in 10 minutes. The ridiculousness of driving to school because it’s not safe due to all the other cars.

Slowly the general population starts to ride and walk. The spend on fuel lessens the drain on the NHS reduces as citizens become healthy by default.

Construction takes place to put in dedicated safe routes, place making, the roads become hospitable and quite frankly a real inconvenience to travel along by car.

“This is no good, I can’t drive where I want when I want. It’s taking longer, it must be taking longer for EVERYONE else. This is about my freedoms.” - the government need to be told. Start local, act global.

“Those cyclists and pedestrians don’t pay for our roads. Why should they have priority? It’s time for a petition. Why should I need to worry about what’s outside my safe space?” #dontLookAhead

“The petition isn’t working yet we’re the majority. What’s the next option?” Intimidation! #dontLookAhead

“The papers get it, they listened. Look at these wonderful articles and opinion pieces - why are people still insisting on cycling and walking and getting in my way?”

Slowly, day by day, Sarah, Peter, Rachel and Chris are joined by Jeremy, Mikey and an ever increasing team of people reclaiming their space. The cars continue with #dontLookAhead but no-one is really that stupid.

#dontLookAhead only works if the law changes to allow people to physically hurt others with a motorised weapon. That’s only justified in a state of war and even that’s questionable.

The fact is: There is no war on cars. The dossier of evidence has been misrepresented.

The mantra changes. #doLookAhead. Respect where respect is due. More road space through fewer unnecessary car journeys means that those that must drive, can.

From #dontLookAhead to #doLookAhead. Less congestion, lower air pollution, quieter and safer streets. A win for #activeTravel. Maybe one day we will learn….?

Fin! With apologies to: @SarahJ_Berry @RachelAldred @peterwalker99 @Chris_Boardman @theJeremyVine @MikeyCycling #activeTravel #forTheWin #dontLookAhead #doLookAhead 🧵👆👆

Thread continues here: #doh!

@SarahJ_Berry @RachelAldred @peterwalker99 @Chris_Boardman @theJeremyVine @MikeyCycling @threadreaderapp unroll