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What’s up Doc? impatience has its place
You don't have to be mad to work for MAG but it helps? Mad no, but a bit odd maybe. Well that's the way it seems to me as relative newcomer to the fold. But madness must not be ruled out. When push comes to shove there is a time and place for a bit of madness in the work that MAG needs to do – as far as I can see. First I will try to defend my line of thinking about the delights of working in the nation’s leading rider's rights group. Hopefully, that may limit the flow of accusations that I am talking tosh, or pitifully pious and pretentiously guff.
OK, so I admit to being enthusiastic to a fault at times when all I’m trying to do, is report what I do and the way I see things to those who may be interested and/or have a right to know. I am also guilty of being so keen to see progress for riders’ rights that I occasionally take a view of situations through rose tinted goggles. But, even I can see and accept that it may be difficult for each and every person who works for MAG in some way, to feel delighted to do so all of the time...
This may be especially so if one of the jobs you do involves marshaling for hours in the rain and mud – while trying to get happy campers to cough up a quid or two to keep the organisation going forwards. As it happens, some of the time I spend trying to get our points of view addressed by those who should, also falls short of being a complete delight. One example of this is when patience is required, as it’s better to stay calm and measured than blow a gasket – while trying to get vital action taken by the duplicitous drones who thwart progress for bikers whenever they can. Anyway, this is especially so when I have to fight off an angry urge to shout at influential naysayers in meetings where our views should be taken far more seriously than they would like. "You're talking utter bollocks mate!" I yearn to yell, when as a matter of demonstrable fact they are. But I try hard not to do that because it can easily make the people we need to influence walk away from a potentially useful discussion. Nevertheless, when I stop to think about it, I still enjoy the opportunities I have to try and improve conditions for UK riders on behalf of MAG. I also hope that everyone else who makes a contribution can do too – despite the odd snag like soggy garments around the nether regions or an unwelcome but necessary episode of tongue biting instead of a stress relieving shout. All this comes to mind as I realise that I have just begun my second year of work for MAG in the motorcycle policy-shaping field. Looking ahead, there seems to be a range of ways to go that might help spread the word we want heard, and get the action we want delivered. But when I
look back for a second or two, I'm not quite sure where 2010 went. Anyway, in my limited experience of working for MAG so far, there is one reason above all that makes me continue to enjoy it and feel privileged to be doing so. It is the knowledge that I am a small part of the most powerful and efficiently run team in the riders’ rights world. Having seen various campaign groups in action or in-action over the preceding years, I also see that getting mad occasionally, can provide a useful spur for vital action. A classic example of this happened the other night.
There I was, waiting for my turn to present a brief proposal to extend the current TfL trial of bikes in bus lanes throughout all the bus lane routes in the centre of London that are managed by Westminster City Council. A clear and in my case welcome guillotine time to end the meeting was set by the Cabinet member Chairman – who has proved himself capable of keeping these
"You're talking utter bollocks mate!" I yearn to yell . . .
meetings to such limits. The arena for this episode was the council's Road User Forum, which can of course be referred to as RUF, which I do with a flicker of amusement that occurs if you have a slightly juvenile sense of humour. Any road up, there I was sat opposite one of the most rabid anti-motorcycling members of London's hard-core cycling campaign groups. Two seats along from him was one of the council's highest ranking officers who has done a great job over the years to ignore calls for better response to riders' concerns – and is currently in full-on support of the pay-by- phone bike parking charges scheme that I and many others see as nothing but a new tax for bikers to use the public highway. There were 40 minutes left and three presentations to be made and discussed, two by council officers, with ours being last. The chair invited each rep to give a two line summary of their views of recent consultations on plans to
extend parking enforcement hours up to midnight, as just discussed. Half way round the table and the big cheese officer began a series of very earnest sounding one-to-one conversations. Did he really need to do that? Er, no. This was just a cunningly twisted way to filibuster. But it soon became clear that the normally efficient young chairman was not going to stop the time wasting. I stood it for at least ten minutes, then got mad. I swear I didn't shout but I did interrupt the old bruiser with a very audible ‘EXCUSE me!’ Which stopped him dead. But before he could start again the hush was filled with a reminder that we were supposed to be hearing two line summaries. "I was only trying to get details of individual views" he bleated. "You can do that privately, another time", I said bluntly. But some of the madness I felt about his sly time wasting was clearly shared by others who nodded. So he shut up and we got back to business. Our proposal to extend bike use of bus lanes was simple enough to explain fast. TfL's latest report shows that bikes emit up to five times fewer pollutants and use five times less fuel than comparable sized cars on the same commute. AND, when bikes can use bus lanes – they cut their emissions and fuel consumption by up to 10% more!
It was agreed that our idea should be taken forward and the filibusterer was told to arrange a meeting to do so. So, it seems that sometimes, a little madness helps...
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