Are cyclists a menace on a similar scale to street drinking and graffiti? Birmingham city council certainly seems to think so. It has recently proposed adding them to its list of antisocial activities prohibited under the umbrella of so-called public spaces protection orders, joining a number of other councils that have recently tried to restrict cyclists from using pedestrianised city centre streets. It just goes to show that Labour politicians can get it almost as wrong on cycling as their Conservative counterparts.

The primary reason Birmingham has given for banning bikes from parts of the city centre are the risks that inevitably come from pedestrians sharing space with rapidly moving delivery bikes. Almost any city dweller will have at least one story of being forced to leap out of the way of a heavily laden Deliveroo or Uber Eats bike weaving around at a good 30mph down a narrow street, sometimes even on the pavement. This is a menace, correct?

Well, yes, even if the laws of physics dictate that a small car going at a roughly similar speed, let alone an SUV, would be many times more deadly. But this is to almost entirely miss the point. What the councillors of Birmingham and other cities have failed to realise is that this is not a........

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