Ingenie

It was clearly unfortunate the way it appeared but not intentional on our part to back a campaign that proposed compulsory training and testing.

We were happy to be involved in a cycling safety campaign and understood that our support wouldn't necessarily reflect the opinions of ingenie. But this is not the way it ended up looking. They did not have permission to use our logo and we didn't have final sign off on the campaign as our involvement was intended to be pretty minor. That said, the first story we published reflected our point of view, which is why it didn't mention compulsory testing and probably why no-one commented on it until the flames got stoked the next day.

That said, there were still some important issues that were brought to light, the very fact that so many people in that survey thought cyclists should have compulsory training is noteworthy in itself. Maybe the survey was one sided, but maybe it did reflect the views of the general public.

On the one hand it makes sense for children: you wouldn't allow your kid on the roads without teaching them quite a bit about road safety. It makes some sense for adults too: lots of people still don't understand that riding up the inside of HGVs and buses is a bad idea. But preventing people from riding on the roads before they've passed a test? No way.

If we are asked for support for similar campaigns in future, we will be a lot more careful.