‘Baseball bat’ van stickers incite violence against cyclists
A Stevenage business has been reported to the police for operating a van sporting stickers that appear to incite violence against cyclists. One of the stickers reads “Avoid serious injury, stay away from my van!” and includes a graphic of a cyclist being attacked with a baseball bat. The other sticker reads “Stay wider of the driver”.
Yellow “cyclists stay back” stickers have caused controversy in the last couple of years, and were originally introduced by Transport for London, and meant to be placed only on buses. The stickers soon migrated to other vehicles, including HGVs, vans and cars.
The stickers used by the Stevenage business are probably commercially available. An “Avoid serious injury, stay away from my bike!” sticker – using the same graphic as the van sticker – is available from a retailer on Etsy.com.
The “Stay wider of the driver” sticker is a (non-sensical) pastiche of the “Stay wider of the rider” concept, popular in Australia and South Africa.
The van was spotted in Letchworth by freelance photographer Trevor Coultart. “I drove past it parked and did two u-turns to get the photo,” he told BikeBiz, asking “Is it incitement to violence? Threatening behaviour?”
