LANING LIFE

by Lauren Eaton

The Dark Side of Laning - Social Misery

GLASS spends its time fighting for our rights to drive unsurfaced public roads. “That’s not news!” I hear you say, but it seems to have been forgotten in a mire of negative and unfounded accusations that constantly proliferate social media.

Love GLASS or loath it, bash it or support it, the work our volunteer reps do benefits everyone who drive green lanes; who else is there to do it for 4x4 drivers? Motorcyclists have the TRF who do a stellar job for their community, and 4x4 drivers have GLASS. Without these organisations it is no exaggeration to say we wouldn’t have the hobby we have today.

Volunteer to take the flack

Our reps are all volunteers. Not only do they not get paid, but they also pay to be members. We do offer a discount, but most do not take it, many donate on top!

The role comes with a requirement to drive a 4x4 and all the costs involved in doing so. If lanes need checking, fixing or repairing, if there are meetings to go to, signs to put up, or councils to visit, then reps have to give up their free time and fill their tanks to get there.

Many, in fact most, volunteer the use of their own tools, and many carry all sorts of gear that most laners won’t think of packing let alone owning.

Reps stand up in rooms full of antis, stakeholders who wish to see the lane in question closed or green laning banned completely. They stand up to people with authority over our public roads, people who do not have any requirement to listen to us, and make them listen. If they don’t listen then legal action may be the next step.

They do this in their own free time, on top of jobs, families, and life in general, and they do so because they know if they don’t then no one else will, and that lanes will be lost.

The law

It would be pertinent to add, or rather repeat as this is something I say so often I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve typed it, that GLASS has no authority over public roads.

Local authorities manage them, and have total authority when it comes to maintenance and any imposed restrictions, including Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs), Public Space Protection Orders (PSPOs), width and height restrictions, and permit schemes.

We cannot force LAs to do anything, except their legal duty to maintain them, but even that can lead to a costly legal battle.

Councils do not have to listen to us, they do not have to act on letters of opposition, they merely have to provide a way for users to make their opinions known and acknowledge those opinions. What they do with them is completely up to them!

To state that GLASS imposed anything, let alone a permit scheme on a public road, is ludicrous and not possible in law!

Please feel free to check this fact, in fact we’d love it if more people would!

Social misery

It’s been hard to miss the constant vitriol peddled on social media recently. Ramsden Road seems to have attracted more than most cases ever have.

The most obvious question, to me at least, is why would, or should, GLASS or Kirklees Council want to include those who spend their time (seemingly all of it) hating on anyone but their hate-group admins who incite this venomous tirade?

I can’t answer that for Kirklees, but I can tell you GLASS does because it believes wholeheartedly in access for all. But our job to secure that is becoming more difficult by the day! Us vs them

The reason Ramsden Road, and many others, are under threat is because green laners are touted as anti-social bullies by the antis. Sadly a section of our community is providing evidence that some are exactly that, and all while GLASS is trying to argue that we are not!

Can people not see how damaging this is to our community?

Most can, but those who can’t continue to shout louder and longer than the majority. Sadly as they say “the empty vessel makes the most noise”.

Imagine being in a meeting with decision makers, or in a press interview, faced by the usual 'off-roading louts/yobs/bullies!' type comments, only to stand up in support of your community, then to be shown evidence of the foul posts circulating online.

How would you respond?

There is no comeback to this. A section of our community proves themselves to be everything the antis think we ALL are day in and day out. We simply have to admit it and show how we continue to tackle that unfortunate section of our community.

This is not fair on the vast majority of laners who are responsible and respectful human beings. It is those who appear more willing to hate, than to support their own community, who spam social media with behaviour that colours us all as 'yobs' in the eyes of those looking in at us all, and the amount of yobbishness online is starting to drown the positive achievements and responsible laners out.

Us vs Them

Why would a group called something along the lines of “Keep our lanes open”, or any organisation pertaining to be supportive of laning, wish to behave in a way that would negatively affect the lanes they themselves profess to want to save?

I can’t answer that, but I can say that the hate-groups, and some that profess to be responsible groups, are proving that their behaviour has nothing to do with saving lanes, it is about 'winning' over GLASS, irrespective of what that means for laning long term.

The thing is GLASS isn’t in competition with anyone who wishes to keep lanes open. The only time we want to win is during negotiations or legal action against those who want to close them.

There have been numerous posts over the last couple of weeks with eye-catching headlines such as “Win over GLASS members!”. These posts then go on to explain the permit scheme on Ramsden Road is now open to all. Why would that be a win over GLASS or its members? That’s what we wanted all along (see June’s column).

This is a win for all laners and access for all, why spin it into something negative by turning it into ammunition for hate?

Unintended consequences

But while all that negativity is as true as it is harmful, there are some benefits to this ongoing rhetoric. Stakeholders are on social media, and while some will use the disgusting behaviour to further their own antilaning rhetoric, others bring the matter up in a very different way.

When I arrived at a project recently I called the landowner to announce my arrival. The farmer and his wife appeared a few minutes later, but instead of launching into the task at hand they mentioned the social media witch hunt that was happening online at the time.

These landowners were not particularly big fans of laning, they tolerated me and my rep team because we helped them fix problems, but they’d much prefer if the lane that passes through their land was closed.

After seeing the vile behaviour online aimed at us they were genuinely concerned. We spent half an hour discussing it, and we were told that if we needed time out we were always welcome at the farm and the kettle would be on.

Since then we’ve become almost friends, I check up on them and they do the same for me and ask about the rest of the team.

This is only one example of many, and there are examples within our community too. Every time the haters begin another unnecessary battle our membership rises, readership of this magazine (and others) increases, and messages of support flood in.

This is great!

But is it enough?

The future…

I’m not going to wrap anything in cotton wool, the future of laning is an unknown, but we know it will be a challenge.

Even without the antis we have threats from all sides - the move towards electric vehicles, the dwindling budgets of local authorities and the increasing penalties imposed on vehicle owners used to dissuade them from driving them at all such as taxes, charges, increased fuel prices…

We have enough to worry about, the last thing we need is our own community standing against us!

While GLASS are aware of the big social and political threats to our hobby, and will be discussing them all very soon while formulating our plan for the next five years, the biggest problem laning faces right now here today is the fractured community we represent.

It is far easier to fight legal battles than it is social ones. A court must consider facts, but a bitter person online only listens to what they want to hear.

No amount of educating, or reasoning, will change the mind of someone hell bent on destroying someone they’ve never met, or an organisation they have absolutely no personal experience of. No amount of lanes lost will make them stand up and use their energy on actually helping to save them either. Remember that empty vessel analogy from earlier?

I’ll leave you to wonder what these vocal types would do to address these issues themselves if they ever managed to “take down GLASS”, and get on with ignoring Facebook and doing some real work with my fellow reps.

That’s all from me this month folks!

Happy laning!

Lauren x