Interviewing LCC and MCN

As a journalism student, I often practice putting together interviews and radio packages. One of my recent radio packages was on the 'motorbike's in bus lanes' story.

This is the news that Boris Johnson has announced that from the 5th of January this year, motorbikes will be allowed to use all London bus lanes as part of an 18 month trial.

I have already blogged about the news before, so if you want to read what I said on the story you can click here.

London Cycling Campaign

As part of the news package, I wanted to make sure I got the arguement from both sides of the debate.

I called London Cycling Campaign, who are against the trial as they believe there is no evidence to suggest it will be safer or reduce congestion, and spoke to Charlie Lloyd.

He told me, among other things, that there was evidence to suggest the scheme would have no significant impact on the safety issues for any road users.

Charlie Lloyd has written about the LCC's opposition to motorbikes in bus lanes on the bikerforum website.

On it he says that previous testing suggested that "any benefit to motorcyclists might be outweighed by increased risk to pedestrians and cyclists".

Motorcycle News

In order to get a balanced view of the arguement, I also rang Motorcycle News, who campaigned for Boris to release a date for the trial to begin.

The mayor released the date of the 5th January 2009 before the petition was handed to him - though they did manage to collect 3,900 signatures.

I spoke to Steve Farrell at MCN, who told me that there would be many benefits to both motorcyclists and other road users.

It would mean bikers could travel without the fear of being caught by cars who aren't looking for motorbikes while filtering, and the road would be freed up for car drivers and other motorists.

It may even encourage more people to get on a bike, therefore reducing the amount of congestion on the roads of London.

Interviews

Obviously I had a bit of a bias on the story, being a biker living in London myself. However I tried to make sure this wasn't evident.

I have uploaded the package on the story below. Both interviews have been cut to fit within the two minute maximum.

Any feedback on whether the package works well and is interesting would be much appreciated!

Until I work out how to insert audio, click here for the interviews