James May says driving in London feels like a “totally pointless activity” and that cars don’t belong in towns and cities.
The former co-host of Top Gear and The Grand Tour said he “hates” driving in the capital and added: “It amazes me that people go to the shops a mile away in the car.”
He suggested turning Hammersmith bridge – which is only open to cyclists and pedestrians due to the cost of restoration – into a vehicle-free crossing like Ponte Vecchio in Florence.
In an interview for the London Cycling Campaign’s magazine, he also suggested that cycling campaigners should be “more humorous” – and less “po-faced”.
He said: “It’s a joy to ride a bicycle. It’s free at the point of use, there’s no admin, there’s something very child-like about it — it makes me feel about eight years old.”
May, who now fronts his own TV show, James May and the Dull Men’s Club, has more than 25 bikes – including a number he has built himself.
Asked about cars in cities, he said: “I hate driving in London. I always have. I avoid it. It feels like a totally pointless activity. And it spoils cars for me. It makes them boring and annoying.
“Obviously I’ve spent a lot of time over the years writing about cars and making TV about them, and I love cars, but I do think in my bones they don’t really belong in towns.”
Hammersmith bridge has been closed to vehicles since 2019. “If they ever finish mending it, I don’t see why Hammersmith Bridge shouldn’t also have some shrubbery, some benches, a few little cafés and hotdog stands,” he said.
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He denied feeling responsible for promoting the overuse of cars but said they had to be driven with “a great deal of care and discretion”.
He said: “People get very complacent driving cars, because it’s easy, and you are very protected and you’re very isolated inside your car. It’s easy to forget that there’s a huge amount of energy inside a car, even when it’s only going 20 or 30mph.
“I saw a bloke the other day driving a Ferrari around town very aggressively, and I wanted to say, ‘You’re going to ruin cars (and especially Ferraris) for the rest of us’.
“It’s a massive privilege having a car and you have to take it seriously. That’s why my only remaining ambition, apart from not falling off my bike again, is to get to the end of my life without running anybody over.”
If he were mayor for the day, he’d address the perennial problem of roadworks that were not being worked on – by requiring the managing director of the utility firm responsible to “hand £10 each to every driver and cyclist and bus passenger that goes past”. He added: “That’s their incentive to get on with it.”
He rounded on the “sheer bloody-mindedness” of cycling opponents, and rounded on Kensington & Chelsea Council in relation to its refusal to retain segregated cycle lanes in Kensington High Street
“There’s plenty of space,” he said. “Big wide roads. Why are they being tw*ts about it?”
He added: “The thing that really bothers me is road sectarianism. Quite a few people in cars seem to be somehow offended by people riding bicycles because they’ve paid all this money for a car and think therefore they should be rewarded for it, but often they’re just not using the car very intelligently.”
