Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Give a beep — an initiative to help improving London cycling safety

My name is Merlin.

I’m eleven years old and I love biking.

At the moment I’m practising cycling to school alone.

I feel safe in my neighborhood but I would never go to central London with my bike.

Particularly the last sort of five years, we’ve seen the number of cyclists have probably tripled.

And a lot of those are inexperienced cyclists who are not aware of the dangers of going down the side of lorries,

down the side of busses or opening doors and things like that.

You just don’t not where they’re going to come.

They come behind you, they wizz across you.

I look at it, and you know, it makes me nervous.

I believe people should travel and be aware.

If there’s something wrong

or if they find something unsafe,

write to your local council.

Do your thing because it’s the world we create for ourselves.

People do have to give a beep,

because we can not continue the way we are.

We have massive obesity problems in this country, diabetes, pollution, congestion.

And all those things through inactivity.

And cycling is joyous.

It’s absolutely freedom.

The give a beep initiative helps people to channel their frustration as well as bringing us together.

It’s important that all of us who cycle,

or wish to be able to cycle,

work together in order to turn this situation around.

United as a strong force we can encourage the Mayor to act faster in transforming London

into the cycle friendly city we deserve.

Okay, so this is a flic.

I’m supposed to press this when I feel scared or frustrated.

That’s when I give a beep.

When I give a beep, a message will be sent to the Mayor.

Because he needs to start giving a beep too.