Sorry for making you fed up there and ironically by posting with the title "3 cyclists seriously unhurt in Hebden Bridge today!" only adds to the perceived problem as at first glance I read it as 'hurt', surely a more honest thread title would have been better.
Is this trend of posting incidents any less valuable than people endlessly posting their camera footage 'Look at meeee!', or endlessly starting RLJ threads, or any number of other threads than get repeated.
I actually agree with you in part and perhaps a solution would be to have an 'accidents' section away from the general section?
You do need to consider peoples reasons for posting, the 2 incidents I have posted are on routes shared with other cyclists who perhaps may wish to know to be aware of a potential blackspot.
Lastly 1 of the incidents I highlighted gives a location where a cyclist was attacked, robbed of his bike and has later died of of injuries. I for one would like to know of that if it was in an area I cycled.
Camera footage aside, I would argue such posts are of limited value in their raw form of 'cyclist down'. What can you actually tell from them. Often, initial reports are confused, there's a great deal of speculation but little else. A similiar comparison can be made of signs which tell us about the number of accidents on a road. There message is largely meaningless, as they don't tell us how, where or in what circumstances.
I know some people collate these incidents and publish them, that's far more useful.
Of course you can argue it's a chance for everyone to express their concern and sympathies. Such threads have anecdotally proved comforting to people but they are relatively few and generally confined to those active in online cycling communities.
I wouldn't say stop posting the threads but I would say or suggest to post them when what you know is more complete and there is something to learn, rather than just speculation. I don't recall your threads by the way so you might have done that anyway.
On a personal note, I rarely read beyond the OP if I do read. I do however read inquest report threads and threads on statistics of accidents. In the same way I rarely watch youtube clips if I can help it but am interested in the overall debate about cycling facilities. That's just me though, we are all different.
