Cyclecraft is "destroying" UK cycling

[blockend]

Is the inability to unite all cyclists the source of your bitterness ?

No, the death of cycling friends to motor traffic has coloured my view.

 

[Richard Mann]

No, the death of cycling friends to motor traffic has coloured my view.

Which is fair enough.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

bus lanes are public space. The bus is the great democratic vehicle. They are, for want of a better word, about sharing. They offer each and every one of us an efficient way of getting around town, regardless of who we are. Buses are the apotheosis of civilisation. To ride on a bus is to take part in the life of your town or city.

Perhaps we should stop abbreviating it and use the proper word: "omnibus".

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

That may seem an abstract argument, but the day-to-day manifestation of it is in the way that cyclists 'meet' with their surrounding and with other people. I don't have a problem with cyclists being in conflict with motor vehicles (provided the cyclist is the winner) but where cyclists meet pedestrians, or where they want 'stuff' that says 'this is our bit' the outcome is likely to be prejudicial to pedestrians (and wheelchair users) and the public nature of the space in which the 'stuff' is placed.

And here is just one example.

 

[dellzeqq]

And here is just one example.

that's pretty embarrassing! My pet hate is this one...

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

And here is just one example.

That wasn't me, I hasten to add!

 

[srw]

No, the death of cycling friends to motor traffic has coloured my view.

Which does explain quite a lot. But in fairness to the rest of us you ought to acknowledge that you are in a tiny minority with the same experience.

 

[blockend]

Which does explain quite a lot. But in fairness to the rest of us you ought to acknowledge that you are in a tiny minority with the same experience.

Three local cyclists killed in similar circumstances on a main road, a fourth close by? Tiny minority or not I resent my fully justified anger at such deaths being parodied as 'bitterness', though now it's been revealed as a sign of weakness I fully expect to be baited with the word continuously.

 

[srw]

Three local cyclists killed in similar circumstances on a main road, a fourth close by?

In the context of 100 or so cyclists per year killed nationwide, that's a very unusual cluster. It would also suggest there is something specific about that road which can't be generalised.

 

[blockend]

It's in a longer period than a year but I'm not going into detail, not least because these threads have a tendency to for someone to say the figures are quite good and we're lucky not to have more killed, in which case I'll be tempted to track down the f*cker and strangle them.

Suffice to say a microscopic number of cyclists brave the road and the chance of dying on it for those who do is very high indeed.

 

[srw]

It's in a longer period than a year but I'm not going into detail, not least because these threads have a tendency to for someone to say the figures are quite good and we're lucky not to have more killed, in which case I'll be tempted to track down the f*cker and strangle them.

Suffice to say a microscopic number of cyclists brave the road and the chance of dying on it for those who do is very high indeed.

Which rather confirms that there are specific local circumstances that can't be generalised to the rest of the country. Three on one road is a horrific statistic, and it would be more useful to find out why that road is bad than try and extrapolate to the other tens of thousands of roads in the country. Without knowing which road you're talking about, or even what part of the country, it's impossible to progress.

 

[Red Light]

Perhaps we should stop abbreviating it and use the proper word: "omnibus".

Is that the one to Clapham only I hear they need a male passenger?

 

[blockend]

Without knowing which road you're talking about, or even what part of the country, it's impossible to progress.

Well I'm not going to name names as I don't believe in opening old wounds on a public forum and the latest case is still proceeding, but it's a typical racetrack, high volume dual carriageway of precisely the kind I'm suggesting needs a cycling alternative.

 

[Red Light]

Which does explain quite a lot. But in fairness to the rest of us you ought to acknowledge that you are in a tiny minority with the same experience.

A very tiny minority and comparable or smaller than the minority that is lottery winners. While the desires are understandable in such minorities its usually very dangerous to let the very exceptional circumstance dictate general policy. Otherwise you end up with meteor proof roofs in the Building Standards and the National Lottery as a poverty eradication policy.

I can understand why blockend might want a segregated cycle path alongside that particular road but that does not make it a good idea to put one alongside all such roads.

 

[Mad at urage]

It's in a longer period than a year but I'm not going into detail, not least because these threads have a tendency to for someone to say the figures are quite good and we're lucky not to have more killed, in which case I'll be tempted to track down the f*cker and strangle them.

Suffice to say a microscopic number of cyclists brave the road and the chance of dying on it for those who do is very high indeed.

Your personal involvement in tragic circumstances has my sympathy, but you are using it to colour a national picture in ways that don't stand up to reality.

Not the place I'd like to take the statisics from, but it's the easiest place to find them (lets be selective about what discussion areas we take from the link, lest this thread is put into a sub-forum of its own ): http://cyclehelmets.org/1199.html
"It is often thought that cycling must be dangerous because cyclists are unprotected road users sharing space with motor traffic. This view has long been justified by data showing that, for example, in Great Britain the fatality rate per 100 million kilometres is, on average, 12 times greater for cyclists than for motorists ."

"During the 1980s, the UK Transport and Road Research Laboratory (TRRL) carried out a comprehensive study of risk for all road users in Great Britain [3]. It noted that relative risk between different classes of road user depended on the basis for comparison. One could consider the risk per kilometre travelled, the risk per hour of travel, the risk per average trip, or the risk per year. These various methods yielded greatly differing results.

Comparison by risk per kilometre strongly favoured the traditional view that the motor car was much safer than either cycling or walking. Pedestrians had the highest fatality rate per 100 million kilometres, followed by cyclists, with drivers having a rate almost twenty times less than for pedestrians.

In contrast, the risk of fatality per year showed very little difference amongst the road users, although pedestrian risk was lower than for cyclists and drivers. This disparity may be explained by the fact that drivers are much more mobile than pedestrians and cyclists. A driver might well enjoy one twelfth the fatality rate per mile of a cyclist, but a cyclist only covers one twelfth the distance per year, so the accumulated risk per year is about the same. The TRRL research would have provided valuable guidance for an understanding of cyclist safety, but it was never published. Its conclusions remained unheard, and the safety debate uninformed..

If risk assessment is to be meaningful, the most appropriate basis for comparison must be chosen. The risk per hour of use is recommended. The justification is as follows. Long term monitoring of personal travel by the UK National Transport Survey and other international evidence [4] shows that the time spent in daily travel is fairly constant over time, at about 1.2 hours per capita per day. The main reason why national mileage travelled has increased over time, with consequences for traffic congestion, is that car ownership has steadily increased. It is not because the overall time spent travelling by the population has increased since the 1970s.

If we are to consider people changing from motorised travel to walking and cycling (to benefit public health, reduce road danger and oil dependency) then we should not expect much change in the time spent travelling. Rather, the overall mobility of the population would reduce. The implications for road safety would then be best evaluated by considering risk per hour of travel in walking and cycling – and, further, the risk per hour of imposing death or serious injury on third parties.

When assessing risk, it is also important to recognise that pedestrians, cyclists and motorists are different sub-populations within an overall national population. For instance, in Britain, the average age of serious cyclist casualties is 23-25 years, whilst the average age of serious motorist casualties is 35 years. In addition, cycling in Britain is dominated by teenage boys and young men, the most injury-prone groups of all road users. Thus the aggregate risk calculated for cyclists will be heavily loaded by these risk factors. A higher average risk for cyclists viz-a-viz motorists does not mean that cycling is really more dangerous than driving when a like-for-like comparison is made.

Two studies have sought to pull together international data to make a comparison of risk in walking, cycling and motoring [5] [6]. Both of these studies have found that pedestrians face higher risks per distance travelled than cyclists.

Wardlaw [5] noted that on a risk per hour basis, the comparison of risk between cyclists and motorists gave greatly varying results depending on the country in question. For instance, cycling is safer per hour than motoring in France, but the reverse is true in Britain. This is interesting because French cyclists share road space with motor traffic just as in Britain. The very different outcome could be related to the greater popularity and social profile of cycling in France, the greater involvement of experienced adults in cycling, and legal presumption – in France, a motorist is presumed culpable in a collision with a cyclist.

Krag [6] analysed the severity of injury of road users admitted to hospital in Odense, Denmark following road accidents. The analysis showed that cyclists were generally less gravely injured than other road users and were detained for less time in hospital. For instance, the average periods of detention in hospital were:
Pedestrian 3.2 days
Cyclist 0.5 days
Motor vehicle occupant 1.0 days

The percentage of more serious admissions, with AIS scores of 3 or more, were:
Pedestrian 9%
Cyclist 3%
Motor vehicle occupant 4%"

"These data contradict the often stated carricature that cyclists are at special risk. Pedestrians are, indeed, vulnerable road users, but there is no factual justification for the view that cyclists face similar risks. The term 'vulnerable' is often used casually, without being defined or justified by factual information."

I've highlighted some of the important bits. The underlined bit shows why making long cycle journeys easier isn't going to increase cycle modal share. Making cycle journeys as potentially quick as a car journey is. This can only be effectively done where journeys are relatively short (but that relatively can vary: When I was in London, I could cycle up to 15 miles at least as quickly as I could drive the same distance - depending on where I was going). This is why people concentrate efforts to increase cycling on the towns and cities.

The bolded bits show that cyclists are not the ones taking the highest risk on our (i.e. GB's) motor-centric roads, pedestrians are: Both walking and cycling can be increased for the public health and road safety benefits. We either improve things for both groups, or fail (to protect people).

The Danish results per kilometer show what can be achieved and cyclists disproportionally benefiting if we get to their levels. Although they have to be treated carefully, as they are in no way directly comparable to the KSI statistics gathered in GB.