Drivers, what is going on?

[Bollo]

A useful report, but annoyingly from a skim through appears to be missing the stats that actually matter.

View attachment 417821
This chart shows a steady decrease in deaths and incidents since the early 1980s until around 10yrs ago when slight & serious incidents began to rise. This may not be a relevant increase as the amount on cycling (traffic) appears to rise too, although this line does hint at a worrying trend....

View attachment 417822

So from this data what can we conclude? Unless I am mistaken, the death/incident data is taken from a change in the 'actual' occurrence figures rather than the rate of events? This makes the data difficult to evaluate as it appears to be set against a varying level of 'traffic' whether this be miles ridden or hours spent riding?

A more useful figure, and one that may be more indicative of an individuals actual risk, would be the deaths/incidents per mile or hour. This is used here, but only for a single defined period rather than year on year....

View attachment 417826

Fortunately, the data I want does appear to be included in the report and when I have some spare time later I am going to mess around graphing it in a way that might help reveal if things are getting better/worse for an individual cyclist.

Please don’t think I was having a pop at you @I like Skol and I’ll confess I just gave it a quick read through before heading out for a (perfectly agreeable) ride. My grizzle was aimed more at some of the more unpleasant prejudices rearing their heads upthread with zero actual evidence.

Ive had two collisions in ten years, with the one last year by far the more serious. But on the whole I feel as though the driving, locally at least, is improving around cyclists. That’s my own perception and I could understand how different regions, experiences, riding habits and biases could change that perception.

 

[Drago]

Have you got any better sources?

Not in the cheek where my tongue was, no.

 

[I like Skol]

Not in the cheek where my tongue was, no.

I didn't think so

 

[Brandane]

To sum up - the reason why driving standards is getting worse is because Britain (in particular) and the world (in general) is now populated by a shower of self obsessed, ignorant, selfish pratts. "I'm in a hurry, and I'm more important than you" seems to be the general attitude. It's not just in driving, either, sadly.

 

[screenman]

To sum up - the reason why driving standards is getting worse is because Britain (in particular) and the world (in general) is now populated by a shower of self obsessed, ignorant, selfish pratts. "I'm in a hurry, and I'm more important than you" seems to be the general attitude. It's not just in driving, either, sadly.

Does that stand for all of us on here? I suppose it must do.

 

[Brandane]

Does that stand for all of us on here? I suppose it must do.

Not all; but since the membership on here comes from the general population, then there are bound to be some. I've certainly seen posts which give that impression.

 

[boydj]

I have to say that I notice poor driving much more when I'm in my car than when I'm on the bike. The general standard of driving is poor, with speeding and tailgating a particular problem.

But, it's my impression that driving around cyclists has definitely improved since I first started commuting regularly by bike about 15 years ago. I know that some of that is down to me cycling more assertively and controlling my road space more effectively as I gained experience, but I also think that there are more cyclists about and drivers have learned how to drive round them. That's not to say there are still plenty of incompetents and bullies driving around and I'll usually see a handful of them every week.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Got any evidence to back that up? Or is this just a general bigoted post?

What next? ‘They’ all look the same?

I know of two different incidents where it was being done on an organised basis, with "ringers" being submitted to sit the test in place of the real candidate in return for money. A large number of illicit "drivers" were put through the system and there were prosecutions of those involved.
Remember, half of these "drivers" originate from places where corruption in public life is the norm, so they probably won't have ever passed a legit driving test anywhere, just paid backhanders to obtain a licence.
You only have to go to certain towns, to witness that the standard of driving is simply not compatible to anywhere with a properly regulated licencing system. There's loads of people who are only on the road in the UK because fraud is being committed and licences are being bought by those whose driving is too terrible to ever pass a real test themselves.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Not in the cheek where my tongue was, no.

Arse

 

[Drago]

I've come across half a dozen of so blokes using the same licence. You'd have thought they'd have rigged the photo might cause a problem when a copper asked to see the licence, but apparently they didn't. One of them, and not the actual legit owner of the licence, even managed to get a private hire licence.

 

[Drago]

Croydon?

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I know of two different incidents where it was being done on an organised basis, with "ringers" being submitted to sit the test in place of the real candidate in return for money. A large number of illicit "drivers" were put through the system and there were prosecutions of those involved.
Remember, half of these "drivers" originate from places where corruption in public life is the norm, so they probably won't have ever passed a legit driving test anywhere, just paid backhanders to obtain a licence.
You only have to go to certain towns, to witness that the standard of driving is simply not compatible to anywhere with a properly regulated licencing system. There's loads of people who are only on the road in the UK because fraud is being committed and licences are being bought by those whose driving is too terrible to ever pass a real test themselves.

I've come across half a dozen of so blokes using the same licence. You'd have thought they'd have rigged the photo might cause a problem when a copper asked to see the licence, but apparently they didn't. One of them, and not the actual legit owner of the licence, even managed to get a private hire licence.

So who are these drivers then? Where does the half that you suggest “originate from places where corruption in public life is the norm, so they probably won't have ever passed a legit driving test anywhere, just paid backhanders to obtain a licence“ come from?

Yes @SkipdiverJohn no doubt there are instances in the UK of fake driving licences, obtained with the gift of a bottle or two
I really doubt though that the practice is so widespread in the UK that those drivers are everywhere, trying to run us cyclist over at every turn.
Most instances, imo, are pure incompetence, or a sense of self entitlement, or mobile phone use while driving or a combination of all of those.

@Drago, what Police?? Where is it? On the bikes along the canal patrolling the drunks, ok, fair, but who's going to stop WVMan or Taxi Man speeding in a 20mph zone, beeping me off the road?
I love seeing the Police about, sadly, there are not enough of them.

@User you don't have to go to another continent to find fake licences: I come from Italy, yes, you could buy a driving licence there if you have the connections and the money.
Yes, there are some foreigner drivers in the UK that drive on an invalid (for the UK) licence, some of them even drive better than if they had passed a test here, but, still, their licence is invalid.
To be clear, I refer to Italians, Cypriots, various Europeans, that I have met and had admitted to me of never passing a UK driving test.
Yes, some of them could have obtained their original licence by bribery, or not have one at all.
All in all, I would guess, they are a minuscule part of the overall amount of drivers, I don't think we can consider them the cause of widespread bad driving.

 

[Drago]

Aye Miss Pat, when I were in the dibble. Maybe 2005 or so. Pure and utter chance. I wrote 2 x producers for different drivers a few days apart, and each produced the same licence. They might have got away with it but by a further stroke of luck they each produced the licence to the same eagle eyed front desk clerk within a day or two of each other. The clerk noticed as she filled in the book that the driver number was identical to the one above, and blew the whistle. A manual check of records going back a while found 6 or 7 different people had produced it over the course of the year, and one of those was a private hire driver. Doubtless there were others who never got stopped at the roadside, so never got their collars felt for deception plus motoring offences.

I doubt they'd get away with it very long now with computerised records at cop shops.

 

[Drago]

They were all blokes. Some had moustaches. Different heights. It's fair to say none of them were called Dave, Keith or Brian.

In fact, let's not beat about the bush, they were all foreign chaps, but I don't suppose for a moment that had anything to do with their propensity for criminality. Im quite sure that British folk have pulled the same wheeze and gotten away with it.

 

[swansonj]

Aye Miss Pat, when I were in the dibble. Maybe 2005 or so. Pure and utter chance. I wrote 2 x producers for different drivers a few days apart, and each produced the same licence. They might have got away with it but by a further stroke of luck they each produced the licence to the same eagle eyed front desk clerk within a day or two of each other. The clerk noticed as she filled in the book that the driver number was identical to the one above, and blew the whistle. A manual check of records going back a while found 6 or 7 different people had produced it over the course of the year, and one of those was a private hire driver. Doubtless there were others who never got stopped at the roadside, so never got their collars felt for deception plus motoring offences.

I doubt they'd get away with it very long now with computerised records at cop shops.

Why were you giving them producers?

Would I be correct in guessing that there was something dodgy going on? In other words, their criminality was not confined to the licence issue?

That’s quite important, otherwise someone might go away with the idea that people stopped randomly are quite likely to be involved in licence impersonation.