More cyclists killed or hurt on the roads
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Independent Minds
The number of people killed or seriously injured when cycling on Britain’s roads rose dramatically over the spring, new figures have revealed, with the demand for cheap transport during the recession likely to be a key factor.
Statistics published by the Department for Transport (DfT) today showed that 820 cyclists either died or were seriously injured between April and June this year, a 19 per cent rise on the same period in 2008. The number of less severe injuries also rose by almost 10 per cent.
Road safety groups said that the recession had sparked an increased interest in cycling, as rising numbers of people – many of them inexperienced cyclists – sought to save money by commuting to and from work on a bike instead of using public transport.
Duncan Vernon, road safety manager at the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, said the rising number of casualties “might be indicative of a longer-term trend, reflecting for instance a recession-influenced shift in modes of transport.” But he added that it was difficult to draw conclusions from quarterly figures.
In 2007, a Transport for London report said that female cyclists were more likely to be killed by lorries because, unlike men, they tended to obey red lights and wait at junctions in the driver’s blind spot, putting them in danger. In the first half of this year, six women were killed after being hit by lorries in London, an unusually high proportion.
Today's figures also showed a rise in the number of motorcyclist casualties, with those killed or seriously injured rising by 5 per cent and lesser injuries increasing by 2 per cent. But overall, the number of people who died on the roads in the second quarter of 2009 was 580, a slight reduction on last year’s total of 586.
The biggest fall in casualties was among child pedestrians, with the number of people killed or seriously injured falling by 8 per cent and total casualties by 9 per cent. The total number of pedestrian casualties including adults also fell by 5 per cent.
Andrew Howard, the AA’s head of road safety, said the rise in cyclist and motorcyclist casualties could be put down to “the effects of the recession and differences in the weather”.
But he added: “It is clear that there are some new patterns in accidents occurring – for example, the six lady cyclists killed in London in collisions with goods vehicles in the first half of the year – and that the road safety world needs to make sure that it identifies and acts to remedy these emerging patterns quickly.”
A DfT spokesperson said: “Provisional estimates for a single three-month period should not be taken in isolation, and the number of cyclists killed or seriously injured on the roads each year has fallen by 31 per cent since the mid-1990s.
“However, we take road safety extremely seriously and are working to improve safety for cyclists in a number of ways, including investing in the provision of cycle training and planning to encourage local authorities to introduce more 20mph zones in residential areas and around schools.”
Charlie Lloyd of the London Cycling Campaign, which promotes cycling in the capital, said the sudden rise in the number of cycling deaths merely reflected the fact that many more people are now using bikes to get around.
“In London, we’ve seen a massive increase in cycling over the last seven or eight years, and we’re absolutely certain it’s taking off across the country
too,” he said. “The recession could well be a factor in that – we know that bike sales are booming. We think that if these figures were measured against the rising numbers of people cycling on the roads, you might actually see an improvement in accidents per cyclist.”
The DfT also published provisional road traffic figures yesterday, which showed a very slight increase in the amount of vehicles on the country’s roads compared with last year. Car traffic increased by 1 per cent compared with summer 2008, light van traffic rose by 3 per cent and heavy goods vehicle traffic fell by 7 per cent. Traffic
on motorways increased by 1 per cent, as did the traffic levels on rural and urban A-roads.
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Comments
Read about it here:
http://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.as
and
Report any and all such incidents here:
http://www.stop-smidsy.org.uk/
Truth is, even if everyone had working lights, there would still be large number of injuries, and there'd be a lot of fed up motorists - wondering what they could winge about to take their minds off the truly awful process of having to drive.
Take the plunge! Move/change your job so your journey is easier.
As for most cyclists not riding at night, no-one changes their travel habits just because the nights are drawing in, and funnily enough I don't find 'experienced' cyclists without lights any easier to spot than beginners.
Oh and one last thing - is the '18' in your username your age? If so, you might want to reflect that night vision decreases with age - in dark adapted conditions the retina of an elderly driver will receive one-sixteenth of the light that yours does. You can add reduced contrast sensitivity to that as well. That's normal aging process, I'm not talking about specific conditions like night blindness or night myopia. You want to know how an older driver sees, just scratch up a pair of old sunglasses with a pot scourer and wear them out tonight.
However, there seems to be an unnecessary about of aggression towards cyclists, especially from pedestrians, who incidentally, are the ones crossing on reds when there's no traffic, forcing me to brake when it's my green. If I dare to ring my bell - as a warning, I am often sworn at/ignored where a simple apology and acknowledgement would do just fine. This is particularly annoying as it happens regularly, and it is also dangerous! If I hit them, it's likely that we'll both be badly hurt.
So, less of the cycle hating bile, give us a break, the majority of us are conscientious.
To answer your question about the amount of pedestrian deaths caused by cyclists riding on pavements in the last decade - 2
So, we (cyclists) are not the problem, we're part of the solution, just make better rules and fine people if they behave badly on the road. If we want to be taken seriously by other road users we need to be answerable to the same laws. And that includes me. (damn)
But the government doesn't want to spend any money on it.
The solution? Separate cycling paths with a dividing kerb between them and motor traffic. That's what they have in some European cities.
Motor traffic will respect cycle paths as much as they would respect pavements without a kerb, i.e. not at all.
Blaming moronic cyclists or drivers is not the answer.
Build kerbed cycle paths to get the transformation.
I was very impressed with the provisions in Copenhagen, for example.
Here in China people are dumping bikes and buying cars I am glad the opposite is happening in the UK. At the end of the day it is healthy, cheap and clean. Common sense.
And we as a society really should be making more of an effort to make cycling more practical. Many cities seem to be starting to talk about improvements but they also need to remember those in the countryside, small towns, etc. who are largely forgotten when it comes to anything to encourage cycling and making it safer.
All this money going to decidedly unworthy causes and not enough going to something that has so many benefits (health, lower car use, etc., etc.).
Message to London Boroughs:
Painting stripes and a picture of a bicycle on the tarmac is not creating a cycle-path; it's just painting tarmac.
I too would use the bike more if I had a seperate strip of road to cycle on. Nothing scares me more that seeing a 50 tonne truck (exageration I know) next to me.
As you rightly say, painting a white stripe on tarmac is simply that. Here in the UK, everything is done on the cheap and cheerful. This will not help our cause.
Putting pedestrians and cyclists on shared paths is at best a pain, but mostly it's dangerous and inconvenient. It breaks a road into lots of small stops and starts, and forces cyclists to cross the road at junctions unnecessarily. It slows cyclists down, having to deal with meandering pedestrians, and it puts pedestrians at risk too.
Blinking lights are more visible than static ones. I have two lights on the back of my bike. One flashes, one is static.
Ride confidently. Don't ride too close to the kerb. Ride as far from the kerb as you want any car overtaking you to be. Go closer and the cars overtake closer to you.
'More' cycle lanes aren't the answer either. We need to learn how to design cycle lanes first, before we add them willy-nilly. It's not just a case of slapping down a white line and a bit of green tarmac. I'd rather no cycle lane than a bad one, but to have an accident that's not my fault, on a road where there is a dangerous cycle path would put me at risk of losing a claim against a driver's insurance.
I'm a driver, a cyclist and a pedestrian. Most cyclists also drive, something that non-cycling drivers seem to forget. Those rules that cyclists break are often broken for good reason.
Over here, cyclists mainly are separated from motor vehicles. Having cars removed from cyclists by a distance (our standards require a 2.5 m separation between roads and cycle paths, which are a minimum of 2.5 m wide is single direction or 4 m wide if bidirectional. Pedestrian paths are separate from this) makes it very difficult for contact to be made between cars and bikes. Road junctions look like these:
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/12/rig
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/11/n
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/11/mai
Main cycle routes are generally in entirely separate places from driving routes.
It adds up to extremely convenient cycling as well as subjective safety levels which encourage everyone to cycle:
http://hembrow.blogspot.com/2008/09/thr
And how should Britain achieve a similar cycling rate ? Simply copy what has been done over here. It works. There is no need to re-invent the wheel as the Dutch did plenty of demonstration town type projects back in the 1970s and published their results.
How many cycling accidents are caused by pot-holes, drainage covers, road bumps, thumps, road narrowings, large puddles hiding pot-holes etc...
Also in London, due to stupid ideas, are they going to start tracking the number of accidents caused by cyclists going the wrong way down one-way streets and hitting pedestrians?
I agree that cyclists should obey the rules but they are at far bigger risk by the behaviour of motorists not obeying the rules: the 1.2m uninsured and untaxed motorists, the massive number I see every day talking or texting on mobiles, parking in cycle lanes, failing to indicate and those that blast their horns because I'm preventing them rushing 10 metres up the road to park or join the back of the traffic jam. But lets ignore the motorist - they are only involved in around 3000 deaths and 28,000 serious injuries each year - lets blame the victims.