Read 'em and weep - 2011 Road Casualty Stats from DoT

[Davidc]

Licramite, it's clear that your perception is of high risk when cycling. Perception is important and will influence your actions but you do need to accept that yours doesn't align with the evidence.

There are plenty of people who are terrified of flying on scheduled airliners, and view them as high risk and dangerous. Those airliners are the safest place on (or near) the planet. It's perception which doesn't align with the evidence.

I'm not suggesting cycling is as safe as flying, it isn't. It is however a very safe activity. Clearly, as you say, if you're hit or a close friend or relative is hit it doesn't seem safe and it's very bad news. If you're on one of the few aircraft which crashes each year the same applies. Neither makes the activity unsafe.

I've cycled more than half a million miles in the last 50 years and had some crashes, several serious. I'm still here and still cycling. I know perfectly well that there's a very small probability of becoming a KSI statistic on each ride, that those serious crashes could have ended that way, and that typically 2 riders will die each week, one of whom could be me. The same applies whenever I get into a car or walk down the road. The same applies to any activity.

 

[Licramite]

I agree, so I go out with that in mind, I switch on to danger. so many people, - drivers,pedestrians,bikers seam to switch off.
now in a car you can get away with it to a great extent, but not on a bicycle.

I don,t stop me cycling, It does make me take a good hard look at any route I,m going to cycle before committing. - is there a safer route , were are the bad bits.

I see cyclists on roads at bad times of day for traffic and think, you should have picked a better route, they aren't enjoying it as lorries thunder past.

as terry pratchit said "one in a hundred chances , happen every day"

 

[Licramite]

you mean - if enough of us get killed or injured on a particular stretch of road they will do something about it?

they may put up a sign saying "10 cyclists killed on this road last year - think"

but thats not worth my blood.

I agree our roads need sorting out to make them more cycle frendly, but I don,t see it happening in my lifetime.
drivers need to be more cycle sympathetic - but thats never going to happen

 

[Licramite]

Anyone kills me on the road, and I swear ill come back and haunt them!

I only hope if someone gets me I really splat thier car/van/lorry

better than when I smashed my car into a lorry. total wreck and the lorry drive said Hmm I think you knocked some air out my tyre. - how humiliating.

 

[Recycle]

On the recent BBC two part documentary "How safe are Britain's roads" a technology was demonstrated that automatically braked a vehicle if it sensed it was on a collision course with a pedestrian. This technology will probably be built into vehicles in a few years and it will be interesting to see if it prevents drivers from doing close passes. This is likely to cause outrage in some drivers who think they are entitled to take risks on someone else's behalf.

 

[subaqua]

Our zone 1 is one of the safest places to cycle if you remove that awful Kings X junction.

and the god awful blackfriars bridge foocup, and the closure of Upper Ground putting in one of the stupidest diversions i have ever seen.

 

[Licramite]

Anecdata alert - that certainly seemed to work for horse riders when bridleways were closed during the 2001 foot and mouth crisis - more horses on the roads, and the behaviour of motorists towards us improved noticeably.

yea have you seen what a horse does to a car it takes a dislike to ! -

horses are loony

Actualy Adrian has a point , drivers Learn if a road is frequented by lots of cyclists they get court out less by them and begin to expect them.
of course thats only those that use the road frequently.