Coroner wants cyclists to be educated about danger of HGV's

[Sara_H]

http://www.experientia.com/blog/the-design-of-copenhagen-as-a-bicycle-friendly-city/
Prioratise bicycles.

 

[glenn forger]

You mean that if every young woman cycling in London were given and observed specific instructions to not filter up the side of lorries, it would not make a scrap of difference to the most common scenario ?

I've already told you it's nowhere near the most common scenario. can you name the cyclists killed in the way you describe?

 

[glenn forger]

You are forgetting that Boris Johnson was nearly killed a few years ago by a skip lorry, so to imply that the man doesn't consider the safety implications of these vehicles is a nonsense IMO

Boris makes up statistics about cyclists, and the driver in that incident wasn't even charged with anything, despite nearly killing several people cos he'd secured a heavy steel door with a wire coat hanger. Not the best example you could have chosen.

I would suggest an aware, careful cyclist wouldn't jump six reds on their commute, like Boris was filmed doing. Boris and TFL ignored 21 warnings and two people died, to suggest Boris has cyclist's interests forefront is naive.

I cannot repeat often enough that the linking of cyclists' lawbreaking to casualties is utterly misleading. The mayor's refusal to apologise tends to support those drivers who blame innocent cyclists rather than admit to their own carelessness.

 

[Linford]

When a pedestrian gets knocked over in similar circumstances, we don't get calls for peds to have training around traffic do we? How do you deliver that training formally to the entire nation, evaluate it's effectiveness and then organise redelivery when you find it hasn't worked.And remember it's a rolling programme, because loads new future pedestrians are born every day.

Well, a cyclist is no different to a ped in that we have to anticipate that anyone, trained or not, can legally hop on a bike and ride it. Which is as it should be, because the more restrictions you place on riding a bike, the fewer people who will do it which is bad in many ways for society as whole.

The problem is that after the age of ten we are legally obliged to ride on the roads with the horrible traffic. We wouldn't put our ten year old kids or any other pedestrian on the road walking in amongst the flow traffic, so why do we expect them to cycle there?

The laws about cycling in traffic haven't really altered since the massive boom in car ownership. Laws are pretty much the same as they were when private car ownership was relatively rare. Roads were not built for cars as Carlton rightly points out, but for decades now, they been designed for the convenience of drivers only in mind.
Something needs to change. People need an option that isn't forcing them to share the roads with lethal heavy machinery, operated with little care or attention.

If the road bikers want to mix it up with the traffic, then let them. For me, my family, I want something different. I want it to be safe, I want to be separate from the danger presented, and where I can't be separate, I want it to be explicit that I have priority (eg don't the dutch have some traffic rule about it being illegal for a driver overtake a cyclist on ordinary residential streets with no segregation? I may have made that one up).

Someone mentioned riding at 45mph on their bike. Well I live in a very hilly city (the last mile of my ride home I gain 400ft) My avarage speed is about 7.5mph. I can see why car drivers may get frustrated when they're stuck behind me. Give me a cycle path, everyones happy.

It's a sad fact that our children can't travel independently safely. Then you have the other end of the scale, my would be mother in law who used to be a keen cyclist, now at the age of 72 doesn't feel safe among the traffic on a bike, so she drives a skoda estate instead. My Mum, has some orthapaedic problems and finds walking painful, riding would be more comfortable, but as someone who's never passed a driving test she is too scared to go on the road. I know she'll be in a benidorm wagon soon, which is legal on the footpath. A bike would be so much more beneficial.

All these problems would be solved to very large extent by proper, high quality, segregated infrastructure. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. It's already been done and been shown to be effective by the dutch and in Copenhagen.

We can wait to change attitudes in drivers, but realistically we all know that with the dangerous infrastructure we have today, it's not going to happen.

All of this is just wrong...and I was the one who mentioned being passed at 45mph on my bike...it was coming down off the Cotswold escarpment which involved about 800ft of climbing to get up there in the first place at.....wait for it......about 7mph average....less I'm sure in places as it is so steep.
Your mum doesn't feel safe on the roads because she is 72....this is quite normal for people when their eyesight, hearing (and their 'compus mentis') begins to fail them. It has already happened to my parents who are now in their 80's...It's called life!

Jeez, you talk about wanting to change the landscape of Britain because you don't feel that your kids are safe on the roads.....well I'm sorry, but I grew up cycling in the 70's and there were far more roads deaths, and far less cars on the roads back then...the standards of driver training were far lower then, and the policing was very hit and miss in comparison to today's force equipped with live ANPR patrol car systems to identify illegal drivers as they are passed by on the roads.
The hill I hit 45+ on I was also riding at speed when I was 12 years of age on my Grifter...I'm still here to tell the tale.

I think my kids have looked back and thanked me a lot more for allowing them to do this (yes, that was mine taken at the age of 15)

than if I had instead treated them like this

 

[glenn forger]

There is certainly evidence of a drop in the numbers of deaths

Really? Care to post it?

 

[glenn forger]

.the standards of driver training were far lower then, and the policing was very hit and miss in comparison to today's force equipped with live ANPR patrol car systems to identify illegal drivers as they are passed by on the roads.

How many trafpol were there per thousand drivers? Policing numbers on the roads have been slashed, prosecution rates are plummeting:

http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/2234.html

You are factually incorrect.

 

[Linford]

Really? Care to post it?

You need to read the ROSPA article in the link

"Children and Cycling: The Effects of the NCPS in the County of Hereford and Worcester", County of Hereford and Worcester, 1976
A parental questionnaire survey concerning children's cycling accident involvement and exposure to traffic. A control group of children who had not been trained had 3 to 4 times as many casualties as the trained group. Those who had been trained tended to:
1. cycle more
2. cycle on roads more than before training
3. cycle to school more than those in the control group.

http://www.rospa.com/roadsafety/info/cyclist_training_effectiveness.pdf

 

[glenn forger]

That's the best you can find? 25 schoolkids from twelve years ago? That doesn't even mention collisions with other vehicles?

Did you read to the end?

The report concludes that there is no evidence that the Bike Ed course
results in a lower accident risk, and some evidence that children who have
taken a course face a higher risk, possibly because some parents believed
the “Bike Ed” course “immunised” their children against road safety risks.

Again, not the best example you could have chosen.

 

[Sara_H]

All of this is just wrong...and I was the one who mentioned being passed at 45mph on my bike...it was coming down off the Cotswold escarpment which involved about 800ft of climbing to get up there in the first place at.....wait for it......about 7mph average....less I'm sure in places as it is so steep.
Your mum doesn't feel safe on the roads because she is 72....this is quite normal for people when their eyesight, hearing (and their 'compus mentis') begins to fail them. It has already happened to my parents who are now in their 80's...It's called life!

Jeez, you talk about wanting to change the landscape of Britain because you don't feel that your kids are safe on the roads.....well I'm sorry, but I grew up cycling in the 70's and there were far more roads deaths, and far less cars on the roads back then...the standards of driver training were far lower then, and the policing was very hit and miss in comparison to today's force equipped with live ANPR patrol car systems to identify illegal drivers as they are passed by on the roads.
The hill I hit 45+ on I was also riding at speed when I was 12 years of age on my Grifter...I'm still here to tell the tale.

I think my kids have looked back and thanked me a lot more for allowing them to do this (yes, that was mine taken at the age of 15)

than if I had instead treated them like this

You're wrong of course, my mother in law is afraid of traffic. She wishes to continue cycling, it's the traffic that stops he. In countries with high quality cycling, the elderly carry on cycling whilst physically able to. This of course has many health and financial benefits, both personal and societal.

It may well be true that less folk are killed in RTC's than in the 70's, though I think this is highly likely to the massive advances in trauma care. Unfortunately the down side of this is that many people end up living with the devastating effects of serious head injury.

And in that nice picture of your daughter on a horse, I can't see her dodging many articulated lorries.

 

[Linford]

How many trafpol were there per thousand drivers? Policing numbers on the roads have been slashed, prosecution rates are plummeting:

http://www.roadsafetygb.org.uk/news/2234.html

You are factually incorrect.

I would say that people by and large were driving less over that period due to the recession biting

 

[theclaud]

I would say that people by and large were driving less over that period due to the recession biting

Rigorous stuff, Linfy!

 

[Linford]

That's the best you can find? 25 schoolkids from twelve years ago? That doesn't even mention collisions with other vehicles?

Did you read to the end?



Again, not the best example you could have chosen.

You are cherry picking to suit your argument...have you ever undertaken any sort of road training as you appear willfully ignorant ?

 

[glenn forger]

You are cherry picking to suit your argument...have you ever undertaken any sort of road training as you appear willfully ignorant ?

What? Cherry picking? It was your report, you posted the link, doofus. You claimed your link proved training made things safer for cyclists. The report that you posted concludes:

The report concludes that there is no evidence that the Bike Ed course
results in a lower accident risk, and some evidence that children who have
taken a course face a higher risk, possibly because some parents believed
the “Bike Ed” course “immunised” their children against road safety risks.

which is the exact opposite of what you claimed. That's not "cherry picking", it's pointing out you're a doofus!

 

[Linford]

You're wrong of course, my mother in law is afraid of traffic. She wishes to continue cycling, it's the traffic that stops he. In countries with high quality cycling, the elderly carry on cycling whilst physically able to. This of course has many health and financial benefits, both personal and societal.

It may well be true that less folk are killed in RTC's than in the 70's, though I think this is highly likely to the massive advances in trauma care. Unfortunately the down side of this is that many people end up living with the devastating effects of serious head injury.

And in that nice picture of your daughter on a horse, I can't see her dodging many articulated lorries.

Err, that is a half tonne animal she is on which is jumping a metre high cross country fence made out of telegraph poles. I would say that there is significant risk in that action if it went wrong.Christopher Reeve was injured doing a similar thing, and so I'd say it is far more risky than riding on the average road in the UK.

Anyway, far be it from me to tell you how to bring your kids up, but there has to be a balance, and a bit of realism to what is being asked. Why not teach your son that he needs to plan his routes with care when cycling, and needs to be aware of how others might expect him to behave when sharing that space with them, than just that it is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs ?

 

[Linford]

What? Cherry picking? It was your report, you posted the link, doofus. You claimed your link proved training made things safer for cyclists. The report that you posted concludes:



which is the exact opposite of what you claimed. That's not "cherry picking", it's pointing out you're a doofus!

You muppet . .try quoting in context...the bit you quoted on is in direct contradiction of the often vaunted claim here in that the more cyclists on the roads, the safer it becomes for all cyclist...you want to make up your mind what you want.

This is ACTUALLY the REAL conclusion of the report I linked to which was commissioned by ROSPA

THE ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF ACCIDENTS
“THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CYCLIST TRAINING”
2001
8
3 CONCLUSION
Training is an important strand in the wider safety strategy for cyclists. It must go hand in hand with measures to create a safer cycling environment and measures to improve the behaviour of motorists.
It seems likely that courses will increasingly be organised as part of wider activities, such as Safer Routes to School projects or local policies to encourage cycling.
However, one area that has not yet been effectively addressed on a national basis is the management of instructors, tutors and examiners. A training course is as good as those who deliver it, and the training of cycling instructors and tutors varies widely, and very often consists of a novice instructor observing an experienced one for a short time.
RoSPA thinks that a national standard for instructor training, perhaps linked to an accreditation scheme or some form of register would significantly enhance both the quality of training and the status of the instructors.
Finally, although there is research showing the benefits of cyclist training, it would be very helpful to have research that compared the accident and casualty rates of trained cyclists to those of untrained ones.