Cycle training for drivers

[deptfordmarmoset]

I know nothing about bikeaware.org.uk but they are currently campaigning to make bikeability courses compulsory for new drivers. This is their argument and if you hold an opinion on this or have comments to make, please visit the site and vote.

Driver education is top priority​

Maybe you already ride a bike. Or perhaps you don't, but would like to. Fear of traffic is the main reason more people don't cycle in the UK.​

80% of adult cyclists drive, but only 10% of Britain's 43 million drivers ride a bike once a week or more. Few will know how it feels to be compromised by a motor vehicle.​

Close calls and collisions are mostly caused by a moment’s distraction or carelessness, aggravated by inexperience. They can have serious and lasting consequences for the rider or walker, at scant risk to the driver.​

To be a safe driver we often need to think as a cyclist. Yet most young adults, even though they may own a bike, see themselves not as cyclists, but as drivers.​

The driving test curriculum embeds this belief by placing physical control before attitude and awareness. No wonder there's discord amongst road users where there should be harmony.​

The Proposal​

Before commencing the practical driving test, all candidates should satisfy the examiner that they can demonstrate minimum standards of cycle awareness.​

In addition to specific cycling questions within the theory and hazard perception test, candidates (other than those exempted by disability) should either have completed a recent Bikeability assessment, or show similar evidence of cycle awareness by means of a practical cycling test.​

Better drivers, safer cyclists​

This simple scheme would change the cycling landscape forever. Exposure to cycling in traffic would create a generation of drivers better attuned to accommodate cyclists and pedestrians.​

Fewer close calls and collisions, especially those involving high risk age groups, would reduce deaths, injuries and NHS costs, whilst greater mutual respect would inspire less confident cyclists, particularly women, to saddle up.​

Everyone wins​

Driver training costs would continue to be met by the user, enabling the government to leave an explicit cycling legacy to our children at no cost to the taxpayer.​

Legitimising cycling as a natural transport choice would help create a level playing field whose benefits would be shared by all road users.​

 

[sheddy]

Done

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

[QUOTE 1316930"]
No, no and never. Some people simply don't want to ride a bike and some simply cannot. Why make people do something that they don't want to do?

There are other and better ways of raising cycle awareness, forcing somone to do something that they may not want to ain't one of them.
[/quote]

The proposal allows for people who cannot cycle for reasons of disability. As far as ''wanting'' is concerned, I'm sure that many drivers don't ''want'' to read the highway code either. But they do because they have to and we're probably all a little safer because of it.

Personally, I don't think that there is one miracle cure - there are lots of different ways of raising cycle awareness and, as such, I would probably regard what you see as ''better ways'' as something that should also be pursued. Not either/or but and.

 

[Bigsharn]

Sounds like a good idea, though a better idea would be to teach the highway code in schools as part of the national curriculum. From my experience Citizenship lessons consist of sitting on computers playing Runescape and on occasionaly putting condoms on sex toys so it's not like it'd cost any extra to implement.

The only thing that gets me about that idea is:

In addition to specific cycling questions within the theory and hazard perception test, candidates (other than those exempted by disability) should either have completed a recent Bikeability assessment, or show similar evidence of cycle awareness by means of a practical cycling test.​

Not everyone can ride a bike. In fact I sold a trike to a lady not too long ago who couldn't ride a bike, and I know of at least two others that were very interested in it (for various reasons, mostly to do with being unable to ride a bike).

 

[darkstar]

Not this issue again, the idea is stupid, pointless, totalitarian and ineffective.

 

[Norm]

Not everyone can ride a bike. In fact I sold a trike to a lady not too long ago who couldn't ride a bike, and I know of at least two others that were very interested in it (for various reasons, mostly to do with being unable to ride a bike).

Here's a thought, maybe. Those who can't ride a bike could ride a trike. Might be a bit of lateral logic there but it all seemed to be available in your post.

 

[summerdays]

Here's a thought, maybe. Those who can't ride a bike could ride a trike. Might be a bit of lateral logic there but it all seemed to be available in your post.

Or they could go on the front of an adapted bike so that they just had to sit there and experience the traffic whizzing past and why we put ourselves in primary sometimes.

However I can't decide whether that might put them off the experience of cycling forever. I can't make my mind up on this one at the moment. Far better might be getting cycling into the school timetable as a choice for sports and for a day ride etc before they reach that magic 17.

 

[2Loose]

+1 for cycling at school - whatever happened to the cycling proficiency test and bike stickers in the weetabix boxes?

Aiming at new drivers is too late imho. Most get no road sense until they leave school, due to being run to school in the car etc. and end up with a very skewed (or at least selective) idea of what the HC says.

Look at the amount of drivers who think helmets\cycle paths\riding single file\keeping in the gutter is the law - it is rarely drivers past thirty ime.

 

[summerdays]

Kid's do the Bikeability Level 2 course at primary school - my son did his very recently (in fact the certificate is beside me on the desk after he gave it to me yesterday). But in secondary schools they don't seem to want to devote any time to it - neither of my older children have been offered the next level training - although their school does have a one day cycle ride as one of the options in the last week of the summer term. And it is probably those secondary school children who would most benefit - it is at this point they are looking forward to getting that car to get independence whereas they actually have something that would give them that sitting in their shed/garage etc waiting for them to discover it.

 

[asterix]

Most road craft is common sense and you don't need to read a book to know that you should stop at a red light or not go over the speed limit.

If 'road-craft' is indeed common sense then why have a driving test?

Of course the skill of using the roads is not in the least innate. It has to be learnt and to suggest otherwise is quite absurd.

It seems to me an excellent idea for would-be drivers to learn to ride a bicycle first. How many drivers do unsuitably short journeys by car because they don't/can't ride a bike?

After driving a car for years, I took a motorbike test. The training on 2 wheels made me aware of my bad driving habits very quickly indeed and the number of car drivers who don't see for anything smaller than a car at any distance is frightening.

 

[Chamfus Flange]

I'm in favour of this idea.

My thought has always been: If you want to do something with more potential for damage get some training.

So if you want to ride a push bike then get trained. Motorbike, car, bus, lorry all the same.

Then, by extension, these training requirements should be done one after the other.

So cycle, that's more dangerous than walking, get trained.
Motorcycle, that's more dangerous than cycling, get trained.
Car,.... and so on.

 

[Smokin Joe]

If 'road-craft' is indeed common sense then why have a driving test?

Of course the skill of using the roads is not in the least innate. It has to be learnt and to suggest otherwise is quite absurd.

It seems to me an excellent idea for would-be drivers to learn to ride a bicycle first. How many drivers do unsuitably short journeys by car because they don't/can't ride a bike?

After driving a car for years, I took a motorbike test. The training on 2 wheels made me aware of my bad driving habits very quickly indeed and the number of car drivers who don't see for anything smaller than a car at any distance is frightening.

I think you'll find that 99.9% of motorists have actually ridden a bicycle.

I spent twenty years as an ADI and taught many cyclists to drive through club connections. As a group they were no better or worse in their attitudes to road safety than non-cyclists.

Motorcyclists, on the other hand, do have a very highly developed road sense that transfers well to car driving.

 

[joolsybools]

Excellent idea about Bikeability level 3 to be offered at secondary school. I think the LA's probably view the high cost as an issue as it needs to be taught on a 1:1 basis. Shame really

 

[Norm]

If 'road-craft' is indeed common sense then why have a driving test?

The driving test is not, IMO, about road craft or about common sense.

The driving test is about three-point turns, reversing round corners, hazard perception and learning road signs, which are not always common sense.

Road craft is about technique and awareness, being in the right gear** and positioning to maximise sight lines, which are not tested.

** Of course, being in the wrong gear is part of the test but that's different, IMO. Pulling away in fifth is being in the wrong gear but being in third rather than sixth to accelerate out of a 30mph limit is being in the right gear.

Although, I would argue that...
[QUOTE 1316935"] Most road craft is common sense and you don't need to read a book to know that you should stop at a red light or not go over the speed limit. [/quote]
... for those two specific examples, you do need to read a book to know that a red light means stop and that a white circle with a black diagonal line means 60/70mph, as neither of those are common sense, but I do agree with your general point, Lee.

 

[Hilldodger]

We just need more money to teach Bikeability in all schools.