Guardian article(with links) about why female cyclists are more vulnerable to lorries

[Wheeledweenie]

'Zactly. And I can confirm that WW pilots a tandem with as much verve and adventurousness as any male tandemist I've seen, but looks rather better (and I'm sure he won't mind my saying this) than Wowbagger would in bunches and pink stockings...

Why thank you. Having asked around, a lot of ladies seem to prefer to stoke rather than captain, I'd always want to captain.

As for Wowbagger, I would actually pay money to see that beard made into bunches....

 

[Davidc]

Thanks for that post.

Now, who do we blame for not having the rail network we used to have?

The oil companies and the road building companies.

 

[Davidc]

Although it's a bit more complicated than that. Rail haulage was practically designed to fail, in much the same way that the Royal Mail is now.

Only because the basis for charging for it was rigged by government to make it fail.

If road transport had to meet its total costs in the way that rail is calculated it would collapse.

I don't however see how this is relevant to the killing of cyclists in cities by HGVs.

How many pedestrians do HGVs kill BTW?

 

[dondare]

Only because the basis for charging for it was rigged by government to make it fail.

If road transport had to meet its total costs in the way that rail is calculated it would collapse.

I don't however see how this is relevant to the killing of cyclists in cities by HGVs.

If heavy and bulk freight was moved long distances by rail instead of road then lorries would not be designed they way the are, and could instead be designed to be used in towns.

How many pedestrians do HGVs kill BTW?

No idea.

 

[4F]

If heavy and bulk freight was moved long distances by rail instead of road then lorries would not be designed they way the are, and could instead be designed to be used in towns.

We have had this discussion before. Lots of freight is already moved by rail however the rail system is so antiquated it would struggle to move any increase in freight. For example Felixstowe is currently up to the max amount of trains leaving the port and many leave not fully loaded so they do not miss their allocated slot.

The pallet hub networks have really taken off in the last 10 years and work really well in maximising freight from hub to hub. However at the end of the day you are still going to need an hgv to move it from the local pallet hub to the larger shop.

Educating cyclist not to undertake hgv's imho would be the best way at reducing hgv / cycle incidents.

 

[JoysOfSight]

Assuming women and men live the same distance from work, on average, women have just a third of the exposure of men - yet four times as many are killed by HGVs. Unless I'm munging the figures hopelessly, this means women have twelve times the chance of dying that men do.

Although it's tragic enough that anyone dies, I think moaning about HGVs in general is totally missing the point. There is something that we can do to reduce deaths amongst women by 12x (if only giving them a sex-change)

What is it?

 

[dondare]

We have had this discussion before. Lots of freight is already moved by rail however the rail system is so antiquated it would struggle to move any increase in freight. For example Felixstowe is currently up to the max amount of trains leaving the port and many leave not fully loaded so they do not miss their allocated slot.

The pallet hub networks have really taken off in the last 10 years and work really well in maximising freight from hub to hub. However at the end of the day you are still going to need an hgv to move it from the local pallet hub to the larger shop.

Educating cyclist not to undertake hgv's imho would be the best way at reducing hgv / cycle incidents.

We have had this discussion before and I've even brought canals into it. (It's why canals were built in the first place.)
The point is that the current situation is the result of past errors of judgement (and political corruption and self-interest), not that transfering freight back onto the rails now would be an instant and practicable solution.

As to the discrepancy between men and women cyclists becoming casualties, this needs to be the subject of a proper investigation rather than a "best guess" approach.