How would you improve central London Cycling?

[Etern4l]

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmtrans/2329/232905.htm#_idTextAnchor003

http://www.rospa.com/rospaweb/docs/advice-services/road-safety/drivers/mobile-phone-report.pdf

Thanks, but again no specific information on the impact of phone use while the vehicle is strictly stationary, i.e. the specific case I am probing here. Furthermore, if the RoSPA study we find the following statements which contradict what seems like a pre-determined conclusion in some people's minds:

"The effects of receiving a call on a hands-free mobile phone while driving on a real motorway under moderate traffic conditions were monitored in one study.16 This study did not reveal evidence that receiving the calls impaired the drivers’ behaviour. Neither vehicle control, manoeuvring (lane change, overtaking) nor speed choice were influenced by telephone use."

"Another study30 involved 27 drivers who drove on a combination of city, urban and rural roads while talking with a passenger, and separately holding a conversation on a hands-free mobile phone. Unlike most (?) other studies, this one did not find that using a mobile phone affected driving performance, with the exception that more navigation errors were made by drivers when they were using the telephone"

Most of the studies were conducted using a simulator, therefore their accuracy is immediately in question.
I would much rather see real-life data, on the very specific topic of interest.

The parliamentary brief is of a predictably low quality, however, it does contain some interesting real-life figures (which the report fails to sensibly interpret), notably the annual KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) figures. Turns out, we are talking about around 150 KSI cases merely linked to mobile phone use, out of the total approx. 30,000 UK KSI cases in 2017 for example:

https://www.gov.uk/government/stati...d-casualties-great-britain-annual-report-2020

So, the data is very clear: ANY mobile phone use is a contributory factor (which does not mean it is the sole or primary factor) in just 0.5% of KSI cases. Basically, in the grand scheme of things it's noise, an absolute tempest in the teapot and waste of police time overall, without even going into the specific case of phone use while the vehicle is strictly stationary. Furthermore cyclists chasing people on the phone while stuck in traffic and in stationary vehicles arguably project the image of the combative fanatic, and one would think is hardly helpful in winning hearts and minds and progressing the broader society towards the "cycling nation".

I would totally agree with this video answer to the slightly rephrased question "why should cyclists use action cams and report offenders" by CycleGaz:

I am sure everybody agrees cases similar to those are fairly easy to come by, and that's the kind of driver behaviour I am worried about. Hope every camera users finds the resolve to report those as a priority.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Thanks, but again no specific information on the impact of phone use while the vehicle is strictly stationary,

Because, as I pointed out, you won't find it.

 

[Oldhippy]

Would there be an outcry if airline pilots, JCB drivers and the like sat about with their phones while in charge of their machines? Undoubtedly there would. Car drivers are just as responsible and it is idiotic to not fully concentrate on their own machine, moving or otherwise. The thread was about what would make cycling but in London and by extension other built up areas. Find a way of getting politicians and people in general to realise that cars cause a lot of carnage in many ways and do something about it. This won't happen until there is political will or a sudden absence of raw materials to make vehicles and we have no choice but to adapt a different lifestyle.

 

[Etern4l]

Would there be an outcry if airline pilots, JCB drivers and the like sat about with their phones while in charge of their machines? Undoubtedly there would. Car drivers are just as responsible and it is idiotic to not fully concentrate on their own machine, moving or otherwise. The thread was about what would make cycling but in London and by extension other built up areas. Find a way of getting politicians and people in general to realise that cars cause a lot of carnage in many ways and do something about it. This won't happen until there is political will or a sudden absence of raw materials to make vehicles and we have no choice but to adapt a different lifestyle.

I would not be so sure if airline pilots don't use their mobile phones while the plane is parked (not would I care). Otherwise they certainly do not use mobiles in flight, even if it was otherwise safe to do so, because of the EMI issue and the resulting IATA safety regulations applying to everyone onboard. Also please let us not compare the complexity of flying an airliner to the mental effort involved in driving a Corsa to the nearest Tesco.

Yes, even though cars do cause massive carnage - 30,000 serious casualties p.a. is a might-boggling number (as opposed to 150 serious road accident casualties potentially related to all cases of mobile phone use annually), works out at about 80 casualties per day. The government has spent in the region of £400 billion fighting COVID. How much are they spending on road safety, including development of safe alternatives to car use? I would assume the answer is a rounding error in the budget.

That would be saying something about a combination of indispensability of cars for the majority of people, the resulting strength of the industry - both in terms of the direct impact on the economy and consequently, the lobbying power. We can't just wish cars away, need to figure out how to win hearts and minds, and being seen as intransigent fringe fanatics would not be helpful IMHO.

 

[DaveReading]

I would not be so sure if airline pilots don't use their mobile phones while the plane is parked (not would I care).

Even if they did, that would be akin to me ringing the wife from Tesco's car park to check my shopping list.

You know perfectly well that's not what we're talking about here.

 

[Etern4l]

Even if they did, that would be akin to me ringing the wife from Tesco's car park to check my shopping list.

You know perfectly well that's not what we're talking about here.

One more attempt to get the point across: only 150 out of 30,000 KSI cases per year have phone use listed as a "contributing factor". Why are the police wasting their very limited time with this non-issue? Furthermore, what I'm talking about likely represents a very small subset of the 150 KSI cases: someone gets stuck in traffic, stops the vehicle, checks the phone, adjusts the route etc., and no longer interacts with the device at the time the vehicle is moving on. Why is this specific phone use being prosecuted is not clear to me, especially given the apparent lack of data supporting a significant issue in this case.

 

[newfhouse]

I have a few questions.

Is KSI the best measure of harm? What about less serious injury or damage? What about distracted drivers that simply pass too close to cyclists? Don’t they matter?Given limited police and forensic resources, how often is phone use even checked when a car collides with something or someone?

 

[Etern4l]

I have a few questions.

Is KSI the best measure of harm? What about less serious injury or damage? What about distracted drivers that simply pass too close to cyclists? Don’t they matter?Given limited police and forensic resources, how often is phone use even checked when a car collides with something or someone?

Including all casualties makes no difference relatively speaking. In 2017 we have 770 total "phone-related" casualties out of over 150k, also around 0.5%.

No idea if police have data on factors contributing to close passes, but with more and more people wearing cameras, you would hope they bother to report close passes, particularly when the phone is clearly involved.

As for the last question, clearly it would be difficult to get the data on this Still, we would have to assume a gigantic operational error in order to have the needle moved. I would rather assume the police do their job properly, at least in the more serious injury cases. It's perhaps reasonable to assume either the victim (actual death numbers are a tiny proportion of the overall victim numbers), CCTV or some witnesses would report phone use in a decent proportion of cases, especially given the publicity.

 

[classic33]

Including all casualties makes no difference relatively speaking. In 2017 we have 770 total "phone-related" casualties out of over 150k, also around 0.5%.
We don't know the answer to the second question, but we would have to assume a gigantic error in order to have the needle moved. I would rather assume the police do their job properly, at least in the more serious injury cases. It's perhaps reasonable to assume either the victim (actual death numbers are a tiny proportion of the overall victim numbers), CCTV or some witnesses would report phone use in a decent proportion of cases, especially given the publicity.

One death, due to mobile use, is one too many.

 

[newfhouse]

assume

assume

assume

hope

How’s your data driven decision making getting on?

 

[Etern4l]

One death, due to mobile use, is one too many.

Someone else's response in kind: one death for any reason associated with people cycling is too many. Ban cycling!

 

[classic33]

Someone else's response in kind: one death for any reason associated with people cycling is too many. Ban cycling!

It could be a death in another car or a pedestrian death, which is still one too many.
Treat the cause, not the effects.

 

[Etern4l]

How’s your data driven decision making getting on?

Much better than your desperate trolling attempt. The fact that assumptions are involved, doesn't invalidate the whole process.

 

[Etern4l]

It could be a death in another car, which is still one too many.
Treat the cause, not the effects.

Doesn't matter, to play the devil's advocate: the root cause could be deemed to be people using vulnerable, inherently unsafe vehicles such as bicycles for transportation purposes. A cyclist might lose control due to a mechanical issue or a pothole and die on an empty street, or run over by another cyclist.

Nonsense? Of course, it's all about the degree of risk. There is no way to eliminate all risk in life.

 

[newfhouse]

Much better than your desperate trolling attempt.

No, not trolling but attempting to examine your case and thus far disagreeing with you.

Oh, and just to add by way of an edit, it’s considered poor form to edit your post once it has been responded to.