Rachel Aldred's Near Miss Project

[Bazzer]

I'm pleased to see local authority adverts recently appearing along my local high street advising cyclists to (a) ride outside the car door zone, and (b) take the lane [my words] when the road narrows.

Although ostensibly aimed at cyclists, it'd be good if more drivers took note, to understand why we ride where we ride.

A couple have appeared on my route home through Salford. Including one, IIRC, on a roundabout where any cyclist not using the underpass really needs their head examining. So it looks like it is aimed at drivers as well.

 

[LCpl Boiled Egg]

Note that the participants in the Near Miss Project had to nominate a day to report on in advance so that if nothing happened on that day you'd record "nothing happened today".

Yep and I was expecting to report nothing and in the end I had three incidents to mention on the day I had chosen including an idiot who MGIF, approaching a blind bend on the wrong side of the road (and I could hear the car approaching that he couldn't). I can't remember what the other two were but that's the one that sticks in my head. I think it was in October last year.

Yeah, me too. I had two incidents and was really hoping for an uneventful day. Both of them were in a supposedly cycle-friendly city.

 

[Origamist]

Some of the NMP findings here:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2015/jun/11/why-cycling-in-the-uk-is-so-scary

 

[Tynan]

horses for courses, been riders on here spitting blood about London Bridge when I used it both ways every day and thought nothing of it at all

there are certainly routes I no longer or rarely use because of either what i think dangerous layout or just to many incidents/near misses - I'm looking at you Ferry Lane eastbound on the way home, never mind the now even more manic than it was before Tottenham/Broad Lane one way system eastbound, to think I used to grumble about it before ...

 

[summerdays]

Im not sure if their findings match mine with regards to being female but perhaps I cycle slightly faster than those who responded? I'm not fast just maybe not slow either (if flat or downhill). Maybe the females feel more threatened by the same level of passes? I see more men actually getting agro on the road, but they probably give the same back.

 

[growingvegetables]

More results here - http://www.theguardian.com/lifeands...iving-harassment-study-uk-women-men-near-miss ------- gender and age as elements. Sobering reading.

 

[Bazzer]

I am sure speed has a lot to do with it. A driver behind a cyclist travelling at 10mph will feel their journey is being delayed much more than being behind one travelling at 18mph. Looked at realistically, being behind a slower cyclist for (say) 200 metres in a 40 mph zone in a journey of 2 miles is barely going to make any difference to the time of arrival. It would be correspondingly less for a longer journey. But the perception is of a delay is much greater.
I have at times wondered whether there should be an element of cycling in the driving test. Perhaps a number of hours in the saddle on a variety of roads, so that want to be drivers have the opportunity to experience first hand the vulnerability of cyclists. ,

 

[donnydave]

Its interesting to read in those articles about perceived risk - someone would deem one incident worthy of report, another may just shrug it off. I often find myself thinking "Ha! You'll have to try harder than that to scare me off the road!" perhaps I've become desensitised by the constant close passes, I hardly ever bother to react any more until its really really bad.

 

[summerdays]

Its interesting to read in those articles about perceived risk - someone would deem one incident worthy of report, another may just shrug it off. I often find myself thinking "Ha! You'll have to try harder than that to scare me off the road!" perhaps I've become desensitised by the constant close passes, I hardly ever bother to react any more until its really really bad.

i think there is a difference in perceived risk and the more inexperienced the great the perception. Problem is that they are the ones we want to take up cycling and not be put off by the what to a more experienced person puts up with. It's wrong that we accept the nearish passes as normal every day cycling.

 

[andyfraser]

i think there is a difference in perceived risk and the more inexperienced the great the perception. Problem is that they are the ones we want to take up cycling and not be put off by the what to a more experienced person puts up with. It's wrong that we accept the nearish passes as normal every day cycling.

How do we stop it though? Riding in the correct position is supposed to help but I've noticed over the last couple of weeks that even riding in primary doesn't stop drivers squeezing through and the reason I'm in primary is because it's too dangerous for vehicles to pass!

I can't help feeling that unless the police do more and take it seriously then nothing will change.

 

[summerdays]

How do we stop it though? Riding in the correct position is supposed to help but I've noticed over the last couple of weeks that even riding in primary doesn't stop drivers squeezing through and the reason I'm in primary is because it's too dangerous for vehicles to pass!

I can't help feeling that unless the police do more and take it seriously then nothing will change.

I'm not sure we (cyclists) can stop it, at least we have the confidence to ride further out in the first place so have more space we can use if we need to move away from a close pass, if you don't have much confidence you end up in various situations where you are entirely controlled by the traffic rather than having some input ourselves.

I think the law needs to be changed to bring in presumed liability and a general change in driver attitude but that isn't going to happen overnight.

 

[Archie_tect]

I've looked a couple of times at the first video on downfader's post [no.4] and can't see anything of concern on it. It appears to show a cyclist waiting at a red light then crossing on green... what should I be seeing?

 

[andyfraser]

Attitudes definitely have to change. Nearly every commute now someone will push through regardless of what I happen to be doing to try to protect myself. They push through at those traffic calming chicanes even when I have priority. There's no thought for the safety of others on the road, just selfish driving. I'm getting sick of it now.

Presumed liability would be great but without a large campaign to inform drivers they won't know anything about it until after someone is injured or dead.

 

[Bazzer]

How do we stop it though? Riding in the correct position is supposed to help but I've noticed over the last couple of weeks that even riding in primary doesn't stop drivers squeezing through and the reason I'm in primary is because it's too dangerous for vehicles to pass!

I can't help feeling that unless the police do more and take it seriously then nothing will change.

The problem is that some drivers will always try to get past you, even in primary. I don't see that changing what ever driver education is undertaken, whether when learning to drive, on one of those driver awareness course now offered by the police, or driver awareness campaigns.. - Although drink driving is now (generally) socially unacceptable, just look at drink driving stats. And the breathalyser been in the UK for over 40 years.

Although not all roads have have cycle lanes, iIt might help a little, if the existing broken white lines of cycle lanes were made into solid lines, some of the ridiculous 1 0r 2 metre long lanes which appear out of and go nowhere were got ride of and incursions across a solid line were treated seriously by the police. I am sure we have all experienced drivers ignorig existing solid cycle lane lines and ASLs; but one small step perhaps?

 

[Origamist]

I've looked a couple of times at the first video on downfader's post [no.4] and can't see anything of concern on it. It appears to show a cyclist waiting at a red light then crossing on green... what should I be seeing?

I think it's what you should be hearing. The driver beeps the cyclist - I'm not sure why though...