31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

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[XAP]Bob
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Tonyf33 wrote:The roads are less safe now than they've been for yers and that's with the supposed 'safety' features and infra put in place.


What infra? What safety features?

I don't see any.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Tonyf33
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by Tonyf33 »

[XAP]Bob wrote:
Tonyf33 wrote:The roads are less safe now than they've been for yers and that's with the supposed 'safety' features and infra put in place.


What infra? What safety features?

I don't see any.

Oh come on, you can't ignore the fact that in London at least there have been changes, also around the country to a smaller degree certainly more than in previous years but if you're saying absolutely zero has been put in place in the whole of the UK then that points even more to the fact that cycling in numbers doesn't work and that CTC et al are failing us.
pwa
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by pwa »

Neilo wrote:
pwa wrote:Cycling conditions are not worsening everywhere. Here in South Wales, at least in the areas I know best, things have got better. Close passing aggressive drivers are rarer, respectful drivers are more common, and I hardly ever have a car horn aimed at me.


Not in the part of South Wales where I ride. Close passing aggressive drivers are pretty common, Horn use, not so common.

Neil


On the B4265 from Bridgend, through St Brides Major and Wick, I used to encounter threatening driving at least once a week. Abuse shouted out of car windows, cars passing much too close at speed. Things have improved a lot on that road. Deliberately threatening driving has almost completely gone, and patient driving has become more common. And it has coincided with a huge increase in the number of cyclists on that road. That doesn't mean the two things are definitely related, but it makes you think.
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[XAP]Bob
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by [XAP]Bob »

Tonyf33 wrote:
[XAP]Bob wrote:
Tonyf33 wrote:The roads are less safe now than they've been for yers and that's with the supposed 'safety' features and infra put in place.


What infra? What safety features?

I don't see any.

Oh come on, you can't ignore the fact that in London at least there have been changes, also around the country to a smaller degree certainly more than in previous years but if you're saying absolutely zero has been put in place in the whole of the UK then that points even more to the fact that cycling in numbers doesn't work and that CTC et al are failing us.

Paint is not infrastructure.
Paint is not a safety feature.
A shortcut has to be a challenge, otherwise it would just be the way. No situation is so dire that panic cannot make it worse.
There are two kinds of people in this world: those can extrapolate from incomplete data.
iviehoff
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by iviehoff »

horizon wrote:I couldn't work out from the road.cc whether the number was from collisions with vehicles or bike-alone accidents. I would love to know the circumstances of these accidents: main roads, London streets, lorries, night-time etc. Even a building boom in London could affect the figures. I could also add that a big increase in fast road riding may have had an effect. How do we address the problem if we don't know the cause and what will be the point if the obvious causes (e.g. tipper lorries) are not going to be addressed anyway. At the moment we're just blind and then stupid.

The stats are road casualties from all causes. A link to the original government source was conveniently provided by OP.
danhopgood
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by danhopgood »

"Paint is not infrastructure.
Paint is not a safety feature."

Reallocation of roadspace in favour of cyclists can be done with paint and is effectively also reallocating the infrastructure in favour of cyclists. Similarly there are circumstances where paint can improve safety for cyclists. But these changes have to be done properly - and rarely are, as we all know.
BlackPanther
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by BlackPanther »

I'm all for adverts which would show the vulnerability of cyclists. An advert that also shows that for every cyclist there is (usually) one less car on the road for other drivers to get stuck behind. An advert that shows the health benefits. That shows the financial benefits. That shows the pollution reduction. That shows the sheer enjoyment of cycling. That shows the satisfaction of reaching your destination under your own steam. Maybe to discourage aggression/road rage, maybe show just how many cyclists have helmet cameras, and the convictions that have been achieved using video footage.

Now an advert like that would run for maybe 30 seconds? An advert that could save lives, reduce congestion, increase voters spending power, reduce pollution, decrease sick days, and make people think twice before committing road rage.

Why oh why aren't the government funding such adverts?
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horizon
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by horizon »

iviehoff wrote:
horizon wrote:I couldn't work out from the road.cc whether the number was from collisions with vehicles or bike-alone accidents. I would love to know the circumstances of these accidents: main roads, London streets, lorries, night-time etc. Even a building boom in London could affect the figures. I could also add that a big increase in fast road riding may have had an effect. How do we address the problem if we don't know the cause and what will be the point if the obvious causes (e.g. tipper lorries) are not going to be addressed anyway. At the moment we're just blind and then stupid.

The stats are road casualties from all causes. A link to the original government source was conveniently provided by OP.


I somehow missed it! :oops: So thank you for that.

I have ploughed through some of the supporting documents but am still unenlightened as to how the accidents occurred (apart from being subsumed in say Failure to look stats). But I will persevere.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
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mjr
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Re: 31% increase in cycling Road casualties 2007 to 2014

Post by mjr »

Pete Owens wrote:It is likely that the supposed safety features (aka cycle paths) that have been appearing all over the place in the last few years have directly increased the crash statistics.

And yet, when I drill down to local crashes, the worst ones tend to be in places without any cycling infrastructure. For example, the four cyclist fatalities in those seven years in our borough were two on crossroads with no cycle facilities, one on a rural dual-carriageway A road and one on a narrow edge-of-town 30mph A road. All four involved motor vehicles too.

Pete Owens wrote:These are known to vastly increase the collision risk at junctions yet the enthusiasm to build more and more of them seems undiminished.

Known? So have you got new evidence that I've not already reviewed and spotted the flaws in? And what about the bits between the junctions (as in the two A-road fatalities above)?

It is not surprising that a junction on one of Gilligan's new cycle-super-highways topped the list of cycle crash locations recently published in the Times.

Stratford High Street and Warton Road? A junction where, as the Times pointed out in http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/cy ... 532280.ece, CS2 decides to take the junction off and dump cyclists in the worst possible place to get left-hooked: https://goo.gl/maps/zs8ynJML9682 If anything, this shows the importance of more cycling infrastructure, continuing it across junctions instead of the all-too-common English approach of only providing it on the easy non-junction stretches.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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