Another A38 Accident

[TonyR]

It felt sexist to me. I quite frequently get the red haze rise when either womens issues or cyclists issues are dissed so it did not feel an appropriate comment, sarcasm at best, particularly in the light of a thread about a tragic event.

My apologies MrsHJ if that is how it came over - it was not my intention. My intention was not to diss issues of women's personal safety but to say its absolutely not acceptable to say the solution to them is to stay off the streets. Likewise its not acceptable for cyclist safety to say stay off the roads.

[reohn2]

There were certainly plenty of resources to protect the world leaders in Wales. Have you seen the clip of the Stonehenge visit? The motorcade passed near here, but I think the US president went by helicopter, accompanied by two jets.

I make a point of not watching such stuff it has no bearing on reality,their decisions OTOH

[BeeKeeper]

Sadly, this death sends it's own message. Stay off this road.

And the deaths of cyclists on minor roads and in towns? What message does that send? Stay off the roads altogether?

Sad as these incidents are, they are extremely rare. There are many other things we do in daily life that are far more likely to kill you. The danger is we start to engender (and probably already have) a Fear of Roads for what is an extremely safe activity. The real issues with riding on these sorts of roads is how threatening they can feel, not how threatening they are.

I think you are missing my point. Cycling accidents can happen anywhere but my instinct is cycling on a road like the A38 is significantly more dangerous than other roads. It is hard to prove as there is no data relating cycle miles to accidents for this bit of road I know about but as someone who drives about twice or three times a week past the spot where this poor guy was killed I wince every time I see a cyclist. The speed and density of traffic leaves no space for cyclists - who as a motorist you often get the first warning about by the brake lights of vehicles ahead coming on. It is a two lane motorway by any other name.
This is a subjective view but nothing would ever make me cycle on this stretch of road. My view might be influenced by the fact I nearly killed a cyclist a few years ago on the A38. I was in my car, it was pouring with rain, I slowed down and followed a truck as my exit approached. When the slip road began on my left, designated by the dotted white line, I started moving left. Suddenly, through the spray thrown up by the truck I saw a cyclist pedalling straight on. Fortunately I am fairly manic about not tailgating so was far enough behind the truck ahead to see the cyclist in time for me to cut back onto the road, miss the cyclist and my turn off. A sobering experience.
The cyclist should have turned up the slip road and crossed it at right angles further up but there are no signs at this junction suggesting this and it was his right to stay on the A38. I suspect he doesn't know how close he came to death that evening.

[MrsHJ]

It felt sexist to me. I quite frequently get the red haze rise when either womens issues or cyclists issues are dissed so it did not feel an appropriate comment, sarcasm at best, particularly in the light of a thread about a tragic event.

My apologies MrsHJ if that is how it came over - it was not my intention. My intention was not to diss issues of women's personal safety but to say its absolutely not acceptable to say the solution to them is to stay off the streets. Likewise its not acceptable for cyclist safety to say stay off the roads.

Ok, forgiven, let's move on. My thoughts to the cyclists family.

[Erudin]

The websites linked below are worth a look, especially the maps so you can see where accidents in your area have occurred. Looking at the A38 near Lee Mill I can see two cyclist fatalities and a cyclist seriously injured between 2000-2010.

Every death on every road in Great Britain 1999 - 2010

Road casualties Map 2000-2010: killed, seriously injured and slightly injured

[Bicycler]

That last graph is a bit meaningless without any information on the amount of cycle use during rush hour compared to other times of the day.

[Erudin]

http://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/Tributes-paid-cyclist-Chris-Dennehy-died-crash/story-22891982-detail/story.html

[TonyR]

The websites linked below are worth a look, especially the maps so you can see where accidents in your area have occurred. Looking at the A38 near Lee Mill I can see two cyclist fatalities and a cyclist seriously injured between 2000-2010.

From that map it looks like they should "actively discourage" all traffic from that road. OTOH. It doesn't seem to stand out from many of the other roads so there seems no reason to discourage cyclists from using it.

[RJS]

I agree you should be able to cycle any road because of course once you say no to any road it's the thin end of the wedge. I have used a short section of this road, (A38), from the Avonwick turning up to the next junction, Wrangaton, I think the main danger, apart from the rubbish at the side of the road, is when you are passing an on slip, traffic coming up is looking back the road at approaching traffic, and might easily miss a cyclist in front of them, poor driving I know but not every one pays complete attention. This happened to a friend passing the Lee Mill junction heading for the Roscof ferry years ago. A bit like helmets, (sorry), compulsion no, bot do think it through.
Cheers, Rob

[MrsHJ]

It's not the safest road for sure. I've seen quite a few accidents. People happily bombing along at 100mph mixed up with tractors. There was the bloke standing in the road at dusk to direct drivers around his broken down car, totally oblivious to the fact that he was virtually invisible. A car over took me and the kids coming back from the cinema a couple of months ago in heavy rain and we saw him flipped upside down on the verge a couple of minutes later. Then there's the slip road that is also access to the service station, some plonker pulled out in front of me, I was in the slip road. from the service station to get back onto the carriageway the other day.

I'm trying to say that I drive it in my solid metal box with caution and I don't plan on cycling it any day soon although I have cycled similarly unappealing roads on tour when given no choice. In this instance the accident didn't take place close to a slip road or in bad weather ( I know as I was there a short time afterwards). It seems most likely to me it was driver or less likely but possibly cyclist error.

[BeeKeeper]

The websites linked below are worth a look, especially the maps so you can see where accidents in your area have occurred. Looking at the A38 near Lee Mill I can see two cyclist fatalities and a cyclist seriously injured between 2000-2010.

From that map it looks like they should "actively discourage" all traffic from that road. OTOH. It doesn't seem to stand out from many of the other roads so there seems no reason to discourage cyclists from using it.

As I think I suggested earlier, without knowing how many people cycle the stretch absolute casualty figures don't mean much. I spent a couple of hours on the A38 yesterday and didn't see a single cyclist.
Saw two slow moving tractors but they are very easy to spot, what with flashing beacons and of course the vehicles ahead of me know it will hurt if they hit a tractor so they take avoiding action early.

[mjr]

So look it up on http://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/ and then say what you think?

[BeeKeeper]

So look it up on http://www.dft.gov.uk/traffic-counts/ and then say what you think?

Fascinating link. Many thanks.

There is a "count point" very close to the recent tragedy (56413). From the download there were, for 2013, the most recent figure 49 pedal cycles with a total for all traffic of nearly 49,000. I am not sure over what period this count was made but at a ratio of 1 push bike to a thousand vehicles this suggests to me what I already suspected, this is a road not often used by cyclists and therefore the total number of serious accidents and fatalities does not give a true picture of the risk of cycling along this road.

I am probably not interpreting this data correctly so if someone who is more familiar with it can do I would be interested.

Given this data is all in a computer somewhere it would hardly be rocket science for the same people who publish it to produce a map showing which roads are the greatest risk. But as a cynic they probably wouldn't want to draw attention this way.

Edit: Just selected several other counting points at random in Devon and looked at the ratios. The problem seems to be the counting points are all main roads so in one sense not much difference between them but the second in the list (6407) gives a bike to vehicle ratio of approaching 1:100 which is more what I might expect for an urban situation but many of the others are around the 1:1000 recorded on the A38.

Not sure where this is leading, only I won't be cycling on the A38 any time soon.

[mjr]

Edit: Just selected several other counting points at random in Devon and looked at the ratios. The problem seems to be the counting points are all main roads so in one sense not much difference between them but the second in the list (6407) gives a bike to vehicle ratio of approaching 1:100 which is more what I might expect for an urban situation but many of the others are around the 1:1000 recorded on the A38.

That's just one problem with that dataset. For example, I seem to remember that if you're on a cycleway rather than an all-traffic lane, then you don't get counted, whereas you would be recorded as on that road if you had a collision, both onhttp://road-collisions.dft.gov.uk/collision-map/ and similar sources, which would inflate any estimate of risk.

For a stretch with no cycle facilities, like the bit of the A38 in this topic AFAIK, it's not awful, though.

[TonyR]

Edit: Just selected several other counting points at random in Devon and looked at the ratios. The problem seems to be the counting points are all main roads so in one sense not much difference between them but the second in the list (6407) gives a bike to vehicle ratio of approaching 1:100 which is more what I might expect for an urban situation but many of the others are around the 1:1000 recorded on the A38.

Not sure where this is leading, only I won't be cycling on the A38 any time soon.

I would expect an urban level generally of around 1-2% of journeys but am surprised that its even as high as 0.1% outside considering the number of cyclists I see when out in the country vs town.

I won't be cycling on the A38 any time soon either but only because I'm not likely to be in that area any time soon. It may be very unpleasant to cycle but I really do doubt its dangerous based on a single anecdote.