Reflective gear everywhere – ankles, wrists as well as top. Light yourself up like an Xmas tree.
Sadly, accept that for some time yet, cycle commuting will remain a high risk activity, with many of the risks coming from other people's behaviour rather than just inherent in the activity (like mountain biking, skydiving, mountaineering etc) and minimise the risk as much as you can with your own behaviour and ability.
Cr*p I know but all you can control is your own behaviour

5 categories is taking it a bit far.

There's the blind – ban 'em
There's the stupid – ban 'em
Then there's the c*nts – kill 'em.

Simple and straight forward. 🙂

You can never rely on other people to act sensibly irrespective of your own form of transport.

Back when I worked near Warrington a few years back, there was a roundabout on a motorway exit that I negotiated daily (driving). On an average of about once a week, a truck approaching from another exit would reach the roundabout, look *right into my eyes* and them pull out onto the roundabout in front of me anyway.

If you're ever coming off J20 of the M6 near Lymm and spot a bit of roundabout that's about an inch higher than the surrounding road due to four years' build up of compacted rubber stripes, that's probably me. (-:

adh > you missed 4) Incompetence. Some people, fundementally, are simply bad drivers.

There is a (unproven) physiological reason for people not seeing bikes.

Our image processing stuff in the brain developed for seeing hazards. something is only recognised as a hazard when it is larger that (IIRC) 3 degrees of vision – now for a car thats when its a fair distance away but as a bike is so much narrower it has to be much much closer to cover this angle of your vision. So the brain does not register a bike as a hazard and thus ignores it. No amount of lights or high vis will alter this.

Just assume none of them have ever seen you unless you both make eye contact and see recognition in their expression. Even then don't trust them

Edit – there is also the screen pillar issue
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/smidsy.html

You forget the Jeremy Clarkson… It's the season here, they are popping on the road like daisies in my garden.

Interestingly enough I did a freedom of information request on strathclyde police after a driver wiped me out doing 30+ mph as I was stationary waiting to turn, said he wasn't looking where he was going as he was trying to read a map to the two police officers who turned up and I was trundled off in an ambulance.

The police didn't prosecute and seemed genuinely baffled that I was upset at that…

So I did some digging. I cant remember the exact numbers (this was two years ago now) and I have the letters at my parents however a significant amount (50% plus) of the cycling injury's were reported as the cyclists fault. The reasons for this included:
– Being on a busy road.
– Not having lights on during the day.
– Not wearing high vis stuff.
etc etc. The crap that you see in the news papers.

None were driver faults and the rest were undetermined.

The general attitude is one that killing / injuring a cyclist is OK as its a simple mistake that anyone can make. You only have to look at the punishments handed out for those that do kill / injure cyclists to see the general society point of view.

Until people who kill / injure with cars are treated by society in the same way as those that kill / injure with knives nothing will change.

All this crap about accepting bad driving stems from the same root cause – the general acceptance that cars have the right of way and that any negative impact needs to be tolerated.

Behavior will only change once punishment becomes significant. Punishment will only become significant once society accepts that killing / maiming / injuring with cars is as bad as knife crime. That will probably never happen however as a lot of people have an attitude that "that could be me that made that mistake" so don't push for heavier punishment.

In addition to this a lot of people seem to believe that hating on cyclists is an OK way to behave. In the environment I work in at least three or four of the "power males" (ie those in sales making £100k plus) will actively brag about driving at cyclists and forcing them off the road. For some reason its seen as macho and acceptable behaviour. Its worryingly close actually to some of the ideas in "Market Forces" by Richard Morgan. Worth a read. Anyway this is not discouraged, even after complaints to management about abusive behavior in the car park etc as, well, your a cyclist just get thicker skin.

I could rant for hours about this.

Hours.

As cheesy as it is just stay safe out there people.

if its not the drivers fault for not seeing a cyclist but it is for not seeing a pedestrian crossing a road, say. then wht chance have we got of ever getting safe roads when there is no culpability? you can't afford to not be defensive if this is the case. as i mentioned earlier, we shouldn't have to but we do have to remain vigilant on the roads

jonb – great link!

Indeed, that's a great site.

I'm sick of needing to ride so defensively

Don't ride then.

think i know what was meant by "so" defensively its like not only riding defensively but then second guessing what is going to happen when some bonehead from any of the categories does the expected unexpected

yesterday as i came up to the tail of a queue for temp lights and pulled into the middle of the lane (car behind 100yds or so back) and was near tailgating car in front as we pulled away – of course the car behind closed gap rapidly and still attempted to pass me as we entered the single lane section at around 25mph – the speed of the cars in front

point being not only have to ride defensively but sometimes have to aggressively demand use of road space – when it is actually yours as a legitimate road user

better maintained cycle ways are a way forward but only with an attitude change that cycling on the road is acceptable as well

– seen many comments on here on similar experiences to mine (would fit a 4/5 crossover in op's categories)I have personally experienced the

"you don't belong here – so if i nearly kill you it is your fault" in my case on a roundabout that had an adjacent cyclepath that didn't go where i wanted to go but the driver that nearly killed me chose to point to the cycle path sign rather than their dangerous driving

worked in Netherlands for a week or so a month for 2-3yrs and very impressed by mums/dads cycling to school with kids and the fact that provision can be improved but attitude is the key not physical barriers