Killing a little time in ASDA today, so flicked thru a couple of car magazines – think it was Auto Express that caught my eye.

AUto Express ‘survey’

Didn’t read it fully, but appears they send someone to count naughty behaviour (RLJ, driving into the asdvanced stop box, etc. etc.) for both bikes and cars.

The figures looked pretty shocking for the bikes in the table they had.

Until you look at the details:
a) nearly causing collisions – even they admitted this was slightly dodgy, but basically us cyclists swerve nearly causing collisions a lot more than cars, which is not surprising really0 Motorists just plow on in that straight line regardless..
b) they included ‘not wearing reflectives’ as a bad point against cyclists
c) not wearing a helmet was also a point against cycling
etc. etc.

Jeez, talk about pushing the blame on cyclists….

Class comment below the line:

I could have eaten alphabet soup and shat a better article than this.

That is a class comment. I might use that myself when reviewing stuff at work.

I could have eaten alphabet soup and shat a better article than this.

Comment noted and filed away for future use. 🙂

A cycling magazine would be just as biased.

The numbers, and pulling apart, on Road.cc – http://road.cc/content/news/63600-auto-express-claims-three-four-cyclists-break-road-rules

highbury corner is one of those large gyratories that is a bit like a roundabout but not really. living round the corner from there i refuse to believe that only 1.6% of drivers don’t indicate going round it. basically nobody does.

Cyclists %* Fault Cars %**

287 29.4 No reflective clothing NA NA
104 10.7 No indicating 49 1.6
90 9.2 No helmet NA NA
84 8.6 Pulling out without looking 25 0.8
58 5.9 Jumping lights 12 0.4
44 4.5 Wearing headphones 42 1.3
33 3.4 Almost causing collision 17 0.5
16 1.6 Mounting pavement 0 0.0
0 0.0 Waiting in cycle box 83 2.6
0 0.0 Crossing a stop line 83 2.6
2 0.2 Using phone 38 1.2
1 0.1 Eating 9 0.3
0 0.0 Blocking crossing 22 0.7

719 74.2 Total 380 12.1

* Based on sample of 976 bicycles during a two-hour, morning rush hour
** Based on sample of 3,140 vehicles passing during the same period

42 drivers wearing headphones ! 😯

edit, bizarrely retains its formatting on editing 😕 but not when posted