One of my mates at work dropped this on my desk last night, quote, ” ‘ere that’s about you lot have a read, “
I couldn’t find a link to it on the MCN website so had to make do with a scanned copy , sorry 😕
The article is from last weeks, ( 20 July ) copy of the Motor Cycle News.
I’ll go and put the kettle on …. 😉

Fair point, who else runs down a rutted narrow track in the dark at 35mph only inches away from trees?

Bet the stats for “offroad” are worse 😀

Summary please. That’s a lot of small on the piss scanned type to read.

They say cycling in “a” city is really dangerous, when the study is about Paris. No sh*t Sherlock, I am not sure I’d have the guts to cycle in Paris!

And then they say cycling is not regulated because it fits in with the current political agenda. That’d be the crazy politically motivated agenda of trying to encourage people not to be lazy fat unhealthy slobs then?

45.7x more dangerous than motorcycling? I thought as much.

These are a bit easier to read, the piece of article above these bits don’t really count for much, they’re just the writers opinion 😯 .

Cheers Molgrips. So it’s basically a bit of nonsense then? I guess we can expect this to filter through to the Mail on Sunday by the weekend.

I would read it, but its too small even on this 24″ monitor.

EDIT: Nice GRAEMEJONES. 😉

Why do MCN have an axe to grind with cyclists? Seems a bit odd to me.

Because they’re basically Daily Mail readers on wheels?

So it’s basically a bit of nonsense then?

Seems like it, I can’t figure out what their point is other than whingeing a bit more about the govt trying to mess with them.

no all the great facilities we get on the road because we are right-on and central to the too much transport policy. It is shame this still leaves us 41.7 times more likely to get injured.

Apparently THAT – rather than shoody journalism are the reason we cannot have a blanced and reasonable view

MCN

Know to most bikers as “More Crap than News”

what a load of shite.

3 motorcyclists killed near here last week , one under a a train dodging the barriers on a level crossing.

Oddly enough on my sunday 100 miler a few weeks ago, the most dangerous piece of overtaking was done by a bunch of tw*ts on motorbikes… they passed me literally inches from my bars at god knows what speeds, with the illegal, high noise exhausts.

I used to ride motorbikes, have ridden most things from a ZZR250, ZXR400 to a R1 and CBR1100 – so I know how to ride. But some of the dick head weekend warrior motorbike riders really are c**ts, and spouting that they’re safe on the road is total bullsh*t.

Biscuit?

paris is no different

thats without accounting for the very different demographics

you can’t have it both ways.

nonsense article. imo.

I happily cycle in london – in fact i think it is safer than southamton. I went to paris in june, I was really exicted about trying the velibs – was put off once i had seen the driving style.

Did see a chap cross the etoile on a velib. he seemed typically nonchalant about the whole thing

Riding three abreast prezet ?
I’ll have a chocolate hob nob please. 😀

Grim168 – Nope, perfectly ordered single file, enjoying the peaceful, sunny, country lanes…

(Chocolate?! Think about your waist line sir.)

what a load of cobblers, just one of those have a pop at someone articles, cyclists turn this week.

Prezet, funnily enough on my sunday (road) ride the scariest overtake was from a motorcyclist also – not that close but begger me he was shifting, well over the (50) limit. Don’t normally have much trouble from bikers.

Typical MCN victim-complex, paranoia mongering sub Daily Wail journalism. I love motorbikes, hate that bloody paper.

Though I admit it does make a rarely made point about safety of pushbikes vs motorbikes, even if it does use ridiculous statistics:

…cycling in a city is a knuckle whitening 45.7 times more dangerous than riding a motorcycle. Our own government regularly declares that motorcycling is 40 times more dangerous than using a car, so if you bring these two together, that makes cycling 1828 times more dangerous than driving.

People never take me seriously when I say city motorcycling is far safer than city cycling, but even without that mathematical glitch quantifying it, it’s always been the case.

Unfortunately the article uses the point to make the same, tired old point about how cyclists escape tests and insurance. They were clever enough to not mention ‘road tax’ but most readers will have chuntered it over their Ogri mugs.

The risks for each group of road users is difficult to compare because the usage and journey types are different and the accident report is different as well:

If you crash your car and get hurt your accident is logged as a road related injury and goes in the stats or accident per vehicle mile

If you’d chosen to leave your car at home and walk the same journey, trip over the curb and break your neck…. that accident isn’t recorded as transport related at all.

If you cycle to work and get hurt its recorded as a cycling related road accident, but if you fall off a BMX in the skate park its usually recorded in the same figures, and if you **** yourself at a trail centre its generally recorded in the same stats also.

So pedestrian accidents are massively under-reported, and cycling ones are hugely over reported.

You can then twist the figures around any way you like. Do you measure risk by incidents per mile which loads the scales towards motorists because they travel longer distances and diminshes the data for cyclists and pedestrians? Or do you measure it by journey time – accidents per hour travelled? Whatever you do you just end up with nonsense.

I know how to ride. But some of the dick head weekend warrior motorbike riders really are c**ts, and spouting that they’re safe on the road is total bullsh*t.

Trouble is ‘knowing how to ride’ is self certified. Owning the bike seems to be the only prerequisite anyone needs to be able to feel they know how to ride it, you don’t really know if you are one of the c**ts or not until after the event. 🙂

D0NK – It’s the summer riders. The idiots who have their bike sat in the garage for most of the year, to bring it out only on sunny days and ride them like total knobs…

My neighbours are passionate motorcyclists – they go out every weekend and do hundreds of miles. They have a couple of very fast bikes, but ride them sensibly and are very respectful of other road users.

I guess it’s like comparing cyclists who ride and obey road laws (inc. red lights) and those who, urm, well, don’t.

Its amazing how an inanimate object such as a bicycle suddenly destroys an otherwise normal persons moral compass and turns them into some sort of suicidal law-breaking risk-taking maniac hell bent on ignoring every law there is, scrounging off the state by using the roads for free, and eventually killing themselves.

The original study in all its finery:
http://www.pierrekopp.com/downloads/2011 The unpredicted rise.pdf

The fact that there are on average 21 2WMV fatalities in Paris (average 2006–2007) for a means of transport accounting for 16% of passenger/km made every day in Paris offers a striking contrast to the 6 (average 2006–2007) fatalities concerning cyclists which account for a mere 0.1% of trips.

According to me and my calculator, that makes it 3.5 times more dangerous to ride a motorbike, I mean a two-wheeled motor vehicle.
Sod the semantics about how often the things are used, the important thing here are the actual numbers of fatalities and how a hack has twisted them to suit their own agenda.

And since the research for that study was completed, the three wheeled Piaggios have really taken off (which are incidentally now classed as cars in France because of a revised front axle width by the constructor)