Viewing 16 posts - 41 through 56 (of 56 total)
  • What needs to be done to improve cycle safety in the UK?
  • jaymoid
    Full Member

    I honestly think that whilst cars and cycles share the same roads it’ll never be safe. I used to commute via roads but ended up feeling shell-shocked at the end of the day from all the near misses and cars whizzing past me at 60+ on 40mph roads. I take my time and go off road. There’s even bits I’d rather walk on pavements than ride on the roads.

    Maybe I’d feel different if I didn’t live in a busy city.

    singlesteed
    Free Member

    Without sounding like a tossr, I can see the problem being

    A) there’s not enough room on UK roads to safely pass giving due distance and space to the cyclist.

    B) cyclists using main roads particularly with a 60mph limit can cause flow of traffic to stop start which is highly dangerous in itself game to play.

    I.e. Having been travelling in a car behind a vehicle which broke hard from 70mph on the dual carriageway to 30mph in a matter of a few seconds where a cyclist thought it wise to use the dual carriageway. This caused those who were insured and using road the appropriately to swerve and be put in danger which may have been a day of carnage.

    It can be said that road going cyclists on heavily used roads where fast flowing traffic is obviously going to be happening is a bad idea full stop

    This of what I have said is coming from a non cager i.e. Non car driver who whilst respects commuters needs also finds myself swearing and wanting to beat the crap out of the “odd” one who does not abide with road safety and tbf, asking for trouble imo at times.

    It’s often good to see cyclists in and around cities and pedestranised parts of town etc, as to reduce volume of vehicles and to reduce emmisions.

    Ironically enough, I too shall be wanting/needing to commute by cycle soon, just xc back route that unfortunately for the last few years has been taken over by the rat run craze who discovered it much quicker to do so.

    Going back to the OP point, I would equally like to see a future for combined symbiotic respect and mutual love of driving/riding safely using the road network.

    jameso
    Full Member

    the humongous soul-destroying pain in the arse trawling round your local Evans Halshaw/out-of-town home furnishings shop with the rest of the rat racers really is. F- all that sh*t, I’m off out on me bike that’s bought and paid for, ta

    Amen. : )

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    teasel
    Free Member

    This is probably why the pdf got taken down.

    I would’ve thought a quick adjustment would’ve been more effective than nothing at all. Maybe you’re right; maybe they just thought “Ah **** it, it’s just some cyclist shit. Who gives a toss…” and binned it.

    Omitting that realistic yet unsavoury point you highlighted I feel the rest is still viable info for all concerned.

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    4. More cyclists.
    The Critical Mass idea is solid, but misguided.

    Not sure the point you’re making – are you saying more cyclists would make conditions better? The reverse has happened in London. Since I started riding here numbers have increased massively but so has the aggression from motorists – without infrastructure ‘they’ consider themselves unreasonably delayed (even though journey times on a bike are less than in a car so I’m going to pass them again at the next set of lights) and eventually attempt a dangerous pass.

    I suspect it’s not really about infrastructure, it’s bigger than that. Perhaps it’s more about culture.

    No, it’s not. Dutch drivers are just as bad as UK drivers but as a cyclist you don’t have to interact with them very often. The conflict and danger is removed through physical separation.

    If you look at Germany there is hardly any segregated use infrastructure, but drivers are just a bit more considerate and don’t take the Michael.

    I’m not sure this anecdotal evidence is correct. My experience of visiting friends in Germany is that traffic laws are enforced much more strongly – driving whilst on drink or drugs is a complete no-no in a way it still isn’t in the UK. Widespread use of speed cameras (and not painted bright yellow with loads of warning signs), traffic lights used to slow cars (approach at over limit and they turn red) and much worse penalties from infringement.

    In my view –
    Mostly it’s about infrastructure and a change in attitude to allocation of road space.
    Outside town centres you convert pavement to bike track (with priority over side roads) and allow pedestrians (in the tiny numbers that actually do walk in rural locations).
    In towns default 20mph limit, removal of rat runs and through traffic (if theres a bypass it should no longer be possible/convenient to drive through a town or village). Out of town reduction in limits – national limit reduced from 60 to 30 with higher limits indicated (rather than the reverse).

    Culturally it’s about a huge change in attitude to enforcement of driving laws:
    – covert cameras to enforce limits should be widespread.
    – Fines should be significantly increased (Swiss system good – fines based on a number of days income so people actually feel the fine), driving bans should be common not exceptional with no ‘exceptional hardship’ exemption.
    – Retests and dangerous/careless/points on licence after any collision (even if no-one harmed).
    – large increase in fines for driving without insurance. Failure to pay fine or exceptional speed/danger confiscate and destroy the car.

    Every one thinks ‘collisions’ happen to other people, everyone thinks they’re an excellent driver. Real fear of losing licence for regular poor driving would be a far more effective deterrent than any jail time after an at fault collision (as they’re too rare on an individual basis). Jail time is rarely the answer for driving offences EXCEPT driving while banned.

    All that would make the roads safer but its’ still about the infra. It only needs 1 **** in a hundred to make riding on the road dangerous and unpleasant and even the above cultural change won’t get rid of the 1%

    miketually
    Free Member

    A default 20mph urban speed limit. Any arterial road upgraded to 30mph must first have high quality physically separated bike infrastructure.

    Close off “cut through” roads to private motor vehicles, so they have to drive around on main roads.

    Remove ~3% of parking spaces each year.

    Presumed liability.

    Retest drivers every five years.

    Renationalise the railways and bus companies, cut the prices. And increase bike spaces.

    brooess
    Free Member

    Culture change is what’s needed. How you could go about that could be:
    1. Make driving like a dick socially unacceptable – like we did with seatbelts and drink driving. No-one likes to be isolated by their peers
    2. Better cycling infrastructure – not sure I want full separation so much as infrastructure which gives clear priority to the cyclists
    3. Proper enforcement of existing law esp speed limits and overtaking at appropriate points
    4. Cycling included in driving lessons and the driving test
    5. Re-test every 2 years at driver’s expense
    6. Smaller cars, smaller engines – today’s cars have more power than most people have the skill and emotional maturity to handle
    7. More tax on car use – not on the car but on use – so people think about it before they go out each time and start to cycle more for shorter journeys
    8. Self-driving cars
    9. Psychological testing incl as part of the driving assessment – some people are just too angry, too emotional, too impatient to be trusted with a motor vehicle.
    10. Make it impossible to use a mobile phone in a moving car. We managed fine until the mid-90’s, I’m sure we can manage again. Who gives a toss about the passenger…
    11. Non-compulsory but vastly increased participation in Bikeability – give riders confidence about their rights and to ride in a more assertive way and understand how to own the road and give clear, assertive communication to drivers – I suspect a lot of drivers would back off acting like bullies if they were stood up to more – like most bullying behaviour.
    12. Give drivers more training on how to drive around cyclists – I suspect a lot of people have a little panic when they see a vulnerable and slow moving cyclist ahead – it’s why they get angry – they’re dead scared they’ll hurt someone because they’re not confident enough to pass properly. Some of the passes I see are so far off to the other side of the road, unnecessarily, I suspect the driver is so scared of hitting us that they massively overcompensate.

    IME, in London and around Kent, more and more drivers are staying back or overtaking properly – we had v little problems on our club run this morning. This has been getting better last year and the year before. I think sheer numbers of cyclists is helping – drivers are getting used to the change and/or they know someone who’s just started riding who points out to them how it feels on a bike…

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    5. Re-test every 2 years at driver’s expense

    I’m not sure this is actually necessary. Sufficient to be after offence, collision and age related. Every 2 years after 65, 70 maybe?

    Make it impossible to use a mobile phone in a moving car.

    Immediate ban. It’s not something you can do accidentally.

    11. Non-compulsory but vastly increased participation in Bikeability – give riders confidence about their rights and to ride in a more assertive way and understand how to own the road and give clear, assertive communication to drivers – I suspect a lot of drivers would back off acting like bullies if they were stood up to more – like most bullying behaviour.

    Not my experience. The problem is the ones who don’t have a ton of car at their disposal.
    Also see NearMissProject – http://rachelaldred.org/research/feeling-the-pinch/
    “For the cyclist, it is a no-win situation. Some explicitly referred to what they perceived as a choice between a high risk of an unsafe pass, if near the kerb, and a lower risk of (even more frightening) deliberate aggression, if in primary position.”

    AlasdairMc
    Full Member

    Being aggressive to cyclists needs to be the new drink driving. You don’t see people going on Twitter to boast about how many drinks they had before driving, so why is it acceptable to abuse cyclists?

    brooess
    Free Member

    so why is it acceptable to abuse cyclists?

    Matthew Parris advocating decapitation

    This was an absolute shocker. Not least because no charges were brought, he kept his job and received no public approbation and the story receives no attention even now… and as far as I know he’s still regarded as a legitimate journalist.

    If he’d said the same about black people, women, jews etc the reaction would have been quite different.

    brooess
    Free Member

    Not my experience. The problem is the ones who don’t have a ton of car at their disposal.
    Also see NearMissProject – http://rachelaldred.org/research/feeling-the-pinch/
    “For the cyclist, it is a no-win situation. Some explicitly referred to what they perceived as a choice between a high risk of an unsafe pass, if near the kerb, and a lower risk of (even more frightening) deliberate aggression, if in primary position.”

    I 100% agree with your fundamental point Simon – I missed out presumed liability in my list! But as a measure amongst many I think a lot of cyclists – especially the less experienced ones would be more confident and more assertive in the face of aggression if they knew their rights and they knew how to manage traffic. This over time would help make it clear to the more bullying type of driver, or the simply ignorant, that cyclists have as much right of way, and as much power as they do…

    I also struggle with the ‘damned if I do, damned if I don’t’ aspect of primary – not least the amount of grief I get from my club secretary for doing it!

    I’ve experimented with different techniques and over time I’ve found a good solid look over my shoulder (or several) as I approach the narrowing which requires primary, an assertive signal to show I’m pulling out, then pulling back in when appropriate and a wave to say thank you when there’s space for the car to pass, tends to lead to drivers holding back.

    Doesn’t work all the time I grant you, but being more assertive and deliberate does help remind drivers that you have as much authority as they do…

    John Franklin has some interesting points to make in a chapter called ‘sharing the roads’ e.g. “curiously the biggest mistake made by many cyclists is that they are too submissive when sharing the roads, somehow feeling that they must always allow priority to motor vehicles. It is precisely this attitude that causes many of their difficulties in traffic”

    Training obviously can go a very long way in educating cyclists away from this attitude

    gonetothehills
    Free Member

    Interesting and useful stuff – thanks OP. As a number have said, I also firmly believe that the need for attitudinal and cultural change is core to the whole thing.

    In addition to numerous ‘idiot passes’ I’ve experienced over the years, where drivers seem to think they’ve made an intelligent decision by putting themselves on the wrong side of the road around a bend, when if there wasn’t another human being on a bicycle inside them, they’d no more have done that than walked to the moon; it’s this ingrained belief that some drivers feel they have a god-given right to be first and fastest on the road that I find so upsetting and confusing.

    I have in recent years adopted a much more positive approach to riding on the road – ‘rewarding’ good overtakes with a thank-you wave (I’d say it’s noticeable that when I do this to the first car in a line, the following vehicles seem to give decent room too) rather than losing the plot so much with bad drivers. Equally, taking the ‘prime’ position seems to have reduced the number of crazy overtaking moves as there’s less room for them to push past, but the ‘class system’ that seems to exist with the bicycle at the very bottom seems to be the root of the issue.

    Whether it’s because bad cyclists have caused this between drivers and cyclists, or simply as many above have said, that time / speed / might matters in some drivers’ little minds, I don’t know, but an incident yesterday almost prompted me to start a similar thread.

    Heading to the hills on my mountain bike, I was riding along a quiet residential street with cars parked down both sides and became aware of a van behind me. It started revving, then inching in to see if it could push past. I put my hand out and down to signal it to move back, but this seemed to exacerbate things so I turned round and asked him – now almost alongside – what he was doing and that there was no room to pass. He then proceeded to force past, me taking avoiding action to stop him clipping my bars.

    I caught him at the junction about 100 yards further on and pulled onto the pavement to question his judgement. Amongst the tirade I received back was the phrase “I don’t have time to wait behind you holding me up”. This was on a Saturday morning. He wasn’t driving an ambulance and didn’t appear to have his pants on fire.

    I just wonder, if the same guy (driving his company van, so clearly with nothing to hide) would push past old folk at the post office – because they were holding him up? Would he elbow kids out of the way to get to the chocolate bars in Tesco, because he didn’t have time to wait? Would he shove past mums with pushchairs in town, because his needs to be somewhere were far greater than theirs? Horses? Tractors? Funeral processions?

    It baffles me – truly. It upsets me that people behave like this to other people and consider them to be of such little worth that they cease to matter. I wonder if he’d have started to give a shit if he’d knocked me off, or broken my leg, or killed me?

    I don’t know at what point in the whole process people will realise they’re interacting with other people who have exactly the same right to survive as they do – and behave accordingly.

    TheBrick
    Free Member

    Maybe I’d feel different if I didn’t live in a busy city.

    I tend to find bussy small towns and edge of towns the worst as there is not enough traffic to slow the cars down but its busy enough that people have difficulty overtaking.

    People are right that it is cultural but culture is partially driven by the environment in which people live. I don’t thing town planning has been very good in the past few decades, resulting in pro car traffic planning and very much sprawling and overly zoned placements of housing vs facilities / jobs resulting in large re distance and more isolated hosing.

    project
    Free Member

    Having the contact details of all company vehicles wether car or van on the passenger side door would help to enforce speed limits and safer driving, we couild then see which companies take road user safety as a must , not just allow idiots to drive un named company vehicles wuith gusto, because they have no way of being identified as company vehicle drivers.

    All PCV,s have to have the owners details on the outside pannel to the rear of the front side door by law, so in the case of a claim the passenger or other road user knows who to contact.

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    I missed out presumed liability in my list!

    Presumed liability is a red herring. Yes, it should be in place but it’s only effect as I understand it is to make insurance companies behave – they have to prove the cyclist was at fault to avoid paying compensation in the effect of an injury. It makes no difference to driver behaviour – no-one thinks they’re a bad driver, no-one thinks they’re going to hit a cyclist, not related to police charges

    Doesn’t work all the time I grant you, but being more assertive and deliberate does help remind drivers that you have as much authority as they do…

    My version of this is – it doesn’t make a difference very often. It’s the illusion of difference for all those drivers who’d have been safe anyway. For a small minority it stops them being stupid. For a small minority it makes them angry, aggressive, abusive.

    John Franklin has some interesting points to make in a chapter called ‘sharing the roads’ e.g. “curiously the biggest mistake made by many cyclists is that they are too submissive when sharing the roads, somehow feeling that they must always allow priority to motor vehicles. It is precisely this attitude that causes many of their difficulties in traffic”

    Training obviously can go a very long way in educating cyclists away from this attitude

    Works for young, fit males. Not everyone is bold and assertive off the bike = you’re not going to change their fundamental character once they’re on it. Frankly, dealing with motor vehicles when you’re on a bike is terrifying once you start thinking about it. Another cyclist can hit me, or a pedestrian, and I know I’ll basically be OK. Even a serious accident on an mtb I might break a bone or two but not much more. A car, van or bus and I’ll be seriously injured. That’s real and no amount of training can change that fundamental fact. I’m increasingly scared of traffic as I think I’m more aware of the consequences as I get older.

    John Franklin basically comes down to ‘put yourself in the way of the cars and pray they’re not too dangerous or distracted to care about you’

    You hear the claim sometimes that highlighting cycle deaths will frighten people off cycling so pro-cycle organisations shouldn’t do it. That’s nonsense – motor vehicles ARE dangerous. It’s the ‘cage of lions’ metphor – no amount of telling me they’re pussycats and unlikely to bite me is going to change the fact that they’re **** LIONS!

    simons_nicolai-uk
    Free Member

    Having the contact details of all company vehicles wether car or van on the passenger side door would help to enforce speed limits and safer driving,

    Doesn’t seem to work for those that do at the moment. Skip trucks, Post office vans, scaffolding lorries. All those construction vehicles that kill a lot of cyclists. All branded up.

    Hows my driving?

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