[Closed] Mandatory cycling lessons for all ages and sexes

No.

Kettles on. Just going to get the biscuits

The government is kind of busy at the minute
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For everyone else yes, not me though I'm teh awsumz at riding me bike!

Fine as long as the car, van and truck drivers have extra safety lessons on how not to kill or maim other vulnerable road users.

I failed my cycling proficiency for doing wheelies on my 'droppy'...... so no **** em

This is a good piece

http://www.copenhagenize.com/2009/10/sacred-bull-in-societys-china-shop.html?m=1

Maybe do some health and safety courses too.

not all of them due to other road users faults.

Here is one study (ok it's from Australia but that's where I am at present)
it involved academics analysing the video records of regular commuter cyclists - part of the executive summary:

[i]"No collision events were recorded.

A total of 91 potentially unsafe cyclist-interactions were
identified. In the majority of events (93.4%), the behaviour of the driver led to the event"[/i]

focusing on cyclist behaviour is ignoring the real problem - no problem with kids learning defensive cycling skills in schools and out in the streets provided they can subsequently actually not be too intimidated to use them because driver behaviour around cyclists is poor - how about compulsory driver retraining every 5 years?

of course its often said that most cyclists are also drivers - as if that is a good thing - quite a lot cycle the same way they drive and that could be a problem

[url] http://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0019/217306/muarc322.pdf [/url]

With people like the OP in charge (or Chris Grayling for that matter) ET would never have gotten home*. For that reason I'm out.

* Back to his spaceship anyway. There's no evidence the ship survived the return journey.

You mention riding two or three abreast and not using cycle paths.

For that reason i'm out as I'd want any compulsory training to be factually correct and representing up to date thinking.

Start with govt transport ministers and I'm with you...

The OP reads a bit like a "professional drivers" brain fart...

And then...

Considering how much government money is spent on trying to make roads safer for us

Where's this money being spent then? Infrastructure is being maintained, local government paint the odd Lane in a gutter or an ASL. But roads ain't gotten any [i]safer[/i] in the last decade that I can see...

If by mandatory, you mean 'absolutely everyone - including car and truck drivers' then you've got my attention,

But then you say that cyclists should be in the cycle lanes, which is just reactionary rubbish.

(Most/all* cycle lanes are crap, short, dis-jointed, and dangerous)

(*and there really aren't very many - certainly not enough to enable anyone to "ride everywhere using cycle lanes")

We have all seen / know other cyclists riding 2 or 3 abreast

Yes, very sensible of them to do so.

Proof you don't need mandatory lessons.

Can we add mandatory pedestrian training to the list of [b]things that must be done[/b] they go down like skittles if you hit them with a 40 tonne lorry so they need training on how to dodge one.

also, why riding 3 abreast or in the centre of a lane is a good idea.

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wordnumb - Member
With people like the OP in charge (or Chris Grayling for that matter) ET would never have gotten home*. For that reason I'm out.

* Back to his spaceship anyway. [b]There's no evidence the ship survived the return journey[/b].

well that's a bit of a downer don't know if to mark down 1982 or 2017 as a disastrous year?... bit like suddenly finding out that isn't a finger puppet the vicar used at sunday school every week

wwaswas, that's a great info graphic

Statistically the government must know that a lot of cyclists having own fault crashes have no sense of their own or anyone elses safety.

This is a good one. Happy to walk you through a long list of cases where the exact same can be said of people driving cars. Quite often they take out people around them rather than just themselves.

Anyway, could I suggest reading [url=singletrackworld.com/columns/2016/03/the-rise-of-the-idiots/]The Rise of The Idiots[/url], which is about idiots on bikes so you'll love it, and [url=singletrackworld.com/columns/2016/03/the-rise-of-the-idiots/]Them and Theirs[/url], which runs you through just a week's worth of car-related carnage as part of a look into why people are obsessed with bad behaviour on bicycles but utterly relaxed about bad behaviour in anything weighing a tonne or more and capable of far greater speeds.

Or if you can't be arsed with words, here are some pictures. Remind me again how training makes bad behaviour magically disappear?

And don't forget that around 80% of cyclists have passed a driving test, so your compulsory training would only make a difference to 20%. Plus, having tracked [url= http://beyondthekerb.org.uk/casebook/ ]well over 200 cycling fatalities in detail[/url] I'd be reasonably confident in venturing the suggestion that the majority of the deaths that look like first party fault are from a demographic which is far more likely to overlap with the 80% who've passed the test than the 20% who haven't. (Sure, the driving test isn't the same as Bikeability, but then your remarks are somewhat at odds with Bikeability and are rather driver-centric.)

Perhaps you could browse through the evidence and identify the small number of cases where your proposal might make a difference, rather than just having a blustering, under-researched opinion about it?

[URL= http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y477/BigBlackShed/BDCCBE9A-39C6-4AC8-8089-B4677F2B690E_zpssc0fazrl.jp g" target="_blank">http://i1276.photobucket.com/albums/y477/BigBlackShed/BDCCBE9A-39C6-4AC8-8089-B4677F2B690E_zpssc0fazrl.jp g"/> [/IMG][/URL]

This came up on a Facebook feed. I applied the sound reasoning I do to all anti cycling bilge. "Don't argue with idiots. They will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience"

In the majority of events (93.4%), the behaviour of the driver led to the event

Clearly in 100% of events the behaviour of the cyclist led to the event... the irresponsible buggers bothered to ride a bike. That means anything else that happens is their fault unless they have 200 hours of supervised riding in a school playground, wear full body armour and sport lights that wouldn't be out of place at a premiership football ground.

It's not the mode of transports fault, it's the person in charge of it. Cars or vans aren't the problem, people are the problem. An inconsiderate car driver is probably an inconsiderate van driver, cyclist, hill walker, pedestrian.

If people just practised consideration and care towards other human beings by default the world would be a more pleasant place, however, that's a much bigger issue.

And the OP seems like he's trolling just a touch.

cyclists not using cycle Lanes

Considering how much government money is spent on trying to make roads safer for us, it's all wasted money if we don't use it.

So, tell me again about these safe cycle lanes? This is one of my local beauties.

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IMO, there are numpties in all vehicles/bikes/pedestrians. The issue is more who is most vulnerable when mistakes* happen, and if there is a running theme of what complex causes there are for accidents**.

*mistakes include numpty behaviour.
**there is never one cause that leads to accidents.

I was wondering when Bez woild pop up. 😀

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Would be interesting to see the national curriculum branch out into cycling. Would probably be the most real would application of anything ever learned in a secondary school...ever?

^ That's a good idea.

I was wondering when Bez woild pop up.

I don't know how he does it, honestly. It must be like smacking your head off a particularly stupid-looking brick wall every day. Just seeing some of the nonsense you get on here, a cycling website, makes me want to scream, and yet he calmly, rationally calls out complete morons out there in the big wide world of idiots, over and over, without being ground down into a whimpering paste of despair (which is what has happened to me).

Bez, I salute you and your indefatigable efforts against the forces of motoring ignorance and prejudice. Keep it up.

OP, you're mistaken. Listen to Bez.

The issue is more who is most vulnerable when mistakes* happen

I'd argue differently. The issue is the potential for harm that is conferred by the vehicle of the person making the mistake and the amount of kinetic energy they've chosen to load it with.

If you start focusing on vulnerability then you come up with answers that seek to address the symptoms rather than the cause. Which has multiple problematic results: firstly there's no way anyone on foot or on a bike can defend against even a small car, and secondly it turns everything into an arms race where people are obliged to have ever heavier vehicles to defend against ever heavier vehicles.

"Vulnerability" does come into it when looking at heterogeneous vehicles, but when you consider people on foot and people on bikes, both are similarly "vulnerable" but it's the bikes that bring speed and energy to the party. When mixing those two modes everyone's pretty happy to accept that it's the people on bikes that should be taking more care. I've seen a number of cases of people on foot and people on bikes colliding with the former sustaining head injuries, but I've never, ever seen anyone suggest that pedestrian helmets are the solution to that. We don't focus on vulnerability in that situation: only when the alternative is having to take more care in our cars.

I'm all for drivers having to learn to ride a bike safely, and pass a cycling test, before getting a car licence. In fact they should do that before being allowed to even learn to drive.

Don't pass your car test within a year of your cycling test, and you have to take the cycling test again.

Don't want to learn/experience cycling on the roads, then you don't deserve a car!

"Vulnerability" does come into it when looking at heterogeneous vehicles, but when you consider people on foot and people on bikes, both are similarly "vulnerable" but it's the bikes that bring speed and energy to the party.

This is a good point actually, when trucks kill car drivers/passengers on the motorway you don't see large groups of truckers on the news saying that cars should be kept out of the way so why should cyclists be different?

Or should we all just drive trucks everywhere, that would solve the issue shirley?

Sure, but risk based so more training based upon the amount of people they kill or harm for their particular transport type.

+ apply the HSAW to professional drivers and their employers when driving

This is a good point actually, when trucks kill car drivers/passengers on the motorway you don't see large groups of truckers on the news saying that cars should be kept out of the way so why should cyclists be different?

Or should we all just drive trucks everywhere, that would solve the issue shirley?

That or we all drive orange cars while wearing helmets.

When people spout rubbish about bikes "getting in the way" or being ridden badly because they're out of the bike lane/gutter, I know that the person is not an experienced road (or at least city) cyclist.

A colleague only this morning was remarking on the number of cyclists he'd seen fall over on ice outside his flat (because they were using the segregated bike lane, which hadn't been gritted, rather than the road, which had). There are all sorts of other reasons not to use them (in the case of that bike lane, despite wide pavements, pedestrians wander along the bike lane too, so if I'm riding fast I'll stick to the road where people will at least look before stepping out).

As with others, if we were talking about cycling lessons being compulsory for all ages and sexes, that would be great, and would probably help a lot of people get on/get back on a bike, and positively impact safety on the roads.

I've never, ever seen anyone suggest that pedestrian helmets are the solution to that. We don't focus on vulnerability in that situation: only when the alternative is having to take more care in our cars.

Actually it's only when the alternative is having to take more care in cars AND it's a cyclist involved.

Car runs down pedestrians, it's a national disgrace - something needs to be done to make our roads/footpaths safer
Car runs down cyclists, they must have been doing something wrong - something needs to be done to force cyclists to be safer

My friends little sister was hit and killed crossing a road at school when I was a teenager. A road that is dangerous (motorway exit leads to dual carriageway down a hill to a roundabout so excessive speed) and has a serviceable (but much slower to get to the greasy spoon) footbridge. I've crossed the same crossing over a thousand times in my life even though there's a bridge. When she was hit, even though she chose a less safe method to cross the road, the first approach was to lower the speed limit on the last half mile of the road not fence off the crossing. Perhaps it'd be different 25 odd years down the line, but for some reason dead/injured pedestrians tend not to carry the same burden of blame (if sober etc), that cyclists do.

Yeah, there are some similarities and some differences. The reactions are different in no small part because at present relatively few people cycle but pretty much everyone walks (which is also the key reason why people complain like stink about any money being spent to enable cycling but are very rarely bothered by money being spent on pavements or pedestrianised areas to enable walking, when neither shoes nor bicycles attract vehicle tax… I digress).

There are plenty of citable examples of victim blaming regarding pedestrian casualties, though, both in criminal and civil law. Things like not wearing hi-vis clothing, being on an unlit road (and making it fairly clear in court that the police expect drivers to be entitled to drive at the speed limit in the dark, even when that inherently means they're unable to avoid a collision with anything unlit ahead of them) and so on. As a society we still rarely react in a way that inconveniences us in cars, even though our reaction to pedestrian casualties is more often "shit happens, nothing to see here" and our reaction to pedal cycle casualties tends to be more often "it was their own fault".

The bottom line is that pretty much everyone walks and drives, so any reaction always comes up against strong opposition if it seeks to hinder those activities. Cycling, by contrast, is for a small group of ****ers, and the world at large is broadly satisfied if it becomes more difficult.

Being a cyclist,car driver,truck driver. Whatever mode of transport I'm using i always consider other road users position. And mine and their safety. I always use cycle paths and lanes, I forward think and ride and drive to arrive. Children in school are taught how to ride a bike safely and considerately. So considering how many cyclists are injured and killed each year , not all of them due to other road users faults. Statistically the government must know that a lot of cyclists having own fault crashes have no sense of their own or anyone elses safety.We have all seen / know other cyclists riding 2 or 3 abreast not even looking behind , oblivious of what's going on around them, cyclists not using cycle Lane's and paths , cyclists wearing head phones , riding bikes clearly unroad worthy.sinse the cycling at the last Olympics, road cyclings gone through the roof. So how come there hasn't been any government discussion about mandatory cycling lessons. Considering how much government money is spent on trying to make roads safer for us, it's all wasted money if we don't use it.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the dire need for mandatory spelling and grammar training before someone is allowed to use the Internet.

So considering how many cyclists are injured and killed each year ,

Cycling [i]extends[/i] your life expectancy. You can't use safety statistics to argue cyclists need compulsory tests, and in any case, the arguments would apply to pedestrians too.

You could say it's not "fair" cyclists don't have tests when drivers do, but this is simply because driving creates a huge risk for everyone you might crash into.

I'd fully support making it part of the driving test though.

Bez
I'd argue differently.

I struggle for the words and phrases - I'm glad some folk can put it into good arguments...

Statistically the government must know that a lot of cyclists having own fault crashes have no sense of their own or anyone elses safety

I was under the impression that what the statistics [i]actually[/i] show is that this is pretty much an imaginary Daily Mail problem, and the [i]real[/i] problem is careless drivers? Is this actually the case?

guardian article, 2009: [url= https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/dec/15/cycling-bike-accidents-study ]linky[/url]

With adult cyclists, police found the driver solely responsible in about 60%-75% of all cases, and riders solely at fault 17%-25% of the time.

numbers crunched by the DFT and the Transport Research Laboratory.

Bez is spot on. It's all about discouraging by any means.

As usual the babies have eaten the crayons. It's time to remove any sharp objects, issue the bite gags, restraints and leather helmets to stop them hurting each other.