Cycle paths or road??

[highlandsflyer]

I have spent a long time on horses, when you eventually get into something that can move at pace you tend to get a bit excited.

Just kidding.

Ironic, but I tend to agree with you.

It is often the least expected from where madness originates.

 

[We_are_Stevo]

Reading through the statistics available it would seem that cyclists are involved in a third of all RTA's even though they account for less than 20% of the traffic;

Cyclists seem just as likely to have an accident on a cycle path (around forty-something percent) as on the main carriageway, though the consequences are considerably graver on the carriageway. This would seem to be due to a singular lack of concentration on the part of the cyclist, usually at junctions of one kind or another...

There have been some very emotive and idealistic replies on this thread which just go to show how blinkered any one demographic can be; for every few yards of ludicrous implimentation (as illustrated in the examples posted above) I'm willing to bet there are many hundreds of miles of excellent cycle paths costing many tens of thousands of pounds.

I would have liked to have posted some rather gory photo's to illustrate the after effects of an altercation between a female cyclist who tried to ride up the inside of an 18-wheeler, in his considerable blind spot, and come off decidedly second best (in fact there wasn't much left that looked even vaguely human!) but the website requires a PIN so the links don't work...

Suffice to say human beings don't have fur to hold them together like our four-legged friends do when they get splattered all over the road. I have a friend who works for the Highways Agency in Birmingham and she told me about a cyclist who got hit by several articulated lorries trying to cross the M5 at night - what was left wouldn't even have filled a Tescos carrier bag!

What was even worse was how blase she has become about it all in the three years she has been in the job. She certainly has no sympathy for cyclists who won't use the facilities provided for them...

My sympathies lie with the Emergency Services who have to deal with the aftermath of the average seven fatalities per day on the UK roads.

Just because we have every much right as anyone else to be on the road doesn't imbue us with some kind of mystical invincibilty, and it doesn't have to be our fault, but we could still end up very messily dead if the Big Guy upstairs decides our time has run because we've already taken too many chances!

I'll take my chances on the cycle path every time...

 

[JamesM]

"Use the f*ck*ng cycle path you brainless moron and stop holding up the traffic!"

I'm sorry but I drive hundreds of miles a day and it makes my blood boil when I come across a cycling commuter holding up a queue of traffic when there is a perfectly good cycle path a couple of feet to his left! :evil:

I don't hold with the 'safety objections' either...

Make your mind up!!!

 

[lumos2000]

We_are_Stevo your not james martin are you?

 

[drystonepaul]

Stevo.

I'd like to know which statistics you've been looking at to arrive at the percentages you have stated above.

Reading through the statistics available it would seem that cyclists are involved in a third of all RTA's even though they account for less than 20% of the traffic;

Based on DfT statistics:
Despite a year on year increase in the number of cycle journeys made, (of about 12% each year over the past five years) the national statistics state in the UK cycle journeys still account for less than 2% of all journeys made in relation to all other traffic.
In London, even if targets to double the number of cycle journeys made by 2020 are met then this will still only account for 4% of total journeys made. So in terms of journeys made, cycling still only accounts for a very small proportion of traffic.
There are of course regional variations. Cambridge for example reports 28% of journeys made by bike, which is comparable to 'normal' levels of cycling in Holland for example.

The assertion that cyclists are involved in a third of all accidents is also inaccurate.

Using the 1994-1998 statistics.

All road users:All casualties = 319,928
Cyclists:All casualties = 24,385
Percentage of casualties who are cyclists = 7.7% approx

Since 1998 overall road accidents have fallen by about 40% for all users due to a number of road safety initiatives and targets.

So using the more recent statistics from 2008/2009.

All road users:All casualties = 223,430
Cyclists:All casualties = 16,580
Percentage of casualties who are cyclists = 7.5% approx

Despite being long way from a third of all casualties this is still a disproportionate amount compared to the 2% average figure of journeys made by bike.


The Killed or Seriously Injured (KSI) statistics tell a similar story.

1994-1998 statistics.

All road users:KSI = 47,656
Cyclists: KSI = 3,732
Percentage of KSI who are cyclists = 7.9% approx

Statistics from 2008/2009.

All road users:KSI = 27,730
Cyclists: KSI = 2,680
Percentage of KSI who are cyclists = 10% approx

Again these show a disproportionate representation from cyclists which reflects their relative vulnerability on roads.

This would seem to be due to a singular lack of concentration on the part of the cyclist, usually at junctions of one kind or another...

Do you have any information which backs this up at all? It seems to be a subjective, rather than an objective statement.

There have been some very emotive and idealistic replies on this thread which just go to show how blinkered any one demographic can be; for every few yards of ludicrous implimentation (as illustrated in the examples posted above) I'm willing to bet there are many hundreds of miles of excellent cycle paths costing many tens of thousands of pounds.

Again I'd like to see some examples/data to back this up.

The emotive use of photographs demonstrating the result of car vs. bike accidents is a bit melodramatic too. Whereabouts was that photo taken by the way? Not in the UK by the looks of it.
It's scare tactics like stories of body parts in carrier bags which put alot of people off the idea of cycling. Such tactics are often used by people who are against cycling, preferring cyclists to be confined to areas away from other traffic, for the benefit of themselves.
In other words motorists who want the roads for themselves.

The fact is that cyclists rarely present a danger to other road users, whereas other road users often present a danger to cyclists.
Some people will choose to accept that and even promote the idea to discourage cyclists from the roads.
On the other hand others will choose not to accept that, believing that roads can be made safer for all road users. The general decline in accidents over the past 10 years would tend to support that ideological standpoint.
There is much work to be done still. The DfT will be launching a road safety campaign about increasing awareness of cyclists soon. Hopefully a bit of education may soften the hard-line ignorance and arrogance displayed all too often on the roads.

Anyway long post over for now and I'm off out cycling. (on the roads.)

Stats from here btw: --> http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov. ... gbq209.pdf

Some info for 2010 here: --> http://assets.dft.gov.uk/statistics/rel ... s-2010.pdf

 

[Easy_Rider]

"Use the f*ck*ng cycle path you brainless moron and stop holding up the traffic!"

I'm sorry but I drive hundreds of miles a day and it makes my blood boil when I come across a cycling commuter holding up a queue of traffic when there is a perfectly good cycle path a couple of feet to his left! :evil:

I don't hold with the 'safety objections' either...

Can you warn me when you come to the Chester area please, I don't want to meet you wrath on the road.

 

[drystonepaul]

Interesting article here too: --> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... ents-study

 

[highlandsflyer]

I would have liked to have posted some rather gory photo's to illustrate the after effects of an altercation between a female cyclist who tried to ride up the inside of an 18-wheeler, in his considerable blind spot, and come off decidedly second best (in fact there wasn't much left that looked even vaguely human!) but the website requires a PIN so the links don't work...

Suffice to say human beings don't have fur to hold them together like our four-legged friends do when they get splattered all over the road. I have a friend who works for the Highways Agency in Birmingham and she told me about a cyclist who got hit by several articulated lorries trying to cross the M5 at night - what was left wouldn't even have filled a Tescos carrier bag!

Most of us are fairly world weary by all accounts, I don't think we need to have such images posted or linked to 'educate' us. In my view, those kind of images belong on sites that are clearly signposted as containing disturbing images.

I mistakenly posted an image of animal remains once, not having stopped to think it might be disturbing for those visiting this site to read about bikes. On a hunting forum no one would have been bothered. There are no circumstances I can imagine where human remains could be appropriate material for this kind of site.

It is quite normal for those involved with injury and death on a regular basis to detach emotionally. If they could not do so, they would last no time at all in any such area of work. It still gets to them, but they have learned coping strategies, one way or another, which allow them to carry on.

 

[highlandsflyer]

Interesting article here too: --> http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/ ... ents-study

That article supports my hunch about the whole thing.

I understand why some cyclists feel strongly about asserting their right to share the 'normal' road, but I am a realist.

My preference is for a complete separation between cars and cycles, etc.

In my ideal world there would be a network of roads cars are no permitted to use in most of the larger cities, and discrete paths to every place otherwise. If you can say that ten thousand commute a five mile route from one large place to another, then aim to get half of them onto bikes and give them a road of their own.

Only after a lot of campaigning have many of the cycle routes we now have emerged. Is anyone seriously suggesting the increase in provision for cyclists is a bad thing long term?

I would like to see every other street in London being closed to motorised traffic other than access for most of every day. The only way to get people out of cars, etc. is to make them the worst choice.

We have some great cycle ways in the Highlands, and more on the way. You would have to be some kind of masochist to share with cars where there is such a fantastic alternative.

In London I tend to spend as much time on the pavement as possible, and make my journeys over distance by the most cycle friendly routes I know.

As a cyclist I always feel I am at the mercy of drivers.

I don't get that feeling on a motorbike, not in the country anyway.

The statistics suggest I am at risk either way, but statistics rarely dictate how an individual acts. That is until the day they become one.

This, I fear, is the only way some cyclists are going to find out that, no matter how adamant they are that it is their 'right' to be where the risk is so great, their rights just don't concern the idiot busy with their iPod*, who ends your life just as quickly as they snatched a look at the road ahead and saw no cars before attending to their Kasabian* playlist.

*Other forms of distraction are available, but are rarely as lethal.

 

[We_are_Stevo]

I couldn't agree more with the above, a measured response that addresses the reality of the society we actually live in - not the Utopian 'Midsommer Norton' world inhabited by Barnaby and Miss Marple!

I have been accused of being anti-cyclist in this thread, which I find highly amusing considering the years of penury I endured through having three ex-wives when two wheels was all I could afford... :roll:

References to body parts in carrier bags is not a scare tactic, it is a consequence!

And I would have liked to have posted the cycling fatality pictures because most people have never actually seen a dead body. These are Coronors photo's, not some 'Gore' website titillation, and as such are a stark reminder of how fragile our grasp on life really is. Why make it worse than it is by tempting fate?

Life isn't a PSP game with multiple lives, and 'cheats' for those who can't be arsed to play by the rules!

Just as the UK obsession with the motorcar will NEVER be regulated/limited/modified/you name it because we, as a society, have become totally selfish and self-absorbed, so too are we totally 'in denial' when it comes to death.

We are so scared of death that we think if we pretend it doesn't happen then it won't happen to us!

Having 'died' more than once myself I can honestly say "Take it from me, dying really doesn't hurt - survival hurts!"

When you're dead it doesn't matter to you any more - it's those left behind who hurt, and even that hurt fades...

As I KEEP repeating, our idealistic right to the roads does not make us immune to a world of pain and death when it all goes horribly wrong through no fault of our own. Therefore it is up to us to lessen the risk, because no-one will do it for us - unless you count the Brussels autocrats who would have us all cycling around in 'Mr Staypuffed' self-inflating air-bag suits! :shock:

BTW: the statistics I quoted were for the whole of Europe over a 10-year period - and you know what they say about statistics...

As an aside; have you ever seen your local Butcher making sausages? Seen the way the minced meat oozes out of the die when he takes the skins away to twist them up into strings?

Well that's what a human body looks like when the home-made bomb you're carrying in a rucksac goes off prematurely and blows you through a chain-link fence!

That was MY introduction to the realities of violent death - and you won't find those pictures anywhere on the web...