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Cyclist aged 12 injured at Cambridge's new 'Dutch' roundabout (+ gallery)

Mother says junction now more dangerous for riders; we take an in-depth look

One week after a “continental geometry roundabout” designed to protect cyclists opened in Cambridge, a 12-year-old boy was injured last Wednesday evening when he was knocked off his bike there in a hit-and-run incident. His mother claims the roundabout creates more danger for cyclists than the one it replaced.

The roundabout, which cost £413,000, was officially opened on Wednesday 8 October. It is aimed at improving the safety of cyclists with 16 reported road traffic incidents there, three of them resulting in serious injury, in the five years prior to Cambridgeshire County Council unveiling its plans last year.

Unlike roundabouts in the Netherlands which apparently helped provide the inspiration for it, there is no fully segregated bike lane on the perimeter. Instead, it has a shared use cycle and pedestrian path going around the outside.


Plan view of the new roundabout. Click to embiggen

Cambridge Cycling Campaign expressed a variety of reservations about the scheme during the consultation period.

It acknowledged however that the council had to work within the constraints of Department for Transport funding, and said it hoped the proposals would reflect “phase one” of a process that would in time lead to Dutch principles being fully adopted.

One local cyclist, Rad Wagon, also undertook a detailed critique of the plans on his blog.

Boy hit on way home from school

Last Wednesday, a week after the roundabout opened, the 12-year-old boy, described as an experienced cyclist, sustained minor injuries and was left shaken after being hit by a car as he rode home from school, with the driver failing to stop, reports Cambridge News

Located in the east of Cambridge, the roundabout is at the junction of Perne Road, a main route running north to south, and Radegund Road and Birdwood Road, an east to west route used by many cyclists travelling to and from the city centre.

It is also close to several schools, one a secondary school that has the highest level of cycling anywhere in the UK.

The boy’s mother, Melinda Rigby, who lives on Birdwood Road, told the website: “The recent change in layout of the roundabout has reduced the previously wide roundabout where cycle and motor traffic flowed well together to a narrow space where heavy motor traffic is tempted to squeeze onto the roundabout with cyclists, endangering lives.

“This is the second incident in as many weeks since this new layout has been finished that local residents are aware of. We are all very concerned for the safety of the Cambridge cycling community on this main cycle route out of the town centre.”

After describing how the motorist pulled out of Perne Road, “side-swiping” her son and “leaving him lying on the new cobbled centre injured,” she said the road should be widened, and that improved lighting and signage alerting drivers to the presence of cyclists should be installed.

She added: “If you are in a car and you’re not a cyclist, it’s a very different experience. Cyclists are very exposed and behind the wheel you get no sense of their vulnerability – and mortality.”

Cyclists find layout confusing

She’s far from the only concerned parent. Another, road.cc contributor Caroline Dodgson, has a 12-year-old daughter whose journey to school takes her through the roundabout every day.

She said: "At first, my daughter didn't even realise the route cyclists were supposed to follow as the tarmac wasn't coloured like the local bike paths.

“After hearing about the schoolboy injured this week, I rode down to the roundabout with her to assess the safest way to school. She finds it difficult to cross from the path to the island in the middle of the carriageway because of the speed of the cars coming off the roundabout.

“Cycles have to give way at three points to cross the roundabout from Birdwood Road to Radegund Road (the two arms of the roundabout which have schools on). They are then directed back into the flow of traffic coming off the roundabout rather than onto a bike path.

“Even as an experienced adult I found it difficult to judge the speed of the oncoming traffic and few cars signalled their intentions when exiting the roundabout. I've advised her that the safest thing to do is to walk to the pedestrian crossing further down the road and use that to cross.”

Caroline added: “I've done all I can as a parent – sent her on a Level 3 Bikeability course, ridden the route with her, but I still think the risk is too high. My thoughts are with the parent of the 12-year-old knocked down earlier in the week, and I hope it won't be my daughter or her classmates next time.”

Council says there are not "any issues with the design"

Cambridgeshire County Council’s cycling champion, Noel Kavanagh, has defended the design of the roundabout, saying: “This unfortunate incident is an aberration, where you have got a driver who has committed a serious crime by not stopping. I’d say that is an indication of the type of driver we are talking about rather than any issues with the design.”

A spokesman for the county council added: “The previous layout resulted in a large number of accidents involving cyclists which is why the new changes were made and follows a continental style design to benefit riders.

“For the first time cyclists now have an option of riding separated from traffic and for those wishing to ride on the road the roundabout has been changed to slow traffic down.

“We have monitored, with colleagues from the Department for Transport, traffic flow and behaviour now that it is in use and will continue to do so.”

Designer says lack of segregated path "a deliberate decision"

Last week Mark Treasure, chair of the Cycling Embassy of Great Britain, published a blog post about the roundabout in which he addressed comments made about it by its designer, Alsadair Massie of consultants Peter Brett, who says he cycles “across it every day.”

Referring to the design, Mr Massie said: “The geometry is taken from Dutch guidance, although you will see some differences from the classic ‘Dutch’ roundabout.

“Most significantly there is no segregated cycle track around the perimeter. This was a deliberate decision,” he revealed. “We could have provided one, there is sufficient space if other elements were adjusted, but there is no off-carriageway infrastructure to link into and no prospect of providing any in the foreseeable future.”

He added: “There is a significant amount of pavement cycling at certain times of day, principally by school children. One of our aims was to make it safer for people to cross the roundabout using the footways, without actively encouraging footway cycling.

“We also wanted to make it easier to cross on foot, as the previous arrangement involved a 60m detour via a Pelican Crossing, with guardrails to prevent jay walking.”

John Stevenson, road.cc editor at large, lives on the east side of Cambridge and went to have a look at the roundabout today. Here’s his views on it.

The problem with Perne Road roundabout is that it's neither one thing nor another. In trying to make a somewhat-but-not-entirely Dutch facility, the council has created a confusing hodgepodge that has several serious flaws:

1 – It's unclear. Because the off-carriageway shared-use route is not a designated lane and therefore not coloured like just about every other cycleway in Cambridge, it's not instantly obvious where cyclists are supposed to go. That means that youngsters are being asked to make a series of decisions under pressure, something that research indicates young minds do poorly.

2 – Drivers don't know where cyclists are going to be. Because cyclists can either use the main carriageway or the shared-use, off-carriageway paths, drivers are expected to look for cyclists in a number of places at each arm of the roundabout, instead of just one.

3 – Rather than rejoining the carriageway into bike lanes or separated cycleways, cyclists using the off-carriageway option are guided back into the carriageway close to the roundabout, where drivers habitually accelerate to regain speed. Cyclists unexpectedly entering the carriageway is the major cause of driver/cyclist collisions where the rider is at fault, yet this conflict is baked into the design.

4 – Cyclists using the off-carriageway option have no priority. To cross to the islands on Perne Road in particular, this means long waits as drivers accelerate off the roundabout, even on a Sunday afternoon.

5 – The narrowed carriageway on the roundabout itself and its exits and entrances means that a mistake is more likely to lead to a collision than before. Lower speeds may mitigate the seriousness of such a collision, but Cambridgeshire County Council is wrong to say that Wednesday's crash is an "aberration" – such crashes are a consequence of the design. And surely protecting cyclists from "the type of driver we are talking about" is the purpose of a redesign intended to make a junction safer for cyclists.

We also observed a guide dog user trying to simply walk round one section of the roundabout who was clearly somewhat distressed that the pavement was putting her in the path of cyclists. As ever, shared use, particularly shared use with high levels of cycle use, is unpleasant for everyone.‏

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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28 comments

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kitsunegari | 8 years ago
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I used to commute along the ring road (which goes over this roundabout) every day for years. It was always one of the most dangerous points, cars exiting the roundabout and accelerating through the cycle lane being the most common danger.

This does nothing to address the dangers faced by people using the ring road cycle lane at all. What a waste of money.

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davebinks | 9 years ago
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From what I can see, it's the usual "solution.
Just get the pushbikes off the road so that the motorised vehicles can keep going faster.

After, all, "Pushbikes don't pay road tax do they?"
(Yes, I know, I'm being sarcastic)

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burtthebike | 9 years ago
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"Plan view of the new roundabout. Click to embiggen"

Without wishing to be pedantic, shouldn't that be "bigificate"?

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severs1966 | 9 years ago
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This roundabout was described by its designers as "continental style". Actually, there are no roundabouts anywhere on the continent that use this design, or even this "style" of design.

The features that make a roundabout "dutch" are:

1. Complete segregation from motor traffic from just before the roundabout to just after, even on roads where the cycle paths on approach and afterwards are not segregated. "half-segregated" (ie on the road then off then on etc) is not used.

2. The priority difference between motors and bikes is explicit. That is to say, bikes either cross over motor traffic and must give way to it, or cross over motor traffic and the motors must give way to the bikes. Whichever is applied, the status is clear. This roundabout gives "equal" priority, as on roads in general. Drivers will then just shove bikes out of the way as usual, sometimes in collisions, as here.

Elsewhere on the continent, other designs are used; however, none of them are like this one.

It appears that, in labeling this roundabout design as either "continental" or "dutch", the designers and council have just made that "fact" up on the spot, and have not actually paid any attention to what designs are used anywhere outside the UK.

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CasperCCC | 9 years ago
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I cycle past that roundabout a couple of times a week. Really not sure what the changes are meant to have achieved - the whole thing is a bit of a confusing mess. I do what I've always done - stay on the road and take primary position.

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Edgeley | 9 years ago
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So it is exactly like a Dutch roundabout apart from 2 ever so minor details

- there isn't a cycle path round the roundabout or on the exits

- there isn't priority to the cyclists.

Hmmmm. Not so Dutch really, is it?

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chrisc replied to Edgeley | 9 years ago
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Edgeley wrote:

So it is exactly like a Dutch roundabout apart from 2 ever so minor details

- there isn't a cycle path round the roundabout or on the exits

- there isn't priority to the cyclists.

Hmmmm. Not so Dutch really, is it?

Nope, not Dutch at all.
The HUGE difference is that Dutch drivers really do give way to bikes. It confuses the hell out of you the first time it happens. A car, stopping for me? Really?
It also confuses the hell out of them if you wait for them to pass too...  1

I'd like to know what kind of arsehole you have to be to hit a kid on a bike and not stop tho ...

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massspike | 9 years ago
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This design is being used for all the new roundabouts in Ottawa (Canada) except we have taken it one level dumber -- they neglected to amend the bylaw against riding on sidewalks so the off-road option is illegal and thus there is no indication or education about using it. As a result the cycle lanes just feed cyclists into the path of cars at the narrowed roundabout entrance. Fortunately there are relatively few of them so they can be avoided.

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massspike replied to massspike | 9 years ago
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massspike wrote:

This design is being used for all the new roundabouts in Ottawa (Canada) except we have taken it one level dumber -- they neglected to amend the bylaw against riding on sidewalks so the off-road option is illegal and thus there is no indication or education about using it.

Just drove through one of these roundabouts and they have finally (after 2 years) put up signs directing cyclists off-road and informing pedestrians they will be sharing the sidewalk. Unfortunately it means making a last second 90 degree turn at the entrance to the roundabout so it seems all the problems with the roundabout in this article will be repeated. I will continue to avoid ours.

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uglybovine | 9 years ago
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I use that roundabout approximately weekly, normally with my daughter on a tag-along. Its new design is a confusing shambles.
The only way this improves anything for a cyclist is if you happen to be turning left from the main road to one of the side roads.

The main carriageway entrances & exits were made narrower to reduce vehicle speed.
- Fine, except if you stay on the carriageway and don't take the primary position, the petrol heads try to cut in on you; they seem to have a fixation with apexes, and the others get impatient at being "stuck" behind.
If you take the footway, you have to put up with glares from pedestrians, then stopping at least twice (once in each direction of each arm), to wait for cars that now have right of way over you .
Cars on the roundabout aren't supposed to use the sloped, cobbled centre overspill section (supposed to be for wide vehicles), but do in an effort to pass. Trouble is it doesn't have much grip, so they slide back towards the edge.

The only way to get round safely and without a big delay in a busy time is to take primary and go round fast, then go into the on-road lane when it re-appears.

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HKCambridge replied to uglybovine | 9 years ago
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uglybovine wrote:

- Fine, except if you stay on the carriageway and don't take the primary position, the petrol heads try to cut in on you; they seem to have a fixation with apexes, and the others get impatient at being "stuck" behind.

If you're on road, I'd really, really take primary. I disagree with the mother's comments that the roundabout should be wider so cars can pass: this is exactly the situation you want to avoid, you should never overtake at a junction as it's too hard to judge other people's intentions, and the road environment should not encourage it. What if a car happily passes on the outside, then cuts left to exit the roundabout while the cyclist goes ahead? Left hooks are bad enough on a straight road when cyclists have less to pay attention to.

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mrmo | 9 years ago
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I look at that and see a roundabout, I don't see any attempt to make it cyclist friendly. Might as well have just added some traffic light controlled crossings on each exit, that would have made it safer for cyclists.

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Al__S replied to mrmo | 9 years ago
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mrmo wrote:

I look at that and see a roundabout, I don't see any attempt to make it cyclist friendly. Might as well have just added some traffic light controlled crossings on each exit, that would have made it safer for cyclists.

On Perne Road (the main road here) there are light controlled crossings, both ways, about 60m from the roundabout. They were there before this redevelopment. It speaks volumes about the confidence they had as to how much better it would be for pedestrians that the crossings were left in.

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harrybav | 9 years ago
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JIngs, what a screw up.

Maybe they ought to just make the roadways 7 feet wide, w/ rubber edges, so there's no overtaking of bikes at the roundabout at all.

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Initialised | 9 years ago
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You can't improve cyclist safety with paint or without impeding the driver's progress. So do this actively by forcing cars to adhere to speed limits, forcing vehicles to give cycles, horses, motorcycles safe passing room and by imposing severe penalties on those who kill or maim whilst driving regardless of intent.
Stop trying to design out the flaw in road safety (The Driver) with road design, it can only go so far with current enforcement levels.
Start enforcing collision avoidance and mitigation tech and the deployment of a black box data recorder for GPS tracking and video and audio logging technology in all new vehicles and use insurance, fleet regulations and VED to encourage retrofitting for commercial vehicles.

Oh look, Fleet managers already do this: http://www.teletrac.com/fleet-management/topics/gps-tracking-driver-beha...|2014-09&tc=Outbrain|2014-09&mc=Outbrain|2014-09

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Some Fella | 9 years ago
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Piss up? Brewery?

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antigee | 9 years ago
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so the money was spent to create poor quality shared used pavements and the road layout changed so that cyclists have to become pedestrians to cross each road and then wait to rejoin traffic - we have a roundabout like that near my daughters school (Melbourne, Aus) were a segregated cycle path crossing two of the roads and the parent speaking above exactly replicates my experience of this road layout and why I won't allow my daughter to use that route to get to school:

"She finds it difficult to cross from the path to the island in the middle of the carriageway because of the speed of the cars coming off the roundabout..........

“Even as an experienced adult I found it difficult to judge the speed of the oncoming traffic and few cars signalled their intentions when exiting the roundabout." Exactly.

Its a road layout that only contributes to cyclist and pedestrian safety by making things so dangerous that people either give up cycling or walking or are forced to cower and wait for a very large gap in the traffic.

...and shame on the driver for side swiping a kid and not stopping, did the driver deliberately pull out to intimidate the kid for not using the shared path?

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Peowpeowpeowlasers | 9 years ago
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No room for segregated facilities? Take a look:

https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=52.191637,0.1543155&z=7&q=Perne+Rd&out...

There's loads of room there, the trees need not go - you can just build on the grass verge. Let's face it, they're full of the usual idiotic parked cars anyway.

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Username | 9 years ago
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From the designer's own email:-
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/cyclox-forum/Sbu2JHPUzt0/ITmfsm4hIXsJ

Quote:

The geometry is taken from Dutch guidance, although you will see some differences from the classic “Dutch” roundabout. Most significantly there is no segregated cycle track around the perimeter. This was a deliberate decision. We could have provided one, there is sufficient space if other elements were adjusted, but there is no off-carriageway infrastructure to link into and no prospect of providing any in the foreseeable future.

Translation: We could have made it safe for cyclists but decided not to.

FFS.

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wildnorthlands replied to Username | 9 years ago
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I don't think that is the correct translation. Having segregated tracks around the roundabout but expecting cyclists to then rejoin the carriageway would have introduced additional hazards for cyclists.

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HKCambridge replied to wildnorthlands | 9 years ago
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wildnorthlands wrote:

I don't think that is the correct translation. Having segregated tracks around the roundabout but expecting cyclists to then rejoin the carriageway would have introduced additional hazards for cyclists.

As John points out, that's what has happened anyway, only there's the car park / pedestrian hazard to navigate first.

There could have been a protected entrance to a painted cycle lane, such as this one in Cambridge http://www.cyclestreets.net/location/61275/ However a bollard would be better, as then on-road cyclists wouldn't be pushed into traffic at the same time.

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EarsoftheWolf | 9 years ago
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This is one of the few places in Cambridge where the road is wide enough to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and cars with their own separate spaces and yet the County Council showed how clueless they are yet again with another shared use path. £413,000 would have been much better spent repairing one or two of the cycle paths around town which are cracked, broken, badly designed or otherwise unfit for use.

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HKCambridge replied to EarsoftheWolf | 9 years ago
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EarsoftheWolf wrote:

This is one of the few places in Cambridge where the road is wide enough to accommodate pedestrians, cyclists and cars with their own separate spaces and yet the County Council showed how clueless they are yet again with another shared use path. £413,000 would have been much better spent repairing one or two of the cycle paths around town which are cracked, broken, badly designed or otherwise unfit for use.

To be fair, the original design didn't have shared-use. This was requested by the parents at the nearby schools. There are responding, not unreasonably, to the idea that their children should cycle on the road shared with cars.

Which is one of the problems of cycle campaigning: getting to those people who do want to cycle, don't want to share with cars, but don't know there are options beyond sharing with pedestrians. This is not the first example in Cambridge where I have found out, after the fact, that a piece of awful shared-use was put in because residents requested it. I sometimes feel we should just be showering Cambridge with photos of Dutch infrastructure and big type 'THERE IS ANOTHER WAY'.

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mrmo replied to HKCambridge | 9 years ago
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HKCambridge wrote:

Which is one of the problems of cycle campaigning: getting to those people who do want to cycle, don't want to share with cars, but don't know there are options beyond sharing with pedestrians. This is not the first example in Cambridge where I have found out, after the fact, that a piece of awful shared-use was put in because residents requested it. I sometimes feel we should just be showering Cambridge with photos of Dutch infrastructure and big type 'THERE IS ANOTHER WAY'.

No disrespect to the average person, the reality is they are ignorant. You can only know what you know, I know it sounds quite a stupid statement, but it is very relevant here and many other such schemes.

The committed campaigner may be aware of the options used in Holland/Denmark/etc. but to the average person? It is not until you experience the Continent you realise how crap the infrastructure in the UK is, but how many do have that experience?? If you don't how can you ask for the best, you are left to fumble in the dark and ask for what seems better.

It may sound odd, but sometimes councils need to ignore the requests of users, (you do need councils with the ability to do the job properly!!!!), and implement best practice.

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jgmacca | 9 years ago
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It would be easier to comment on the layout if there was a simple overhead schematic diagram. A helicopter view if you like. Until then unless you live in Cambridge and have first hand experience of the roundabout it's impossible to critique or praise the design.

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Simon_MacMichael replied to jgmacca | 9 years ago
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jgmacca wrote:

It would be easier to comment on the layout if there was a simple overhead schematic diagram. A helicopter view if you like. Until then unless you live in Cambridge and have first hand experience of the roundabout it's impossible to critique or praise the design.

Here you go, linked in the article: http://www.camcycle.org.uk/newsletters/111/article2.html

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catchercradle replied to jgmacca | 9 years ago
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I agree that it is difficult to really assess any design without seeing it on the ground, for me the Jury is out on whether this will cause more problems than what was there before. What is clear to me is that an opportunity has been missed to make the junction safe for cyclists which this setup clearly does not.

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Must be Mad | 9 years ago
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'dutch style' or simply pushing the cyclists off the road an onto 'shared use' pavements so the road is clear for cars?

Yet again huge amounts of money flushed down the toilet of badly though out cycle infrastructure....

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