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Social networking campaign for safer cycling gathers pace

Twitter and Facebook harnessed in cause of saving riders' lives ...

The power of Facebook and the humble hash tag is being harnessed in the name of safer cycling through the #saveacyclist campaign.

The campaign was initiated by Amy O'Halloran who describes herself as a “student of Osteopathy and cake maker for @enduraracing” and is rapidly growing through  Twitter and a Facebook campaign.

Amy said: “The campaign aims to raise awareness of road safety issues and bring compassion and mutual respect to our roads.

“If every cyclist became an ambassador for road safety - on AND off their bikes - maybe those ignorant people who class cyclists as second class citizens might start to see us as "normal" people just like them. We're all human beings although some people don't treat us that way just because we're on two wheels!”

She added: “Save a cyclist campaign is all about changing peoples' attitudes towards cyclists. We need people to be able to relate the "annoying" cyclist to the man he saw shopping with his family earlier in the day.

“We need them to see cyclists as human beings as well! T-shirts and bumper stickers will soon be available by demand to those who want to help promote safety on our roads and do their bit to reduce the amount of cyclists injured/killed in road accidents. How many innocent people have to die before awareness is increased? If you can change just one person's attitude towards cyclists, and that in turn saves someone’s life one day, then it'll be worth it!

“After seeking advice re: petitions, I have found out that there are laws already in place that can protect vulnerable road users, the problem is that they're not enforced! The way to make the government listen is to raise publicity and put pressure on them.”

Here at road.cc we can only say amen to that, and if you are a Twitter and/or Facebook user you may want to add yourself to the growing numbers who are getting behind this campaign.
 

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Paul M | 13 years ago
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@tommy2p you don't need a campaign for protecting peds from cyclists - it gets a great deal more airing than the issue of keeping cyclists safe from motorists, despite the fact that over 260 times as many pedestrians are killed by motor vehicles as by cyclists, over 130 times as many are injured ditto, and over 30 times as many pedestrians ON THE PAVEMENT are killed or seriously injured by motor vehicles as by cyclists.

A car is twenty times the weight of bicycle and rider and probably travelling twice as fast, which makes for forty times as much energy to be transferred into a pedestrian. A car at 20 mph has a 5% chance of killing a pedestrian, at 30 it is 40% and at 40 it is close to 100%.

Focus on where the real issue lies. I'll bet you drive a car, and I wonder whether your driving around cyclists and pedestrians is perfect?

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tommy2p | 13 years ago
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I would like to see a keep pedestrians safe from cyclists on the pavement campaign. In the past week my 21 month old daughter was nearly hit by one, as was myself almost hit by one this evening. In both cases the cyclist was traveling at least 12 MPH.,and approached from behind so we/I had no idea that we were so close to potential impact until Tthey sped past with a clearance of about 1 - 2 ft. That's just two in the last week, there have been many other times.In all cases I have noticed that they don't wear helmets and don't have lights. These people were all adults or at least old enough to ride on the roads without Mummy's permission

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bikecellar | 13 years ago
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Off the top of my head, we need to get Magistrates and Chief Constables on board, would it be possible to target them specificially? how many of them cycle? does anyone know of any who do who could become advocates for the cause.

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