Casualties

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and Transport for London (TfL) have announced a major cycle safety awareness campaign aimed at cyclists in the capital, accompanied by a major TV and cinema advertising campaign aimed at making drivers look out for the presence of cyclists on the streets.

One of the world’s leading automotive safety companies is to trial an airbag system to help protect cyclists in Amsterdam this autumn, which could lead to the device entering production with leading car manufacturers as early as 2015.

New figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) have thrown fresh light on cycling’s role in Britain’s changing travel patterns in recent years, and has also revealed that the number of cyclists killed on the country’s roads over the past 15 years has halved when measured by distance travelled.

The number of cycling casualties in Leeds has shown a 10% rise during the past year, attributed to an increase in the number of people using their bikes to commute to work in the West Yorkshire city.

Statistics released by Leeds City Council show that there were 222 recorded cyclist casualties in 2008, up from 203 the previous year.

World Road Champion Cadel Evans has spoken of his shock at arriving on the scene of a fatal accident that claimed the life of a cyclist and well-known local sports figure near his hometown of Geelong just minutes after the collision took place.

Ask anyone to name a city outside Britain – we’re pretty sure Birmingham would get the local vote – that holds itself in thrall to the motor car, and the chances are that the answer will be Los Angeles. But if a proposed new law that amongst other things makes it an offence to harass cyclists,  is enacted then the bicycle may come to much greater prominence in the city of angels.

Ten per cent of the children killed on Britain's roads last year died while cycling it has been revealed in answer to a parliamentary question.

An academic study has found that cyclists in Britain are far more likely to be admitted to hospital following an accident than  people traveling in cars.

The research, published in the BMJ journal Injury Prevention, covers a six-year period from 1999 to 2004, was carried out by a team at the University of Surrey, who say that greater efforts need to be made to make roads safer for cyclists.

It may take its name from two Greek words that combine to mean ‘brotherly love,’ but emotions are running high in Philadelphia following a series of collisions in the last month between cyclists and pedestrians.

The Department of Justice has revealed that the number of cyclists who have been prosecuted at magistrates’ court for failing to stop at red traffic lights more than halved from 55 in 2006 to 22 in 2007. The figures have been eagerly seized upon by the Daily Mail as fuel for its ongoing campaign against so-called ‘lycra louts.’