Dutch government and neurologists call on cyclists to wear helmets – but cyclists’ union says “too much emphasis” on helmets discourages cycling and “has an air of victim blaming”

Ah, Pontevedra is good. Effectively a large pedestrianised zone. Haven't been to have a look yet! It's not however an example of "police it better" across a whole city though, or region, or country...

Pedestrianised city cores are a useful tool. We have them in the UK. Still got mass motoring here though, little sign of change.

I have little problem sharing the highway with motor vehicles, the problem is with UK drivers. 

When I'm cycling in Austria, I enjoy wide passing space and perfect roads. 

When I get a close/aggressive pass it is nearly always a UK driver, or Italian. 

UK driving culture apes the extremely toxic American driver culture, where drivers get shot for cutting up traffic, and road rage is the norm. 

Thanks for the culture notes!  However interestingly according to (now a bit old) data Austria is qute a bit behind the UK in the road safety numbers.

Now - that is a pretty crude metric as far as I am concerned since I'm also rather interested in things like viability of active travel / are places "nice".  (Thought experiment - as I think numbers cycling are linked to the provision for them anyway - but if you had as many cyclists - including very young and old - as there are in the Netherlands on another country's infra I would guess it would result in a much higher casualty figure).

... but (a partial sample):

Where not indicated 2019 - data here - https://apps.who.int/gho/data/view.main.51310?lang=en
Figures - first deaths per 100,000 inhabitants, second per billion vehicle km

Norway 2 / 3.0
UK 2.9 / 3.8
Denmark 3.4 / 3.9
NL 3.8 / 4.7
Compare Australia 4.5 / 4.9 (though that's different dataset and in 2022)
Austria 4.9 / 5.1
Europe average 7.4 per 100,000 inhabitants
US 12.9 / 8.3 (2021 data)
China 17.4 per 100,000 inhabitants
The worst reported one is Dominican Republic 64.6 per 100,000 inhabitants

polainm wrote:

I have little problem sharing the highway with motor vehicles, the problem is with UK drivers. 

When I'm cycling in Austria, I enjoy wide passing space and perfect roads. 

As I've said, there is nothing wrong with the roads -- okay, some of them could stand to be repaved.  The problem, and the only problem, is road-user behavior.  So let's address the problem, instead of applying never-ending and useless salves to the symptoms.

polainm wrote:

When I get a close/aggressive pass it is nearly always a UK driver, or Italian. 

UK driving culture apes the extremely toxic American driver culture, where drivers get shot for cutting up traffic, and road rage is the norm. 

Don't believe everything sensationalist media tells you.  Road rage is not the norm across the US.  I cycle on streets about 80% of the time, and there are zero protected bike lanes in my entire county of over 1M residents, so I am sharing the road with "American driver culture".  The enormous majority of drivers completely change lanes when passing me, and leave as much space as they can physically manage.  About once every 25 rides, I am passed illegally, within 3 feet -- usually this happens at ~5 mph as we're both stopping at an intersection.  Still illegal, but not tremendously dangerous -- I still educate the driver regarding the law, and they are almost always completely ignorant both of the law, and in-general.  There is one road, about 8 miles east of here, that I will not ride.  For unknown reasons, drivers upon it are dangerous out of all proportion to any other roads in the area, despite it being otherwise unremarkable.  That said, two friends used to live just off it, and road it often, and lived to tell the tale.

The biggest difficulty in street cycling around here is that drivers will stop and sit at intersections, and wave you across in front of them, even when they have the right-of-way.  I know they are trying to be courteous, but that is dangerous and stupid.  On almost every daylight ride, I have to sit at a stop sign for ~30 seconds until a driver finally crosses the intersection to which they had the right-of-way.  Often this happens multiple times per ride.

Just one thing - you are asserting that (from different posts)

dh700 wrote:

Building infrastructure dedicated to one vehicle type is a fool's errand and a waste of time, money, and lives.  We already tried that with sidewalks, a long time ago, and look how safe pedestrians still are not.  And now we're relearning that such does not work due to the proliferation of micromobility devices that are generally incompatible with their predecessors.  Even if you could snap your fingers and build bike lanes everywhere, and even if you could get everyone to hop on bikes and use them, they'd be useless because they'd lack the necessary capacity -- which we already see in heavily-cycled areas. [...]

The idea you are describing is not "mine", I am just telling what does work, and what does not.  Construction does not work, and never has.  After wasting time, money, and lives on construction, every municipality is forced to pivot to traffic reduction and traffic enforcement.  Not complete elimination of motor vehicle, obviously, just drastic reductions.

First - I agree with you that traffic reduction is important - indeed a goal in itself.  However again apart from "just police drivers more so they drive better" I seem to have missed where you explain how that is supposed to come about?

Then - what you've stated there that is - without further qualification - not correct.  A very simple rejoinder would be to suggest looking at e.g. rail infrastructure.  That's always been "separate".  However as more effort has gone into keeping people (on foot, on bikes, in cars) apart from it (whether building fences along tracks or moving from unsignalised level crossings to completely grade-separated crossing) casualties due to these interactions have decreased.

In fact - sidewalks ("footways" in the UK) also point in the opposite direction to your suggestion ("share the road").  They do in fact increase pedestrian safety and in fact increase the willingness of people to walk (in places where there is any volume of traffic).  They certainly do not guarantee safety - but I think you'd said you weren't for absolutism so we don't need to worry about perfect, just better.

Can we do even better than current footways?  Possibly.  Would everyone be safer if we removed them overnight?  No they wouldn't.  In fact I predict that people would then make those journeys in their cars - and I suspect casualites would still be higher than the "imperfectly protected" footways and roads situation since there would be greater traffic.  It certainly doesn't make for nicer places... (See "shared space").

Again - I'd agree with you that it takes combinations of things *.  In fact - with sufficient traffic reduction (quite a lot - and speed reduction) some mixing of modes is tolerable.  But you have to get to that point first!

It seems that is why having separate infra for modes with markedly different speeds / mass is *necessary* (if not sufficient).  Without that I'm not aware of examples of places * where people who formerly haven't been e.g. cycling will suddenly consider doing so without the traffic reduction you are - and I am - in favour of.

I'm a bit baffled by your assertion that cycle infra is "low capacity".  Can you explain that?  (I agree that there's a danger commercial groups will try to appropriate these spaces - but that's a universal).

* An example of something else in the mix that hasn't been mentioned is public transport.   This may be a very import ingredient in achieving motor traffic reduction (ideally in combination with e.g. cycling to extend the "catchment area" of a stop or transit hub).  Certainly it features heavily in e.g. NL.

** Again caveats of if you're happy to live in a police state, or a place where cultural conformity is extremely strong (Japan - and I'm not sure I want to live around the Japanese police), or where no-one can afford more than a bicycle then that may solve the issue.

chrisonabike wrote:

First - I agree with you that traffic reduction is important - indeed a goal in itself. 

I actually disagree with that.  Traffic reduction does work to improve safety, but it is not necessarily "important" or a goal.  The goal, and what is not only important but essential, is "traffic improvement".  By which I mean, eliminating the road-users who are incapable-of or unwilling-to cooperate in public space.  That could be done by educating and incentivizing them to behave properly without reducing the traffic volume -- in theory.  In practice, some road users are probably sufficiently recalcitrant that the only solution is to lock them in prison, which constiitutes a reduction.

chrisonabike wrote:

However again apart from "just police drivers more so they drive better" I seem to have missed where you explain how that is supposed to come about?

No other solutions are in-fact necessary, as I described above.  Again, there is only one problem here -- road user behavior.  That is what we need to focus on fixing, and that can be done via improved education ( really, __any__ education, in my country ) and by taking enforcement seriously.  In my country, there exists a very large hurdle to the second part, because we presently have no law enforcement to speak of, so we need to tear down and rebuild that branch first -- but that would be vastly more productive than pouring concrete and paint and continuing to send thoughts and prayers to victims ( of all manner of crimes ).

chrisonabike wrote:

Then - what you've stated there that is - without further qualification - not correct.  A very simple rejoinder would be to suggest looking at e.g. rail infrastructure.  That's always been "separate". 

No, rails are not often separate. Pedestrians and vehicles are hit by trains weekly in my area, and where they have been separated, the bridges and tunnels are typically in terrible disrepair.  Those lines also snarl all other means of ground transport -- both the town I grew up in, and the one I live in, are bisected by rail lines.  In both cases, that forces all other traffic into a couple crossings and causes huges delays constantly.  This does not scale at all.

And, by the way, what are we doing all over this country?  Turning abandoned rail lines into mostly-recreational bike paths.  Exactly because they were a waste.

chrisonabike wrote:

In fact - sidewalks ("footways" in the UK) also point in the opposite direction to your suggestion ("share the road").  They do in fact increase pedestrian safety and in fact increase the willingness of people to walk (in places where there is any volume of traffic).  They certainly do not guarantee safety - but I think you'd said you weren't for absolutism so we don't need to worry about perfect, just better.

Coincidentally, my neighborhood recently lost our many-year battle against the town, and was forced to watch them put in sidewalks on several streets.  We didn't need them, and we didn't want them, and didn't want the town to spend millions of dollars on a few thousand yards of concrete replacing grass and trees.  No one uses them, we walk (and bike) in the street like we always did -- and no one has __ever__ been injured by a motor vehicle in my neighborhood, since it was built three-quarters of a century ago.

That said, despite millions of miles of sidewalks, pedestrians are killed in this country to the tune of about 7,000 annually -- exactly because they don't work so long as at-grade intersections remain almost universal.

chrisonabike wrote:

It seems that is why having separate infra for modes with markedly different speeds / mass is *necessary* (if not sufficient).  Without that I'm not aware of examples of places * where people who formerly haven't been e.g. cycling will suddenly consider doing so without the traffic reduction you are - and I am - in favour of.

Cycling in Chicago doubled in five years.

chrisonabike wrote:

I'm a bit baffled by your assertion that cycle infra is "low capacity".  Can you explain that?

Cycle-dedicated infrastructure as currently built is typically one lane in each direction.  As long as a lane is lightly-used, this is generally fine.  Once it is heavily trafficked, it becomes a problem.  Passing a slower cyclist becomes well-nigh impossible, so everyone must travel at the speed of the slowest user in their vicinity.

If you build that infrastructure wider, it stops being any different from the roads we already have -- so motor vehicles will use it ( see a number articles on that topic already existing on this very site ).

This is a fairly obvious Catch-22.  In order to build cycle-dedicated infrastructure, it has to be narrow, or it will be abused by poorly-behaved road-users.  If it is narrow, it is necessarily low-throughput.

Again, as I've said, the problem is road-user behavior.  If we fix that, our roads are just damn fine for cyclists ( and everyone else ).  In fact, it's a lot easier for a low-skilled rider to navigate our current wide, relatively straight roads, than it is a narrow, zig-zagging, cambered bike lane, as they are frequently constructed.

chrisonabike wrote:

** Again caveats of if you're happy to live in a police state, or a place where cultural conformity is extremely strong (Japan - and I'm not sure I want to live around the Japanese police), or where no-one can afford more than a bicycle then that may solve the issue.

I hate the idea of living in a police state.  But I also hate the idea of living in a state where I, or anyone else, cannot safely travel in public space due to the behavior of the degenerate segment of our population.  My unpopular suggestion is that, instead of implementing a police state, we attempt to incentivize better behavior -- for which we require a stick.  It just so happens that the United States, at this moment in history, might have a convenient stick available.  We are soon going to have hundreds of thousands of empty jail cells, as we gradually surrender the War on Drugs and stop imprisoning non-violent drug users.  Since we've already built them, and we've already got the COs to man them, we could start throwing people in jail when they prove unable to behave on public roads.  That won't have immediate effect, but over time, it will improve behavior -- as we've shown using this approach with drunk drivers ( for a while, until our law enforcement quiet-quit en mass, but that's another story ).

We actually have a decent amount of "cultural comformity" in both our countries -- just not with regard to behavior on public roads -- and I don't mind that at all.  For the most part, our compatriots conform to a culture of; not killing each other face-to-face, and of not stealing from each other.  Maybe we can extend that culture?

At any rate, the point remains -- we know that construction does not fix this problem.  This has been proven too many times to count, by now.  Nor does it scale to the necessary degree, even if it did.  So repeating that mistake has now crossed the line into insanity.

You keep stating stuff like "construction does not fix this problem.  This has been proven too many times to count, by now."

Where has this been "proven"?  By whom?  How?  I've given counter-examples...  Again just so we're not talking past each other I expect if more people are cycling, there will likely be more cycling casualties than where very few people are cycling, or people are only cycling in recreational facilities (that they generally drive to).  I don't count the latter as a success.  It's certainly not "mass cycling" as I understand it.

"Nor does it scale to the necessary degree, even if it did."

I'm not sure I understand how the first and last parts go together there?  Are you saying that with more humans fixing the existing infra can never catch up?  Trying to understand where you're coming from here - is it "you can never have 100% separation of modes ergo separate infra is a folly".  In which case I would suggest you might be attacking a straw man - this article might be of interest.

Again - I'm not 100% clear what kind of transport future you envisage (by "re-educating drivers" - which you have candidly admitted tends to be difficult in person, which I concur with).  That doesn't make for a good discussion.  You have said you weren't actually bothered about motor traffic reduction.  I hope I've been clear what I'm interested in and why - approximately "more cycling / less driving, fewer road casualties" in that order.  That's because of the wide range of benefits accessible via cycling, it being an active, private, very space-efficient mode (necessary in our increasingly urban spaces) which enhances travel resilience and is very compatible with other modes, whereas motor vehicle use tends to suppress other modes.

If it's just "approx. zero road casualties and we all share the road" well, pick a small, close-knit town and hope!  Over larger populations that's a dream because combining humans with the force-multiplying effect of the motor vehicle (and some psychosocial effects of driving etc.) is a recipe for road casualties.  "Sharing" can work to a limited extent but only under specific conditions.  Without careful control it's very easy for those using motor vehicles to quickly force everyone else off the streets.

Improving driving is a good idea - but has its limits, at least while mass motoring exists.  Perhaps if every driver could be trained and continuously monitored like airline pilots - but even then...

While I personally am a cycling enthusiast I don't expect most people to be.  Cycling is just currently one of the most effective tools for travel which has the least negative impacts.

The reason I doubt your assertions is that we've had decades of the same in the UK with practically nothing to show for it e.g. lots of "encouraging cycling" and exhortations for people to drive better, drive less etc.

It's a little hard to get US cycling numbers (in the US - bit like the UK - people just tend to measure commuter use) but some of these have 3% of workers commuting by bike - that's all good if accurate.  Apparently your example of Chicago is a bit like "we doubled the cycling numbers - from one to two" - up to 1.7% modal share apparently, doubled from 2000.  Again - great work in a city associated with the car industry.  Comparatively - the share for the whole of Scoland (with a few denser cities but also "miles and miles of bugger all") was 1.5% (2020).  London is at 4.5% - it's been increasing and coincidentally ... they've also built some infra.  Meanwhile in the Netherlands (for some reason some bike advocates seem to have some issue with NL) for the entire nation the modal share is variably reported but most have it at 28% of all trips (e.g. 2020 here or 2022 here).  That is "mass cycling".

The Dutch figures are a bit more granular than the UK / US figures I've been able to find so for example you can have the number of trips ONLY by bike or those using a bike as part of a multi-modal journey.  That doesn't change the figure greatly though.  Indeed I think that's a great use for cycling, enabling longer journeys which otherwise people might drive.  There has been (rightly I believe) some criticism of over-inflation of cycling stats (e.g. here) - I think that applies everywhere though.

As for cycling safety - if you check out the figures for e.g. NL in detail (overview here, deep dive here (also in Dutch - beware these are "general safety" folks and recommend helmets!) ) you'll see that a) lots of people are dying in "single-vehicle crashes" e.g. crashed or fell off their bike and lots of the people dying are older.  So in NL people of all ages are travelling for transport (because they find it safe and convenient).  Because of this a greater percentage are young (going to school) or older (have independent, car-free mobility).  Particularly the old are boosting the casualty figures, in part simply because they're more prone to crash or fall, and being more frail the outcomes are a lot worse when they do.

I'd say that's a nice safety problem to have.

I've not yet found as good an authoritative source for the US numbers broken down by who is cycling, why and where.   In the UK however where people are cycling many are cycling recreationally and quite a lot on trails / parks - so not encountering motor vehicles.  Kids are not generally cycling to school and older people are certainly not cycling about in numbers.  So we have quite good crude "road safety numbers".  Safety through "exclusion from the roads".  Would that be the case in the US?

chrisonabike wrote:

You keep stating stuff like "construction does not fix this problem.  This has been proven too many times to count, by now."

Where has this been "proven"?  By whom?  How?  I've given counter-examples... 

Every single municipality that has attempted a construction-based solution has seen no safety benefit, and has subsequently been forced to pivot to one or both of the strategies that do work -- traffic reduction and traffic enforcement.

For just one example, that is why the Netherlands -- who have spent more on dedicated infrastructure than anyone, I believe -- are now forced to turn to drastic speed limit reductions on both motor vehicles and cyclists.

https://ecf.com/news-and-events/news/30-new-50-dutch-reduce-default-spee...

https://www.bicycling.com/news/a43429658/new-e-bike-speed-limit-amsterdam/

chrisonabike wrote:

"Nor does it scale to the necessary degree, even if it did."

I'm not sure I understand how the first and last parts go together there?  Are you saying that with more humans fixing the existing infra can never catch up?  Trying to understand where you're coming from here - is it "you can never have 100% separation of modes ergo separate infra is a folly".  In which case I would suggest you might be attacking a straw man - this article might be of interest.

I'm not ridiculous enough to concern myself with absolutes, but yes, separation or lack thereof is a major problem.  Many studies illustrate that building protected cycling infrastructure with at-grade road intersections merely relocates a few fatalities from mid-block to the intersection, and has zero positive safety effect.  This is not a productive use of our resources.

More to the point, however, is scalability.  There are calls in many places, including in my area, for a "bike grid" -- apparently so that cyclists can make part of their journey, but then die when they are forced to leave the alleged safety of that grid and ride to their actual destination.

We already have -- in most places outside Alaska, and similar -- a road network that reaches effectively all possible destinations.  Attempting to replace that with a network which reaches, at best, a few percent of destinations, is as-close as necessary to the definition of "not scaling well".

Which is superior, from these two options:

a) We build bike grids or similar networks in every city, allowing a percentage of cyclists to feel -- but not actually be -- safer, when riding to a tiny percentage of possible destinations.  This does nothing to improve the lot of pedestrians, nor motor vehicle occupants, nor anyone outside those cities, nor anyone traveling between those cities.

b) We correct road-user behavior, such that all road-users -- be they cyclists, drivers, or pedestrians -- can use our existing network of roads to reach effectively all destinations in an appropriate level of safety.  Without further damaging the environment by pouring millions of yards of concrete and paint.

chrisonabike wrote:

Again - I'm not 100% clear what kind of transport future you envisage (by "re-educating drivers" - which you have candidly admitted tends to be difficult in person, which I concur with). 

Fair enough, I suppose.  My vision is that road-users -- of all stripes -- undergo a level of training commensurate with their stripe before being allowed to operate on public roads.  Obviously, motor vehicles are vastly more dangerous than alternatives, so that training needs to be the most rigorous.  At least of equal importance, road-users need to be certain that their will be serious consequences for failing to take safety on public roads seriously.  This is probably the biggest single change that I am discussing.  At present, in many countries including both of ours I believe, it is commonplace for serious neglience to be mistakenly called "an accident", which breeds carelessness, and, at the end of the day, carnage.  We see precisely the opposite situation in Japan, as previously noted.

Crucially, unlike construction-based strategies, which have a perfect failure record, we have seen this education and enforcement strategy succeed already -- at the national level in Japan, and in some smaller municipalities, as well.

chrisonabike wrote:

That doesn't make for a good discussion.  You have said you weren't actually bothered about motor traffic reduction.  I hope I've been clear what I'm interested in and why - approximately "more cycling / less driving, fewer road casualties" in that order.  That's because of the wide range of benefits accessible via cycling, it being an active, private, very space-efficient mode (necessary in our increasingly urban spaces) which enhances travel resilience and is very compatible with other modes, whereas motor vehicle use tends to suppress other modes.

While I currently own, um, twelve bicycles and just one car which almost never moves, my priority is not necessarily a shift in transport modes.  I am very pro-cycling, but I am not going to waste my breath trying to convince people that cars are not brilliant transport devices.  There are good reasons why motor vehicles revolutionized the world, and why virtually every human being wants one.  Fighting that is tilting at a really well-built windmill.

Luckily -- relatively speaking -- defeating motor vehicles is not required.  Hell, unless we get very serious about population reduction, it isn't even feasible.  There is simply no way to supply 9 billion humans with even the necessities, never mind all the things they just want, without motor vehicles.

A far more reasonable goal is to eliminate the degenerate behavior of a relatively-small segment of the population who cause the rest of us almost interminable headaches.  This actually applies to crimes other than the traffic variety, as well.  The world spends incomprehensible resources trying to stop theft, for example, instead of properly dealing with the thieves.

For illustration, again, pick your preferred scenario:

a) You are cycling on a single carriageway.  You are approached from behind by one car traveling triple your speed, who passes you with half-a-handlebar of clearance ( ie, very illegally ).

b) You are cycling on a single carriageway.  You are approached from behind by a constant stream of cars, who each pass you at 150% of your speed, while moving entirely into the opposing lane, and leaving you as much space as they physically can ( ie, completely legally ).

In other words, it is not traffic volume that is the problem, but traffic behavior.

chrisonabike wrote:

If it's just "approx. zero road casualties and we all share the road"

That piece notes that cycling on a busy street will be "unappealing... due to the noise and delays inherent to motor vehicles".  Noise and delay are inherent to living in an urban or semi-urban environment, unfortunately.  Neither are ever going away, unless we get serious about drastically reducing the global population, which will not happen until nature forces it.

Furthermore, as I stated, that piece is completely incorrect about the effectiveness of construction.

chrisonabike wrote:

Improving driving is a good idea - but has its limits, at least while mass motoring exists. 

That site/cite is a complete waste of time.  This is the last time I'm going to bother responding to its garbage (fyi).  There will not "always be an anti-social and aggressive minority" if those persons are in prison, where they belong.  Or dead, in the case of mass murders like Quintana-Lujan.  Furthermore, that site falling back to "humans are not perfect" is extremely weak.  We lost MH370, too, but that doesn't mean we've stop flying planes.

chrisonabike wrote:

The reason I doubt your assertions is that we've had decades of the same in the UK with practically nothing to show for it e.g. lots of "encouraging cycling" and exhortations for people to drive better, drive less etc.

I am not sufficiently naive to believe that "encouragement" works.  Has serious training been attempted?  Has serious enforcement?  We know these strategies work, and they are the only things that have, to date.

chrisonabike wrote:

It's a little hard to get US cycling numbers (in the US - bit like the UK - people just tend to measure commuter use) but some of these have 3% of workers commuting by bike - that's all good if accurate.  Apparently your example of Chicago is a bit like "we doubled the cycling numbers - from one to two" - up to 1.7% modal share apparently, doubled from 2000.  Again - great work in a city associated with the car industry. 

Cycling statistics are poor almost everywhere, unfortunately.  The most-detailed come from Denmark and the Netherlands, but due to both places' pride in cycling, their statistics are unreliable, and adjusted with rose-colored brushes before publication.

That said, the Chicago area has 1/6th the population of the entire United Kingdom, so a doubling of cycling ( even measured coarsely by commuters-only, which is a pet peeve of mine ) is substantial.

By the way, you may be confusing Chicago with Detroit, with reference to the car industry.  Apart from a Ford factory on the Southside, and a few suppliers, Chicago is not particularly heavy on automotive industry.  Arguably, Chicago's industrial contribution here is more on the cycling side, having been home to Schwinn production for many decades.

chrisonabike wrote:

 

As for cycling safety - if you check out the figures for e.g. NL in detail (overview here, deep dive here (also in Dutch - beware these are "general safety" folks and recommend helmets!) ) you'll see that a) lots of people are dying in "single-vehicle crashes" e.g. crashed or fell off their bike and lots of the people dying are older.  So in NL people of all ages are travelling for transport (because they find it safe and convenient).  Because of this a greater percentage are young (going to school) or older (have independent, car-free mobility).  Particularly the old are boosting the casualty figures, in part simply because they're more prone to crash or fall, and being more frail the outcomes are a lot worse when they do.

I've been over Dutch statistics many times.  You'll also find that they ride very short distances at very slow speeds ( on the order of 3km daily, at around 12kph ).  Not many Americans would even bother pulling out their bike for such trips -- in any urban area, the risk of theft alone would make most simply walk that trip.

chrisonabike wrote:

I've not yet found as good an authoritative source for the US numbers broken down by who is cycling, why and where.   In the UK however where people are cycling many are cycling recreationally and quite a lot on trails / parks - so not encountering motor vehicles.  Kids are not generally cycling to school and older people are certainly not cycling about in numbers.  So we have quite good crude "road safety numbers".  Safety through "exclusion from the roads".  Would that be the case in the US?

I don't believe anyone has ever compiled detailed statistics on why and where Americans ride.  In point of fact, it's a longstanding policy problem in the US that a huge percentage of cyclists -- low income persons who tend to ride out of necessity -- are missing from virtually all statistics.  

Just about every study that has been done has concluded that roughly 1-in-3 Americans rides a bicycle at least once a year.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5189688/

https://www.bts.gov/sites/bts.dot.gov/files/docs/browse-statistical-prod...

Those studies do tend to pre-date the proliferation of alternate micromobility devices like scooters, but from a traffic safety standpoint, there's no meaningful difference between a cyclist and a scooterist.  They also pre-date the Pandemic-era cycling boom, so we can be reasonably certain that those percentages are low now.

That third of Americans who cycle includes a huge number of children, which can obviously effect safety statistics in a number of different ways.  By every study that I have seen, the number of American children who cycle exceeds the entire population of the United Kingdom ( the former being roughly 70M ).

There is tremendous variety in where, why, and how those children cycle.  Just in my immediate neighborhood, there's a grade school that has full bike racks surrounding it every day, plus dozens more kids walking in, and virtually no cars performing spawn-delivery.  On the other hand, there's one just west of here that features a massive line-up of idling cars at pick-up time, despite none of those students living more than a mile away on quiet suburban streets.  I am not aware of what causes that difference, but I suppose it is simply social coercion or lack there-of.

Except in Holland. Please show dedicated cycle infrastructure in this country that supports your argument. 

polainm wrote:

Except in Holland. Please show dedicated cycle infrastructure in this country that supports your argument. 

The Netherlands has about 13M cyclists (officially, the actual number is much lower), and about 250 are killed annually.  This rate is:

* Approximately 240% of the US' rate, and quite high compared to many countries.

* Sufficiently high that the Dutch have been forced to pivot to the other strategies that I referred to, and are even implementing cycling speed limits to curb the carnage.

https://www.dutchnews.nl/2021/09/cycling-injuries-three-times-more-than-...

https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2024/03/06/cycling-safety-in-the-neth...

https://etsc.eu/dutch-road-safety-thrown-back-in-time-15-years/

Among many other references on the topic, which I encourage you to read.

dh700 wrote:

To cyclists who may be reading this, please stop playing into the hands of your enemies, and talking about helmets.

And while we're at it, please stop playing into the hands of those who want to promote culture wars by talking about people who don't share your point of view as enemies.

mdavidford wrote:

And while we're at it, please stop playing into the hands of those who want to promote culture wars by talking about people who don't share your point of view as enemies.

There exist culture wars, but this is not one of them.  A group of people trying to stay alive battling a group that is -- at least -- fine with watching them die, is not a "culture war".

'Battling' is kind of the defining feature of a war. Better to move away from battling and try to find ways of reframing the discussion, if you want anything productive to come of it.

mdavidford wrote:

'Battling' is kind of the defining feature of a war. Better to move away from battling and try to find ways of reframing the discussion, if you want anything productive to come of it.

I didn't say "It isn't a war", I said "It isn't a culture war".  Sometimes, not very often, war is necessary.  Generally, those rare cases involve instances where one party is being killed and maimed by another.

It is very difficult and rarely productive to reason with a person who is -- at least -- fine with watching you die, and in many cases, willing to actively participate in your demise.

It's a very asymmetric kind of war, where one side, being so totally up its own arse, doesn't really get why the other side is feeling attacked. A bit like colonisation or something (But... but... we're bringing you Christianity and whatnot...).

marmotte27 wrote:

It's a very asymmetric kind of war, where one side, being so totally up its own arse, doesn't really get why the other side is feeling attacked. A bit like colonisation or something (But... but... we're bringing you Christianity and whatnot...).

And democracy, capitalism, railways etc, etc.  The least you could do is be grateful as we ship your wealth to us.

dh700 wrote:

It is very difficult and rarely productive to reason with a person who is -- at least -- fine with watching you die, and in many cases, willing to actively participate in your demise.

Certainly people, on both sides of things are quite entrenched (that's where the 'culture' bit comes in).

But I don't accept your council of despair - "They're never going to change, so there's no point trying". If that's true, we might as well all give up and put the bikes in a skip - if you can't change the minds, you can't change the behaviours.

I'm more interested in trying to get people to climb out of their trenches. When it comes down to it, most people aren't actually "fine with watching you die", when they see you as a 'you', rather than an 'enemy'.

mdavidford wrote:

But I don't accept your council of despair - "They're never going to change, so there's no point trying". If that's true, we might as well all give up and put the bikes in a skip - if you can't change the minds, you can't change the behaviours.

I don't believe I said that -- in fact, my entire point is that we need to be focusing on changing behavior.  I try to educate motor vehicle operators on almost every ride I take ( although I've no idea if it ever sticks ).

That said, the worst of the problematic road-users are likely beyond reclamation, and need to be imprisoned or put down.  But that's a small segment, and hopefully, those examples will be noticed by the rest of the "enemy" troops.

I'd venture to suggest that it's probably not sticking at all if you start from the point of treating them as 'enemies'. That just pushes them to identify more with the small irredemable minority, and less receptive to a reasonable discussion. You've only got a shot at changing minds once you start approaching them as fellow human beings.

mdavidford wrote:

I'd venture to suggest that it's probably not sticking at all if you start from the point of treating them as 'enemies'.

I'd venture to suggest that if you continue to make a habit out of speculating on a topic from a position of complete ignorance, you will rarely be correct.

As you've demonstrated with this comment.

You haven't the slightest idea how I start, conduct, or finish such interventions.

Exactly. It's not a war, as there is no equality. It is a massacre. There is no 'war on motorists' but a 'massacre of people outside the motor vehicle'.

polainm wrote:

Exactly. It's not a war, as there is no equality. It is a massacre. There is no 'war on motorists' but a 'massacre of people outside the motor vehicle'.

Ironically, in many places, that massacre is composed of vastly more "friendly fire" deaths than anything else.  In the US, motor vehicle occupant deaths are 60 times that of cyclists, and 9 times that of pedestrians.

grOg wrote:

Funny how the cycling socialists that populate the comments section, who normally love rules and mandates, are so virulently against helmet use being mandatory..

Yeah, weird, isn't it. It's like I favour restrictions on allowing ten-year-olds to buy vodka but I don't think there should be restrictions on adults doing so, it's almost as if it's possible to believe in regulation when it's appropriate and not when it's not.

grOg wrote:

Funny how the cycling socialists that populate the comments section, who normally love rules and mandates, are so virulently against helmet use being mandatory..

Because there would be greater benefit if effort was put into education drivers how to drive safely on the roads. i.e. stop smashing into cyclists, because the helmet doesn't protect the body. The main motivation of those who push for a compulsory helmet law is to discourage cycling. i.e. idiots like you, who are too blind and stupid to realise towns and cities are being choked to death with vehicle congestion.

Muddy Ford wrote:

grOg wrote:

Funny how the cycling socialists that populate the comments section, who normally love rules and mandates, are so virulently against helmet use being mandatory..

Because there would be greater benefit if effort was put into education drivers how to drive safely on the roads. i.e. stop smashing into cyclists, because the helmet doesn't protect the body. The main motivation of those who push for a compulsory helmet law is to discourage cycling. i.e. idiots like you, who are too blind and stupid to realise towns and cities are being choked to death with vehicle congestion.

I'm sure there are certainly some that have th objectove of reducing cycling, but there are others who have a perception that cycling is dangerous, and that something must be done. Of course helmets are "something" and even better something that does not impact on the liberties of concerned drivers. So it's a very happy solution for them.

Of course if I wanted to practice shooting on the high street and suggested that shoppers should buy themselves bullet proof vests for their own safety, they would be quick to point out that segregation of shooting and shopping would be a better solution than PPE.

grOg wrote:

Funny how the cycling socialists that populate the comments section, who normally love rules and mandates, are so virulently against helmet use being mandatory..

With rules and mandates, it depends on who it serves. Rules around road use should be designed (and most of them are) to protect people from harm. Mandatory helmet laws reduce the number of cyclists which makes it slightly more dangerous for the remaining cyclists (safety in numbers as drivers will expect to see cyclists) and can lead to sedentary diseases in those who might have cycled, but instead drive everywhere. At a population level, mandatory helmet laws reduce the population health which makes it a ridiculous law to enforce.

That may be true, but it's a small price to pay for combatting the insidious growth of socialism whereby the weak are ruining the independent and entrepreneurial with their ever-growing welfare costs and at the same time leaving our Great Nation flaccid and powerless against our foes ... (continues until the medicine tray comes round.)

Actually we do have some "problems of success" now that starvation is less common in the UK, more children make it past their fifth birthday, women aren't dying in labour in such numbers and people don't tend to drop dead of the consequences of work just after retirement.  Not sure "to helmet, or not" has much to do with that though.

I dunno about that, there seem to be a good number of helmet compulsion types, the eternally grateful "it saved my life, you'd be stupid not to" and "common sense, innit" types posting too, just like every other helmet debate.

I understand rules based on science and proven facts, not victim-blaming and ignoring the elephant in the room.

If more drivers followed the rules that are already in place then perhaps there would be no real need for most of us to wear helmets while cycling on the road. And you might find that the 19,000 pedestrians killed and injured on the roads every year [source] get to remain unscathed as well. That would be nice.

trOll