British Cycling unveils “bold” four-year strategy to get people riding bikes – but road safety expert blasts failure to “tackle danger for cyclists”

The Terrible Tourists wrote:

Need to educate people how to use gears. So often, someone gets on a bike for first time and ends up grinding big gear, or pushing it uphill and ending up with sore knees

I mean, maybe, but that seems pretty low down the list of priority action in terms of getting more people cycling and reducing the socio-economic inequality in cycling.

Doesn't stop the Dutch:  I believe they mostly still use single-gear bikes (their public hire bikes do).  And they may only have hills in the north but they have both bridges with steep inclines and strong headwinds (hence the windmills), which you never get to the top of...

A bit of a tangled web here.  It may be safer driving * but people who cycle more and drive less can enjoy much better health (inc. just "feeling better").  And travelling on streets and roads in the UK is very safe compared with most other places.

Perception around what is "safe" is complex.   The perception is important - it's just that can be addressed in quite different ways.  I agree that "just fix the perception" efforts which simply use arguments, statistics or merely state it's safe ("I do so you can too" - essentially "it's all in your head!") have essentially done nothing to change numbers of people cycling.

That may be because of other factors (which people may roll into their "not safe" responses).  Most people don't find it pleasant cycling with lots of motor traffic or much faster / larger vehicles.  Also cycling is in many cases deliberately made less convenient ("cyclists dismount" etc.) and certainly less social than it could be.  (Look how convenient e.g. this trip is).

Overall - driving is simply the default for most.  And people who have a car will tend to use it.

* Not sure where that 24 times figure comes from?  Plus I imagine there are some significant variation depending on who / where / when.

chrisonabike wrote:

* Not sure where that 24 times figure comes from?  Plus I imagine there are some significant variation depending on who / where / when.

Brake has it as 15 times - 30 deaths per billion km for cyclists vs 2 deaths per billion km for car drivers.

Worth pointing out that cyclists have a lower all-cause mortality risk than non-active commuters (i.e. less likely to die overall) - Health benefits of pedestrian and cyclist commuting: evidence from the Scottish Longitudinal Study

I've seen increased rates ranging from 15 - 24 - 40 depending on the Source, Year and type of Incident Killed - KSI - All injuries

No doubt about it though, the figures give credence to the perception.

The problem is the stats for cycling don't include the near misses which create the reality of the perceived danger.

I had two at the weekend that will never be recorded officially so stats wise they don't exist and to all intents and purposes it was safe to cycle, didn't feel like it though

Equally I've had two lorries try to drive into my car on the road this week,also not recorded in stats, but those events do more often end as crashes, which would be recorded.

stonojnr wrote:

The problem is the stats for cycling don't include the near misses which create the reality of the perceived danger.

There is some truth to that - certainly "subjective safety" is really what matters.  Since most people never cycle anyway they don't even get to experience things like near misses in reality.

So what are the blockers?  "I already have my routine and normally access to a car" - so why change?  It would be hard enough doing something new and different if that activity were made convenient - but for cycling it isn't.  Then "I feel I wouldn't want to ride on the roads" (look at all the cars and noisy big trucks!)  Plus "I don't want to be a weirdo - I hardly see anyone cycling and there's nobody I know I can do it with" (plus of course UK reality is we actively discourage cyclists from doing so normally and socially!)

But ... it is statistically safe - those numbers are what they are.  Albeit in the UK we have achieved this safety at the cost of convenience for vulnerable road users.  We have literally driven people off the roads!  And in many cases added features "to protect them" e.g. barriers, long footbridges, dank and dark underpasses - so they are even less likely to choose not to drive.

of course UK reality is we actively discourage cyclists from doing so normally and socially

Along with the willing contribution from The Filth to the attempt to drive cyclists off the roads. The RHS of that manhole cover is 159 cms from the kerb and the total width of the manhole is 47 cms. The lane measures 366 cms from kerb to centre of white line and the police Peugeot 308, 180 cms wide including deployed side mirrors, remained within the left lane throughout. So the total road space allotted to me by the police was about 160 cms- dimwits often equate that to the 'clearance'- which was actually about 50 cms when we appreciate (unlike the police) that the cyclist himself is not just an infinitely narrow sliver on the midline of the bike, which we know is 1/3 of the amount noted in the Highway Code. I've reported it, and it's gone to upRide, but we all know OpSnap Lancs will doubly ignore this one. I'm also reporting it to Lancashire's equally bent other video portal who will at best write back and tell me to report it to OpSnap, even though I've told them that's already been done. Welcome to the land of the hopelessly inept, incurably bent police- they don't need crap AI when they already have crap I

Cycloid wrote:

Road Safety is the problem, quoting from the article :-

"road safety expert Dr Robert Davis, who says the strategy fails to address the biggest barrier to growing cycling in the UK: the perception that it’s dangerous"

It's not a perception. If you do the same journey on a bicycle and in a car (commute / shopping etc) you are 24 times more likely to get killed on the bike.

But the risk of death while cycling is the same as for walking for distance travelled.  All depends on how you measure or perceive risk.

eburtthebike wrote:

But the risk of death while cycling is the same as for walking for distance travelled.  All depends on how you measure or perceive risk.

It definitely does depend on, as you say, how you measure/perceive risk;  with that particular metric, I always feel that the time spent on the activity is more relevant, given that the average cyclist will travel roughly five times farther for a given time span than a pedestrian. If I spend five hours cycling around London, my risk of being killed during that time is far higher than it would be if I spent those five hours walking around London, even though my risk of death per kilometre travelled would be about the same.

What's relevant probably depends on the individual's use case.

If you're considering whether to change your commute from a walk to a cycle, then you're likely to be travelling similar distances in shorter times, so the per distance metric is more relevant.

If you're thinking of cycling for recreation/exercise, then you're likely to be spending a similar time and travelling greater distance, so the per time metric is more relevant.

You are, of course, both right! I worry intellectually about the risk of being converted to pulp by a driver who will almost certainly get away with it much more than when I cycled from N. Northumberland down to the South to start at college in 1970- when the roads were more dangerous for cyclists I think, despite less traffic. However, I'm not perpetually in actual fear- largely because I've been lucky so far. I'll change my outlook if I'm caught by the big one and survive it, that's for sure. I'm very conscious of 'death roads' such as the A585 and A586 around Blackpool, and conscious of conditions which appear to give an unquestioned (by the police/ legal process) excuse for killing a cyclist such as 'sun was in my eyes' and such unexpected weather as rain/ dark.

brooksby wrote:

I'm confused - I thought that BC just oversees racing?

Doesn't CUK (formerly CTC) deal with more general matters for those people who don't race?

It's like expecting the FIA to talk about zebra crossings and traffic lights…

Errrm - they do...

https://www.fiafoundation.org/

https://www.fia.com/fia-action-road-safety

Having them say they do isn't the same as them actually doing anything significant. Rather like BC in fact. 

Former FIA president Jean Todt was awarded the IOC order, their highest award, for being the brainchild of the FIA led #3500 global road safety campaign (3500 being the estimated number of people who are killed on the roads each day) and he is also a UN special envoy on road safety as a result.

They do more stuff than you might think.

Tbf the FIA does have a road safety commission charity style setup too, they occasionally rope in the sports competitors to promote usually as a punishment for on track rule breaking.

But literally I think Max Mosley, when FIA president, was instrumental in getting the Euro NCAP ratings thing setup and adopted.

Whether BC should be doing similar, no they should concentrate more on governance of the sport and making that the best it can be, which at the moment it clearly isn't.

stonojnr wrote:

But literally I think Max Mosley, when FIA president, was instrumental in getting the Euro NCAP ratings thing setup and adopted.

Didn't know that, thanks.

I wonder whether he also pushed for regulation of sex work…

stonojnr wrote:

Tbf the FIA does have a road safety commission charity style setup too, they occasionally rope in the sports competitors to promote usually as a punishment for on track rule breaking.

It's bullshit, a token effort akin to sportswashing.

Motorsport exists purely to sell cars (and fuel and many other things), and the faster and more exciting they appear to the buyer the better. That's why F1 exists, sportscar racing, rallying... it all glamourises speed and danger and powerful vehicles to sell road-going vehicles in a country where the speed limit is 60mph in many places and you share the road with hundreds or thousands of other vehicles and humans.

As a young lad I watched F1. Living in an area where the RAC and Welsh rally visiting regularly, I was sucked into wanting to do the same. Now I feel sad and guilty about my resultant behaviour behind the wheel - and angry that the marketing people continue to exploit speed to this day.

As for the BC move, it just smacks of desperation. I wish they'd decide to do one thing properly and leave the meat of the campaigning to CUK... or even, dare I say it, support the other org in its efforts (which would surely be a more effective use of resources).

Agree on the parking. But ... businesses will no doubt identify where all the money (in fact subsidy) is going (mass motoring) and what is seen as normal, nay, prestigious (driving) and proceed accordingly.

Nice to promote providing facilities at work, better to push for cycle facilities to make it easier to cycle there in the first place. So more than the national 1% or so might.

One of my recent employers was enlightened in these matters. There were showers and bike parking. They promoted a good work /life balance culture. Out of hours emailing was discouraged. And suprise / suprise, staff retention and physical health was excellent . (But they were a French company, not British).
Many UK companies are not interested in encouraging staff to partake in sport/ physical activity because it is all time they could spend at work. In one of my other recent jobs, I was the only member of the management team who had a sporting interest. There was a long hours culture. Most members were overweight and only interested in watching football on telly, or going to the pub after work. Many were single / divorced. There were a lot of cases of flu /COVID, bad backs etc. I left after 14 months.

Mr Blackbird wrote:

Many UK companies are not interested in encouraging staff to partake in sport/ physical activity because it is all time they could spend at work. In one of my other recent jobs, I was the only member of the management team who had a sporting interest. There was a long hours culture. Most members were overweight and only interested in watching football on telly, or going to the pub after work. Many were single / divorced. There were a lot of cases of flu /COVID, bad backs etc. I left after 14 months.

That sounds like a very good life choice!  But yes - there's a fair bit of "if we only work 14 hour days our competitors will work 15 and eat us for breakfast and we won't have to worry about work/life balance".

I think alot of that is down to whether the people in the company who can make those decisions that benefit cycling for employees, even at a local level as alot of this stuff gets delegated down, are simply pro-car or pro-bicycle.

With the resultant outcomes based on which side of the fence they sit.