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news
Broken bike (CC licensed image by garryknight, www.flickr.com)Treat road deaths as public health issue, says Oxfordshire’s cycling champion
Oxfordshire’s cycling champion says road deaths need to be treated as a public health issue to prevent future tragedies. Andrew Gant, Liberal Democrat councillor and cycling champion at Oxfordshire County Council, was speaking after a cyclist was killed in a collision involving a lorry-mounted crane yesterday morning.
The fatal crash happened at the junction of Headley Way and London Road at around 9.50am on Sunday 26 September. The victim, who has not yet been named, was a 32-year-old woman.
A Thames Valley Police spokesman said: “A large crane vehicle was involved in a collision with a cyclist.
“Sadly, the cyclist, a 32-year-old woman, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her next of kin have been informed and are receiving support from specially trained officers.”
Sergeant James Surman, of the force’s Roads Policing Unit, said: “This is a tragic incident which has resulted in the death of a woman.
“I am appealing for anyone who has any information relating to the collision to please get in touch with Thames Valley Police.
“If you have any CCTV or dash-cam footage which you think could be relevant, please contact us as soon as possible.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact Thames Valley Police on 101.
Quoted in the Oxford Mail, Councillor Gant, said: “I was devastated to learn that a young woman lost her life in Oxford over the weekend.
“This tragic death is even more heartbreaking when you realise that it comes less than a year since a 35-year-old woman riding a bike on Horspath Driftway was killed in a collision with a bin lorry, and before that the death of an Oxford student, Claudia Comberti, who died when she fell off her bike and was struck by a bus on Botley Road.
“We don’t know what happened in this incident, but we do know that we can and should be working to prevent these tragedies by taking a proactive, preventative approach that prioritises traffic safety and treats it as a public health issue.
“We should be separating road space, so vulnerable road users don’t come into conflict with vehicles.
“In Sweden in the 1990s, they adopted Vision Zero which is a strategy to eliminate all traffic fatalities and severe injuries.
“They did this by prioritising active travel and making it a safe and accessible option for everyone.
“We should be doing this in the UK, and in Oxfordshire we are championing this approach. We so obviously need to do things differently,” he added.
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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22 comments
Also the statement seems to be a bit...buzzword heavy:
Yes to: "proactive, preventative approach" and "separating road space" - but your fellow councillors will have to agree to pay for this and fight with parking enthusiasts (and even the odd cyclist).
"Sweden" "vision zero"... sounds good but what has happened there is a bit mixed in results terms. Fatalities have fallen but they were falling before this was implemented. In fact we have reduced road deaths in the UK over the years too but a lot of that is by making the insides of cars safer and persuading people outside of cars to get off the roads. Could we aim a bit higher?
Public health issue - if it's an analogy or means "more active travel" and "kids to get more freedom to travel" to improve our wellbeing then yes. Otherwise what you need is to sort out your transport policy. Or (apologies eburtthebike) actually implement it. I'm always wary of invoking the medics because they'll recommend medical solutions and they carry considerable authority. So they tend to say things like "more PPE" (helmets). And occasionally "these bike lanes full of aggressive cyclists could be very dangerous to pedestrians and cause congestion" if you ask one
Dr RobertBaron Winston (Gynecology).No doubt by making it a "public health issue" rather than a road safety issue, it becomes the NHS's responsibility (at least in part).
So it is no longer the councils transport budget that is (supposed to be) responsible for fixing it, while adding more parties to pass the buck between about why it hasn't been fixed...
As far as I can see, the biggest issue is the government deliberately removed the right/responsibility of the coroners court to require improvements to prevent reoccurance when investigating road fatalities. Instead it is now the councils responsibility to investigate for purposes of future prevention; It is also the councils budget that has to pay for fixing safety issues (so naturally the council wants investigators/auditors who propose no or cheap fixes that are just enough to document they have fulfilled their obligation whether they work or not...)
Why are we downgrading road deaths from a general safety issue to a public health issue?
what does this even mean? As far as I can tell public health issues are simply left to individuals to mak their own decisions on how much risk they are comfortable with. Not what I want on the roads.
I want them to be treated like health and safety at work, especially for people driving for a living.
I think that's the intention with regarding road deaths as a public health issue. At the moment, road deaths are treated as 'just another accident' and left down to the police to do a rushed bit of investigation before re-opening the affected roads as quickly as possible.
I've said before that I'd like road collisions to be fully investigated and any junctions/roads that are deemed hazardous or dangerous should be immediately closed to motorised traffic until they can be made safe to allow mixed modes of traffic. Currently, we just keep sacrificing people (and the climate) on the altar of burning dinosaurs.
Oh I don't know, I can imagine that there may be quite a few dinosaurs that could do with burning.....
Don't burn them, use dinomite
Dinosaurs - if you can't burn 'em, wear em.
That's not a downgrade, quite the opposite. I absolutely agree with you that it should be elevated to teh importance of H&S, but it doesn't actually fall under HSAW legislation. General safety is fairly meaningless, and is for individuals to take advice and act on by themselves (shower helmets etc). Public health issue is an outside factor that the public needs protection from, and govt has to act on (such as the great smog, covid, et al).
Whether you can get the govt to accept that it is bigger than the individual and so is public health is one thing, and the even greater hurdle is ensuring they act (climate emergency anyone?).
I don't know, a lot of the vehicles involve in deaths and serious injuries are work vehicles, inside of the vehicles have to abide, can be monitored and no smoking, why can't h n s apply to the outside.
Banksman (person) when on site, who cares about it when reversing off-site, makes a warning noise doesn't it...
Of course you are absolutely right. A little effort from investigators and some will from teh HSE could ensure that some at least are prosecuted on H&S grounds.
However we do it we surely can do better than repeating these stories and condolences? I bet it would even save money. Meanwhile back in 2013 and before, in a country that is very keen on trucks and cars, this doesn't seem to be such a puzzle.
Condolences to the family and friends of the woman killed. This shouldn't happen in the UK's 'cycling city'.
This stretch of road is mainly shared footpath which is not fit for purpose. It's driveway entrance after driveway entrance; uneven with trees and tree roots, random gravel, potholes, bus stops, etc in the way; random bits of paint that direct you in and out of the road. You end up avoiding all the hassle by cycling in the road. It shouldn't be like this.
There was a story today about an escooter user who died after a collision. The gf went for PPE as the solution rather than proper infrastructure.
Something as large as a lorry mounted crane should be kept away from these roads or have a proper escort.
I heard that report on bbc r4, and it was exactly the same as their reporting of cyclists' deaths; never mind the drivers killing people, the victims should wear magic plastic hats. There is something fundamentally wrong at the bbc.
I heard this stuff as well, and the "magic hats" thing was coming from the victims family too, suggesting that there should be laws to make it compulsory to wear them, despite the victim clearly ignoring legislation in the first place by riding a illeagel escooter in the first place.
The survivor and the family were clearly, if unconsciously, distracting from their illegal behaviour and finding something else to blame.
Not sure if it is just a statistical anomaly, but female cyclists seem disproportionately vulnerable to HGV drivers. It seems to have been so for some while too. This was from 2015:
https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/why-women-seem-to-be-mo...
That's a puzzling anomaly. The only thing that I can think of is if female cyclists are more likely to ride close to the kerb and less likely to take primary position (I don't know if that's necessarily true though).
We really should start proper investigations into road deaths by copying the methods used by train and plane collision investigators.
The article (it is actually quite good reading) does make suggestions along those lines, that a less assertive riding style (including a reticence at red lights) may count against women, in particular with HGV encounters.
I would wager its propensity to use the LH murder filters at lights.
Surprised no-one has done a time and motion study of their use.
I wonder if (and this is pure speculation and unprovable, I know) in the case of HGV drivers that overtake cyclists then turn left male HGV drivers subconsciously regard female cyclists as more likely to back down and let them have their own way? Would they be less likely to try and push past a burly male? I only speculate this because when my wife and I are out riding exactly the same speed and lines she (155cm, 55kg) seems to get more intimidatory behaviour, for example drivers failing to wait and let her through on narrow streets even when she has right-of-way, than I (180 cm, 80 kg) do.
My purely speculative answer is that the female cyclist might hold the mistaken belief that because they are riding within the rules and laws of the road then others around them will do to.
The media and general car culture is always blaming us "aggressively" riding males for our lawbreaking for us getting killed.
I happen to hold the quite dark belief that you have to survive your first couple of incidences of being run over before you can truly understand how awful some of the driving is out there, and of course the lies that they inevitably tell the police to justify their awful driving.