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Where is Britain's safest and most dangerous city for cycling? This new research (might) have some answers

Bristol, London and Manchester are all in the top-ten most dangerous cities to cycle in the UK according to research by Claims.co.uk, although crucial factors such as the number of cycling journeys appear to be omitted from the analysis

Cycling can be one of the most rewarding ways to get from A to B, especially in urban areas where there are already too many cars on the road. Chances are if you are reading this then you probably don't need convincing.

Unfortunately however, riding a bicycle through a city can, at other times, also be some of the most stressful, dangerous and downright unpleasant riding you'll ever do. More road users, as well as more junctions and roundabouts all increase the likelihood of collisions.

> New global ranking shows UK cities have a lot of catching up to do on cycling

Just from personal experience, six months of commuting to London by bike led to as many falls as riding in the lanes during the previous decade. Injury compensation website Claims.co.uk has done some actual research to try to crunch the figures, which should hopefully be a touch more informative than me emotionally judging cities based on how they treated me...

They analysed over 12,000 cycling routes in cities up and down the United Kingdom, factoring in the number of incidents, steepness(?), surface quality and lighting, to come up with a 'danger score' for each. Yes, a bit like Top Trumps...

UK's 'safest cities for cycling'

Surprisingly considering some of the things said about cycling in Essex recently, its third largest city Chelmsford came out on top as the safest city for cyclists, with a low 'average bike accident score' of 0.08, as well as reasonable surface quality and lighting.

Worcester and Nottingham made the podium in second and third respectively. Nottingham had a lower 'accident score' than Worcester, but Claims.co.uk's research assessed the Worcestershire city as safer due to its superior road surfaces and lighting.

There was Midlands representation elsewhere in the safest top-ten list, with Leicester ranked seventh.

With that said, there is a definite southern feel to the safest cities: Gloucester, Cambridge, St Albans and Norwich came fifth, sixth, ninth and tenth respectively.

Of the more northerly cities to make the top-ten, Lincoln ranked highest in fourth place, while York and Wakefield were eighth and ninth.

UK's safest cities for cyclists (Claims.co.uk)

UK's 'most dangerous cities for cycling'

Birmingham was ranked as the most dangerous city for cyclists in the UK according to Claims.co.uk, who scored the second city a danger score of 7.38, just under six points higher than Chelmsford, and five points higher than nearby Worcester.

Newcastle upon Tyne, Plymouth, and Sheffield followed closely behind, with 7.21, 7.17 and 7.08 scores respectively.

Perhaps surprisingly, London only came fifth in the top-ten most dangerous list. The English capital had the highest 'accident score' by far — 9.58, but was helped by the relatively simple terrain and well-surfaced roads.

Preston, Manchester, Stoke-on-Trent, Bristol and Brighton completed the top-ten.

UK's most dangerous cities for cyclists (Claims.co.uk)

Where this research appears to fall down is on analysis of the number of cyclists and cycling journeys, with the number of reported 'bike crashes' as Claims.co.uk put it seemingly one of the main deciding factors in assigning a city its overall danger score. This could be why most of the top 10 'most dangerous' are higher population cities, and many of the 'safest' are considerably smaller. 

While Chelmsford and Worcester both had a low number of reported 'bike crashes', this could in part be because of low cycling numbers. We reported on the dangers of cycling in Essex on the road.cc Podcast recently, while a controversial cycling ban in Worcester city centre isn't exactly a great advert for cycling in that area.

We could also find fault with the wording of the 'bike accident score' metric used by Claims.co.uk, but the people behind the Road Collision Reporting Guidelines can probably explain why that is far better than us. 

What do you think? Can we create a 'score' to represent how safe cities are to cycle in? Any surprises? Where did your city rank?

Dan joined road.cc in 2020, and spent most of his first year (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. At the start of 2022 he took on the role of news editor. Before joining road.cc, Dan wrote about various sports, including football and boxing for the Daily Express, and covered the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Part of the generation inspired by the 2012 Olympics, Dan has been 'enjoying' life on two wheels ever since and spends his weekends making bonk-induced trips to the petrol stations of the south of England.

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35 comments

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Flintshire Boy | 1 year ago
0 likes

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I see that Preston has now been moved to Yorkshire, according to the map.

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What else in this survey must we doubt?

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mdavidford replied to Flintshire Boy | 1 year ago
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It looks like all the other cities have been dragged in to London's gravity well a bit.

Or possibly the designer made the map bigger at some point and failed to adjust the position of the markers to match.

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Chris Hayes | 1 year ago
1 like

So largely mid-sized university towns (and similar - plus Leicester?) lead the list, and sprawling cities traversed by fast roads and dual carriageways the least safe.  No surprise there.  But no Oxford or Cambridge? Probably our two cities with the highest number of cycling journeys per capita?

Sheffield is a strange one and definitely the most dangerous place I have cycled. It falls into the sprawling city category and despite having two universities students don't seem to cycle much (though this might be because both the Uni and Poly are central), but on the whole you'd think that a city so close to the Peak District would have a healthy relationship with cycling.

I would've expected to see London further up the list of safe places to cycle but the  numbers are meaningless unless they are adjusted for cyclist numbers / journeys made?

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mdavidford replied to Chris Hayes | 1 year ago
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Chris Hayes wrote:

But no Oxford or Cambridge? Probably our two cities with the highest number of cycling journeys per capita?

Cambridge is there - 6th in the list of safest. Oxford is mid-table (19th).

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Chris Hayes replied to mdavidford | 1 year ago
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Oops, so it is. And right up there - though lower than you'd expect unless you count cycling students crashing into pedestrians on mobile phones!

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dubwise | 1 year ago
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Ah, Britain = England.  Now there's a surprise.  Us Celts don't matter.

Pathetic.

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Rendel Harris replied to dubwise | 1 year ago
1 like

dubwise wrote:

Ah, Britain = England.  Now there's a surprise.  Us Celts don't matter.

Pathetic.

The research is claimed to have covered the whole of the UK, and these lists are the 10 safest and 10 most dangerous cities for cycling. Isn't it possible that by the metrics chosen for this research Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have neither one of the 10 most dangerous or 10 safest cities?

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mdavidford replied to dubwise | 1 year ago
1 like

It did include Newport (20th), Cardiff (28th), and Swansea (30th) in the 41 they rated, but nothing in Scotland or NI for some reason.

Even the English cities they chose to include seem a little arbitrary.

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sean1 | 1 year ago
7 likes

If there is no factoring in of cycle use in the report....

"Where this research appears to fall down is on analysis of the number of cyclists and cycling journeys"

then the analysis is worthless.  Any town/city with no cyclists will be by default the "safest" place to cycle.

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Jules59 | 1 year ago
3 likes

How does this data have credibility when the basic geography on the maps is so embarassaingly incorrect.                                                                                                    

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mdavidford | 1 year ago
1 like

"Bike crashes" seems reasonable enough to me - you can see from the illustration that what they're talking about is people riding their bikes into the side of unattended vehicles.

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chrisonabike replied to mdavidford | 1 year ago
1 like

Or maybe these bicycles are - like so many cars - riding into things while their owners / riders (drivers) are powerless to stop them?

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Basemetal | 1 year ago
1 like

Dang! My money was on St Andrews :o(

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Grahamd replied to Basemetal | 1 year ago
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Basemetal wrote:

Dang! My money was on St Andrews :o(

Mine was on St David's.

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OldRidgeback replied to Basemetal | 1 year ago
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Basemetal wrote:

Dang! My money was on St Andrews :o(

I would've put money on Wells. It's a city, even tho it's teeny tiny. St Andrews is a town.

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mdavidford replied to OldRidgeback | 1 year ago
0 likes

OldRidgeback wrote:

Basemetal wrote:

Dang! My money was on St Andrews :o(

I would've put money on Wells. It's a city, even tho it's teeny tiny. St Andrews is a town.

St Davids would do you one better in that regard. Although I suspect it might suffer a bit on the 'steepness' score.

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OldRidgeback replied to mdavidford | 1 year ago
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mdavidford wrote:

OldRidgeback wrote:

Basemetal wrote:

Dang! My money was on St Andrews :o(

I would've put money on Wells. It's a city, even tho it's teeny tiny. St Andrews is a town.

St Davids would do you one better in that regard. Although I suspect it might suffer a bit on the 'steepness' score.

Wow, compared to St Davids, Wells is a metropolis! I've never been there. I have been to Wells and lived.

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Al__S | 1 year ago
6 likes

"Thankfully, injury compensation website Claims.co.uk(link is external) has done some actual research"

No they haven't. it's clearly total nonsense. How have they even assessed the surface quality and lighting? Why is steepness a factor? Has the nuber of inclidents been normalised for the number of cycling journeys?
Dodgy claims by ambulance chasers, realy poor to be promting this

 

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Dnnnnnn replied to Al__S | 1 year ago
6 likes

They did some research on the easiest way to get some free coverage.

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Rik Mayals unde... | 1 year ago
6 likes

Looking at the map, and having lived just outside Preston for all my life, I never realised that it was situated in the centre of the country.

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prestonmike replied to Rik Mayals underpants | 1 year ago
3 likes

biker phil wrote:

Looking at the map, and having lived just outside Preston for all my life, I never realised that it was situated in the centre of the country.

Preston and Manchester appear to have swapped places with Huddersfield and Sheffield

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Davidb67 replied to Rik Mayals underpants | 1 year ago
1 like

And Newcastle looks to have been relocated about 90 miles further south, along what is a shonky-looking coastline. The writing on here has been kindergarten level for some time, but Christ could someone not have obtained a proper map, and checked the geography a bit......

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eburtthebike | 1 year ago
10 likes

I think we need a study to find Britain's crappiest study, and this one would definitely feature in the top ten, along with RoSPA's study about scooter safety.

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AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
0 likes

Hmm, part of the danger is steepness! Not sure why that would have an effect and / or be a danger but as Birmingham is pretty hilly (the centre is pretty much on a hill so uphill from any direction) and quite a few of the others are hilly. My 15 mile round commute is about 300m in total a day.

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wycombewheeler replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
1 like

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Hmm, part of the danger is steepness! Not sure why that would have an effect and / or be a danger but as Birmingham is pretty hilly (the centre is pretty much on a hill so uphill from any direction) and quite a few of the others are hilly. My 15 mile round commute is about 300m in total a day.

your 15 mile commute is around 1000ft? or your 24km commute is around 300m?

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brooksby replied to wycombewheeler | 1 year ago
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wycombewheeler wrote:

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

Hmm, part of the danger is steepness! Not sure why that would have an effect and / or be a danger but as Birmingham is pretty hilly (the centre is pretty much on a hill so uphill from any direction) and quite a few of the others are hilly. My 15 mile round commute is about 300m in total a day.

your 15 mile commute is around 1000ft? or your 24km commute is around 300m?

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John Stevenson replied to wycombewheeler | 1 year ago
2 likes

No no no, his 78 picoparsec commute involves 164 fathoms of climbing.

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Dingaling replied to John Stevenson | 1 year ago
1 like

John Stevenson wrote:

No no no, his 78 picoparsec commute involves 164 fathoms of climbing.

An entertaining use of units of measure. I like to understand uom so I had to check the numbers and the 164 fathoms is spot on but the picoparsecs number is off by a factor of 100. Or you missed off the decimal point. 

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Rendel Harris replied to AlsoSomniloquism | 1 year ago
0 likes

AlsoSomniloquism wrote:

My 15 mile round commute is about 300m in total a day.

You've got that the wrong way round - distance in kms, climbing in feet - I did 100kms and 2000 feet sounds way better than 62 miles and 600 metres!

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mad_scot_rider | 1 year ago
5 likes

I always love seeing a headline about "britain's best" something or other - just to find a map that stops at Carlisle - well done for not disappointing!

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