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Cyclist and lorry (copyright Simon MacMichael)Near Miss Project to continue for a second year – cyclists urged to sign up
The Near Miss Project, which has catalogued the daily cycling experience of more than 1,500 cyclists across the UK, is to continue for a second year, with cyclists urged to sign up for the initiative.
Led by Dr Rachel Aldred of the University of Westminster and funded by Creative Exchange and Blaze, news that the initiative will carry on follows yesterday’s publication of the first year’s report.
Each of the 1,532 participants kept a diary of a day’s cycling between 20 October and 2 November last year, recording all of their journeys by bike and noting and incidents they found scary or annoying, both ranked on a scale of 0-3.
In all, 3,994 incidents were recorded, with researchers concluding that the average cyclist in the UK will be involved in a “very scary incident” around once a week, and 60 such incidents each year.
- Cyclists experience a "scary" near miss once a week according to study
The slower the cyclist, the more likely they were to be subject to a near-miss, which also partly explains why women experience them more than men do.
The most common time when bike riders experienced a near-miss was at morning rush hour.
The “vast majority” of incidents fell into one of five categories - being blocked, being passed too close, another vehicle pulling in or out across a cyclist’s path, being driven at, and a near left or right hook.
While blocking incidents tended to be viewed as annoying but not so scary, issues such as close passes were much more likely to be seen as very scary.
Participants in the study said they believed most incidents could have been prevented – three quarters could have been avoided if other road users acted differently, and half if the road layout or condition were better, or separated infrastructure provided.
The report gives examples of some of the incidents recorded, which are likely to be familiar to anyone who cycles regularly in the UK.
One bike rider list from Hertfordshire said:
The bus was trying to overtake me all along the street, but it was too narrow, so he followed me really closely and then shot past as the road widened, missing me by inches. I felt very angry after, and very nervous as he followed me.
A Cheltenham cyclist related:
Very narrow country lane. Car approaches from rear, does not slow down from about 40 mph, and passes me very close - within 1 metre. Felt scared and intimidated.
Dr Aldred commented: “Many of these incidents correspond to types of injury collision, so it looks like collecting near miss data could help prevent injuries.
"Moreover, growing evidence suggests such incidents put people off cycling, and so reducing them could increase cycling uptake.
“Given cycling’s multiple benefits, it’s crucial cycling both is safe and feels safe, and near misses are an important part of the picture here.”
Emily Brooke, Blaze’s founder and chief executive, added: "Near misses happen all the time but while each individual one might not feel like more than a frustration or irritation at the time, taken together their ramifications are significant.
“Each one creates an immediate emotional impact and serious cases can stop people cycling."
The second edition of the Near Miss Project will start on 19 October and you can sign up here.
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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for those that think the methodology of this report skews the findings or don't think it does and want to defend it then this report from Aus' is useful:
http://www.monash.edu.au/miri/research/reports/muarc322.pdf
around 30 regular cyclists wore helmet cams for 6 months and researchers analysed and coded their interactions with vehicles, from the summary:
"A total of 91 potentially unsafe cyclist-interactions were
identified. In the majority of events (93.4%), the behaviour of the driver led to the event. The most
common event type was left turn (37.3%) which involved a driver turning left across the path of the
cyclist, drivers turning across cyclists’ path from the adjacent direction (32.9%). Unexpectedly
opened vehicle doors accounted for 17.6% of cyclist-driver interactions. In the majority of all
events, a crash was avoided due to the evasive actions taken by cyclists."
OK not the UK but having moved to Aus road rules in ACT are pretty much same as UK and driver attitude to cyclists is similar to the UK, think the methodology this report is a little less subjective and its conclusions pretty stark
If you look up Health and Safety about near misses, it is the person's perception that matters. There then needs to be a process of risk assessment. For every ninety near misses there is a serious incident.
There are steps that should be taken
First remove hazards and barriers
Only much much later consider personal protective equipment.
For various reasons we are habituated to cars, children no longer play in streets and we are in fact imprisoned by them.
We are not actually properly assessing the risks and hazards, because we have attidunal sets that accept what are actually dangerous, noisy, smelly poorly designed and uncomfortable environments.
Why wait at a pedestrian crossing? Why do not pedestrians have right of way?
It is strange, it is very difficult to see how weird our environments are, but learn to look and observe!
Trouble is, most of the close passes, some quite 'scary', that I have had recently have been other cyclists, who do not seem to understand that cyclists need wobble room. Fortunately I cycle steadily, look and signal before turning but there are circumstances in which only listening might be needed before changing lateral position, for example when moving out to pass a car, where signalling is not required.
Yesterdays high speed pass by a giant on a mountain bike was quite a shock. Going down an empty hill at 30 mph may be fine, but cyclists need to realise that you have to slow down as you approach other traffic, and in particular hurtling on at that speed to pass within a metre of another cyclist is just dangerous, especially approaching a junction, where a turn might be expected, as the highway code points out.
W. J. Hall
The perception of risk, not necessarily objective measures of risk, is what encourages or discourages people. If policymakers want to encourage cycling, we need research that investigates how people perceive their experience on the road. It is the point of this research that it documents subjective experiences systematically.
Every researcher is of course free to suggest different methods that are aimed at answering different questions.
Is this project the same as the http://collideosco.pe/ that was reported on earlier in the year
http://road.cc/content/news/144983-suggest-your-improvements-ground-brea...
It doesn't look like it. I hope that the two projects are linked if not.
While there is an obvious need to educate vehicle drivers about cycle related laws and guidelines there is also a requirement to make sure that cyclists are trained to an adequate level.
At the moment you can hop on a bike with zero training and get riding on a road. Let's disregard the fact that a car/ van/ lorry is a technical machine and you need training to drive one. During driving instruction there is also training related to how to actual use the highways safely. In order to get your driving license you need to pass tests based on this training.
I know many cyclists are drivers too but it would be interesting to know what proportion of those that took part in this survey have a valid license to drive, meaning that they have had some training related to road use.
Did you think you were posting that on the Daily Mail's web site?
No. It is my opinion. As a cyclist who rides around 9000 miles a year i feel i have as valid an opinion as anyone else.
Training is essential in so many aspects of life, especially when there are rules and regulations involved to safeguard the participant and those around them.
Simply asking people to provide feedback on if they have been subjected to issues on the road is pointless. Has that person been trained effectively? What were the circumstances leading up to the reported incident?
So many variables blunt the data that really trying to use the results in an effective way is pointless.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that...
This is obviously a very simple, basic, light touch survey to gather information about how cyclists 'feel' following incidents.
For some reason you spouted a load of guff in a Daily Mail style about cyclists not being trained sufficiently. I do agree that the experience and ability of all individuals involved in an incident is of significance to that incident, but its relevance to this article or this survey it is neither here nor there I'm afraid.
The DfT says that around 80% of cyclists have a driving licence.
http://www.ctc.org.uk/resources/ctc-cycling-statistics#How many drivers cycle? And how many cyclists drive? Whilst only 15% of adult motorists cycle regularly.
I think actually you have the emphasis the wrong way round. Most cyclists are qualified drivers and experienced road users. Whilst at the same time most motorists are inexperienced road users who tend to have experience of only one type of vehicle and lack experience of others.
I think it is common amongst the less thoughtful motorist to believe that the only reason why anyone would ride a bicycle is because they can't drive. You may be suffering from that.
I say this as an advanced driver and ex-professional driver HGV, motrocyclist and cyclist as well as pedestrian and road crosser.
Not sure of the value of this survey. Surely using leading verbs like "scary or annoying" leads to people saying things are scary or annoying like in the quotes above?
I'm all for research of this issue, but is there a better way? What about linking it into Stava and getting riders to mark where the incident took place and commenting on it? This would also give the date and time from the activity from a much bigger sample size. Just an idea.
I don't know any people who use Strava for their daily commuting or going to the shop to get a bottle of milk. And I don't think many of the slower cyclists, who are most affected according to the study, use Strava either.
You would bias the data heavily towards sports cycling.
Every cyclist I know who uses Strava, also uses it for their commutes. I certainly do.
Though I agree that it wouldn't be the right tool to use for the aforementioned purpose.
I am not convinced by the methodology here either. It ends up as a matter of opinion. and whether you are more easily scared than others. And who volunteers to prove something about close passes.
For my money we'd have a better survey and far more ammunition with which to do something if the passing vehicles were monitored properly. Ie speed of pass and distance from cyclist linked to GPS about the environment etc.
Playing devil's advocate I would not as a policy maker be impressed if a cyclist said that they suffered an occasional close pass that scared them because I can't quantify what that means. I would be impressed by the stats about how close and how fast people were passed. What the norm was compared to a definition of desirable and how frequently a lower definition of "unsafe" was breached.
Now that would be something you could work with.
I don't think it ends up as a matter of opinion, I think it starts and stays as a matter of opinion.
They are asking people to record how they felt, it can't be anything other than their opinion (unless they get somebody else to fill it in for them).
As a study into understanding why people don't cycle, stop cycling, etc it's fully valid: The personal experience of bad road use behaviour is a main cause of those things. A close pass, say 1 foot in city traffic (30 mph) may be nothing to one cyclist, but scary and anxiety-inducing for someone less confident. That matters.
It does remind me about the Private Eye sketch that came out around last year's National Funeral demo by Stop Killing Cyclists, the point being that a grizzled veteran older cyclist was nearly run over by a lorry and saying to the journalist right after that "cycling's perfectly safe"...
That would be handy, someone in the US did a study like that recently. Though frankly, just instituting a minimum distance law would do just fine, we know too-close passes are a real issue both for frightening people and KSIs.
Provided the people who broke such a law were adequately punished for their dangerous driving.
Provided the people who broke such a law were adequately punished for their dangerous driving.[/quote]
That would be ideal, but the law itself would be of great benefit even without, there are many drivers who genuinely believe 0.5m is 'plenty of space' a prescriptive law that defines the minimum required would have a beneficial impact on the many. prosecutions would then have further impact on the nutjobs who don't care about anyone elses safety but may be incentivised by threat of prosecution.
the drivers genuinely believe 0.5m is "plenty of space" because they execute hundreds if not thousands of such maneuvers at speeds of 70mph and upto 120mph in closing speed passes on national speed limit single carriageway roads on the whole largely without incident...with other vehicles.
so they see cyclists just as other vehicles, not people just using the same bit of road,and youd get far more change in that behaviour by breaking down that distinction in drivers minds and making them see the human connection, than introducing another law that the majority will simply ignore like they do already with speed limits and mobile phone usage,seatbelts,tax,insurance because there just isnt anyone around to enforce it.
creating more laws and more rules isnt the answer
The problem with that perception is that the occupants of the vehicles being passed are encased in a protective shell and travelling at similar albeit slower speed.
The more serious accidents happen when the speed difference is >= 15mph. Remove the protective shell and the problem is worse.