The Times cycling campaign

[Derek Smith]

There was a thread on this forum regarding The Times pressuring the government about making London safer for cyclists. The comments were 'varied'.

In The Times today there is an article about the junction where a woman died recently. ThTimes investigative team have come up with this quote from a report in 2009 commissioned by Transport for London on the King’s Cross junction:

“Following TfL advice, cyclists and motorcyclists were not included in the model as their equivalent PCU [Passenger Car Unit] values are only a small proportion of the total traffic in the study area.”

This despite the report saying that between 2005 and 2007 “pedal cyclist casualties made up 20 per cent of the total casualties”, and that “there are still quite a lot of cyclists on the network”.

It also failed to note the death of Emma Foa who was killed by a lorry.

20% of casualties but let's ignore them.

So the TfL has given ammunition to the cyclist lobby. You can't blame cyclists for wanting more when their needs are not so much ignored as deliberately ruled out. There is a suggestion that there might be a prosecution for corporate manslaughter by TfL.

From a political point of view anyone who takes a stance against the campaign is putting their credibility on the line.

[Derek Smith]

oyster said:

Almost all bicycle fatalities can be attributed to one of two things:
1. Careless cyclists getting caught in blind spots (usually women cyclists for some reason)
2. Careless drivers who do not prepare for the existance of cyclists.

I'm not sure that cyclists are to blame for getting caught in blind spots. It is almost impossible to tell where the blind spot for an artic is. Firstly you need to know which side the driver is. Then, and most importantly, whether he's going to look or not.

pork911 said:

I'm a cyclist, motorcyclist and driver.

You can of course take every possible precaution and still get hit but i've noticed the articles in the times on this seem entirely devoid of any reference to personal resposibility of cyclists. Perhaps this is inevitable as its a campaign but to my mind that failing weakens any otherwise valid arguments that might be made.

Fault, blame and attempting to improve road safety is all well and good but accepting personal resposibility is crucial.

The onus for safety rests with the drivers. They are the ones who injure and kill, not the cyclists. It's a bit like someone cleaning a gun. If it goes off because of casual handling, can one blame the person shot beacause it was their responsibility not to stand in front of the sharp end?

If by responsibility you mean that cyclists break traffic regulations then I'd agree. However, some of the regulations put cyclists at risk at certain junctions. If you are waiting at traffic lights and wait until they go green you are immediatly placed in a melee of cars accelerating, moving from side to side.

Women at are greater risk on a bicycle than males. This is because they sit to the side, waiting until it is all clear rather than, as many males do, enforcing their presence on the road. Women comform to the regs, stick to the law.

A file went through my department of a teenager who was knocked from his bike by a car into the path of a lorry and killed. It was patently the car driver's fault. She just drove into the back of the cycle and pushed the poor kid across the road.

We couldn't prosecture as CPS binned it. I spoke to the mother who said that they had told their kid to cycle in the road and not, as all the other kids did, on the footway.

I've turned up to and processed a number of accidents involveing cyclists where the driver was, quite clearly, at fault through lack of observation or . . . I'm a keen cyclist and have seen and been involved in a number of minor incidents where drivers have just blocked my route, once where I could not stop in time and sort of fell on the car, which then drove off.

I read a report about what was then a new bit of legislation in a continental country that made is the driver's fault if they hit a cyclist. One of the reasons behind this was to try and encourage drivers to look for cyclists. Like it or not - probably not I know - it would appear to be working. Now it is going to cost drivers money, they see the bikes.

The Time report is partial of course, that is a function of a campaign over an argument, but the stats speak for themselves. Further, Local authorities need to do more to look after cyclists. In Hove they used to put three PCs and a sergeant stopping cyclists using the promenade around 8 am which took them off a very dangerous road. You can guess how many parents and childen, with buckets and spades were around that time of the morning yet the LA told the police to stop it. It is about time that attitudes changed in this country.