Cycling accidents

lectureral

Esteemed Pedelecer
Apr 30, 2007
397
60
Suva, Fiji
There is a piece in the Times today about cycling accidents - one of the paper's reporters was recently injured - since it is behind a paywall here are some extracts:

A reporter from The Times is in a critical condition in hospital after a collision with a lorry while cycling across a notoriously dangerous junction near the newspaper’s Wapping offices.
Mary Bowers, 27, a news reporter and feature writer at The Times, was only 100 yards from arriving at the News International building on the morning of November 4 when the collision happened.

Her accident comes as the number of cyclist deaths on London’s roads rose to 16 so far this year — six more than the whole of last year.

Though cyclist deaths on London’s roads have fallen in the past five years — from 19 in 2006 to 10 last year — there have been an average of 402 serious injuries per year for cyclists during that time.
Two of these accidents – the deaths of Brian Dorling, 58, and Svitlana Tereschenko, 34 – took place recently at the roundabout in Bow where the junction is crossed by the Cycle Superhighway, leading cycle campaign groups to call for greater measures to protect cyclists and to make life easier for motorists trying to avoid them.
Eleanor Carey, 22, a student from Guernsey, was killed while cycling by a lorry on Friday, December 2, at the junction of Tower Bridge Road and Abbey Street.
 
D

Deleted member 4366

Guest
I've started to feel a lot safer since they puplished those accident maps. There's only been 3 cyclist deaths in the Telford area in the last 12 years, and one of those was when a guy thought he was Rambo so decided to deliberately wipe out someone with his car, so not an accident at all.
 

indalo

Banned
Sep 13, 2009
1,380
1
Herts & Spain
Once before, I raised this topic but then it failed to extract much shock and horror from our little community. For some here, it's as if cycling per se is a hazardous activity and we must accept the risks of sharing our roads with motor vehicles. I don't see it that way but until such times as we stop comforting ourselves with statistics and devote more energy into changing perceptions AND priority on roads, those deaths will continue.

Unfortunately, we live in a society obsessed by bigger/faster = better, evidenced quite succinctly amongst our own number by the responses in another thread to the news of increased motor power for ebikes.

Indalo
 
D

Deleted member 4366

Guest
Unfortunately, we live in a society obsessed by bigger/faster = better, evidenced quite succinctly amongst our own number by the responses in another thread to the news of increased motor power for ebikes.

Indalo
I think you need to re-read that thread if it's the one about higher power motors, My inference from it was that our forum members generally didn't want more speed, but did want more climbing power. I'd be very surprised if upping the rated power to 350w and keeping the max speed to 15mph would have any effect on road deaths. It may even reduce them.
 

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