Why car drivers DO NOT see cyclists
- Thread starter trevor brooker
- Start date
There is a general attitude problem against cyclists though, I see it in local area FB groups around me, often based on a (deliberate?) misunderstanding or ignorance of the highway code. All cyclists are accused of jumping red lights and other misdemeanors, whereas a few might. If we do take prime position on the road they have to slow down if behind us, poor lambs, arriving a few seconds later at their destination.
Untrue. Quote:
In 2021, approximately 6.5 million people participated in cycling, either for sport, leisure or travel, in England.
The average number of cyclist deaths in England each year has been below 110 a year for many years, with a jump to 141 in 2020 since so many new and inexperienced cyclists appeared with the pandemic .
So your completely fictional 1 in 1667 is in fact less than 1 in 59,000 on average.
And that is without considering how many of those annual 110 cyclists caused their own death. For many years here in London that was the majority of them.
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Very true, just as those posting in here blanket blame all drivers, where in fact almost all our drivers are by far the safest in the world.
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3,000,000 divided by 1800 = 1,667
...and now you say:
If you're going to quote figures, make sure they're accurate.
No, you get it right. I was being generous by only quoting the all year round daily cycling commuters.
But if you want to quote ALL deaths as a fraction of cyclists, you need to include ALL cyclists.
I've now given you that accurate figure, 1 in 59,000. You multiplied the death rate 35 times.
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You do like me, you look up the available data and trustworthy estimates.
Your 1 in 1667 deaths that you posted meant that there are under 190,000 cyclists in the country !!
We have approaching twice that cycling daily in London alone, so it's clear which is right.
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You started quoting figures, not saying where the hell you plucked them from. Justify them or shut up.
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I find this discussion quite interesting, and I note the guidelines above about disagreeing respectfully.
I expect drivers to give me all the available space, and to wait either for clear road or for me to pull over if there is not enough.
I don't agree with 'a miss is as good as a mile', and whilst I understand the objective measure of the small number of annual cyclist deaths, I do not from my own recent riding experiences accept the correlation between that and safe roads.
The lack of a collision is not the same thing as a cyclist feeling safe. My understanding of the recent highway code changes is that they are in part intended to achieve that feeling of safety in the minds of the more vulnerable road user in any encounter, and the less vulnerable is expected to facilitate that.
I have reported four drivers on my recent trip to Wales out of over 200 bad passes. I find it disturbing that even with maximum use of cycle paths, cycle routes and quiet roads, I am still seeing a bad pass every two miles or so on average.
Here are two that I did not report.
A bunch of cars, most fine, just one that can't quite manage to give the space that all the others managed.
photos.app.goo.gl
Not so good. First the close passing white car, then the black Focus squeezing through against the opposing traffic.
photos.app.goo.gl
Here are two coaches passing me within minutes of each other on the same piece of road, which was empty in both cases. Both doing about 50mph, one giving me a whole lane, the other about 60cm.
They didn't hit me, but that is the kind of incident I do report.
I expect drivers to give me all the available space, and to wait either for clear road or for me to pull over if there is not enough.
I don't agree with 'a miss is as good as a mile', and whilst I understand the objective measure of the small number of annual cyclist deaths, I do not from my own recent riding experiences accept the correlation between that and safe roads.
The lack of a collision is not the same thing as a cyclist feeling safe. My understanding of the recent highway code changes is that they are in part intended to achieve that feeling of safety in the minds of the more vulnerable road user in any encounter, and the less vulnerable is expected to facilitate that.
I have reported four drivers on my recent trip to Wales out of over 200 bad passes. I find it disturbing that even with maximum use of cycle paths, cycle routes and quiet roads, I am still seeing a bad pass every two miles or so on average.
Here are two that I did not report.
A bunch of cars, most fine, just one that can't quite manage to give the space that all the others managed.
New video by Matthew Slack
photos.app.goo.gl
Not so good. First the close passing white car, then the black Focus squeezing through against the opposing traffic.
New video by Matthew Slack
photos.app.goo.gl
Here are two coaches passing me within minutes of each other on the same piece of road, which was empty in both cases. Both doing about 50mph, one giving me a whole lane, the other about 60cm.
They didn't hit me, but that is the kind of incident I do report.
Where are the statistics that show more that 50% of cyclists who have died in London were completly to blame for their own death ?
You are very recent in this forum so won't have seen all my many posts in this subject, trying to prevent those needless deaths. All carried the details and links and I'm not going to repeat all that hard work.
We only have a small proportion of the national annual deaths, around dozen a year for some while now. That makes it easy to look at each accident's circumstances. The majority for many years were due to riding up the nearside of large vehicles into the blind spot where they could not be seen by the driver. Then a left turn by the large vehicle crushing the cyclist. In one year all 8 who died were killed that away.
The drivers were invariably not arrested since they had done nothing wrong, signalling well before the turn. Indeed I posted one video showing a rider ignoring a huge flashing indicator on the rear of a cement truck, riding rapidly straight past it to their immediate death. Further evidence is that there never any head injuries in those accidents, it was always crush injuries.
A strange statistic from the time was that the cyclists who died were almost invariably helmeted, though over the couple of decades in question only from 27% to 46% of cyclists year by year wore helmets.
Of course that lead to speculation that the helmeted have a greater sense of security so were more likely to take risks, such as nearside overtaking.
Another oddity was that around half or more of the deaths were female, even though they were barely over a fifth of the cyclists. The reason for that was quickly known and understood though.
Of course there were big campaigns to reduce this toll. Education to try to make cyclists more aware of how dangerous it is to overtake on the nearside. Sessions with trucks, drivers and cyclists taking each other's places to better appreciate the problems each face. Warning signs plastered over the rear of vehicles. More mirrors for drivers to try to cover all possibilities, the full complement now being 6 or 7, depending on the vehicle. Of course that makes a new problem, how many mirrors in multiple positions can a driver look at to turn left while still looking at where he is going?
All these measures reduced the problem over time, but it hasn't been eliminated and too many cyclists are still taking these unnecessary risks to save tiny fractions of seconds.
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I can understand that there may have been many posts, trying to persuade cyclists, that they could behave better to reduce the risks to thier own life. And that is good.
But where are the actual accident statistics, coronors reports etc (and not just opinions) that prove that the 'majority' of cyclists are 100% to blame for their own deaths in cycling accindents ?
So because I dont have access to all of that information, you ignore the available evidence that does exist?
For example the lack of arrests, believe me the Met Police were quick enough to arrest on the odd occasion where the driver was in the wrong.
I wouldn't place too much faith in Coroners reports anyway, I'd rather do as I always did and rely on the investigations by Transport for London and the GLC, both strongly pro-cycling bodies. They've been very successful in driving down the deaths, proof enough that they know the causes:
The number of cyclists killed on London's roads fell to its lowest on record in 2021, figures from Transport for London (TfL) show. The number of people killed while cycling in London in 2021 was down by 40% on the 2005-2009 average, from 17 to 10 people, according to the transport body's annual report.
That's despite cycling roughly trebling over that period.
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Driver and cyclist near misses caught on camera
New research by BBC Panorama highlights the strained relationship between the road users.
www.bbc.co.uk
It seems unlikely that cyclists who have been killed, when it was 100% their fault, would be arrested.
Now you are just being deliberately cussed. I'd already specified in post 35 that I was speaking of driver arrests, and I repeated the mention of driver in an arrest context in the post 37 you replied to.
I'll leave you and the other like minded members to your fantasy world where invariably drivers are at fault and cyclists can do little wrong.
The truth is very different as the cycling presenter of last night's Panorama program admitted at the outset. That the vast majority of drivers are decent and considerate in their driving. And as I've added earlier, that we have by far the lowest road deaths of any country in the world is proof of that fact.
One further comment from last night's program, not one cyclist I saw in it was riding responsibly. Do you even know in what way?
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