There ARE less trucks on the roads - CSO figures

marmurr1916

A few posters have now and again commented on how much less traffic, especially trucks, there appears to be around since the recession began.

CSO figures prove that these impressions are correct. There has been a significant fall in the volume of freight being transported on our roads, especially building materials for roads:

goods vehicles completed 11 million loaded journeys in 2010, almost 12% less than in 2009 and 28% less than in 2000.

It’s notable that the weight of goods carried by vehicles that delivered goods to road works or building sites as their main type of work decreased by 35% between 2009 and 2010. In absolute terms this was a decrease of 19,098 thousand tonnes, representing 85% of the total decrease in tonnes carried for all vehicles. The tonne-kilometres for vehicles that delivered goods to road works or building sites as their main type of work decreased by 24% in the same period.

So basically the fall-off in road-building activity, as the MIUs neared completion, and since no new major projects started in 2010, is responsible for the bulk (85%) of the fall in freight tonnage.

Less trucks on the road because of decreased road building activity is going to confirm the cancellation or postponement of other road-building activity, leading to less trucks on the road...
http://www.cso.ie/releasespublications/documents/transport/2010/roadfreight10.pdf

galwaycyclist

It is likely that this also partially explains the fall in cyclist deaths and reinforces the need for HGVs to be restricted to designated routes at designated times of the day.

antoobrien

galwaycyclist wrote: »

It is likely that this also partially explains the fall in cyclist deaths and reinforces the need for HGVs to be restricted to designated routes at designated times of the day.

The the RSA study on cyclist deaths between 1998 & 2008 indicates that this is wise, it also shows that it's not as simple as that. Take Dublin before the port tunnel was opened as an example, the average cyclists deaths was 4 between 98-06, 3 died in 07 and 4 in 08. Has it made things safer? Undoubtedly. Have less cyclists died because if it? For now evidence indicates no (03, 04 & 05 had 0, 2 & 3 cyclist deaths), so we'll have to wait and see what happens over the next few years before we can properly asses it's impact.

Before it's suggested otherwise, no I'm not suggesting we use these figures to do nothing, and I am aware the cycle safety was not the primary goal of the port tunnel.

These headline figures are from 1st page of the report:

• 51% of cyclists killed were involved in a collision with a car (edit: 66 of 2756 collisions),
• 33% of cyclists killed were involved in a collision with a goods vehicle (edit: 43 of 502 collisons),
• 30% of the cyclists were killed in county Dublin,
• 22% of the cyclists were killed in Dublin City,
• 30% of the cyclists were killed during the evening rush hour (4pm -6pm),
• 34% of the cyclists were killed during the months (July, August and September),
• 79% of the cyclists killed were male,
• 22% of the cyclists killed were aged 16 or under and
• 65% of the cyclists’ serious injuries occurred on rural roads (i.e. roads with a speed limit of more than 60km/h).

The one that concerns me most me there is the 34% killed over the late summer/early autumn. This tends to be a time when people cycle that would not do so for most of the res of the year.

I also find it strange that the city/county in the country with most cycle facilities had 50% of the total deaths (1/3 of the total population).

galwaycyclist

antoobrien wrote: »

I also find it strange that the city/county in the country with most cycle facilities had 50% of the total deaths (1/3 of the total population).

The two may be directly connected. It is a general finding in the literature that urban roadside cycle facilities increase junction conflicts and hence increase overall collision rates. One German report found a two-fold increase in collisions with lorries on roads with cycle tracks. Some Irish examples

Cyclists killed by turning HGVs while using Irish cycle lanes/cycle tracks in recent years

Maria Sonia Jimenez Martinez (Aged 28) Killed using a cycle-track at junction Malahide Road and Griffith Avenue, Dublin 28/01/2004. (According to a news report a friend of Maria Sonia's "identified her through a silver watch and ring")

Dante de Vere Padua (Aged 32) Killed using cycle-track at junction of East Wall Road and Annesley Bridge Road, Dublin 8/02/2005.

Conor Murphy (Aged 41) Killed using cycle-track at Belgard Road, Dublin, 30/05/2006

Nadia Lescuier (Aged 31) Killed using cycle-track Plassey Park Road Limerick 18/10/2006

There was also a lady killed in similar circumstances in Cabra in 2008 don't have the details to hand.

MidlandsM

Gezzzzz, this is old news......less trucks on the road.......a look online at the glut of trucks for sale on classified sites and a look at the auction yards and truck dealer yards would indicate this.

marmurr1916

galwaycyclist wrote: »

The two may be directly connected. It is a general finding in the literature that urban roadside cycle facilities increase junction conflicts and hence increase overall collision rates. One German report found a two-fold increase in collisions with lorries on roads with cycle tracks. Some Irish examples

Cyclists killed by turning HGVs while using Irish cycle lanes/cycle tracks in recent years

Maria Sonia Jimenez Martinez (Aged 28) Killed using a cycle-track at junction Malahide Road and Griffith Avenue, Dublin 28/01/2004. (According to a news report a friend of Maria Sonia's "identified her through a silver watch and ring")

Dante de Vere Padua (Aged 32) Killed using cycle-track at junction of East Wall Road and Annesley Bridge Road, Dublin 8/02/2005.

Conor Murphy (Aged 41) Killed using cycle-track at Belgard Road, Dublin, 30/05/2006

Nadia Lescuier (Aged 31) Killed using cycle-track Plassey Park Road Limerick 18/10/2006

There was also a lady killed in similar circumstances in Cabra in 2008 don't have the details to hand.

Three out of those four are possibly foreign, based on their names, and they may have not been used to traffic on the left, which presumably was a contributory factor.

Also, from the stats posted by antoobrien above, 79% of cyclist deaths are of male cyclists.

It's well-known that male drivers are more likely to be involved in accidents than female drivers.

It would seem that this holds true for male cyclists too.

Perhaps male cyclists should cycle more like female cyclists to help reduce their chances of being in an accident.

monument

antoobrien wrote: »

I also find it strange that the city/county in the country with most cycle facilities had 50% of the total deaths (1/3 of the total population).

Co Dublin has nearly 1/3 of the Irish population, but it has a larger share of cyclists. The 2006 census records shy of 54,000* cyclists, and shy of 31,000 of those were in Dublin. So that means about 57.5 percent of commuter cyclist in the whole country are based in Dublin.

I'm no statistician but with nearly 60% of commuter cyclists (and likely also a good amount of sporting / exercise road cyclists) but only 30% of deaths isn't too bad at least statistically. I know that's cold comfort to people related to those who have died and I think one death is too many.

Anyway, if I was a statistician worth my salt I'd have huge problem with using many of the stats to infer much here, because:

• Even for Dublin we're talking about mostly single digit amounts of deaths per year and one year zero -- these are very small numbers, it's hard to infer much from such small numbers.
  
• There is little context. The main example being that there is no mention of factors such as growing amounts of cyclists in Dublin but yet the death and serious injury rate has continued to show a slow but noticeable decline.
  
• Another example: it says "30% of the cyclists were killed in county Dublin" and "22% of the cyclists were killed in Dublin City" but fails to mention Co Dublin accounts for nearly 60% of commuter cyclists and the city 33%.
  
• Another example: "79% of the cyclists killed were male" but no context that far more boys and men cycle on the roads than girls and woman.

I'd also question the following:

• It's very strange that 52% of deaths were recorded in rural areas (where there are less likely to be many cyclists) but the RSA did not deem this one of its headline stats.
  
• Why has the RSA taken 11 years rather than 10 years? 1998 is the worst year of all of the years in the report. Separably but somewhat alike, the Child Casualties Report, they say "Over the ten year period, 1997-2009" -- I have problems with a group that calls 1997 to 2009 a ten year period.

* = yes, I know far more people cycle at different times and for different reasons than those recorded in the census -- who are only those at the time who cycled as their main commuting method.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

The two may be directly connected

Correlation does not imply causation.

It's a very, very, very large maybe. I've devoted a lot of time highlighting the general poor designs of Irish cycle lanes, but I don't think links like those can be made here. A lot of the above applies.

galwaycyclist wrote: »

Some Irish examples

Another thing that makes the link with your Dublin examples to cycle lanes less significant is that there are cycle lanes or bus/cycle lanes on a huge amount of roads in Dublin.

galwaycyclist

Without getting into the details I agree that it is difficult to draw any conclusions from the Dublin data. Arguably there arent "enough" deaths and we decline to gather reliable injury data or reliable counts of cycle traffic on the ground - the "exposure data".

The observation was simply that experience elsewhere suggests that cycle facilities may act to increase rather decrease cyclist deaths and to point out that there have been incidents here that would support such a model.

There are clearly a load of other factors to be considered before such a pattern could be demonstrated to be in operation in Dublin.

-Corkie-

galwaycyclist wrote: »

It is likely that this also partially explains the fall in cyclist deaths and reinforces the need for HGVs to be restricted to designated routes at designated times of the day.

Or maybe Cyclists should cycle where they are supposed to and not zipping through traffic like lunatics.:)

niloc1951

51% of cyclists killed were involved in a collision with a car (edit: 66 of 2756 collisions),
33% of cyclists killed were involved in a collision with a goods vehicle (edit: 43 of 502 collisons),

Really is meaningless, when assessing the risk factor, without the 'weighting' between the number of Goods Vehicles Vs. Cars on the road being included in the equation.

antoobrien

niloc1951 wrote: »

51% of cyclists killed were involved in a collision with a car (edit: 66 of 2756 collisions),
33% of cyclists killed were involved in a collision with a goods vehicle (edit: 43 of 502 collisons),

Really is meaningless, when assessing the risk factor, without the 'weighting' between the number of Goods Vehicles Vs. Cars on the road being included in the equation.

From looking at the NRAs traffic counts it's about 10% in Dublin (based on the counters at Ballymun and Finglas).

Or you could look at it another way proportionally trucks kill more cyclists than cars. From those figures, the chances of a cyclist being killed when in collision with a car is about 1 in 42. For goods vehicles that's about 1 in 12.

Ushm

marmurr1916 wrote: »

galwaycyclist wrote: »

The two may be directly connected. It is a general finding in the literature that urban roadside cycle facilities increase junction conflicts and hence increase overall collision rates. One German report found a two-fold increase in collisions with lorries on roads with cycle tracks. Some Irish examples

Cyclists killed by turning HGVs while using Irish cycle lanes/cycle tracks in recent years

Maria Sonia Jimenez Martinez (Aged 28) Killed using a cycle-track at junction Malahide Road and Griffith Avenue, Dublin 28/01/2004. (According to a news report a friend of Maria Sonia's "identified her through a silver watch and ring")

Dante de Vere Padua (Aged 32) Killed using cycle-track at junction of East Wall Road and Annesley Bridge Road, Dublin 8/02/2005.

Conor Murphy (Aged 41) Killed using cycle-track at Belgard Road, Dublin, 30/05/2006

Nadia Lescuier (Aged 31) Killed using cycle-track Plassey Park Road Limerick 18/10/2006

There was also a lady killed in similar circumstances in Cabra in 2008 don't have the details to hand.

Three out of those four are possibly foreign, based on their names, and they may have not been used to traffic on the left, which presumably was a contributory factor.

Also, from the stats posted by antoobrien above, 79% of cyclist deaths are of male cyclists.

It's well-known that male drivers are more likely to be involved in accidents than female drivers.

It would seem that this holds true for male cyclists too.

Perhaps male cyclists should cycle more like female cyclists to help reduce their chances of being in an accident.

My name is Oisin Murphy, Conor Murphy was my father. Are you implying that, had my father observed the cycling habits of women, he would still be alive? If that is what you're saying then you're an idiot and should probably keep your opinions to yourself.

AugustusMinimus

marmurr1916 wrote: »

Three out of those four are possibly foreign, based on their names, and they may have not been used to traffic on the left, which presumably was a contributory factor.

Also, from the stats posted by antoobrien above, 79% of cyclist deaths are of male cyclists.

It's well-known that male drivers are more likely to be involved in accidents than female drivers.

It would seem that this holds true for male cyclists too.

Perhaps male cyclists should cycle more like female cyclists to help reduce their chances of being in an accident.

I would imagine the stats are skewed by the fact that there are more male cyclists out there than female cyclists.

But yes, in my experience, male cyclists are on average more likely to take risks than female.