Commentary/opinion thread on 'cyclist down' threads - mod note post #1

Taxuser1

What's the point of this post?

folks, i've moved the discussion on the other thread to here - please keep any debate on the whys and wherefores of 'cyclists down' threads here, well wishes only in the other thread.

jimmycrackcorm

Taxuser1 wrote:

What's the point of this post?

I don't know what the point is as you wrote your post.

ted1

Taxuser1 wrote: »

What's the point of this post?

It reminds us how fragile we are on the road and to be aware and take caution whenever we are out

Taxuser1

ted1 wrote: »

It reminds us how fragile we are on the road and to be aware and take caution whenever we are out

I don't see it that way at all. It won't make me ride my bike any differently tomorrow. I don't need a reminder that vehicles are dangerous or that cycling is and can be dangerous as I see that every day and understand the risks. I find these posts and the videos of crashes posted add to an ever growing fear culture among cyclists and those who would like to cycle but are afraid to because they hear of these reports. I'm a daily commuter and I also train and race so hearing of another's misfortune is not going to change anything I'll have to put up with tomorrow that I accept when getting on the bike.
99% of us will get up on a bike and return home tomorrow without incident. There'll be very few who will take heed of this thread reporting a rider down.

Wishbone Ash

Taxuser1 wrote: »

... I find these posts and the videos of crashes posted add to an ever growing fear culture among cyclists...

....... There'll be very few who will take heed of this thread....

Contradicting yourself??

And, why post in a thread you don't wish to get publicity? You're just adding oxygen to it.

magicbastarder

maybe it's just empathy for a fellow two wheeled traveller.

anyway, i hope the poor sod is OK.

loudymacloud

Taxuser1 wrote: »

I don't see it that way at all. It won't make me ride my bike any differently tomorrow. I don't need a reminder that vehicles are dangerous or that cycling is and can be dangerous as I see that every day and understand the risks. I find these posts and the videos of crashes posted add to an ever growing fear culture among cyclists and those who would like to cycle but are afraid to because they hear of these reports. I'm a daily commuter and I also train and race so hearing of another's misfortune is not going to change anything I'll have to put up with tomorrow that I accept when getting on the bike.
99% of us will get up on a bike and return home tomorrow without incident. There'll be very few who will take heed of this thread reporting a rider down.

Just dont read the post then...problem solved.

Thud

it also highlights potential black spots/areas.

hope cyclist is ok

Taxuser1

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Contradicting yourself??

And, why post in a thread you don't wish to get publicity? You're just adding oxygen to it.

not sure I'm contradicting myself. I asked why the need to post that information at all. One poster said that it will make us more careful. I'm only disagreeing on that point and with massive sympathy for the rider down. I think it adds to fear. Not sure what the second sentence refers to, this is after all an opinions based forum.

smacl

Thud wrote: »

it also highlights potential black spots/areas.

hope cyclist is ok

Also shows a bit of solidarity for a fellow cyclist who may just be reading this thread. Hope they're undamaged as is their bike.

Chuchote

Taxuser1 wrote: »

What's the point of this post?

With the number of people riding bikes killed on the roads, 'cyclist down' posts highlight danger spots and are an expression of 'We are all brothers and sisters of the road'. If you prefer to ignore them, feel free.

Taxuser1

Chuchote wrote: »

With the number of people riding bikes killed on the roads, 'cyclist down' posts highlight danger spots and are an expression of 'We are all brothers and sisters of the road'. If you prefer to ignore them, feel free.

ok, i get the cyclists banding together and "cyclist down" is some sort of new wave biking Angelus.

A poster said it is to highlight black spots? That spot at 5.30 in an industrial area with thousands leaving work at the same time is probably in most cyclists (and pedestrians and motorists) consciousness a "must be careful" place. I'd put Ranelagh front to back and sideways as a permanent black spot. But it never stops us cycling or the way we cycle. Aren't we always vigilant anyway?
Its only an opinion but reporting a cyclist down, as well meaning and sympathetic as it might be, just adds to the "what might happen" and it can make certain riders more nervous on the roads. It's those type of riders who are slamming on brakes, looking after themselves first on the road rather than thinking of what might be moving from behind them or to the side of them, sometimes with actions that may cause as much damage to fellow cyclists as a car. My only point was that fear of what may happen intensifies with these type of "cyclist down" or mass pile up or crash fest in A4 threads and posts. Same reason I can't stand seeing these race crashes posted on social media, just all hyping up the fear.

henryporter

Taxuser1 wrote: »

ok, i get the cyclists banding together and "cyclist down" is some sort of new wave biking Angelus.

A poster said it is to highlight black spots? That spot at 5.30 in an industrial area with thousands leaving work at the same time is probably in most cyclists (and pedestrians and motorists) consciousness a "must be careful" place. I'd put Ranelagh front to back and sideways as a permanent black spot. But it never stops us cycling or the way we cycle. Aren't we always vigilant anyway?
Its only an opinion but reporting a cyclist down, as well meaning and sympathetic as it might be, just adds to the "what might happen" and it can make certain riders more nervous on the roads. It's those type of riders who are slamming on brakes, looking after themselves first on the road rather than thinking of what might be moving from behind them or to the side of them, sometimes with actions that may cause as much damage to fellow cyclists as a car. My only point was that fear of what may happen intensifies with these type of "cyclist down" or mass pile up or crash fest in A4 threads and posts. Same reason I can't stand seeing these race crashes posted on social media, just all hyping up the fear.

Perhaps you need to take a deep breath and relax - these posts are intended, as others have already stated, to display sympathy and solidarity with a member of the most vulnerable road users in this country, not to give you or anyone else a soap box to go on a rant over. If you don't like it please don't read or respsond.

papu

Hope they're ok

Taxuser1, you're fairly delusional in your thoughts and thankfully outnumbered.
I don't know why you clicked into this thread knowing full well what it contained.
Have a cup of herbal tea and relax.

magicbastarder

henryporter wrote: »

If you don't like it please don't read or respsond.

mod hat on - that's getting a little too close to back seat modding. you may not like his/her opinion, but as long as everyone stays nice there should be room for everyone at the inn.

mod hat off - i did once start a thread like this - partly to let any other people here who may have seen it that the cyclist seemed to be relatively OK; at least the DFB guys who stretchered her away looked fairly happy with how she was.

OleRodrigo

I completly agree with TaxUser1.

We don't know the circumstances of this incident, much less if the person is happy to be discussed on public forum.Usually, somebody will come on to report what happened if they so wish. It can be a useful way to find out how matters are dealt with and to offer helpful advice/ sympathy. If there is a blackspot it should to be reported to the local council.

Also, increasingly there is a strong imbalance between rational points of view and emotive digital group hugs, such as this thread. It means the quality posters will eventually leave and the forum will suffer. I mean look at this:

Taxuser1, you're fairly delusional in your thoughts and thankfully outnumbered.
I don't know why you clicked into this thread knowing full well what it contained.
Have a cup of herbal tea and relax.

Hows that for a passive aggressive attack from someone who hasn't even addressed the topic ?

Lumen

I'm with the cranks too. Solidarity is just another ingroup/outgroup bias.

edit: in my will there's an explicit request for the executor to report any generic RIP posts that might crop up :pac:

tomasrojo

I don't really like the "cyclist down" threads either. I generally don't read them. I can see the motivation and the good intentions, but they just make me unsettled without really being helpful, from my point of view anyway.

tomasrojo

Taxuser1 wrote: »

99% of us will get up on a bike and return home tomorrow without incident.

That would, mathematically, be a most catastrophic day in Irish road safety!

(Well, if incident means death or serious injury. Several hundred in one day?)

smacl

Lumen wrote: »

I'm with the cranks too. Solidarity is just another ingroup/outgroup bias.

So you're expressing solidarity with the cranks eh, just another ingroup/outgroup :pac:

yosser hughes

OleRodrigo wrote: »

I completly agree with TaxUser1.

We don't know the circumstances of this incident, much less if the person is happy to be discussed on public forum.Usually, somebody will come on to report what happened if they so wish. It can be a useful way to find out how matters are dealt with and to offer helpful advice/ sympathy. If there is a blackspot it should to be reported to the local council.

Also, increasingly there is a strong imbalance between rational points of view and emotive digital group hugs, such as this thread. It means the quality posters will eventually leave and the forum will suffer. I mean look at this:



Hows that for a passive aggressive attack from someone who hasn't even addressed the topic ?

I agree with the OP and all of. the above
I cringe when I the "cyclist down" thing. You're not in some kind of Vietnam war

magicbastarder

we need some sort of bracelet a cyclist can wear. 'if found unconscious, please - no mention of this on boards'.

John_Rambo

I just thought it was genuine concern. I never looked that deep in to it to them to find fault/offence/embarrassment etc…

tomasrojo

magicbastarder wrote: »

we need some sort of bracelet a cyclist can wear. 'if found unconscious, please - no mention of this on boards'.

This made me laugh quite loudly.

Chips Lovell

Tend to agree with the OP. I sometimes find all the negativity disheartening. For me, cycling is incredibly safe and I'd have no hesitation in recommending it to others. But I know from talking to non-cyclists, the main reason they cite for not cycling to work is that they think it's dangerous. And its often other cyclists who perpetuate this notion.

Chuchote

Maybe it should be a single thread, then; those who are offended could look the other way?

AndrewJRenko

Chuchote wrote: »

Maybe it should be a single thread, then; those who are offended could look the other way?

Good idea.

Chips Lovell

I don't think anyone's offended, more it's people questioning their utility or whether they send out the wrong message.

smacl

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

I don't think anyone's offended, more it's people questioning their utility or whether they send out the wrong message.

Difficult to know what the right message is though, with campaigns such as Stayin' Alive at 1.5 clearly implying that dangerous overtaking is regularly placing cyclists in mortal peril. The RSA adds similarly declare cyclists as vulnerable road users which also implies danger. It would be interesting to know for a regular cyclist what is the probability of them having a serious accident over a lifetime of cycling, and how this possibility can be minimised. It seems like some pretty basic instruction for all road users could remove certain potential hazards (e.g. as a cyclist don't get caught on the inside of large vehicles, don't undertake potentially left turning traffic, for drivers allow space to overtake, beep if you're drive a wide vehicle approaching a blind corner on a narrow road, etc...) I'm somewhat biased as I'm currently still recovering from a collision with a car so would be of the opinion that cycling, while largely safe, has its hazards which can be minimised.

tomasrojo

smacl wrote: »

It would be interesting to know for a regular cyclist what is the probability of them having a serious accident over a lifetime of cycling

Don't know about serious injury, but fatalities for Ireland used to be about 12 fatalities per 1000 million km travelled.

If you assume a frequent (by Irish standards) cyclist of 5000km per year, that's about 16700 years of travel before a fatality.

(Did that in a hurry; might be wrong!)

(Very sorry to hear about your incident too.)

smacl

tomasrojo wrote: »

Don't know about serious injury, but fatalities for Ireland used to be about 12 fatalities per 1000 million km travelled.

If you assume a frequent (by Irish standards) cyclist of 5000km per year, that's about 16700 years of travel before a fatality.

(Did that in a hurry; might be wrong!)

(Very sorry to hear about your incident too.)

So were we to allow ~20 years of 5000km per annum for our regular cyclist (or more likely 40 at 2500km), 1 in 835 such cyclists will die as a result of a cycling accident. Not exactly dangerous but not entirely risk free either. Even allowing that the risks of not cycling might be an order of magnitude higher, it still seems reasonable to look at ways of minimising the risks of cycling. I'd also guess that serious accidents would outnumber deaths by a significant multiple but this is just a guess.

John_Rambo

Chuchote wrote: »

Maybe it should be a single thread, then; those who are offended could look the other way?

This. Maybe with a warning to people that are embarrassed, nervous or unsettled by this type of thing?

Beasty

They can be very useful for thanks whoring

RobFowl's count hit the roof when he reported on my "incident" a while ago* :pac:

Did get quite a lot myself when he came down earlier this year...

*Just in case anyone does not know, I had a bit of a crash

DanDublin1982

It's perhaps my own misunderstanding as I've only been posting here a couple of years but when I clicked into a cyclist down thread here recently I was suprised to find a link to a story about a cyclist who had actually been killed. To my mind cyclist down would generally refer to an incident someone here had witnessed/passed by with a more thoughtful thread to deal with the actual passing of someone.

I think both threads have their place but imo they really should be distinct from one another.

Beasty

We usually only find out about the condition of the cyclist some time after the incident.

My own view is any threads whether involving injury or indeed the rare incidents where someone is tragically killed is a thread should be for condolences/good wishes. Clearly where we know it's someone from this forum involved a lot of posters will want to contribute in this way.

We cannot allow any discussion of cause or fault. That's the job of the authorities and any speculation here could be prejudicial to any investigation.

My view is there is little point in starting any threads concerning incidents except to offer those best wishes or condolences. Wider discussions on particular problem spots should be kept separate and should not be started in the immediate aftermath of such an incident as that in itself will invite speculation.

All My Stars Aligned

Never really seen the point of these threads either. Believe it or not but the majority of Irish cyclists don't post on or read the 410 forum on Boards.ie so most likely will never receive the best wishes of posters.

For some reason I've always felt they are a bit is an online version of people gawking at roadside accidents as they pass.

Very different however if the cyclist is a member of the Boards cycling community..., chances are though they aren't.

AndrewJRenko

Do we really need consensus to allow these threads to go ahead? There are loads of threads here that I've no interest in - TdF etc - but I don't begrudge these threads for others. I just don't click into them.

Lusk_Doyle

By the "logic" of this thread, nobody should ever talk about anything that happened. Ever.

Idleater

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

By the "logic" of this thread, nobody should ever talk about anything that happened. Ever.

It'll also put paid to any "Anyone any info on the race in XYZ next weekend" that degenerate rapidly into "wouldn't race that crashfest after last time" and "A5's need to be chaperoned because they wobble everywhere causing crashes" etc.

guanciale

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

I don't think anyone's offended, more it's people questioning their utility or whether they send out the wrong message.

Utility is not an absolutist concept. While it can be deduced from revealed preferences it cannot be measured. So people who do the grouphug/kudos thing are revealing the derive utility from that - how much, no idea.
Likewise the folks who dont do it derive less utility from that type of behaviour - but that does not mean utility doesent exist for others.

Taxuser1

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

By the "logic" of this thread, nobody should ever talk about anything that happened. Ever.

No, the thread has slightly de-railed from my initial offerings. A general sympathy thread has its place and most agree. But the meat of the argument was that they do little to promote the positive side of cycling and in my opinion lead to collective scare mongering. Talking about events when there are eye witness reports and sources with direct access to what may have happened is different and maybe the mistakes that can be attributed to those incidents can help to lessen future incidents. All for hearing of the whys and hows in crash incidents in an effort to help reduce them. But it needs to be more than generalisation, one poster was calling out that location as a possible future black spot ffs.

Beasty

AndrewJRenko wrote: »

Do we really need consensus to allow these threads to go ahead? There are loads of threads here that I've no interest in - TdF etc - but I don't begrudge these threads for others. I just don't click into them.

Don't think we need a consensus at all. However in this case the topic, very inappropriately in my view, took over an active "cyclist down" thread. I think it's a discussion worth having if only to encourage posters to think before starting or contributing to such a thread.

magicbastarder

i think it's quite a human reaction from someone who starts such a thread in a 'there but for the grace of god go i' sense.
as mentioned earlier i started one a few months ago - and i did spend a good 20 minutes or half hour in a 'should i or shouldn't i?' internal debate; thinking 'what value is this to people knowing this happened?'
in the end i did post it, justifying it to myself as 'maybe other posters who may have seen it may be happy to know that the cyclist seemed to have been OK'; still not sure i made the right call, but in the end, if i didn't, i suspect/hope the cyclist would not mind. they probably had more pressing problems to worry about.

Fireball XL5

Cyclist down - I have just lost the will the live having read all of this.

Self reported - no need to post elsewhere.

tomasrojo

smacl wrote: »

So were we to allow ~20 years of 5000km per annum for our regular cyclist (or more likely 40 at 2500km), 1 in 835 such cyclists will die as a result of a cycling accident. Not exactly dangerous but not entirely risk free either.

Yeah, that's a fair way of looking at it. Those are pretty small odds though. For example, your chances of dying of a cardiac event by age 75 is about 20%. Even allowing 60 years of 2500km travel, your chances of dying on the road are less than 0.2%.

(You know this already, but there are no risk-free modes of transport. Or activities in general. Showering has a far from non-zero risk of fatality.)

smacl wrote: »

I'd also guess that serious accidents would outnumber deaths by a significant multiple but this is just a guess.

They're definitely higher. I don't think it's clear what they actually are in Ireland.

magicbastarder

tomasrojo wrote: »

Yeah, that's a fair way of looking at it. Those are pretty small odds though. For example, your chances of dying of a cardiac event by age 75 is about 20%. Even allowing 60 years of 2500km travel, your chances of dying on the road are less than 0.2%.

and as we know, increasing your chance of falling into that 0.2% significantly reduces your chances of falling into the other 20%.

greenspurs

I think the "cyclist down" threads are pointless.
Do they have "Car Down" threads in the motoring forums? "Jockey Down" in the horse racing etc ?

Its just some people need to have something to say about most things. "Oh look, someone is hurt" Logs on ...
The online version of gossiping outside the local shop . "Did yaa hear about ..."

Online "Best Wishes" and "Goodwill" from (mostly) online strangers mean nothing to someone that has being involved in an incident with a vehicle , i would guess.
I just dont read the threads that i dont like/agree with .. simple

tunney

Its like the poxy "patch of ice on fairway cycle path" threads from a few years back - totally ****ing pointless.

Actually its worse, its internet rubbernecking.

NeedMoreGears

I'm not overly keen on them as I don't know the person involved and if I did I'd be offering condolences in person. I have clicked on them in the past and don't think I will anymore.

Chuchote

So how do you all feel about the Near Misses thread?

smacl

Chuchote wrote: »

So how do you all feel about the Near Misses thread?

Near misses thread is people talking about first hand experience, this is more talking about the experiences of others, which if you think of it as rubbernecking is not so different from watching and commenting on a bad crash in a sporting event. No shortage of that on here. Cynically, you could say that a large part of our news media is dedicated to reporting of unfortunate and traumatic incidents that have befallen other people that we don't know. Taking an interest in these things is clearly part of human nature. Whether you consider it voyeuristic or a show of concern probably say more about yourself than anyone else. My take on it is that it is a bit of both.